Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → HybridMind
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥈 | 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Race The One | compo | Theme | 4.39 | ||
| 🥇 | 2010 | 18 | Enemies as Weapons | AVOIDAL | compo | Community | 4.52 | ||
| 🥈 | 2009 | 15 | Caverns | Angry Caverns | compo | Community | 4.44 | ||
| 🥈 | 2009 | 15 | Caverns | Angry Caverns | compo | Theme | 4.34 | ||
| 🥈 | 2009 | 14 | Advancing Wall of Doom | Fleedom Flies | compo | Journal | 4.57 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Po | Cm | Te | Jo | Fo | Tw | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Dueling Time, Sir! | jam | 229 | 3.58 | 3.04 | 3.15 | 3.54 | 4.42 | 4.04 | 4.16 | 3.70 | 45 | ||||||||
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | In the Black | compo | 357 | 3.39 | 3.17 | 3.05 | 3.55 | 2.72 | 3.90 | 2.49 | 3.64 | 100 | ||||||||
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Race The One | compo | 908 | 2.44 | 2.35 | 2.29 | 4.39 | 2.35 | 32 | |||||||||||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Squeezed Out | compo | 369 | 3.36 | 3.54 | 3.00 | 4.26 | 2.74 | 2.86 | 2.84 | 55 | |||||||||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Shorted Out | compo | 520 | 2.82 | 2.89 | 2.64 | 3.19 | 3.00 | 1.58 | 2.19 | 50 | |||||||||
| 2010 | 18 | Enemies as Weapons | AVOIDAL | compo | 14 | 3.62 | 3.53 | 3.18 | 3.85 | 3.65 | 3.22 | 2.48 | 4.52 | 30 | ||||||||
| 2009 | 15 | Caverns | Angry Caverns | compo | 12 | 3.73 | 3.53 | 3.63 | 4.34 | 3.37 | 3.51 | 3.12 | 4.44 | 53 | ||||||||
| 2009 | 14 | Advancing Wall of Doom | Fleedom Flies | compo | 19 | 3.63 | 3.71 | 3.69 | 2.97 | 3.22 | 2.87 | 2.53 | 3.56 | 3.19 | 4.57 | |||||||
| 2008 | 13 | Roads | CoMuTor | compo | 28 | 3.10 | 3.18 | 2.64 | 3.18 | 3.23 | 2.90 | 3.28 | 2.85 | 2.68 | 3.87 | 2.86 | ||||||
| 2008 | 11 | Minimalist | MinMo LD11 | compo | 32 | 3.05 | 2.45 | 3.59 | 3.73 | 2.73 | 3.70 | 3.05 | 2.53 | 3.63 | 3.59 |
| Year | MiniLD | Theme | Game | Rank | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 16 | Constraints | Alien Flight Academy: Graduation Day | |||
| 2009 | 7 | Cryptozoology | Cryptid Puzzle Challenge – Final! | |||
| 2009 | 6 | Monochrome | Monorail Final! |
HybridMind leaves an average of 42.7 feedback comments each event.
I have no idea how to last longer than 10 seconds in this game. I can't travel very far and the bats swoop in and kill me really quickly. Plus, even the main menu is confusing on how to activate the 'play' ? It doesn't seem to work half the time. Lucky I can hit 'r' to try to the main menu again. I thought the concept was pretty cool, just wish the execution was there.
Weird little game. I finally found the two aliens, but the interface was a bit odd. It didn't have enough feedback on the scan turn for me to know I was actually doing anything. In fact, until I revealed the first alien after about 10 turns, I was thinking something was broken.
Took me a long while to figure out how to survive but I liked the challenge. Gets a bit tedious in parts. Also, I couldn't figure out how to get 'putting someone to sleep' to work. I had an unassigned worker, but the 'put to sleep' button (though enabled) did nothing.
Oh man this game is stupid fun! Played this more than probably any entry so far (and I've played over 100.) While I never made it very far (~90 meters max) I had a great time. My favorite moment is firing the beam weapon straight down and riding along with it. Awesome work!
Great game for the time constraints. As is though, it suffers from three big flaws: No way to sell a facility, no way to stop production on a facility (or facility type), and no way to turn away a customer (w/ a bouncer or something) when they are clogging your queue.) Also, it is really hard to understand which facility produces which random drug the buyers are looking for. The drug icon should show up in the facility buy icon area (like you do w/ the number of spaces required for it.) Excellent work though.
Great job creating a RTS in 48hrs. I played a few times but DAMN that AI is aggressive and hard! Wish there was a way to make it a bit easier to learn otherwise I just keep getting defeated too early.
Game quit to menu on me as I was riding the elevator lift out. Nice creepy platformer though. I think the instruction signs were a bit tedious after awhile and really broke my immersion. I know it is the trope in platformers these days but for some reason signs floating in the mine didn't fit the mood. I think just onscreen popup text that appeared and then faded away might have worked better for me. Solid effort for limited time.
Interesting take on 'beneath the surface'. I played the mech-pilot route. Held my interest pretty well and liked the list of tropes at the end.
Pretty fun once I figured out how not to kill myself 50 times. The jumping out of the cart mechanic was initially really confusing! Never found a use for the cart tilt move.
Solid foundation. I played for 36 days before there just really wasn't much point that I could tell. I wish I knew what the '3 vertical lines' facility did. I dug a huge ladder downward hoping to find something but never did. I had a population of 5 by the end. I wish there was more variety in the random popup events or that maybe they didn't occur each round.
I mined 64 gems! :) I love the humor of spawning the food, water, and gems right out of the ground. Explored around for quite a while. I almost wish there wasn't the time limit because I was having fun playing with the terrain, but had to keep finding food and water to stay alive long enough. Cool tech!
Second boss was impossible for me to beat. Like all the weird stuff going on though. I liked eating the boss's bullets for my own ammo (once they were in the water.) Wasn't sure what the 'fucked-up water ratio' meant though. Cool art. Just wish it wasn't so brutally hard.
Took me a long while to understand what I was supposed to hit. Very funny game though. Had me laughing a good bit. I beat 3 or 4 of my opponents before getting a bit bored. A few gripes: Sharks can sometimes spawn in a place that launches them into your own goal. Sometimes the shark is too low in the tank and you can't tell how far you've pulled the velocity down because it is hidden in the tank dirt. Funny concept though!
Good game! I enjoyed all the things I had to do and the challenge level was pretty decent. I scored about 50 or so. After I managed to summon Charybus the first time, then it got way too hard to dodge the cannon balls. Cool artwork!
Not sure if it is possible to activate all three goals or not. I could only ever get two at once. Was fun messing around with different permutations seeing what commentary and assumptions you designed into the system.
I really enjoyed that. Too bad my greed cost me dearly at the end. I didn't even know what that was supposed to be. Thought it was a flower. Apparently my love of flowers cost me dearly.
Glad you have sharks with laser beams. Managed to score 1030. I like how it gets pretty hard to dodge all those sharks.
Love the art.
Played three times before I escaped. Good times.
It was really cool once I clicking on the periscope and saw outside. Wasn't expecting that! Too bad you didn't have time to finish more.
Really liked passing through the skeleton. It is a shame that you basically win by just holding the right direction.
I found the ET cartridge but it didn't give me any points.
Very amusing. Played quite a few times trying to see what the fates were.
Couldn't even get past the first little part. Way too hard. The area to pass through is impossibly small. No idea how much more game there is, but I saw the same 400 pixels for 5 minutes.
Made it to level 3 or so. Got stuck in the floor. The jump mechanic seemed really strange. Like, I could just keep jumping up as much as I wanted. I liked the graphics. The music was a little grating with that short repeating loop. Made it tough to want to keep playing.
I liked the character art style. The rules of the game were a bit hard to understand what was going on. It seems 'killer bot' is really over-powered though. Seems to win all the time.
Really cool puzzles. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to escape but I got really far. These puzzles where quite challenging with remembering all the areas as well as being combined with the dark navigation challenges.
I guess you can't actually save anyone. I tried awhile on the first chapter thinking I was doing something wrong. Kind of frustrating rather than poignant until you catch on. Also, the connection to theme is a bit thin besides the title and a few of the scenes. The wheel chair one isn't related at all. Funny how you want to save them (and try) even though it doesn't seem possible. Nice low polys and mood. Very morbid.
I caught 43 pastel colored fishies! I like the fish graphics. There isn't a whole lot of fun gameplay here unfortunately. Would be nice if the fish moved around or if I had to keep recasting occasionally rather than just feeling like I'm a fish vacuum.
Interesting and innovative concept. I couldn't really get much entertainment out of it though besides randomly clicking around quick enough so that I didn't die. I couldn't figure out how to write my own tune or really understand what affect I could have on the world besides clicking in grids to plant various seed notes.
I really have no idea what is going on with this game. I don't understand the point of the map. It seems I can dive, but that lets me just go down to a cave? I usually run out of air. I managed to get to a screen that said 'found it!' but then the screen just turned "unity blue" and there wasn't nothing to "attack" even though some text told me I would attack something. I do like the drawings and the audio work. I just wish the game was less confusing/had something to do.
Couldn't get the game to work on windows. I followed the read me and I have java installed. It says 'java' is unrecognized as a command on my system, but I've been running other dev's .jar files all compo long. Not sure what's up, sorry.
The first level was really pretty hard. I got passed it on the 3rd try and made it to level 3. Everything moved a bit too fast to dodge the bullets fairly and there wasn't too much to hold my interest as it was just jumping around and collecting coins without a real point besides score I guess. I did like the graphics/character designs.
I saved 6/10 spiders! I look like a caring mother! Well, I played through once. I like the basic concept of being a spider in a den. The game was a bit easy/simple though. Basically I would just go left, eat one ant outside, return, fight of the ants inside, and repeat. Nothing really changed. I see in your screenshot there is a picture of a snake, but I never encountered a snake. I just went back and forth 4 times without challenge and then my babies hatched. I would like more challenge for sure to keep interested. I enjoyed the graphics, and while I normally can't stand to look at spiders, the main spider is actually kind of cute when she walks.
I like the multi-plane concept and the idea of lowering tides changing the topology of the play space. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of gameplay here currently. It gets boring really quickly. I think this was compounded by the fact that when I'd switch into "sideview" mode to grab a gem, i rarely could land on the piece of land with the gem. My dog character would always fall into the water. Seemed the placement was wrong or something?
While I was having a bit of fun playing, I was kind of unsure how to play this game. It seems that I only have 4 mini drills and if I defense my mega drill from the pink colored mini drills, I lose a mini drill. If I have a shield I am safe, but shields are not guaranteed. There doesn't seem to be a way to spawn new mini drills and the game just ends after four lives. The times I played, progress seems very tied to luck with getting powerups at the right times instead of skill of attacking the rock throwing robots. I dug the music and the art.
Pretty cool! I managed to reach the diamond core! Sim games are always fun. The joy of watching your little crew run around performing tasks. The little theme song was catchy too.
Best score was 201. Took me a long while to understand what the heck I was supposed to do and what I was supposed to control. I didn't understand that there was both movement within the ship as well as arrow key movement outside of the ship. The next problem was that between the mud blob rocks and the red shiny rubies, I thought for sure I was supposed to be collecting the red rocks. They looked like money! How wrong I was. After getting the hang of it, it was way too easy for too long and then once the path fills with tons of the rubies, it quickly becomes impossible to avoid while you are attempting repairs. While I think the inside/outside control scheme is interesting and innovative, I feel its implementation needs a bit of work still here gameplay wise.
Wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do after mining an asteroid for a bit. Managed to get about 2500 points but then the game restarted when I went back to my "hatch" on the level. I thought maybe I was supposed to return to my ship to upgrade some stuff. Seemed it restarted the game though. I guess it just feels like there isn't much of a challenge or focus to the game yet. Yes, I can collect the rocks, but it wasn't particularly difficult. I did like the concept/setup of the game.
The controls and collisions in this game make it almost unplayable for me. I really tried but just basic movement is really bad and frustrating. Sorry. I would work on improving the movement input and the issues with picking up/dropping off boxes as they get stuck in everything and then the player sticks to the boxes.
Pretty cool. I liked the weird lighting effect. I managed to find the black box and the upgrading was a nice enticement along the way.
Couldn't ever get better than 6th place. Not really sure how this relates to the theme at all (besides being named as Subterranean.) It just looks like an asphalt racetrack in a grassy field. The car seems to control fairly well at least.
So freaky. I enjoyed exploring around. Not really certain what I discovered. I often couldn't be sure something was intended vs a bug. I think the game glitched out on me at the end. I found a stool. I found a silhouette of a person. That person got all freaky in the vertxes when I interacted with them. I was eventually swallowed by the sun.
The non-standard controls (the fact that moving left/right also boosts you upwards) took awhile to understand. I think that was compounded because of the dark environment. I wasn't able to get a sense of my bearings soon enough to understand how the movement worked. After about 10 rapid deaths I started to get the hang of it. I liked the strange sounding music and the darkness.
I enjoyed the strange world you were creating. I definitely wanted to see and hear more of where the story was going. Nice job on your first LD!
Interesting mechanic. I don't think it is as fun as it probably could be with further work. I like the idea of being able to guide the drill, but it quickly becomes boring to wait for the 1-second pulse of the drill iteration. I wish I could speed it up a lot. Controlling the turning isn't an issue because I can pause. It might be fun to have the drill slowly speed up as a function of your depth. So as your reward goes up, so increases the risk (and hopefully the fun!)
I really enjoyed playing this a lot. Eventually committed suicide because there was nothing left to do. :) Used my advanced weight suit to kill myself. Definitely wish you had had time to expand it a bit to add further reason to go deeper / more things to see down deeper.
I really enjoyed playing this through to the end. The NPCs helping out during battles were a nice touch. I also found the health/energy balancing mechanic interesting. Nice work!
Great graphics and mood! You really feel immersed. Not sure why you let me pick up a screwdriver as I never seemed to find a use before the end. Is there more than one ending? I don't think so given how linear it is. The ending I got made me laugh anyway. Nice work!
Nice moody environment. Not sure how I feel about the bird sounds though in that type of world. Doesn't feel right. I liked the other drone sounds and the swirling clouds. Would've been cool to see more gameplay for sure.
This is one of my favorite games of the jam! Hilarious, innovative, and damn fun. I couldn't get past Mercury yet, but it is a really cool skill game. Love the newscaster and the humor throughout. Nice work!
Oh man why is this so short!? :D Just when I thought the game was going to begin, it ended. Nice little framework though, could use some work on the maze collision detection. I got stuck a lot on the walls. I liked the drawings.
Very dark. Not quite sure I get the message (if there is one.) I hadn't read your notes on this page before playing so without reading about "a game to make you hate gamer power fantasy." I wast thinking you were being earnest in wanting to glorify all this killing and wounding. The writing was well done, but that just made it more disturbing to play. I guess it is not clear to me why this game exists. The purpose of it. I feel it is easier to make something disturbing than to make something with a similar but subtle message. Not sure. At least you made me want to shutdown your game on multiple occasions yet I kept playing. Just in case there was some kind of meaning to be found. In the end, I just "won".
The art and concept were pretty cool. I only played until about level 5 or 6 because it became too tedious. If I could offer some critical feedback, it would be the following: It is not fun waiting as long as it takes to burn through the dirt blocks with the laser. Let that burn through go a lot quicker. Next, there is an annoying bug where the laser won't continue on its own after it burns through a dirt block. You have to keep toggling it on/off and that is tedious. The third thing is that the level design often makes is so you can bypass a lot of the laser relay blocks. You can just go way further in the chain and activate your laser. This just makes the levels not as satisfying. Anyway, I enjoyed the concept I just think it needs a bit of work still post-compo to have a chance to shine. ;) (Pun intended.)
Yeah I also couldn't get past the "MSVCR100D.dll is missing" error. Bummer, the screenshots looked cool.
I like the combination of the upgrade trees with the action. I noticed the crane wouldn't grab most driftwood automatically which was a bit annoying. I tried to destroy the octopus but he got me first.
Great mood and cool idea. This game is really difficult to understand though. If you polished up the game with better instructions/help/tutorial, that could go a long way to making it more playable. Also, sometimes the dialog wouldn't fit on the screen correctly, and the language didn't make sense sometimes on the controls. I also have never heard of the word, "tripulation" which you use a lot. Not sure what that was supposed to be. I managed to make it all the way to the bottom on my first try, but largely I just used 'repair' and 'heal' and lost everyone but 1 of my crew! :D
The controls/jumping really killed this for me. Not too mention way too many enemies. I must have died 50 times trying to even get a few screens away from my starting point. By control issues, I mean that sometimes it wouldn't register the jump at all and I'd fall to my death. The hard limit on jump height was very awkward, and the collision seemed odd sometimes and I'd just fall to my doom. Seems from the other players comments that people have liked this and from your screenshot and the initial eldar story text, it sounds cool, but I seem incapable of playing it as is.
The artwork looked nice. I wasn't able to really understand the goal though. I explored around a few times but the level design wasn't very clear as to where I should go. I just kept hitting dead ends. One time I even stepped right out of the right side of the map and fell to the bottom and got stuck. Some of the wood platform hitboxes don't work either.
The concept is disturbing and funny. If you polished up the issues relating to cop hitboxes during kill mode, that would make it a lot more fun and possible to play. Also, with no checkpoints, it got too annoying to keep retrying when I'd get killed by a cop (where it wasn't really my fault at all.) If those issues were addressed, I could see it being a pretty fun action puzzler.
Really dig this! I'd love to see this expanded for sure. Different worm types, attacks, equipment. Having to handle more than one worm. It's a good prototype/mechanic test at this point. The graphics and mood are really solid too.
The game looks really nice. I found it a little too easy and it got tedious fairly quickly unfortunately. I was basically just doing well enough by holding down the fire button and strafing left and right. Seems like a solid concept, but just needs some changes to make it more exciting and fun. I'd mess with pacing, powerups, speed of the attacks, restriction of playfield width potentially. I guess those are the parameters I'd experiment with to see if it could be made more fun/exciting/challenging. Very well polished at least!
I appreciate that you attempted an experimental blend of seriousness and humor. I am not quite sure how I feel about it in practice though. When I restarted I was kind of thrown out of the immersion and mood you had been establishing. I guess I was kind of disappointed for a bit. But then I just kind of dealt with it and went through the story. I reached 3 different endings out of 6. I will say that the "sunglasses" ending is bugged. I bailed on my crew and it still said I got the "not a monster" ending. (Trying not to overtly spoil here, but I want to provide the bug report.) I like the mix of text and art assets, nice work overall.
Kind of an interesting flooding mechanic. Took me a bit to figure it out. Hard game. I think it is a solid base for polishing up the movement and controls. It all feels a bit stiff right now. I like the arcade-like simulation of water pressure. It also reminds me of a bizarre form of the snake game.
Good polish and mood. I like how you split the action between the "choice notes" and watching the miners dig out the coal. I also enjoyed the miner's talking while they worked. As far as critical feedback, I felt that I didn't know what the end goal or limit to the game was. It just went on until it started dragging a bit and wasn't as fun. Also, the model is a bit simplistic. The choices were often just yes/no around forever escalating costs. I wish there had been different ways to appease my workers. The system quickly unbalanced and drained money away without a way to recover. Nice work though for 2 days! Solid base of a game that could be improved for sure.
Was really enjoying the mood and the writing. Unfortunately I can't progress. I have the ID. I've talked to every single NPC multiple times. The muni door won't let me through w/o a reason, Cob won't help me, The kid that "watches me approach the checkpoint" won't do anything for me when I talk, the un-branded guard won't tell me anything after I ask him about my brother. Bug? No idea. Cool game, just bummed I spent so much time w/o being able to finish it.
Really great art and fun gameplay too! I like the variety of the way you have to pay attention to stomping the little guys to earn worm power, and then firing at the bosses. Nice work!
What a really unique looking game! I love the style! I don't think I've ever played anything quite like this before. Very cool. I found one ending. I want to see a whole adventure game in this style now. :D
Am I in a aquarium? :D Well, this is the first mermaid arcade game I've ever played! Unfortunately it seems way too easy in its current state. I found very little challenge so I couldn't play too long without getting bored. Seems like a solid base though. The combat seemed to work well enough though I found I never used boost. It just seemed like I swam around killing orange mermaids and would have been nice to have some other enemy types or goals.
Ended up getting over 50k points before quitting because it was just too easy I guess? Seems like a very solid start. I dug the music and the graphics a decent. My critical feedback would be that despite the graphics placing me in a watery environment, the movement is entirely unconvincing as to occurring in water. This game might as well just be in space. The next piece of feedback would be to work on some form of difficulty curve and get a few other things starting to be introduced to mix it up and make it more challenging over time. One note about the shooting mechanic, while it makes it harder that you can't look away w/o shooting away, I found that pretty frustrating. Once again though, solid effort! I dug the look of my sea base.
Really amazing polish. Loved the graphics and sound design. The level design was almost perfect but that last puzzle to get the 4th key was just too damn frustrating and difficult. I tried for a long while but it just wasn't fun or possible for me to scale the mega cavern wall. Too bad, I really wanted to see the end.
I managed to finish with 8 losses. It was always scary when you had a bunny explode, but it looked really cool when that happened too though! Great art and sound work. Because there was no real penalty for digging as much as you want or losing a bunny here and there, it wasn't super challenging. I dig like the tension of hopping around wondering if my bunny was about to explode or not. Yikes!
Tried to play but the app crashes immediately. Win7 Home Premium 64-bit. "APPCRASH in KERNELBASE.dll"
I enjoyed sneaking through w/o trying to hurt any ships as that part wasn't as much fun as the stealth elements. I'm glad you let me play as a giant squid. I've never been a Kraken before.
I had trouble understanding the instructions of what ingredients to place in the soup. The placing mechanic is tough to use (my items regularly missed the bowl), and timing feels very fast. I think the concept is funny and could be fun with a bit more tuning though. I enjoyed the silly music and the graphics. You have also made me crave ramen!
I enjoyed playing this a good bit. It is like a lot of those "clicking" games (like Candy Box or Cookie Clicker) but a nice twist on those genres. I find it interesting how compelling it is to wait to see "what's next?". I like how the text evolves in this. Cool premise for sure.
The controls/collisions kind of really hamper this game from being fun. It is just too hard to move/dig through the dirt. I like the concept and the artwork though, it just needs a little more love. Also, how the heck do you open the treasure chests??
I enjoyed moving around as the worm and avoiding the other worms but it feels like it gets a little boring after a bit. Could use one or two other things to be introduced (even just something to collect here and there that boosts your score or health perhaps) and I wasn't sure if more worms started spawning the longer you played. I managed to get 505 points on my best run though. Connection to theme is a little bit tough to grasp besides them being worms I guess?
This game was really cool. A bit hard down at the deeper levels but it kept me engaged for quite some time. It did take me a bit to figure out that I could reel the harpoon back in and hold more than one fish at a time though! :D Nice job creating a strange little water world system.
I've never played the games you mention inspired this, but the concept seems interesting. The random number generator screwed me a bit though on the score system. Since it produced very little blue hexes during my playtime, that was my lowest scoring gem. This is well polished, but I find the connection to the theme very missing. Yes, you called this a mining game, but that seems like merely a nod to the theme.
What a strange concept. I liked it. So weird though. :) Took me awhile to figure out what to do but then it was strangely hypnotic (maybe the music helped) as I attempted to figure the system out. I played for quite awhile and even though they didn't get to space, I did manage to build out a factory, temple, a ton of houses and had a good bit of fun along the way.
I have the current highscore, 12,660! That was really fun. Shouldn't it be called "Splodey Subs" though? ;) If I have any critical feedback, it would be that you don't introduce all those extra fun mechanics until too late in the game. I was about ready to quit thinking that I'd seen all the game had to show at mission 2-1. I was like, "Oh I see, it's just going to keep reducing my times by 10 seconds every 4 rounds. I'm glad I stuck around though because then you introduced the powerups, the sub torpedoes, the water mines, the sonar mode, etc. I bet a lot of players won't stick around that long at the current pace. Other than that, nice polished game!
Very fun to shoot in this game. The game is a bit hard though and unclear what the bars at the top left of the screen are doing. Was riding the rails giving me health or draining me of health? Neither? I wasn't sure. There was also a really weird bug that when I died it just let me keep playing w/o a body and nothing could hurt me. Oh, also it messed up my mouse cursor (a funny scraggly blue line is now below it) after playing your game. Weird! :D
I scored 675,000 but alas I didn't not defeat Zungo Corp. Almost... I loved the random things that I destroyed. Favorites were Nickleback and the Half-Life 3 team! :D
What a strange little game! I mean that in a good way. I love that you made a game about dowsing too. :) I managed to get to the end of the game. It was just the right length. If it hadn't ended as soon as it did, it would've needed some different mechanics being introduced to keep the treasure finding interesting. One question though, what the heck was that yellow drop that falls down when the muscle-heads are digging? Couldn't figure that one out.
The graphics and setup story are cool. I found the game too unfair/hard because of hitbox/collision issues. The 3rd level especially (with the attack wand) was very easy to die and then it made you restart from the very beginning. I did try four times to beat that 3rd level w/ no luck. Died on something different each time. I did enjoy the graphics a lot and if you fix the respawn issue and the unfair tile hitboxes, it would be a fun puzzle platformer to explore.
I really like the atmosphere in this game. I like how it is still fun and interesting to move around even though I have no idea what I'm doing. I explored and touched things for quite awhile. In the end I kept trying to touch a jellyfish creature and after the 3rd time I guess I died? It gave me a score of 3. I must say I was a bit disappointed that there was suddenly a score that appeared/stayed as a HUD on my screen. Seems like this gameplay doesn't quite fit with a explicit score. Anyway, I enjoyed the graphics, the audio work, and the weird wavey effect.
My favorite part was the player death explosions. Almost made me want to kill myself again and again just to see them! :D As you mentioned, pretty light on the theme, but seems like you had you goals for the competition and worked towards accomplishing them. Looks good and is fun to play.
I played this a really long time. I like how it feels like a deep system you're learning the rules of more than just an arcade game. I enjoyed all the aspects of this. Really good work getting it all balanced so well. It is satisfying to eat the humans and surf around as the worm. It reminds me of how fun it is to control the plane in LUFTRAUSERS. I also like the subtle multiplier system in wyrm length == egg gen.
I actually played this for quite awhile. Nice job! I like that you implemented an upgrade shop. That definitely made me play longer so I could unlock the faster speed. I bought some of the cosmetic items but they didn't seem to appear on my mouse. I enjoyed your music too! Keep up the good work!
COAL COAL COAL! I'm glad we both made a game about mining. I wish the jump/hitboxes were a bit more forgiving, this game is brutally hard for me! Best coal collected was 470 tons out of 1000. I enjoyed the voice samples. :)
I could only get as far as collecting 6 worms. This game is very hard! :D The mole character was endearingly funny as he ran. I enjoyed the music and the concept of running along with the exploding dynamite was very epic. Took me awhile to know about being able to jump straight up walls though. Nice job!
I liked the surprise at the end. A tale of alienation becomes more literal! ;) Nice capturing of teen angst in the dialog. I was just clicking right along reading up the story, totally sucked into it.
I think with a little tuning this could definitely be more fun, but it is a interesting mechanic. It seems it is suffering from a pacing issue right now more than anything. My best score was only 8. I like how there is danger in getting stomped by the gadget you are using to kill the zombies. That adds an interesting tension to getting rid of zombies in the middle.
I like the environmental feel and art. I couldn't get very far in the story each time though because the graveyard lantern guard seemed to catch me really easily. Tried about 4 times to play but only got to 3 notes of story. I enjoyed the writing that I was able to see anyway.
Had a great time playing this for sure. Made it a few levels. Very fun to play around with the sound waves. My only complaint is I can't really see how this relates to the theme at all.
I kept hitting "right arrow" (since your instructions said press the right key) and losing time and time again. I think the 'Ready Set Go' is confusing in that I thought at the moment it said "go" I was supposed to hit a key. It might work better to have the key you are supposed to hit appear right when it says "go". Other than that, fun little reaction/typing game. I like the art and audio mood.
After feeling totally confused for a while I managed to get to the second character anyway. Couldn't figure out how to get past once they were swearing about a criminal. Strange way of interaction, not sure I've ever encountered an interface like that before.
Man, made me feel so sweaty just playing. Also laughed a lot!
Liked the humor of this game's visuals and notes. Got pretty far, but damn, one life is tough... ;)
Good fun! Enjoyed all the variety of skills to choose from. Found I could kind of cheat a bit and shoot through walls with the shotgun and the machine gun so I used that to my advantage for sure. In game music is really tough to listen to, but I did like the main menu music. I wish base movement speed was a bit faster for sure.
One other Ludum Dare process thing, you mentioned that you used some sounds from freesound.org. Even if those are OK to legally use license-wise, when you enter the Compo (vs the Jam) of Ludum Dare, you aren't supposed to use any assets created by anyone else. Just a heads up.
I enjoyed trying different spell combos and seeing what happened.
Interesting mind-bending discovery mechanic. A lot of cool potential lurking in this idea of the player determining creative ways to identify their avatar. Got kind of lost on level 3 though.
Super fun and charming. Reminds me a bit of the ZZT days. I was really bummed though that GAME OVER meant starting all the way at the beginning. I don't have time for that unfortunately. I would've kept playing if there were at least a couple continues. Great job though, it was fun to dig and attack with the mouse.
Well, I feel like I _almost_ wrapped my brain around it! :D I tried for a long time and got an OK distance but it was tough to remember sometimes which way I would jump first. Maybe if some indicator reminded you? I do like the idea though and it is pretty fun for sure.
Great puzzle game. I eventually got stumped but I got really far at least! Loved the creepy audio and the mechanic itself was interesting to play around with.
A lot of fun and the rhythmic music was cool sounding too! I got a highscore of 13,214 in the end.
Really like this simple but fun idea. I've always loved perspective games like this and the calming music and nice colors made it a cool experience. I do think there are some bugs though because it quite often reward me for correct matches when I know they weren't full transformed/correct yet.
I had a great time playing this game. It was one of the most fun ones I've played this competition. I was compelled to keep trying a ton even when I was dying a lot on later levels. I couldn't manage to beat the level where you start in the box with a blue pellet and there is a long stairway going up and to the right. Couldn't get past that one despite 20-30 attempts. Great job though given the minimal aesthetic of this game. Really liked the dissolving and planting mechanic.
I enjoyed the art and the style and that things were kind of unclear and confusing. I liked that the most interesting stuff happened when you ran into those black squiggly line creatures. I found the jumping really hard to control though unfortunately and couldn't get past the room with all the platforms.
Cool little game. I liked all the different varieties based around the same little shoving mechanic. I also like the very iconic style to the graphics.
I played all the way to the end. It was fun to explore and try to figure out what I was supposed to do. I enjoyed the strange boxhead people. It was a bit tough to pick up the second flower, I almost didn't get it to work, but then it finally did. I liked the minimal art style.
I managed level 7, 20614 points on my first play. I'm a sucker for little skill games like this. Even if it is a little carpal tunnel happy, I had fun playing it! Enjoyed the strange drone sounds too. :D
Well, that's one of the weirdest platformers I've ever played. :) It is kind of cool being a triangle that can't move except by jumping and translating. I wish it was easier to defend yourself though or know which spot the weapons would pop out of. I'd almost like it better if whatever weapon was active popped out on the side you were moving towards w/ the keys. Or maybe all three sides. I died SO MUCH. Still fun and it made me laugh a lot.
Had a good bit of fun with this. There were a few folks playing on and off when I was. Glad there were bots too. Great work creating this in a weekend!
I like the idea and it looks cool, but I just couldn't figure out how to do very good. Never understand why I would use the eraser to rub anything out. Sometimes it seemed my pencil lines weren't stopping the blobs. It was fun even though I wasn't doing well.
Really enjoyed this. Almost finished the whole board map. I did find it funny that it was a minimalist painting for the map that you were playing inside. I don't understand what the brown lumps that made you bigger were for. I incorrectly thought that eating those made me stronger and that the heart level when really huge, just meant till I downgraded, but it killed me when my heart ran out, even though I was massive. Other than that, it was fun to try and lure the enemies into the bombs or use their bombs against them.
Good work on this solid minimalist physics puzzler! I got all the way to level 13 so far. Quite polished.
Really had a cool experience playing this game. The sounds got very scary and the various feelings were quite palpable. I really didn't want to go near the black swarm at all. I collected the music hearts even though I never saw an effect. Great use of the minimal graphics, animation, and blur. I also like how the blue blob (your player character) can be perceived as a bouncing/dribbling ball from above with how it scales and the bounce sfx playing. Great work!
I definitely like the lightning mechanic. I kept having trouble with double-jump not working though on some of the later platform sections, couldn't end up finishing out of frustration which is a shame. I did want to try and finish it.
Really enjoyed this game a lot. The blobs level took me the longest to suss out I think. I like the concept of a visual mouse movement based puzzle game, nice work!
I wish the difficulty had ramped up more, as it starts to get a little boring after about 3 or 4 minutes. I also wish the clicks were more accurate or forgiving. I like the down-arrow block that made the blocks go backwards briefly. I just found it too easy I guess.
Hilarious! Got 206,700 points by the end. I'm glad I stuck with it (and didn't break my 'e' key!)
I tried but I just could not figure out how to read the UI. I read the instructions plenty and messed with the sliders but all those number readouts never made final sense to me.
I enjoyed the sound of the lasers blowing up the falling cubes. I kind of wish the UI widget in the bottom left wasn't so huge and taking up so much of the screen so I can watch my orbiting cities more. :)
Good start for sure. Too bad it is unfinished but I know how it goes. I like the headlight area as signifying where my player is at, that is a nice touch. The obstacles come a bit fast for me to react very well though (even though they don't really do anything game-wise right now.)
It does make me eventually feel sad that city doesn't get any closer no matter how long I ride...
Haha, this game idea is really funny. The first time I played I scored -221 but the second time I scored 1. I kind of got lucky the second time because the roommate push 3 items together into the wall so it was easy for me to move them back as a clump.
Really enjoyed this (once I figured how to get it going and then sorted out the rules on my own.) Unfortunately for the certain type of color blind, those red/green squares are gonna be impossible to tell apart. Great work on the visual aesthetics of the game too!
I enjoyed this minimal TD game a good bit. I particularly like the idea of using the pheromone trails to guide the creeps. I managed to survive 329 seconds on my second try and kill about 450 creeps. Definitely could use some further balancing and it does tend to get a bit boring in the mid game until the creeps ramp up their spawn rate.
Took me the longest time to even understand how to start playing. Could only play alone w/ the AI. In the end I couldn't figure out the controls. Seemed they would move and pivot randomly and make my tank behave all strange. Also, strafe controls for a tank w/ treads? That made me laugh a good bit. :D
Once I turned off the fisheye I did a lot better. Gets a bit boring after 3 or 4 levels, but did keep me entertained for the first few as I tried to get better at eating the fish within the time limit. I enjoyed the environment and the bright colors of the fish.
Entertaining even though the UI is very hard to understand. It took me the longest time to understand that the eggs underneath the queen were part of the background art. I had thought the 'click to move eggs' was just broken for the first few minutes. Once I realized that the background art was there I could start to spot the actual items. Didn't understand how to control what eggs turned into ants vs larva (which I think turned into warriors then?) I didn't even know there was an outside world until very far into the game when I noticed the arrow icon. So yeah, very hard to understand, but a lot of cool things going on here. I played a few times but didn't do very well. I enjoyed the graphics.
Really enjoyed the atmosphere in this game. The gameplay was also kind of cool. I like how you have to watch out for the spacings. I wish it was a little faster to move the feet. I think I kept dying from taking too much damage even though I was moving/crushing enemies. Cool idea.
What was this? Haha, so great! I hamster bowled a 257. Sweet. This is a game with personality to spare. Love the integration of the live video and puppets. Fun credits song too.
Really like the idea of this. Managed to play a bunch but I'm getting some really odd behavior in win7/Chrome. The sounds starts flaking out bad, and the sprites seem to start flickering. I also seemed to get your neutrino limbo bug a LOT where I'd just disappear forever into the top or bottom? No idea, but after many of these events I had to stop, which is of course a shame because I love the concept and its fun to smash into those atoms.
One small note about your title screen comment above: Even though it is royalty free, I believe you were confused on compo vs jam rules. The compo rules have always been that you must create all art/sounds/music from scratch. Not really a huge deal, but it is the jam that has the more relaxed rules.
Anyway, great idea for the game!
I like the cartoony outlines and models. I do wish the gameplay was a bit more involved. I felt a lot of the battles just were won by me creating my four monsters as fast as possible near each other so they could get lucky (hopefully) and destroy the other ones. Amusing to watch, like one of those minigames where you bet on a side and see if you win or not. The voice sfx made me laugh, those are often my favorite in a compo like this.
I really enjoyed the humor and the silly graphics in this game. I feel there is a good bit of potential with what you have in the game already. It is fun to fly around the solar system, the shockwave is cool to use to deflect ships. I think the biggest two negatives are once you discover the ability to sit on the Earth and spam spacebar. That killed the game for me once I found you could do that. The other was that I could damage the Earth. If you don't let me land on it, I guess that is fine. Anyway, seems with some adjustment to force the player to have to actually fly around and see the solar system and battle by jumping about, it could be tuned up to be quite fun again. Space Giant still cracks me up.
I enjoyed the menu intro transition into gameplay a lot. Really sets everything up perfectly the moment you cross that first threshold into the official game area and the music kicks off. I've loved that moment everytime I've played. Really fun concept and a very hard game. I've never made it very far I'm afraid, but it is just a cool game to hang out in and move around watching everything pulsing in the levels below. Very sweet game.
Haha, so trippy! Really loved that zoom effect. I have no clue what clarity bombs do. I used them and it seemed that nothing happened. Collected about 140 green squares though. Pretty fun and I like the physics bounciness of the main character.
I played about five times. Even in the end it feels really quite difficult. I did find it kind of intriguing trying to figure out a good balance of things. I kept improving for sure but felt frustrated by how fast the game would end just when I wanted to see how I was doing.
I think it is a fun setup for a game but as you've stated, not really any game in here. Too bad my only action is too destroy the little world. I'm letting it grow while I write this to see if something else happens. I like the old school graphics, reminds me of Amiga days.
Fun little arcade style rogue like. Reminds me a good bit of the casual nature of Desktop Dungeons too. I like how you have to judge the monster levels by their graphics and when they appear. I played about 4 times, but only made it to level 4 or 5 max. Really enjoyed the game though, good fun and funny graphics.
I played the first time without realizing there were weapons crates, so I didn't defend the burger for long. Then right near the end I noticed the crates and I played again. That was a good bit more fun and I lasted forever until kind of getting bored. Loved the carrot-rocket explosions! I think the most frustrating thing is the controls and turn radius in this game. It made aiming/shooting a good bit more difficult then it needed to be. I got a good laugh out of the game name though.
Oh man that was brutally hard! I think the thing I hated the most was the lack of diagonal controls. Was that intentional? Best I ever did was 6-7 seconds and 4 cells collected. Too many random unfair things would happen to trap you and those sparks moved so much faster than you they would close in and shoot ya. I played at least 10 times though since it's so quick and arcade style.
I really enjoyed this a lot. I really liked the text that kept talking, guiding, and teasing me. I was having a great time playing this but eventually I got stuck restarting on a lava world that I then didn't have enough breath to escape from back to a healthy start location. I managed to get 1 powerup and explore a lot. I love how big the map felt. Really fun and old school.
Way to create a ton of levels! I really liked how you experimented with the various transportation and driving mechanics as well as mouse skill game genre of just even being able to click the planets at all. Quite stressful and fun. I played at least 8 levels if not 10. Not sure how many there were. If there was a level counter I'd probably still be playing but I have to go to bed. :D Fun game though for sure!
Really, really enjoyed this and was quite surprised by this. I had no idea the game would provide so many upgrades. I was quite pleased to play through and win. The music soothed me while I awaited to launch my colony ship. Great job!
Only minor thing I found was that the UI buttons at the bottom cause the planet to scroll when you don't want it to.
First off, the music really cracked me up. That tune that plays while you're helping the ants is hilariously fast-paced and frantic--just what you need while you're helping ants!
I felt the timer dragged on a bit long for what is still most a game about spray painting. Things got better when I figured out a nice way to cheat by just holding down both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. I definitely like the concept of indirectly affecting the outcome, but the gameplay is lacking a little bit for me. It just felt a bit too out of my control, and I really had some serious doubts I'd be able to win w/o the cheat I found. Not sure I've thought of any tweaks to the gameplay though that might help.
Glad you provided an alternate non-shader build so I could try it out! I only ever got the 'vaporize' button to work once, so I'm not sure if that was a bug or what? It's quite amusing to try and annihilate the planet, though it feels a bit more like a toy than a game for some reason. I really enjoyed the planet restore effect.
I really enjoyed the art and the teleport mechanic. The game is pretty fun, but I'm not that great at shmups, so I probably didn't get that far before getting frustrated. I believe I almost beat the wave after the first boss appearance. Despite the back story you provided, the connection to theme via the game or gameplay is kind of lacking. Did you just really want to make a shmup? ;)
Great mood in this game! Really like the touch of the strange setup quiz that is followed by suddenly seeing your shape there revealed. 3d audio is tough to hear when the figure backs away, and I couldn't get past the mouse in block challenge in web version (non-full screen.) I also think the first challenge to hit every key is a bit tedious and could probably be made more interesting/engaging. Great work on the voice fx too!
Even though I'm still not quite sure what is going on, the game is fairly fun. Best I can tell is I'm supposed to not let ANY of the planets die? That's pretty hard but the highest score I've got is 1000. I played a bunch of times though and I think the arcade mechanics going on here could be quite cool if polished a bit more (and possibly explain the goals better.)
The sound effects really cracked me up! I also like how if you wait too long on the tutorial text the game begins anyway. Removing the magnifying glass is kind of hilarious too. I think the shoot controls should say 'left click' and not 'right click'. A claustrophobic and light-hearted arena shooter!
I wish I understood what was going on a bit better with the bond strength rules, I keep getting stuck thrashing between picking up connections in one area and losing them in another. I do like the metaphor you have wrapped around the game. I couldn't figure out level 4. I had about 80% but with the smaller square, I was unable to max out the bar. I liked the strange music and dual-hand controls.
Haha this is the second game I've played this competition that used the rage quit mechanic. I can't believe having played that one a few days ago that I didn't think to try it on this one, damn! I literally tried every single key methodically and just when I had hit every key... I thought, "no, not another one..." and I knew even before I hit it that it would work. Freedom. I feel like a fool. Very well done and entertaining.
Made it almost 400 meters on my first go. I was happily surprised when I got the first dna unlock and thought, 'oh cool!' Had a good time playing and will try again since I've only played once so far. I eventually reached a weird set of ascending stairs that even with frog and cheetah I couldn't double jump high enough to escape the bombs.
I've tried this game out a few times and had a good time playing it. I keep messing around with the boulders too much and getting myself trapped! Love the old school wolfenstein / doom feel. I haven't gotten too far yet but it is pretty fun. The controls seem really weird to me as why you picked them but I did find I was able to get used to it pretty quickly! I also really enjoyed you doing the live stream thing as that was just really cool to watch. I felt that even though I didn't manage to finish my entry I got to participate a little vicariously through watching your streamed event.
Really loved this game so much. The style is very striking and the gameplay I found quite addictive. I just HAD to beat it even if those last levels were quite hard. Europa was very tough but after about 10 tries or more I finally escaped. Really like the writing that takes places between the levels and the piano riffing on the Bowie song set such a good atmosphere. This is one of my favorites from this LD.
Very very awesome! Love the atmosphere and physics. The game is just quite fun to play. One of my favorite moments is transforming into flight mode and soaring over tanks only to drop down onto them and the running men once you fuel runs out. Great job!
Fun game. I really like the visual style too. Were their various air currents? It felt like there were and that was kind of tricky but cool. I tried collecting a lot of the orange things the first few times but died and became frustrated. I ended up just speed-flying out and escaping but it still rated me an 'F' haha.
Just when I couldn't stand it anymore... nice game. Enjoyed it very much!
Really great game! I have played this a bunch so far and love how fun and simple it is with a surprising amount of strange and funny gameplay that happens depending on sword distribution and how you have "arranged" the man.
Played this three or four times. Damn hard! Collected about 50 tokens and eventually made it to 3 or 4 "cycles" of the 3 mini games. Definitely tough when you are in a shitty spot when the minigame switches and having to restart completely made me not play for too long. I like the visual style and the differences between the minigames mechanics/controls.
This game is pretty fun. I must've played it at least 10 times trying to get better. One of my earlier plays ended up being the best (11 million or so) and after that I had trouble breaking 1 million consistently. Fun combination of mechanics though. I like the blend of chain reaction, beat-em-up, platformer. My biggest difficulty was trying to figure out when I would take damage versus when I could hurt the bad guys. Seemed I would take damage unexpectedly. I also had trouble not falling to my death. I would've liked this to at least initially start you in a world that had a solid floor so I could learn the game better.
Great foundation here for what could be an awesome game. I like the concept of having to take over the enemy ships to upgrade. I also like the forgiving nature of getting destroyed and it just reduces you back to your original ship. The over the top glow filters are a bit much for my own taste but at least it looks distinctive I guess.
Very polished and simple yet fun game! Like the stylistic nod to World of Goo aesthetics. The game controls really easily and is pretty simple to grasp. I don't seem to do very well no matter how many times I've tried I still can't get past the first level. I wish the ammo chunks stayed alive longer but probably just because I'm not very good. Nice job!
I don't know what goes into writing an emulator but I imagine that can't be easy under compo deadlines.. pretty bizarre thing to pull off. Dug the chiptune. Do you write other tunes too? What did you write that in?
As far as the game goes as others have noted there is little reason to try to throw enemies into others and the throwing arc is very hard to aim anyway. I mainly just avoided them all. The way the screen has a large border is a little strange too and often made me think there were no platforms in a particular direction only to discover them. The graphics were fun though. I liked how my torso wasn't connected to my feet.
Great effort for 9 hours! I also like how strange it is to play a game where you character autojumps for you and you defend them with the mouse cursor! Pretty cool idea and it is pretty fun to chuck the enemies around and deflect the bullets. Seems pretty hard though I wasn't able to get very far. Plus when you die it resets so fast I can never tell how far I ran. I also like the term "auto-canabalt" :D The mud-man that slowly appeared in the background was really funny too. I used the strategy others mentioned of just holding down the mouse button and sweeping up enemy after enemy and then throwing them in a heap.
Very very cool game. Had a lot of fun playing this many times. Couldn't get past "Unamed Level 3" though. Wasn't sure how to trip the cyan square switches. Figured I might have to lead the enemies there to detonate the boxes but always just got shot in the back. Wish the enemies tracked around corners better but in 48hrs I'm impressed with what you built into the game already!
I had fun with this but I eventually had to give up at the room full of TNT where it tries to get you to hover up using the gun. That was just no fun at all and all I could figure out how to do was die again and again. Great effort for 48hrs on creating so many levels. The game is enjoyable and has some fun humor moments. Definitely one of the top ten of this contest.
So glad I finally got a chance to play this. I had 15 dead at the mid point (most were accidents) and 31 by the end. Love the message both stated and implied at the end. I don't think I've got the skills to try pacifism.. too hard! I am happy that I got the soldier all the way back out. I'm impressed how tight the level design was and how many ways it worked either with or without an enemy on a floor to help. Once you get the positions down it isn't so bad. Occasionally there is a bug where a laser beam gets stuck in a reflector block and the sound goes crazy!! You have to find the stuck beam and shoot it again to cancel it out. Other than that I didn't run into any other bugs. Very solid entry and one of the best and most complete I've played so far. Major props soldier! ;)
Oh this was awesome to finally play! It has come so far since the first day we were at the meetup together! This is a really fun and interesting game. My only gripe currently is the fact that if you screw up a mission it boots you from the game without being able to continue. I'd totally love a post-compo version of this with score comparisons and continues. Also major humor points for the bonus screen.. i won't spoiler it but that was great. Such an innovative idea and really good execution. I loved how you have to strategize how to stomp out parts of the fire sometimes without getting burned alive. Top notch!
This game was very bizarre. It takes quite awhile to figure out what to do (took my a long time to see the recycle for bullets and energy thing) and I never did figure out a corresponding bullet to use for various enemies. It didn't seem to matter the colors. The physics were bizarre too. The bullets arc slow if shot up but speed pyscho fast sideways. I also found I faired better if I just booked it for the spinning level ending puzzle piece.
Fun little game! My best score is 994. Charming graphics and music/sound. Very easy to play and control. I like how you use the boomshine chain reaction mechanic to get robo-combos! That is nice. It is also cool to have the two different enemy types to work with where you try to get clumps of the grey box-bots to line up with the red rocket-bots. Nice job!
This game looks really nice and it is a shame there isn't any sound. Wasn't really sure what to do though in the game. I didn't seem to find much use for any spell besides the ice spell and occasionally lighting the enemies on fire. I may have missed something but the world that you explore seemed really tiny and without much cause for strategy on the other spells to use.
The one thing that would've made this game a lot more fun to play rather than an exercise in frustration would have been to base the collisions of the location of the feet of the hero against the feet of the other robots. The collision area is just way to large and visually wrong so that anytime the player is faced with what would be a fun tense dash to avoid the movement of the robots--that is robbed from the player with a frustrating death and restart. Other than that major point I enjoyed the basic simple concept and the graphics, sound, and implementation.
A cat that vomits blood on zombies to turn them... whoa. Well this one was pretty surreal. I played for awhile trying to see if there was much more to the game but I guess its just pretty minimal. It was really easy to just sorta sit there and occasionally puke on the zombies. There wasn't enough tension going on to really make it fun for very long. I liked the sketch style and the changing colors of the backgrounds though.
Really like the simplicity. I also really like the music and background procedural graphic effects. The gameplay is easy to pickup and the controls are great. My only gripe is that the motivation was wrong for me. Just waiting for the timer to run out proved to not be enough to get me to really smack enemies together as then I was often in more danger of dying . It seems there is an alternate strategy of just avoiding or riding on the heads of the enemies to wait out the timer.
Very fun game. Reminds me a lot of the mechanics I used on my entry. Dug the pixel explosions and sound effects. How did you get such a great explosion sound? It didn't sound like SFXR! :D The combo system is only good now and then because there are just too many enemies to really control it much so it acts as more of a random luck thing. Played this a bunch though--great job.
Really like this game a lot. Some of the puzzles were fun and clever to solve. Others were fun in that they were solvable from a more arcade like perspective. I enjoyed the audio and the visuals too. I couldn't get past on of the later levels where you appear in a circle of "whip" enemies. I'd always end up with one "whip" enemy left and they couldn't be killed since the walls didn't bounce. Great effort though!
I like your art sketches as graphics on this one. The game is a bit tough because I could never remember the monster relationships so I would often waste valuable time and mind control energy pitting the wrong monsters against others. Perhaps would've been more fun to just let them battle using a slightly different system. As is I just get overrun and defeated way too quickly.
I like the basic idea but the game as implemented was not very fun for me. It seemed no matter whether I complimented the enemies or insulted them they did the same thing.. which was jump into the spike pit. I died a few times slipping off a guy and also a few times just not having any warning getting to a new screen.. the transition would just slaughter you by having you fall right in a pit. With no checkpoints there were only so many times I would work my way through the clicky battle interface. Once again I believe the idea is a good one but as implemented I can't really get into it. I didn't mind your music.. it worked well with the strange little animations of the dudes. :D
This is a hilarious concept and pretty good execution. Very simple and fun! The only major complaint is that something felt a little laggy with the mouse controls occasionally and would cause me to mess up and 500 million people would die. Loved the arbitrary points and combos and the death toll and burn marks on the Earth. Made me think about it a bit too much.. heh. Decent graphics too. Nice work!
Managed to get 84 kills by my third time. This game is pretty funny and cool. I like the bizarre aspect of collecting heads as "lives" or armor. It seems to me though that the timing of the heads and the bullets could be improved to provide a better experience. As it is there is a non-fun logjam that sort of occurs that makes it too hard to collect many heads safely. It is a cool combo mechanic where you can use one well shot head to win back multiples if you can collect them. The game doesn't really scale up that fast or introduce any new elements but it is pretty fun for what it is. The graphics are well polished too.
I like the concept of this game but it's implementation still needs a bit of work. I'm glad I noticed you posted the secret 'f' key to speed thing up as well!
Seems there is something odd going on with the A* in that the instant I spawn an enemy to defend my castles it will travel towards the location that the hero was at when the enemy spawned and my monster will walk right past the hero (as the hero goes straight towards the castle) and takes over the castle killing my monster automatically and wasting my resources. It is that bug along with what just seem to be balance issues that are currently making this not as fun as it could be. I think the concept is a solid one and it just needs a bit more in the way of strategy and choice for the player. I'd like a way for my creatures to scavenge for resources while a hero isn't in range and I'd like a way to take back over my castles. Glad you finished this entry up even though you didn't make it in time for the compo.
Wow so gorgeously rich graphics wise. Love the style! The game is also really quite fun (and hard but in a good and compelling way.) I've tried four times now to beat it but can only get 12/13 fungi scanned before dieing.
I also LOVE the bizarre mechanic of what happens if you let the non-kill floating spores stick to you. They shoot a weapon that then angers the cavern and causes them to escalate with more hostile specimens. Makes me feel like I'm playing a Nausica Valley of the Winds game! Really enjoyed the environment, the controls, the polish. I guess the only thing is I don't quite get how it relates to the theme in that you aren't really supposed to use the enemy spores ata ll. Other than that though--excellent job!
Had a good time with this compo version even though I'm more familiar with the post-compo. At least I really know how to play it now! Great solid concept with a lot of cool things going on that make you feel part of an epic battle. I love the visual blobby effects and the swarms of enemies assaulting me. It is also a cool idea to have the player be able to play a 'hero' role as they move about doing pinpoint strike assaults to gather critical castle pieces. Awesome job!
Yah I defeated the aliens on the first try and got 81,411 points! Finally a game that is actually really quite fun! Love the graphics, the silly name, and the mechanics behind your game. Very simple yet contains a bunch of fun emergent gameplay. I like how if you are too impatient with the tractor beam you send the alien into yourself. I also like how if you move with the tractor beam (usually to dodge the aliens coming) it makes it harder to catch the ammo. There is also a nice thing where the larger and emotionally scarier the alien fleet are they are actually easier to blow up then because of the cool chain reaction mechanic. Plus you throw in coin collecting--I mean who doesn't like collecting coins right? Overall a really great use of the theme and a great entry in general. Congrats!
Really cool! I enjoyed rolling through the tutorial and then checking out some of the user made levels. I tried designing one but right when I was about to finish it crashed! :(
Most of the levels seem way to easy to win so far. Way to implement online level sharing and rating though--that is pretty crazy.
@Pekuja: putt-putt is just another name for mini-golf.
Pretty fun. I don't understand why I can "cheat" by going into the walls. Seems that makes it far less hard. I enjoyed the graphics and levels in this though.
Haha very funny entry! Longest I managed to last after a few attempts was 45 seconds. The sound effects had me cracking up as I played. I also liked the basic and simple concept for the game. Seems there are a few issues of trying to click on the "chompers" in the beginning and you only ever have to really click on one. I also couldn't find a way to always reliably swivel the enemy around. The enemies look like electron microscope blood cells or something.
Nice entry for you first LD! I like that you worked all the aspects of dialog in and the repulsor/attractor thing was fun too. I found it a bit hard to play though and the controls / tuning is a bit off still. Understandably because of the compo time limit of course. You have a good foundation here though.
I like your take on the tower defense genre! My only complaint is that it was paced a bit too slow to hold my interest long term. I did beat the first level and almost made it through the second level but I started nodding off and doing other tasks because it would seem that not enough was happening. I had a few creatures under my control that were keeping the enemies from being able to come out the small tree hole so there wasn't much for me to do. I'm sure with more tuning and balancing this could be a pretty fun strategy game. I enjoyed the funny story and graphics too!
Couldn't really get around the non-standard controls. Why so weird? Anyway the graphics were nice but everytime I'd pick up an enemy it would really slow down and glitch out a bunch. I like the basic concept but it just wasn't that playable unfortunately.
Haha pretty funny and simple concept. Would've been harder without the color coding though since that is all you should really watch for in that case. Still I played this simple game about 6 times. Never could score over 40 though just a bit too slow I guess. Polish level is pretty high. Not sure exactly how well it fits the theme though. I guess you're sending the bad words back to where they came from?
Have no idea what a 'megaman-load move' is when you glow. Managed to fire a yellow star out once but had no clue how. I ran around a bit and jumped on some dudes and threw them but I couldn't ever get past the second shooter guy. If you fall in the pit it also seems like game over. I did enjoy the graphics and playing as that weird groenig looking head.
Fun beginning to a bullet hell. Nice that I can collect my enemies and fire them back. I definitely laughed when the message displayed once your boss appeared...
Nice job.. I managed to escape while only dieing a few times. I'm glad you coded checkpoints in!
I like when games use the mechanic of "shrink with damage" because it has that natural side-effect of making the player tougher to catch when they are at their weakest. Visually the glow filters were a bit over the top but I appreciated some of the abstract enemies and the mini-map.
HAHA really fun little game. Dug the concept and the music a lot. A bunch of cool things going on in this game. I like the arcade platformer aspect combined with chain reaction and physics games. Plus there is a fun skill component on shooting the heads into the basket. Excellent work!
I read the instructions a few times between plays and still couldn't figure out how to really do anything. Once in a while the red blobs would die but I never found any 'blade enemy' or 'bombs' to throw. The graphics are nice but I wasn't able to find much game here unfortunately.
I tried playing this like 6 times but could never get very far. It is very difficult and the controls seem just a little odd and counter-intuitive. I do appreciate the effort you put into trying to make a little puzzler platformer but it just suffers from too little tuning and usability with this version. Seems the collision detection is really sensitive and I'd frustratingly die against things when I attempted to drop them. I would be good if you had levels that would lead you into this compo level eventually once you had mastered some of the skills.
This game gets really interesting around wave 4 or so. That is when some fun strategies are left for the player to figure out that make this different than most "hold trigger" strategies. It is cool that you then have to be aware of dodging what you destroy and I like that a lot. Watching the bits spiral down is fun and I liked the sound effects too. Great job on a solid entry. I will say that I find your connection to the theme a bit tentative in my opinion but I guess I do see how you interpreted it.
Your game unfortunately didn't work under windows XP. "application error" attempt to read memory that can't be referenced.
This was great! Very funny and I love that you put yourself animated into your own game as both protagonist and the zombies! The music, sound effects, and graphics cracked me up in a good way. The game was fun enough too but a bit too easy in the long run. I made it pretty far though.
Fun and polished little entry. Found my biggest problem was not being able to comprehend how to aim correctly when I had a ship stuck to my butt. Couldn't wrap my head around that. A lot of fun though when you had a few enemies stuck to you and you could groove out to the chiptune and destroy them. Nice effort!
Could only play the web version of this and it seemed to move in slow motion? My little dude ran around just fine but the turrets spun so slowly as to make it no fun. Tough to tell if this was how it was supposed to be or not. Managed to get the turrets to fire on a few of their buddies but with it taking 30 seconds for them to spin 360 it is a bit too slow to keep my attention.
Actually pretty fun. I played a few times and died until I got the hang of it and killed them all. It is often simple little games like this that I find the most fun. Liked the fake 1982 copyright date too.
Fun concept. Gets boring too fast since the enemies don't end up doing much after awhile. I played till like 5k points to see but they don't start moving or have any new ones appear.
Really like the physics in this one though and it is cool to get an enemy swinging around like a psycho morning star.
Would be fun if developed further.
I really couldn't figure out what to do even after a couple of playthroughs. Really a shame because I liked the look of the game and the concept of ammo and health as the depleting heart. I just couldn't seem to control it very well or figure out how to collect more heart power.
81 seconds!
I have NO idea what is happening with this game but I enjoyed the apple 2e / archon style graphics. I basically mashed the fire key and once in awhile some kinda mini-enemy stuck to me and did stuff. Would probably be a lot more fun if I could decipher what the heck I was supposed to do or what health level the other enemies were at.
What a perfectly literal use of the theme! Good effort here on this one. The graphics are pretty decent and the game is fun. I played on difficulty 1 to get acquainted and then 3 for some challenge. Nice job!
That was actually pretty fun! I've never quite played a "shooter puzzler" before and had a good time. Obviously the graphics need some help as well as the few issues with the corner physics but a really solid concept that entertained me pretty good.
Pretty cool and fun idea. I like the story elements that are dropped in over time via the notes. I played for quite awhile but didn't reach the end because of a bug that happened with some floating gas bag enemies that made my character disappear and even the force R respawn wouldn't work and my flashlight was stuck on.
I also found the enemies respawned way too quickly and the easy respawn of my player upon death made death meaningless and the swarms of enemies frustrating more than scary. If I would change anything it would be this risk/reward and enemy spawn rate... it really kills the mood when you send a scorpion enemy into a spike wall only to have them reappear within a second and kill you.
Seemed a little slow going but once I got to four enemies on screen it became more fun. I felt like I wanted a little bit more to be happening but it was a decent game. There was a nice tension when your health got low to dodging the enemy bullets so as to get the health drop.
Interesting concept but it is too tough for me to really manage all the variables and controls as is to have much fun. I enjoyed the strange creatures that stream at you and eventually figured out how to make some other colors by shooting through other enemies.
Whoa.. the sound effects are really intense! :)
I really like the visual style of your art on this entry. Too bad the game is still pretty incomplete and quite scattered. I ran around the cavern a bunch getting swarmed by the big robots and avoiding their huge bombs but in the end I'm not even sure I killed any of them. I like the Metroid like main character and your recursive enemy acronym. :) Congrats on your first LD! Thanks for keeping such an exhaustive journal too. :)
I played this for over an hour trying to get the last pesky race! I managed to find all the others and it was strangely quite enjoyable and pleasurable to do so. I enjoy all the discovery involved as you try to setup the environment to encourage the positive interactions that will lead to new creatures. Definitely enjoyed the music and the graphic styling of this game. I can't believe how long I played this so congrats on that! ;)
Very amusing little game.. definitely had a lot of fun with the lava mechanic. It was fun to watch it blob around too. Nice job also on creating so many levels as well as a very nice learning curve and level progression. I will say that unfortunately I was unable to win the 'finale' level... I tried like 5 times and the closest I got after adjusting my strategy was down to 2 last dwarf pirates and I accidentally blew myself up! Nice work!
Controls were challenging to me so I only was able to ever make it to Level 2 / 800 points high. Found the screen shaking a little bit too much as it was way too disorienting. Like the graphic palette and the variety of creatures and cave objects. I wish I could control the ship a little better to get to some of those toughly placed hearts. Solid little arcadey game though and fun for a few go rounds for sure. Love the music too!
Great atmosphere and concept. I enjoyed the music too. Visually the game is very nice and I like the glowing effect around the main character. It is fun to burn through the snow to reach the sunstones. I would like to play an expanded version with more gameplay and goals but this is a great prototype of the concept. Nice work!
Enjoyed the look of your line graphics. I even got to sort of like the strange off-center rotation. I made it to the end only dieing once but almost bailed early because I thought it might have looped actually as it was taking so long. Likely I was just getting bored because of lack of further game content ( I read about your time limit / collision detection woes... believe me I've been there too where you blow most of an LD on some tech related bug or problem.. heh, anyway congrats on getting something playable submitted! ) I enjoyed your music too and it was interesting enough to keep me entertained while I flew through the cavern. Nice journal and I found your photo of your 'Smell My Nuts' candle quite amusing...
I escaped with 54 deaths! I'm just happy I beat it! :)
Really fun and actually just difficult enough for me but didn't cross over my personal threshold of quitting. The controls were a tad slippery but I was able to manage. I have lost so many platforming chops over the years that I often can't play these very well though I do find them fun. I'm glad this one I could defeat eventually. Some really great timing puzzles that you did a good job of signaling them so one could intuitively get the timing right so congrats on that subtle effect. I really like the double jump and the trampolines. I found the olive drab aesthetic a nice look and enjoyed how that balanced the bright colors of the protagonist. Many only complaint is that it was too short.. :) Oh, also I totally didn't see the spike floor tile as dangerous... just seemed to blend in with the walls a tad too much for a quick danger read. Excellent job for 1 day.
Well.. that was bizarre. I couldn't seem to shoot any of the zombie birds. I eventually used some ceiling bits to kill them I think but then ammo crates wouldn't appear again so I never had enough ammo. Played a few times but it just seems a bit broken / unpolished base-mechanic wise. It looks like it could be a humorously fun little game though. It is fun playing a gun wielding (hamster?)
Enjoyed the odd visual style of this game. Was confused on whether I was supposed to be blowing up the radioactive cans at first. I thought it might be 'good' that my rads and the screen colors where brightening.. like leading to a cool power up. Seems I was wrong on level 1 anyway. Really like the odd rectangle background effect algorithm you did as your character moves around. Like the in game music a lot too.
1700 points, 332 meters..
Never figured out how to juggle bats.. but I could kill them and get hurt by them.
Really like the visual treatment on this game and it is simple and fun to play. Feels like the excitement doesn't really ramp up at all after a minute or two it starts to get a little boring. This would be fun to see a post-compo version where there is a bit more going on as this is a great basis for a simple little arcadey game.
Caveroids!
Love this simple concept. Fun and easy to play. I didn't even realize I could shoot the caverns. After that it got a bit easier. I'd love to be provided a bit more framework or some online highscores to give me a little more motivation to keep playing but very fun indeed. Like the look and feel of this one. Great idea and good execution.
The most fun I had was the 'You Win' screen..! Traveling around there by shooting the not-cheese was so much fun. I'd totally love to play a game that explored your fine non-cheesy particle engine further.
Hmmm.. I got 7/8 scientists... and saw the 8th scientist after much searching.. but for some reason he was on the other side of a channel that was far to narrow.. damn! ;)
Some things that would have made this easier besides the slight control adjustments would be a scientist beacon radar to help with locating the little brainiacs. Also, perhaps a shadow of your blades spinning so you have a better sense of how wide your chopper is?
Fairly fun game as I played it 4 or 5 times trying to get better with the controls and attempting to actually rescue them.
Not really a cavern though... more like a canyon. ;)
Crazy experience. I like how one of the special powers let my sprite face both ways! That made me laugh pretty good. I actually really enjoyed this. It kept changing and the style of the game was so strange that it kept me interested. The music loop became really annoying since it was only like a 2 second loop near the end. I beat the game "without relying on the other relics" whatever that means. ;)
I found the sacred button!! Sweet! ;)
Nice start here. I liked the style of the graphics and who doesn't like picking up piles of gold right? The damn door opening noise scared the hell out of me the first time though heh. Too bad you didn't get monsters in in time.
I had a good bit of fun beating this bomb puzzle game. I really liked the puzzles you came up with given your somewhat simple constraints. Very nice work. Give it some quicker player movement perhaps when walking around to make it not drag so bad. One aspect of slow player is the tension as you try to get away from your own bomb. I guess with a quicker player you could just shorten that fuse time... ;)
Really awesome game! Somehow I had missed this entry but better late than never... ;)
Firstly, I totally love the sound design and music on this one. Excellent work coming up with such great stuff during the weekend as it made the game a ton better.
Secondly, great concept. Despite the obvious absurdities present I am able to suspend my disbelief and work towards the goal of hoarding supplies and entertainment whilst avoiding a rain of terror from above.
I wish the keyboard worked a tad smoother as I often ran into slight quirks that would get me nuked. Also, great job creating a tutorial and leaderboards but I never did figure out what the weird black gear like things were. I figure the shiny circles where CDs or DVDs to help with the sanity meter. I also wasn't sure what the box with 'Ri' on it was. Seems I could eat that like food for energy.
Great work and I also enjoyed your comprehensive journal!
Whoa... I really liked this game for some odd reason. I mean, I almost gave up after the first two failures I had to really 'get it'. Then I realized that with no time pressure I could carefully construct a safe ladder extraction network to get at those pesky treasures. This was when it ended up getting really fun. The strategy and decisions involved in how to take it easy and not risk too much too soon. Watching weight and inventory as well. I had a lot of fun creating a ladder super structure. Very nice touch on making the tones of the color cooler as you go deeper into the ground. Seems like this would have been better for the theme 'Mining' or 'Burrowing' as it is more that then 'Caverns'. Great work on creating a fairly balanced system and strategy game within the 48hr period. I found it very fun!
Great little explorer game here. I enjoyed the way you handled the style and story/level elements in this. I am not sure I caught 100% of the text but definitely jumped a little even though I was pretty sure something 'bad' was about to happen. The site of all those eyes will haunt my digital self for quite some time... ;) The cavern design is really fun and interesting too and I love the wiggly flashlight and the following eyeballs.
Pretty fun. I was happily going along and was trying to figure out how to rest or heal... and hitting 'R' totally reset my game.. arg! ;)
Well, definitely enjoyed the little touches and flavor text you put in this. I really liked the simple fade out that happens as you descend a level. Nice job creating this little rogue-like. Also, love your entry description text above... very funny.
PS: On your comments on my game you mention an 'I, DUNGEON' joke. Can you edit your comment on my game to provide explanation or link or something because I am not familiar with the reference and google has not provided me anything definitive. :)
EDIT: Thanks for explaining the reference! :)
Very fun little game. I had a good time playing this through a couple times. I may have to go watch your walkthru video again to see some tricks as I could never really sort out the right strategy for using the ladder packs in a way that wasn't really awkward or leave me trapped anyway. Awesome graphics and sound as far as the wrapper goes. I actually don't think this is very like Spelunky though I know you seem to be getting those comments here which I guess is understandable. I also can't believe you made two games... and a whale poster (though I think it is a whale shark...) ;)
I was pleasantly surprised when I finally realized how to solve the first shark puzzle. Seems I was encountering a massive riptide though that kept sucking the skeleton and myself along too rapidly leading me to not be able to advance past the triple tentacle room which is a shame.
I really like the graphic style of the walls of the cavern.
The one sound effect definitely startled me as I figured there wasn't any sound... ;)
Nice journal too!
Great style to this game. I had a lot of fun exploring and winning this game. I'm glad you managed to put so much content in level and character wise. It would have been more easy to get turned around if it weren't for all the nice touches you added to the environment like the various dialogues for the penguins and different drips and mushrooms etc. The levels themselves were pretty and interestingly designed. It was just about the right length too for a 'find the key' game to keep my interest and ended just when I thought it should. Enjoyed this a lot, congrats.
I started outside the 'cave' and had to use your W-A trick just to get inside. I saw one enemy who I ran into for fun to see what would happen. Turns out the enemy disappears. I then walked slowly down a long hall until I got bored and then used the wall hack trick to truck it inwards a little. I unfortunately found little player motivation to continue as the music did not afford me the vibe to linger... ;)
I have made Cavern Station safe for my Killbot babies!! :)
I spent $43,700 along the way towards defeating level 5.
Man, nice and strange game. I really liked it. It took a bit to get used to the movement/command controls and the camera controls but at some point I 'got it' and it was really fun to keep quickly outflanking the enemy positions and wiping them out.
Enjoyed the simplistic but elegant graphics and beam weapons as well as the great and simple sound effects. Level 5 battle was sufficiently exciting and tough with the 3 simultaneous enemy tanks!
I'm impressed you managed to get an upgrade system bolted in place that seems fairly balanced too! Nice work man and good luck on making a more in depth sponsor-able version of this!
Messed around with this for a little bit. As someone mentioned I was getting a ton of anomalous collisions even when there were no 'cavern bits' on the screen. My little character would just suddenly go winging it somewhere or fly off screen. Hitting 'l' for random level seemed to drop too many pieces so that my character got tangled amongst them. One thing that was fun and looked cool was the main character. I did like the little feet moving back and forth and his physics felt fun to move about. Would obviously be more interesting with an actual goal or game of course. ;)
Fun game and concept. I think if anything it is just suffering a bit from a lack of clear communication to the player about how the water is flowing and what dangers it represents (depth levels etc). I took me about 10 or more minutes before I finally started seeing the differences between the deeper blue water and the lighter safe waters. Once I learned how to navigate and correctly read the water the game became a lot more fun messing around with relative displacements of space and dirt as well as strategically using a bomb. A mechanic I love is that you can use the bomb to stop water following you but it comes at the cost of creating an impenetrable wall after the fact. That is a very nice touch. It lets the player use as many bombs as they want but they have to understand what they are doing or they may trap themselves.
I was able to play and beat about 6 of 9 levels. I started getting a little fatigued with a bunch of deaths on level 6 or 7 or so.
Solid entry though!
I made it to the end! I must admit the opportunity to see a 'secret message' kept me somewhat more motivated... ;)
As quirky as the games control related physics (odd jumping, pesky collision / character bumping on the ground plane) were I was able to get used to it and win. I would sometimes lose a heart life though when no reapers were coming at me. The little flying books just seemed there for show I guess as well. I enjoyed the strange music and the instructions story was interesting to me regarding the premise of your game. Nice journal too!
As an old fan of the Indiana Jones Temple of Doom game I always have a soft spot in my heart for a good mineshaft train race game. That said it is too bad you didn't have time to make the 4 levels longer but I understand the limits of 2 days very well indeed... ;)
Nice implementation of the track tiles and switching. Seems to play fairly smoothly too. Maybe realease a post-compo train pack with longer levels? :)
Wow.. it took me a few tries (maybe 5 or 6) until I didn't die within like 20 seconds.. but eventually I managed to last almost 2 minutes and was getting near the exit (or whatever the glowing light was.) Great atmosphere and tension in this game. I really like that you eventually learn to keep looking up and down for slime and traps. I also like the strange foreboding threat of the invisible creatures coming and the listed distance to the threat.
I felt like my last time playing I didn't really know what killed me... I think it was slime but I'm not sure.
Great job though. The flashlight rendering was really great looking. I felt that the controls where a little quick mouse-look wise but I guess I could have adjusted my own mouse perhaps. Excellent work. Good journal too and definitely spot on for theme!
Great to see and finally play your finished compo version of this. I know I played the build versions a lot during the actually compo and it is nice to see where you took it!
I played a couple times in timed mode and then had a blast playing in 'free ride' mode racking up the combos.
Just a great look and a lot of polish went into this so big props for that. It is also really easy to control and just fun to play around with. The cavern is varied and the colors are nice. I like the 'up' tricks complexity and that you need to make sure you are using it on a high jump. Excellent work! Also, your entry (and a few others using Unity) are starting to make me curious about Unity as you 3d Unity peeps are finally getting some gameplay into what are typically good looking but non-fun entries. So, congrats on continuing to drive the LD arms race... ;)
I like the art style. Of course flying around one tiny screen isn't fun for very long. I did manage to try to hit every plant though. :) Wish you had more time for actually levels as it looks like a very promising platform.
EDIT: Tried your level expansion.. fun to see a larger area to explore! I like the 'dirt' texture that says so. Also... that blurry (parallax?) background is subtle and nice. I couldn't tell for certain that there was depth planes there but it certainly appeared so.
I played this pretty darn far. Really enjoyed the funny intro and all the other thematic bits that went into this game. The cheesy one liners were fun and I like that the games style is very self consistent. I didn't really like how everything moved so slowly though. I felt like I was playing at half speed. Also, the spike pit collision was really unforgiving near the edges. Nice level design and level content work for 48 hrs though!
Fairly amusing little game. I like that if you die the level is random and a little different each time.
The first time you play it is a little disconcerting that basically a big FAIL screen appears because you have little way of knowing that a dinosaur is going to appear right where you are before you can even identify that you are a mole rat. I also found it strange that I was being killed by mushrooms as for some reason I wasn't expecting that mechanic and it took me a little to figure out why I was getting FAIL screens away from boulders or dinos.
I eventually walled myself in accidentally on like level 8 or 9 and the spacebar didn't seem to work to restart the level.
Seemed a bit easy to figure out the basic strategy being to quickly cut off the dino path, harvest all mushrooms, then make a hole in path to let dinos come after you while the mole rat doubles back to the now free entrance. I feel like that strategy makes the game less fun once you discover that. Perhaps there should be a way that the dinos can slowly bore a path too so that the player can't tarry long? I feel that would ratchet up the tension perhaps and add some more kick to the gameplay if you couldn't just take your time. If you use different antagonists then dinos (perhaps something that could bore through the boulders) that would lead to more exciting gameplay.
Enjoyed the music and the graphics. High humor points for your choice of wrapper. It seems though that you thought the theme that won was Burrowing... ;)
Well.. collected all the gold but didn't notice anything happen. Controls seem almost perfect except for interacting with the ladders. Those seem really touchy and only worked for me if I was very careful about only holding up-arrow if trying to jump onto one to climb up.
I like the old school amiga style pixel graphics and palette choices. Just wish there was a bit more game in here as it is a pretty solid platformer.
Whoa.. bizarre game and ecosystem. Quite imaginative. I must confess I tried to play without reading anything and was hopelessly lost. I then carefully read your text and still utterly failed to catch Brinie. It seems itdid the exact opposite of what I wanted. I placed the repellents and I swear Brinie moved towards them. The game also started to bog really badly after a couple minutes because of all the Grags spawning. I have a pretty beefy desktop too so I imagine people with less modern rigs may have some serious performance issues with this game.
Great little game idea here just seems like it needs a bit more polishing and perhaps a bit more accessibility. I really laughed at your description of the 4 elements that combine to form the beauty of a Brinie..!
Pretty fun puzzle mechanics hiding under the rough graphics and horrendous sounds.. ;)
Once I sussed out how one could use both boulders AND the tank to cover the monster holes it began to make sense. When I finished the first (and only?) level I was hoping there would be another one that I could try my new blue-dot harvesting chops on. :)
Controls were a bit unreliable and frustrating too combined with a somewhat touchy collision system.
I enjoyed watching your paper-design mockups in your journal. One of my friends does board game design and I definitely showed him your paper mockups... :)
Would be great to see a version of this that had way better sound and graphics. I had also loved the ol Blaster Master mechanic of fragile dude riding in mega tank... and the hopping in and out. Would be fun if you perhaps introduced some weapons though that would obviously have to be done very carefully within the puzzle context. Nice gem hiding here in some major rough stone...
Creative and visually stimulating entry. I really enjoyed the feeling I got while playing this. The music and strange surreal encounters with humorous text made if fun to explore a few times and try to escape whilst ponder what I was and why I was there... ;)
For some reason the game never loads more than like 10% on my screen. I like the look of the graphics from your screenshot.
The ideas and mechanics here are really cool. I liked the ahah moment when I realized how to lure the spiders carefully to new patterns. What ended me eventual was just the brutal difficulty still. I think with more playtesting and balancing you have a great little puzzle/action game here. I like the colors and graphic stylings too.
Wow.. it took me a long time to realize you could move diagonal. I got to about half way through the map and had hit a dead end because of not being able to move on diagonals. After sitting there for a bit looking all around for some reason I decided to try it and it worked! I guess there is only one level? The game just seemed to end. Anyway, I certainly played my share of ASCII games like ZZT that I have a good place in my heart for these games. I never played Kroz but this seems similar to the style I remember. It is interesting that your score is also your life meter in a way. Fairly fun.
Oh man.. I checked this out but no one was playing it... I remember you talking about this game in the irc channel. Maybe post-compo you can make a post or check in the irc channel for some people to play. Since I know we chatted about games like 'mafia' and 'the village' (aka werewolf) which I do like to play I wanted to see how this might work virtually.
I won! Took me a bit to figure out there was a double jump. Like the look and feel of the graphics and the colors you picked. Controls and physics seem to work nicely. Just lacking a lot of gameplay and excitement still to make this really fun. You can navigate the level but it is too slow paced and easy still to provide much challenge yet. Great foundation though!
Pretty fun and tense little arcade game. I find it disturbing yet compelling how all the tiles jiggle like some demonic dirty jello.
Wish it had leaderboards but anyway my first run I got 502 and my second 690.
Does the dude always die at the end? Fairly morbid... ;)
Oh and I see others talking about the Advancing Wall of Doom. Well, at least it still feels like running through a collapsing cavern too but you definitely should of been in that LD14 with this... :)
I descended to level 16 and killed 16 invisible cave monsters!
Really like the direction this was heading in. The steam and fuel concept is fun and the caverns are great to explore. Just needed a bit more final game put into it. The graphics are simple but cool.
I like the contrast between the level art style and the main characters style. Seems like a great start, obviously it is just very short. When it starts to become intriguing it is over. :) Great look and feel work (game and UI.)
Great looking game. Very hard for me though. I couldn't even make it past level two because of those damn cat bats being so vicious. Visually looks really great. Controls seem pretty decent as well as the platforming physics. I couldn't really grasp most of the advanced control moves and attacks. Great work for 48hrs!
Wow.. this entry is brilliant. Glad I found it with 4 minutes left in the voting time limit! I love so many things about this game. The strange world you create. The awesome recursive / zoom feeling of level progression. The mechanic of digging speed versus open running speed.
I feel the biggest thing holding this back right now is a little bit frustrating switching between digging and running when you are trying to really book it away from the bad guys. I got really far in this game and in the end gave up because I could find what must have been like 1 gold pellet left.
I actually felt really fear and tension on some of these levels and that is impressive as they were frickin dots chasing me to congrats to you on compelling game play! :)
Would love to see a future version of this for sure. Awesome work and quite imaginative!
EDIT: Oh.. I didn't know you could zoom!!! I wonder if that would have helped me... must play again.
I like your creative and humorous take on the theme as well as the interesting control scheme you used (WASD + Cursors). I find the meta-implications stunning that a miniature sally is exploring her own cavern whilst completely inside her own cavern... I applaud the use of this sexual recursion. ;)
High innovation marks from me as well as this was a really unique look to a flying game. I played this a bunch to try and climb the leaderboards a bit. The music provides a nice calming atmospheric as you weave around trying to collect those pesky crystals and avoid deadends and tight spots. Really quite enjoyable, great work!
I am not sure how cavern like this game seems. I also couldn't find any journal entries from you whatsoever (not that that is a requirement but I just like to see a little bit about a game submitted to LD even if it is one post.)
I like the snail protagonist and the levels seem well designed mostly. I had to give up on the level with 4 or 5 vertical spike walls and a long line of double jump arrows as it was just too difficult for me to complete after many attempts. The music was OK but didn't seem to fit perfectly. Collision detection seemed a tad unforgiving on horizontal hits to the spike ceilings. Also, couldn't really read your text at all. Controls seemed well tuned.
Awesome game. So simple yet a lot of very elegant mechanics going on here. Highest score I attained was 1991. I played a bunch of times as it was quite easy to play again and had a quick pace. The minimal graphics are great too. I enjoy the amount of tension this game packs into it's simple concept too. The balance of picking up new Fu, watching your Fu-meter, and attacking the bears is all really compelling. I wish you had done at least one journal entry though just to hear from you a bit! :)
Very pretty little explorer-platformer. I was trucking along for a bit and starting to think that not much was really gonna change but I was having fun with your well balanced platformer controls when I saw the broken signpost and was like.. oh! Something new. Then it got really creepy in that huge chamber with all the other beings in the walls. That was awesome. Then it just sorta ended.
Anyway, seems like a great engine and I loved the art style and color variations. You should definitely add some other stuff or goals even if you keep it an explorer I guess make there be some kind of point or story to what is going on.
I had a great time playing this.. very stressful to near the end with the time limit running out! I had no idea how near I was but I had managed to upgrade my flashlight like 3-4 times. I loved the flashlight powerup concept. The graphic style was done very well and the controls, movements, and powerups were nicely done as well. There were a variety of hazards and obstacles to overcome using the various powerups as well. Great job and congrats on your first LD!
Very tough game. I wish the save points were a little more frequent as it grew too frustrating for me to continue. I did play for awhile on level one but only got to the shaft after you talked about "IWTBTG" and "have most things implemented" I died on the spikes I didn't know were coming at the bottom of that shaft and respawned way back by that rat and I just couldn't go through how many deaths it took me to get to the top so many times again... :)
Nice music, interesting style to the look and feel. Controls and physics need some work to make this platformer shine though. Congrats on your first LD though!
I didn't find this that hard compared to a lot of commenters here. I also have never played 'N' or 'N+' so I'm not sure of the comparisons others are drawing. I really liked this game a lot though and had a lot of fun playing it. I had to finish it on my first play through and I was successful. I also felt that you had made some really cool levels that did in fact make use of the mechanic quite a bit. I found a lot of simple joy in toggling the layer as I scaled certain areas to collect the gold coins. I really liked the visual colors too though I agree with some other comments that slightly transparent layers would have made some of the toggling strategies easier to see but perhaps may have made it to easy as I enjoyed the 'leaps of faith' I often had to make to find my way to some of the harder coins. Final score 5550. Excellent job on this!
I think if you gave more feedback on how one 'attacks' with the little creatures as well as what is the point of using each one that it would be a lot more fun. At this point it seems you can just sorta quickly run over to the enemy hut and mash attack and it dies and you win. Hopping into air helps eliminate sand burn during this attack too. I realize of course we all come up against the 48hr limit.. but in case you work on this further I think it has a lot of promise but as is it is entirely too easy to be much fun. I love the graphics and the music. I love the weird little creatures you've created and the happy advice giver creature. I just have found no need to ever take crystals back to the crystal center in its current balance. Definitely post if you have a new version and congrats on your first LD submission!
Was totally lost game/money wise until I read these comments and gathered that you should set the traps further down into the caverns. Once you do that you see net-positive returns on your trap investment... ;)
Bizarre and disturbing premise but original nonetheless. Of course it has definite balance issues which is often to be expected from a 48hr compo. I like the simple graphics and the music. I'm looking forward to playing your newer version to see what you did with the concept given more time.
Love the main character.. reminds me of something Don Hertzfeldt would create. I also like the concept of exploding puke balls. I couldn't really find much of a game here though so I got a bit bored before I found the cake. Maybe you shouldn't have told me ahead of time that I couldn't eat it... remember, the cake is a lie-- not the truth. ;)
Congrats on your first LD and thanks for keeping a great journal!
I tried to get the strange red mushrooms, green mushrooms and green shrubs from your screenshot above.. but alas was not able to. I must have missed something. Anyway, too bad you hadn't had time to add more to your ecosystem and this game. I generally like sandbox sims and the lumplings or whatever were cute to watch move around. I liked the few times the game surprised me when the first spider appeared.. and flies.. wondering what the things would do etc. In the end it got pretty boring because I couldn't make it advance past blue mushrooms. I did get up to like 5 lumplings though.
Nice 3d start to a game. As is there isn't much to keep me interested for long game play or pacing wise unfortunately. I did kill a few little blue cave trolls in anger though first. ;) Was there a way to zoom in like your screen shots? I really did like the 3d models you made!
This concept is hilarious and very original. I enjoyed this game a good bit and found it pretty challenging. One thing that would have made this a TON better would be to simply support left and right keys or A/D or something as having it be having to hold x to walk was mind numbingly frustrating to me for some reason.
The backstory was amusing, the graphics were quite polished and the sounds fit well.
I think the game will need a few more elements, tensions and challenged to stay fun longer then a minute or two though. I got fairly far and did have a bit of fun though.
Congrats on your first Ludum Dare too!! :)
Compo version is surprisingly fun despite the tricky control physics. The simple graphics work well. The cavern is interesting to explore. The economy of the system is fun to exploit and upgrade. I think I'll give your post-compo version a try now to see what you changed based on feedback. Well done on the combination of mechanics you did here! Oh yeah, congrats on your first LD too! (Nice.. post-compo version is nicely done too!)
Well.. I did manage to slowly dig my moles halfway through the dirt in the middle. I got a application crash though just when I thought I might actually bore through and fight the other evil moles. As you noted the interface and pacing of the game is quite slow in this version so it is tough to stay engaged and get the fun elements of strategy or battle especially when it seems it will take at least 10 minutes for me to command my moles through the dirt. I did my best but the game crashed after 5 minutes and I don't think I'm gonna be going back unfortunately. Congrats though on your first LD! :)
I played this more times then is clearly healthy given the punitive cost of having to restart all the way back after 3 deaths. The bizarre "story" definitely kept me wondering where the heck this surreal adventure would lead. In the end I only made it as far as the 2 spinning broom girls. I was defeated and tried a bunch more but never made it back there before my patience finally waned. Nice style and background music. The odd physics of the narwhal started to grow on my after a little bit too.
Great atmosphere and emotional touches with providing the cavern's perspective on the 'children' being stolen. I had a fun time playing this through a couple times. Liked the music and your take on the Cavern theme. I picked a similar theme idea for mine in that the player plays as the cavern. I enjoy seeing how even with that premise we both explored very different aspects of that concept. Like the area of effect of the big stalactites. Gives a bonus for waiting all that time. It is tricky to aim that high and it seems rather geared in the humans favor but perhaps that is just sad but true commentary on life? ;)
Very well made! Such an elegant idea and execution combined with tasteful graphics and a nice lighting effect lead to a really engaging game. Your attention is so focused oo the beacon and the ledges you are jumping from that it is quite riveting. I jumped in my chair many times as I failed to make a certain leap or caused a mistake. The controls were great and the ledge grab was awesome. I'm not sure how far I made it but I did have to give up before the end because there was this one really long level I just could not beat. I got SO close one time... I will likely play the updated version you did later on to experience your changes based on the feedback you've been getting. Once again, excellent work!
I killed a few dwarves and doom slimes and played a couple times. I wasn't sure if I would ever encounter actual stairs to fulfill the prophecy of the game's title. I wish I had player hit points readout so I knew where I stood run/fight wise. Nice to implement the vision code like that. This game reminded me of old school Ultima games. The music seemed nice but was mixed REALLY low compared to the sound effects.
Really stylish and cool game. I found it pretty difficult in the beginning but I know 48hrs doesn't leave a ton of time for play testing. I eventually did well enough to post on OK score. I like how the time limit was there but didn't end your game, just the level you were on and the points your were trying to achieve. The graphics were fun and I enjoyed the strange music. Great job!
I actually really like this idea. There are a few really cool mechanics here. One, it is fun to shoot the cavern and drop blocks on the dino heads. Two, if you get stuck behind a tall tower you just shoot more rocks to build a jump platform to get over it and advance.
If you managed to make it less random and less fast (those dinos really move!) as well as not letting the dinos run right through the block walls... it could be a lot of fun as there is a nice base here.
I also like the funny art. The back story of your game is pretty funny too. Congrats on your first LD and for keeping a great journal!
This was actually a good bit of fun and held my interest until the end. I managed to escape with all 3 scientists.
I like how the first time the game started I went straight up and it was like 'You win!' but luckily told me I had left 3 of my buds behind. I then played again and beat it without dying (though I only had 1 heart left.)
I really love how you can go really fast if you want to just fly around the level. Also, the controls felt really great and balanced to me. I also feel that you correctly tuned the turret and tank gunfire rate to be in a pleasing ratio to the player's movement abilities so that you can get into that schmup-like state of moving back and forth between the enemy bullets effectively dodging if you want.
I did find the players rate of fire a little excessive and ruined a bit of the fun by making it a tad to easy. Once I realized I could let out of stream of constant death it wasn't so hard.
I enjoyed the subtle ground layer where you have to use a grenade to advance. I also like the slight puzzle elements of realizing one has to blow up the slot machine/computer to open that force field.
Nice job... the main character is fun to watch and I liked the little smoke trails too! :)
Man... I got really far but then I clicked out of the screen and the game never fully restored after the Flixel pause menu thing!
I'm quite impressed at all the gadgets and AI stuff you got working with the little squad following you around, up / down ladders, shooting worms when you spook them with flares (love that touch by the way!) The marine sprites are excellent and all the little nice bonuses like shell casings and such. Great amount you got done despite what you mention in your post-mortem. Congrats on another fine entry even if it was a little light on deep gameplay... post-compo pack? :)
Whoa.. heh. Yeah, even after I read the instructions like 5 times the game is so abstract that it took me a second to figure it out. Once I got it the mechanic was fun and simple. The only thing lacking then of course was ramping up the challenge or excitement as after about 10 points in you start getting the motion down but the game doesn't really change. I know you only had 5 hours, but just saying. :)
Loved the sounds you picked...
Enjoyed playing this. Basic concept and quite fun. The wall of doom was quite sparkly. It seems a little odd to be snuffing the torches with my body in order to open the door but hey.. why not?
Liked the various drawings you did for the cut scenes, titles and endings.
I was wondering about the music as I liked it.. but I see you say you got that from somewhere else.. ah, too bad.
Like the wrapper of this game style wise, the color choices and graphics are nice.
Very fun game. I've played this a bunch which I can't really explain. The 'nog wobble is awesome! The buzz run is quite fun... I really wish you had added health restore pickups because it is pretty unfair in that last 1000meters to go or so when the rose boquets of death (or whatever they are) start coming fast and furious and you don't stand a chance. A lot of fun for sure! Played your post-compo version afterwards and had a lot of fun with that too. Congrats on creating probably the first humpty dumpty racer ever! :)
This game was a LOT of fun for me. I will definitely check out the improving version you posted because I want to play some more and I did run into a few bugs it seemed that you have probably fixed. I found the idea to be simple yet very fun. I see there are issues with the compo version on procedurally generating 'fair' levels. I often would get dead ended without appropriate amounts of bombs and the doom wall would get me. I like the rogue like feel with the average graphics. It had a lot of nice touches like the combat system and the walking/running/resting was neat. It made me laugh to watch the guy run/hop over pits and also made me laugh to see the bad guys fall in the pits. Nice work!
Game had some interesting ideas as others have noted. Would have liked to have a health bar as I had no idea how hurt my character was. Collision detection and physics could definitely use some tuning for fun.
Really like the colors of the wall,the rope, the enemies, and the hilarious way the main character walked.
I was hating life until I saw you allowed for adjusting mouse sensitivity.. thank you! ;)
Well, as I'm sure most people have been saying well done for pulling of a portal game in such limited time. I got stuck on level 3 or 4.. whatever one was 'putting it all together'.
With the original portal levels being so well done it is a tough bar to compare this game too so doing a Portal clone is likely both a blessing and a curse right?
In 48hrs you pulled of an impressive coding feat of doing the look and 3d graphics of portal as well as trying your best to get some decent levels in I imagine. I think what 48hrs doesn't allow for on this is getting the physics polished, a responsive control feel, and interesting and balanced level design that needs to be there for a game like this to really live up to the original.
As far as two things you made that at least changed it from being a complete portal clone that I like where the pushing walls of doom and the fact that a fall would kill you a lot worse.
I hope you don't think I'm belittling your effort.. just trying to think past the ZOMG Portal reaction and give you some honest developer thoughts and feedback on the game you submitted that's all!
Plus I dig what one other commenter here said about eating your brains for your coding skillz. ;)
I must admit that I was way too confused by how the lava worked to find this much fun. It seemed sometimes I could totally block it off by just putting some light blocks around the first dark block on the first lava wall. I enjoyed the weird music and sounds and the look of the game. I just wish it was clearer what to do or how I'm supposed to play. Without that knowledge I just didn't find it very fun yet. At least it was amusing to push sheep into the green and hear them go 'baaaah!' ;)
Love the fireball launch and then explosion streaks along with the sounds. That part was just really fun to shoot. Enjoyed watching the ice flow break up. I did read the readme file but I'm afraid that once the game began while I did have some fun shooting lots of things I never really felt like I knew what to do or what was going on. At some point I collected a burning bush and it also seemed that sometimes things I shot that were approaching would jump all over the place. Seems like you have an interesting base here but just need to refine the game play and make it clearer in-game what the player is supposed to do.
Weird game. Even after reading your instructions on how to play it seemed a little hard to understand. It seems I am often finding no way not to leave orphaned blocks behind because you can only shift blocks where blocks already exist and sometimes it clears out patterns I don't want it to clear out as I had other intentions for where I was dragging the block. I enjoy the smooth scroll of the pieces. This game needs finishing as right now it feels fairly incomplete. Interesting idea but I wish less was imaginary.
damn.. wish this was actually working and possible because I like other it seems have never played where main character is a strange turning wall of doom before and the thought is intriguing. :)
I didn't even realize there were instructions as it was so grainy on the title screen. So first time I played I didn't know about planting eggs for allies. Still made it to level 3. The visual style is quite interesting if white noise could be called a style.. ;) Having no idea what was going on and not having read instructions I enjoyed trying to piece together what the heck I was supposed to do. It became fairly obvious though through the gameplay so that is good. The only sound effects I could hear were occasional static hisses? Anyway, seems like a fairly interesting entry and kept my attention for a bit.
I got over 1000 points before I had to give my mouse hand and clicker finger a break. :)
Congrats on finishing a playable game in your first 48hrs. Seems after reading your post mortem you picked your goals and stuck to them fairly well. As noted it is a bit easy and low on the fun but you knew that. :)
I thought it moved a bit slowly for my taste and as others have pointed out there is low motivation to match numbers and not color. I did keep trying some various combinations to see if there were different bonus moves but not sure I saw anything.
I am not sure if I missed something but seems other commentors are saying it gets harder or changes? Anyway, I just was sitting there running on the right of the screen and jumping every other bullet till I got bored at like 8,000 points or so and committed suicide. :)
The graphics are really hilarious though and well done. Definitely has a great style. The running moron still has me chuckling when I think of his tongue wagging out.
Cool for your first flash game but as a standalone experience it is definitely lacking in the game play department at this point.
I messed around with this for quite sometime. I love these kind of simulation games. Neat idea. I couldn't get past 875 years of life though. Seemed I was unable to achieve a balance no matter what I'd do. Even if I was being good.. those damn yellow dots kept eating all the green before I could hunt them down and before it could grow back! ;) Also.. neat that is is on wonderfl. I have encountered a few programs up there and that site looks really interesting to check out!
It wasn't till I read the other feedback here that you could actually beat the boss that I went back and tried and finally figured it out! I was so confused.. hah. Anyway, fun little challenging boss battler / platformer. I enjoy the 3rd bosses hat sticker..! Nice work pulling off game play and graphics like this within the deadline. My only gripe is basically.. why the stick figure? It is clear you are capable of much more. ;) Nice work!
I have always had a thing for typing games so I gave this one a good go. Was a little boring but I did enjoy the colors you used and the wall of doom. I ran into a problem though during the later levels when some words started appearing up top that started with similar letters to words that were still near the bottom. It started fighting over focus and it got me killed. Like the words you picked to type as well. Wasn't too hard but was good to zone out to and type.
wow. I LOVE this game. There are so many elements to this that really rock my world. I can't wait to try the updated version! The screen shaking effect and whiteout as the beam gets near is so awesome for building atmosphere and tension. The robot is FUN to fly. I had no problems with the turrets whatsoever and didn't find them unfair like I noticed some others commenting on. If you just pulse up and down you can easily dodge the bullet from hitting your humans. The graphics are great for being little blocks. I got like 28000 some points my second go round. The first time through I didn't realize I could string humans together. Very nice and very fun. Congrats!
Very funny game. The cut scenes and the sounds are hilarious. I eventually got too frustrated during the chuck axe minigame.. best I got to was killing 4/5 ents before giving up.
The style is very good on this game as everything is quite funny and wiggly. I enjoyed your intro splash screen too. Good humor in this game.
I read the readme and I still really don't get what strategy this game is supposed to use. It doesn't provide enough feedback in my opinion for me to determine what strategies are good or bad.
I was able to brute force my way past level 1 but get annihilated on level 2. I then went back and played level 1 a bunch to try and determine how it works but I still can't figure it out.
I would love to read a writeup or watch a youtube video on how this game is supposed to work from someone who is good at it.
Seems like people have really enjoyed it so I want to know what I'm missing.
Music is nice and ambient. The graphics are well polished and fit. The background story adds a sufficient wrapper.
I'd love to do more with this mechanic for sure as it is quite enjoyable to sling the stars around. The sounds worked well to provide tangible feedback of damage vs not. The graphics are a lot of fun as well. As mentioned gameplay in current version grows quite tedious. I managed to play till the end of level 5 where the doom finally killed me. I think that you could add more variety in here and that would make it a lot more fun for sure. I like this drawing of arrows to control projectiles on the fly. Very fun.
I enjoyed the graphical style of the sprites. I enjoyed the various aspects to the play. It was very hard for me though and I played it about 5 times. The last time I finally got the missile charge (which looked really cool!) and shot the bosses shield down but got swarmed. :) Would be awesome to see this with sound a tiny little tuning of the control physics though often that is so personal preference. I just know if it was mine I'd want it a little different than the controls feel right now. Would love to hear some sounds and music. I would love a few different power ups or sometimes stronger gun. All in all an addicting yet frustrating (in good way) little game!
I think the idea is really great. In the end though it is just not balanced or fun enough to work yet. I like the dynamics you are attempting to play with and I think if you work at making it a lot less grueling you may have an interesting puzzle dynamic here that gets into the juggling or multi-tasking style of gameplay that is sometimes quite addicting.
Game looks really slick and plays fairly nice control wise. It is fairly monotonous though and not too much fun. I do like how you've timed the ramp and barrier placement pretty well to make all the jumps possible and with the tall and skinny view it helps the player tell what is coming. The graphics are nice as well so props on that. Not sure exactly what might make this more fun. Music would help a little. More variety or faster pace to some things. Maybe more challenges from the cops or an ability to shoot or drop a mine maybe? Just something to make it feel a little more engaging as it gets a little old too quickly.
Seems way too often the possible paths are just not there which really makes it not too fun for me. The pulsing gradients are hypnotic though so points for that. I think I never got higher than like 20-30 points before all options where closed to me and booooom.
EDIT: nice first flash attempt anyway.. hadn't realized that.
Quite innovative use of Tetris blocks. I played the first level for a really long time before finally giving up as it seemed to go on forever. Wasn't quite sure what the point was but as a lover of Tetris I had a blast playing this. I would often be so close to the foreground though that it became quite frustrating to try and place blocks because the mouse cursor wouldn't let me position them that close to the edge.
Great idea. Seems like it just needs more time to be finished.
Love the plush toys and the scripted actions.. that's a really nice bit a of polish for 2 days. The graphics are really cool to watch all the buildings go by and the fire at the bottom. Great humor in this game. I didn't do very well I'm afraid. I tried playing 3 times and got further each time but never saw the capsules everyone is talking about. It kept restarting me at very beginning and I can only do that so many times.. ;) Nice work though. I too would have loved to hear some sounds and music on this one but you had a ton of great content in there. Those puppets were awesome!
Fairly brutal game here.. the wall of lava is quite menacing though that is for sure. I had a bit of problems with the controls as I never quite managed to get the hang of them enough to perform more of the advanced wall scalings it seems would be required to escape. I often just used the 'death push' to get past the barriers so that was a nice bug (feature?). I think if the wall was slower moving I would have more fun with this. As is, it is too frustrating unfortunately.
Conway's game of slaughter? :)
I played this a few times and it is a very bizarre little game. I enjoyed the intro text, music, and sounds. The pixel art is fun though maybe a little blocky for my taste as I was trying to tell more what was going on.
After a couple plays and a couple different deaths 'skewered by soldier' and 'empire reduced by 10 corpses' or whatnot I still haven't quite grasped a good strategy yet.
I'd love to hear what your thoughts or goals were with this game but from the little I've seen in the readme file and from your journal it seems you weren't very satisfied with it.
After reading your post below for some strategy I think I had sussed it out pretty good from just the intro text and the gameplay so that is good.
I played this a few times and it is quite enjoyable despite that fact that I seem incapable of of getting the peasants to go inside their houses after I put the straw in them. I also couldn't figure out how to sacrifice a peasant to the doom wall to get more time. Seems like a rather complex little game for the time limit. Good graphics and game mechanic ideas. The world is fun with the little altar portal thing and the work you did when the doom wall burns across is a great bit of polish!
It is also great and hilarious that you are playing a giant with a sword that "helps" his village where often I felt like the peasants were likely hoping I'd leave as I was doing way more damage then good. :)
Glad to see that old coot from Short Fuse make his triumphant return! Even though I found some of the lack of polish frustrating (the instant restart on death, some collision detection roughness) there is some compelling gameplay here. I enjoy the bat control algorithm and how they overshoot you if you plan it right. It is also always good fun to be chased by a wall of falling rocks.
Well.. managed to get 4/13 tokens after a couple more play thrus. Seems that I can't quite figure out how to make the text stay long enough to read it once you've triggered a token. I want to be able to learn about the story so this seems like a little bug or maybe I'm just not getting how it works. It is strangely sad and compelling to play this game so congrats there. It isn't really fun at all but that is fine by me. I'm glad to see what you did with the theme. I also gave you a 1/5 on Food.. because your name is hamburger. :)
I think the graphics are very cute and the animations are hilarious. I don't really understand the game though. I guess this is meant for only two players? I tried playing with both controls which I had to just hunt around to find everything as I don't think they were listed anywhere. I eventually found the shoot buttons and also managed to get the fellow slugs to follow one of my players. Didn't seem like my shooting killed the salt. Am I shooting salt? I get that slugs are killed with salt but what am I killing the salt with? :)
It feels like the game is either too incomplete to be fun yet or just not meant to be played with one player. It is so easy to die and once the salt cubes get close I can only be locked in a perpetual run away state until I get stuck on a rock and die.
EDIT: Just read someone elses comment... you can jump too? Which key is that?
This actually has a lot of really cool mechanics that it makes me think of outside of the whole math wrapper. It is really neat concept to ponder 'targeted weapons' or almost 'filtered weapons' and the fact that in later levels there is inherent 'hit points' in the fact that certain equations will require various multiple combos of shots to destroy. It tickles the good mechanic loving area of my brain.
The game kept me quite entertained which I wasn't expecting. The music and noises were humorous enough as well. Nice job making a fun math game. :)
hmmm.. Nanaca Crash + autoplay? I clicked once and I won. Hmmm.. not sure there is much game here currently. Visually it looks fun and I enjoy the YHTBTR boss character and the city bits as they go by. Just not much fun or point yet that I could tell.
Enjoyed your restart not implemented (joke?)
mmmm particle blood. I'm amazed at the amount of levels you managed to fit into the 48 hours frankly. All the room objects and the people moving about was very nice. The graphics and game play were fun enough to keep me playing for a long while though I did eventually get frustrated enough by the controls and the off-key music (sorry.. but that melody went a few notes out of any pleasing zone for myself). I really wanted to dig the music and it was almost really great... but damn.. a few of those notes hurt! :)
Great, very complete game for 48 hrs.. congrats!
Oh that was just a ton of fun. There are a lot of really great nifty gameplay elements going on.. very cool! It is fairly balanced already and has a nice assortment of powerups and things to dodge. It is a little buggy currently but nothing that couldn't be fixed up post-compo. I enjoyed the music and the graphics are quite humorous. The controls play well and the game is simply a lot of fun. I think with some better graphics, online highscores for players and a tiny more polishing and bug fixing you'd have a great little game here to let people enjoyably waste their time. :)
This was a rather enjoyable game. I like how it has elements of RTS, expansion games, as well as tower defense games. Very nice concept. I also appreciate the mission text between levels.. where you hear "the growth" speaking.. very funny stuff.
Levels 1-4 play really quick and then level 5 is a beast. Also, more feedback on how the "bad red circles" are hurting you would help a lot. I also didn't have a good sense of my energy intake / output.. yes I know you had the flickering number but a better UI representation giving the player easier to read feedback would help.
All in all great effort!
Very hard game. Took me awhile to survive longer than 2 seconds! Played for a few minutes though where I managed to actually survive for 15 whole seconds. :)
The graphics are pretty cool for 48hrs. I also love the storm wall effect that was the best part. The ground texture was my next favorite.
I think the controls are a little bit 'glidey' and the storm wall feels like it is a bit too far up in the screen so that you have to drive to high on the screen where you don't have enough time to react to the mines.
Feels like it is a good base for a fun game where you could add more obstacles and powerups and would be great once everything was tuned up and polished a little more.
I also loved the intro text as that was quite humorous.
Damn.. I tried like 5 times and I always get my head stuck on level 2 on those sideways poles that slowly go higher. Can never figure how I'm supposed to get under that. Anyway-- love the brief backstory and the look and style of this game. It is a lot of fun to make a mad grab for the prizes to hear those sweet 8-bit noises. Great job pulling this much polish and fun off in 48hrs. I only wish I had the patience to figure out how to play through that level but alas having to restart each time from level 1 eventually made me run out of patience.
Well.. I went back and played a third time after reading Rob's helpful comment that you could wipe up the red and green stuff. That helped a lot as before that the game seemed rather shallow and broken. Then I managed to get a head stand one time and that was fun.
The gameplay still seems way too much on the side of frustrating and clunky with the controls and movement like one of those bad nightmares where you can't move. Not very fun.
Definitely a great creepy atmosphere though. I don't really enjoy spending anytime in it though because it is just too unpleasant feeling to want to make me linger. Not sure if that is good or bad... ;) Some people will likely really like that quality. It's like as if a Tool music video was made by an Amiga artist from 80s. :)
Great art style though and color choice. The title screen is rather out of character with the rest of the game and feels sloppy in comparison. This is also the second game with a sine scroller. Weird... heh.. are those coming back? ;)
Aaarg.. the blades killed my poor robo-boy!!!
More levels please. I was so disappointed at only one. :( Heh. Great music too and the controls and jumping felt solid. The spinning blades are quite scary. It is pretty upsetting when Robo-Jimmy gets sliced and diced on them... ;)
Made it to pinball wizard and then the game crashed.
Seems like a good start to a game but in it's current state too many of the puzzles are simple solved by dropping a boost ramp on the left and either getting lucky or somethings putting a 'throw ball to ground bumper' above the bucket.
I really like the graphical style of the game and objects and fonts. It looks really pleasant and is a fun environment to hang out in. Seems you definitely nailed the style of a lot of those physics based flash game puzzlers.
I think it just isn't fun or challenging enough right now. I want all those tools to have a use and they just don't yet. Also, I found it frustrating the space bar to 'reset' also cleared my placements. That made everything doubly tedious as I had to replace everything rather than just being able to adjust or nudge a component and 'run the level' again.
I've lost all my chops at playing this kind of game but I gave it my best. I didn't realize the powerups were 'good' for awhile as they looked quite spikey. :) Once I saw you could pick them up that helped a bunch.
I never managed to beat the first level boss and I must have died and restarted like 30 times. I got to the boss the last time I played and flew past him and kept on flying. I'm flying still even as I write this. :)
Liked the music and the graphics a lot. Found it a little weird to be able to instantly turn 180 and shoot backwards as I was expecting more the style where your ship just backs up.
I like your old school treatment with sine-scroller and shout outs. Hehe. Nice job for 48hrs!
I had a great time playing this. So fun and polished I'm fairly amazed how you nail so many things in such a short time frame. The level is very well put together and I only noted a few areas that could have been tuned a bit better but no really complaints given the time constraints of course.
I enjoy the screen dimension bias, the animations and sounds, the game play is really fun and addictive. Thank you SO much for not making me restart. The first time I died I was pretty much assuming I would have to restart again but was so happy when I did not. The save points you picked were fairly sufficient yet not too easy to make it without challenge.
There were many excellent variations and additions of mechanics throughout the game which was very fun to see the ideas explored. Very polished too with nice touches like intro showing digging.. and that smiling character when she reached the gold but then you know what is coming when the wall takes it all away again! Then the outro where you dig to reveal your name.
Excellent work!
Great concept! I made it to level 3 which frankly seemed pretty broken. I didn't find the sound effects that bad and the things you say and the way you say them with your voice is hilarious so mega humor points for that! ;)
Seems if you actually had time to finish your idea you'd have something solid here but as is 8 hours of work does not leave something very playable yet. I had no idea how far away I was from the planet or any sense of good controls to maneuver my ship. I liked the dragonfly ship model. Seems that you could improve it with more parts to smash off or effect the player with. The whole controlled damage mechanic is pretty cool idea.
couldn't run this because of missing d3dx9_39.dll or some such. Sorry.
Love the concept. Wish you would make a ton more puzzles as they are WAY too easy. :)
You do have a great basis for a highly original puzzler here though so cheers for that. High points for theme and innovation. I just keep chuckling at this concept and hope you do more with it.
Also.. possible bug on level on right? The guy seems to be able to escape out the wall as you are closing it in. He isn't anywhere near the door but somehow wall walks right through it.
28:14.. level 16. Is this a joke? :)
You basically just hold the right arrow right or am I missing something? Heh.
I know.. you likely ran out of time. Anyway.. as I was sitting there for my half-minute I did enjoy watching the laser beam zap the tiny blocks away. Plus, just once I had to run into the beam to see what would happen. I'm glad you took that moment to question my stamina. :)
Too easy even on (I)mpossible! :)
Well, despite it's lack of difficult the game play, movement, and sounds made it fun for a little while. I would have liked to have some idea of score and level that I was on. Also, it seemed rather arbitrary on whether I should go into the vortex or not because the difficulty just didn't seem to go up at all.
Liked the color choices and style of the ship and people. It didn't seem to really match the font of the title though.
Think this could be a lot more fun with a little more effort.
I had so much fun learning to ride these waves. Level 2 was my favorite but I couldn't get past level 3. You were able to rip out parts of the painting perfectly to wrap your game in that style. Too bad the music, sound effects, and title painting broke the rules here but you did make a really cool game still I guess. I love the waves and the tidal wave. It is so fun to just glide along once you get it right. Great idea!
Enjoyed the polish and style of this piece. Definitely agree with the other comments that the text screens were too long and kept pulling me out of the experience.
Not sure how much there is to this that I may have missed either control wise or message wise but that is ok.
The rotation and the approaching wall were subtle and nice and the music fit it well.
Oh yeah and I think if you add leaderboards to this you've got a real winner on your hands. ;)
crap.. this game won't run.. big error popup. Graphics look great in the screenshot too! winxp, dx9
Took me quite a bit to figure out how to survive and move around. Once I did I actually got a little hooked by this game. Unfortunately the speed ramps up WAY too fast and the full level restart eventually ends the amount of times I'll try to play it. The 'head' is very disturbing. The propellers are quite a scary deterrent indeed. The graphic style is.... weird... but I think I like it. I find the dudes grin a little too disturbing. I actually thought it was a yak or water buffalo for a long time because it just didn't look like hair hanging on a head. :)
It took awhile to get the hang of.. but then it sort of got fun. It definitely needs some work on the controls but I see some nice qualities hiding in there. I like the pleasing rotations you can get in the sphere-chain and if feels safe and satisfying to land on a platform that you know is high enough to afford you the time to charge up your jump power.
i feel that if i were to wear some type of special glasses and turn my head side-ways... this would be 3d. ;) well, interesting demo concept. would be neat to see how well it would turn into a gameplay mechanic and if that would work well or what would have to change. you know the theme was Roads right? ;)
i was hoping that some cars would appear on the lower road and fall into that gap.. but alas, no matter how many minutes passed no cars appeared.
looks great and is fun to drive but game was way too hard for me. I seemed to die often no matter what I did. I managed to fill maybe 10-20% of the potholes encountered. I really like the idea and it seems like it should be fun if you can make the controls / difficulty a lot easier. love the animation as you dump 'hole-filler' from your crane.
Is level 3 even beatable? there doesn't seem to be a 'garage' or 'flag' there but I can't find any indication of how many levels there should be.
like the basic concept and it is definitely very on theme. thankfully the README saved my butt as I had no way to figure out what to do originally so thanks for including that though I hear that a lot of people don't read READMEs so in game instructions are always good.
not too much else I can say that hasn't been said. I will play post compo version if I see it posted. I like the name BLDR.. and what's wrong with an association with TOWLR ? hehe ;)
enjoyed the polish and animations of cars and cards. agree with other reviewers that the strategy was too much like dice and became a click fest. also only blocked car once. did manage to refuel. really like idea of stack of cards as representing fuel though, that is nice touch. just needs a bit more strategy and gameplay. also -- Thanks for megapack!!
this one wouldn't run on my win xp box. message: "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."
Similar to Piglet, after about 10 tries or more I finally made it to level 2 tried it, died and quit. The controls are really just way to frustrating. I think the biggest problem might be that I had no idea which way the WASD would move me for some reason. I just felt completely disoriented. I like the concept but the way it is implemented is unplayable for me at least. I appreciate your detailed journal and I gave you max Towlr points for difficulty. Actually, you may want to submit this to towlrgames.com ;)
couldn't get this working-- i had python 2.6.1 and pyglet 1.1.2 -- just spits out a bunch of errors that end with: "pyglet.gl.glRotatef(-angle, 0.0, 1.0, 0,0)
TypeError: this function takes 4 arguments (5 given)"
graphics were good. concept sounded cool. the gameplay I could figure out was really boring though. I was very confused from the start. Figured out on map you click the mouse to initiate move and that then it goes to zoom in on road. Then on the road you use the keys. My car had a gun on it but I couldn't fire it. It also was very slowly paced and having to travel 10000 units took a couple minutes. I stuck it out only to come to rest on the map in the dirt somewhere south of Shell City. I then clicked Shell City because I really wanted to see something and the car headed north and then zoomed in and said '10000' slow grueling units and I quit... ;) Basically needs some major pacing and gameplay adjustments I'd say. Also, maybe a help screen or something about what you are supposed to do and the controls. Once again, great job on the graphics!
I think i'll have to try playing again when less tired. I like the story and narrative elements. I really like the style of the line art and colors and driving is definitely fun if a bit too easy to die it would seem. it hints at plenty of things to discover if one gives it some more time. very cool all around!
beat it! i love how the car doesn't turn but just strafes left and right! ;) well-- took me awhile to get a hang of driving through the small, then large intestine, then into the stomach, the esophagus and out the throat into space! All 5 levels of the body beat! Anyway-- seems fun and I like seeing how fast I can go before my car asplode.
as the music and colors seemed to build in intensity it did really feel like a bummer to eventually just have to give up and quit. Needed an awakening / crescendoing out of the dream state. great mood and atmosphere. great art style and music. enjoyed myself as I tested the worlds limits and tried to see all that I could see of its creatures and landmarks. great little experience....!
hadn't played frogger in so long, had forgotten about that game. anyway, liked your goal of platform distribution. I also found the collision detection a little frustrating. I did play until level 11 though so I musta been having fun.. ;)
This game was a TON more fun on 'Hard' than on easy because the 'pickup rock' and 'lay road' actions happened a lot faster. I would LOVe it if that was nearly instantenous upon clicking the space bar, as is the delay becomes quite torturous. Also, on hard the pace is just better and it begins to actually feel like a game. The graphics are a good style and it is fun to connect roads and watch the cars drive around on them. I feel like you nailed that pretty well. Like others have mentioned, a win condition would be nice as I also play as long as possible but once it seems i'm beyond the 'entropy curve' I merely stop and await my 'death' for final score. Very amazing that you pulled all this off in one day. Oh yeah, add sound. ;)
got the hang of it pretty quickly. I swear that on the demo instruction level the explosions from shooting were nice little circular things and once I got into the main levels they turned to expanding yellow squares...?
made it to the level with 8 trucks that split into 4 pairs and head out on a giant 'cross' road towards 4 castles. Could not seem to beat that one though came close.
perhaps some kind of leading / reticle indicator would help immensely or quicker bullet stream to weave 'path of death' ;)
great game technically to pull off in 48hrs for sure, plus your timelapse has the coolest data i've seen yet! ;)
i did find the game fairly amusing for a good bit and if you tweak out a more polished version I will definitely try to play it again.
game isn't too fun as is. as others have said ragdoll would have made it a lot more fun to get hit. this obviously needs more levels and variety and balancing to become HUMANER.. guess that word-variant of FROGGER doesn't really work well.. ;) I love the airplane arms!
This was a thoroughly enjoyable game! I played all 10 levels and survival mode. I really just loved so many aspects of this one. Anticipating the strategies of the various creatures and learning how to lure them away from the target zone or you was great. I loved the 'only forward' always on the go method as well as low penalty for death. I think if there were 'lives' I wouldn't have found this very enjoyable at all. The "death" noise was my favorite, so nice and bassy. This is the most polished and all around balanced entry I have played this compo so far. Having only done 2 LDs now I am starting to realize what a feat that is so congrats on really pulling off something fairly complete in the time period. Your journal and food photos are great and show so many progressions along the way that one could feel they are right there with you. ;)
Rock!
As you mentioned not finishing in your journal it is not really a surprise that there isn't much game waiting within the exe. ;) Thanks for sharing what you had though!
very good puzzles. nice style graphics as well. i love once you get all the timings right it is like watching little gears come together and turn so close yet not hit. I loved that.
Am also getting same problem as increpare where the help screen remains as a large obscuring "L" that makes it very difficult to play. I'm on a friend's vista 32 (I think) box. Will play on different machine later in week to try again because I wanna chance to control fireflies too... even if commenters are saying it is hard.. ;) In case i don't get a chance to play, I do wanna say that I really like the graphics and mood of this entry. Plus, I appreciate the non-obvious attempt you made at addressing the theme of 'roads'
took me awhile to understand how the controls and sprite lined up. did manage to navigate though after a bit and got the hang of it. the collisions with checkpoints seemed to be flakey sometimes so that could use a little tweaking. I got to the 3rd map but wasn't really finding the gameplay compelling or fun enough to keep playing. I enjoyed your road tiles with the lines and the road maze generator made a bunch of crazy cloverleafs!
didn't think i was gonna like this or have the interest of playing but I am happy to say I was proved wrong! I played all the levels and won.. yippee.. ;)
a lot of fun. there are a good many different things going on as you play that make this a fun and cool idea. a lot more things then the screen shots do justice to. Nice work.. and yah another Gosu user! ;)
i enjoyed the holy water flamethrower! Couldn't ever determine exactly what the graphic in the top left represented. All the little crosses go from red to black and I guess it must be a life meter or something but it seems the lower it goes the worse I moved and turned. Kept getting the camera obscured by rocks which made me take damage. Found the enemies appearing a little too often so that I didn't do very well at the game at all and never made it to the second gate though I did try a few times. Wish there was some sound. The art style was like legos in hell.. Not sure there was any connection to road theme besides title though.
this is too funny. i too remember playing one of your earlier prototypes and this one is much better. it is strangely gleeful to run over messengers in a speeding polygon trojan horse with jangly head! the troy at the end was a bit jarring. heh. wasn't sure if i actually won or not.. it just sorta said I reached troy but didn't tell me what my cred score meant win or lose.
the graphics and styled tutorial are awesome. I like the animations / actions of dropping the cars onto roads and water. The splash is nice. I had trouble getting into the game though. I seemed to have a lot of issues with the controls and though I get the concept I feel like I still must have been missing something because I just made a mess of dropping the road pieces. Nice amount of polish for 48hrs though! Gosu rocks! ;)
i enjoyed the graphics and sound of this one.. plus the title picture that I recal when you posted that in IRC when that happened.. crazy! Anyway, I agree with the others critiques as far as gameplay goes and what could be done. Strangely, I also got a 77 score like DrPetter....
very frustrating.. in a great way! I played this thing for SO LONG and still I can't quite get to the end. I need to take a break, because I do want to see what happens if I can make it. hilarious in so many ways.. congrats on making something quite original!
(posted next day: DAMN YOU...! I am still trying to play this thing and get further than before. I of course don't even know if there is an end but I have made it further than ever before and I believe your game caused me actual stress as I attempted to get through the cone maze. Not sure what makes this so compelling but like Hamumu said, there is a "distinct incentive not to die". So.. congrats again. ;)
I finally beat it..! I was missing something obvious about where I didn't see I could click... figured as much. Took me awhile to narrow down the possibilities. Enjoyed the voice work, the photos, and the polish.. and definitely the humorous poetry. I bet you DID have a lot of fun making this.
I played this for quite awhile actually and I'm not sure I could really say why for certain. I enjoyed trying out some different circling strategies, both of the buffalos and the resources like trees and mountains. I laughed out load the first time I heard the buffalo capture noise, that was hilarious! Seems like a fun idea. Also seems entirely sureal in that it doesn't make much sense at all to be capturing bufallos and resources with road circles, but whatever! ;) Congrats on your college news too!
couldn't really control car / see world well at all. managed to try a few times though and actually delivered a pizza just before crash and burn. really like the analog pizza temperature meter!
enjoyed the cut scene and story is great as well as the title just keeps cracking me up.
What, no photos of pizza in your journal for inspiration? ;)
I dig the story you came up with a lot. I realize to fully realize that would most likely be very difficult in 48hrs. Not too mention all the Left4Dead I saw in that timelapse (which by the way was pretty funny watching the sped up version of the L4D we played Friday night.. heh)
As far as your game goes- I did play through till the 'end' meaning, till I had like 100 guys and was easily able to defeat a strong army. Reminds me of the fun of old games like 'The Ancient Art of Warfare' where the computer does all the fighting. I like that I am also a character in the road battle too though in later levels I usually just sat it out and watched or used the 'rally round me!' cry to get the guys unstuck from rocks.
The sound effects are great and charming. I'm impressed with the AIs ability to handle fighting and navigating the road arena, nice job on that. It also seems you were able to cook up a pretty nicely balanced 'fight' menu which had 3 tiers of 3 options w/o any of them being way wrong. I know game balance issues can be really rough near the end of an LD48 when there isn't a ton of time for playtesting. ;)
Good job on the game, and I look forward to playing more L4D with you on the Ludum Dare Steam group! ;)
I didn't mind the constraints of catching the robber and I actually found it a little too easy to catch the robber each time. Maybe I just have a knack for this game? Heh- anyway, I caught the bad guy a bunch and to make it harder then would drive around avoiding him until he finally robbed the bank and then I would swoop in or drop some roadblocks and catch his ass.. heh. Nice concept overall. Wish there was some sound or that I could like hit the 'siren' sound and spook the bad guy into turning erratically. ;)
I guess mainly it just isn't as fun or challenging in its current state as I believe it could be with some tweaking or further feature / gameplay dev. It is fun watching the little cars drive around though.
this one wouldn't run on my win xp box. message: "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."
i think i would like this a lot more if you flipped the zoom in / zoom out thing-- I like the acceleration of the actual transition but having it be backwards is very irritating for avoiding the other red-player-stick-thing. It is nice to see another gosu / ruby user and I look forward to peeking at your code.. ;)
fix the controls and handling and I would love this. everything else is so great. the art style, sounds, the creepy ambient music, the blood and tire streaks... so awesome. too bad it is so painful to play as someone else put it 'steering through pudding' or something like that.. :)
had a lot of fun with this game. i'm impressed with the playable levels you were able to come up with in 48hrs. undo _would_ be nice. i think I don't have too much else to add that others haven't said here. great job!
gosh-- brought back nice memories of playing those old electric car track racing games with family. Those only had one button too!
great for 3 hrs effort, very simple yet solid idea. Love the sounds and the crash graphic. Best time I could get was around 17 secs. Holding down buttons only received best time of 20 seconds..
I wish I could build my roads with the steamroller and then race on them with a car! ;)
like the last minute snow theme. too bad you didnt get a chance to put a game into this steamroller sim. At least it is fun to drive around and make arch bridges and nice asphalt through the trees!
Found this too tough to play with similar criticisms others have brought up. Mainly not being able to tell what a city buys / sells before hand (especially as first move of game asks you to pick blind) Loved the music and graphics and style. I typically do like these trade sims so I wanted to really like this but alas the UI / information display is currently to obtrusive to me at least. I too am impressed with what you pulled off though in 48 hours, nice work on that! I'll definitely check out any further version you may post.
I love the graphics and the concept. I agree with others that with sounds (i keep hearing that nice big truck air brake release as it pulls up and stops..) and as others say, people honking and yelling. Seems may have some issues with collision detection as potholes often fill in from really far away. I like how the potholes multiply. I really like the subtle touch of the workman's expression change depending on whether he has tar or not. I'm glad you got more 'game' in this entry this time around than during ld11, so congrats! I know you mentioned having that as a goal this time. Managed to make it to level 6 with 704 score!! ;) Things I'd love to see if you ever tweak this some more:
-sounds as mentioned
-can't fill in potholes when cars are over them
-animations for the car tires, guy walking etc
-some car / workman speed balance issues
-better collision detection
-great workman vs car collision animation.. ;)
so hard.. but i did play a bunch of levels anyway.. ;) I really felt very cramped. I wish the angle of the board allowed much more view distance. Did the original f-zero have so little view distance? Anyway, all other parts of this game are really polished and well done for the time period. Definitely brings back amiga memories with the style you used. Nice work!
this game rocked in many many ways. I think it is probably either my favorite or one of my favorites from this compo! so much polish. love the poetry of your intro / outro text. retro feel. great gameplay mechanic. love the aspect of trying to make a run for it across the path. I guess others were saying they have seen this gameplay mechanic before but it was fresh to me... well, it reminded me of 'Operation' the surgery game or that you were a piece of food moving through an esophagus in the cave parts. GREAT WORK! :)
hmmm.. didn't seem to have any of the issues the others are talking about here, weird. My gas attempts met with success (you have to touch the building at a stop) and it seems a gas station gives you 7 bullets? Anyway, I was able to cruise along and either shoot or run over zombies with abandon. Wasn't sure why the zombies kept moving after they became shot though, maybe cuz they are undead or maybe cuz they are bugged? Dug the music of intro and game. Seems like there isn't a whole lot to do in the game though so that it doesn't stay very interesting or challenging for long. I went really fast after awhile and hurled my self along the sand dodging the gas station and running over zombies until the death screen appeared! ;)
i didn't mind the controls as much as it seems most people did. I agree they could use a little tweaking though at higher speeds. Loved the vector look and it was refreshing to play a compo driving game with good collision detection. It was really fun to ram other cars and muscle way through. Loved the nice touch of getting the trailer attached mission. Gave up on level 5 though. I think there is a lot of promise for more fun if a few more elements were added. As is, it is still a bit in tech demo realm even with the missions. Good things that would help would be more interactions with the other populace / cars and maybe some more antogonistic elements. Great job though for an LD game!
Chuck Norris doesn't need collision detection, he just stands still while cars pass right through him!
found the controls a little difficult but i'm not great at racing games anyway. very polished and well rounded entry in general. sound effects quite humorous. like the look and feel of the track in that it reminds me of some racing game I used to play a long time ago but I can't quite remember what it was called. something that ran on a 286 though so that was the era. very impressive to see this much game pulled off in 48hrs. lost interest after the first 10 tracks as they all were very similar and i kept flying off the track when i tried to go really fast... ;)
Even though I didn't fare to well on this game it was quite amusing to play with all the crazy visuals, particles and over the top sound effects. "Right" or "Wrong", I appreciate the word play time you put into making use of the 'road' theme in the words throughout your game design.
Once I found the bow I was all set. Enjoyed the simple puzzles and the little text statuses that showed up at the bottom. I thought the little 'monster stopped following' messages were funny. I didn't even connect the 'female' sign with the monsters.. that is funny, took me a second to get what everyone was saying about female monsters.. heh. Guess I just see the ascii as shapes and imaging the critters / items. This also made me want to play dwarf fortress again. ;) All in all, it was an enjoyable 5-10 minutes of playing. Thanks!
Had some nice surprises with this one. Took a bit to get used to the aiming and the low contrast made it a bit buggy on my eyes as well. Besides those things, it was enjoyably like an odd amusement park ride where you get whisked around to various areas but you have to shoot all these snow things! :) Haven't really played 'rail shooters' before but that name is describes the concept pretty well and not having played them before found it pretty cool. Liked the music too- it fit into the background good and didn't get annoying. Nice work!
the latest win32 exe still didn't work for me. Got that MSVCR71 error others were getting and then a whole bunch of warnings and errors that eventually seemed to end in that __GETATTR error I saw someone else had. I'm on fairly standard winxp.
After installing python and pygame now I get the following errors:
"Fatal Pyhton error: (pygame parachute) Segmentation Fault"
well, as others before have mentioned, seems games biggest problem was not having a chance to balance the play after the first few levels. Liked the sound effects chosen and seems like this minimal rpg battle type game would have some promise after another iteration.
Great little puzzle game. Loved the CGA/Audio flashback as well. Liked the initial challenge of realizing what that 'compass acts as remote control' thing meant and finally getting past level 3 onto the hellish timing level 4. 5 seemed really easy in comparison. Anyway, congrats on getting so much done in 48hrs with some playable levels even. Enjoyed the game mechanic and the intro song was a great throwback.
Ok- finally got downloaded! I seemed to have a bit of trouble hitting / capturing the blue blocks with my mouse. Not sure what was up, but sometimes I was on a roll and other times not. I liked the various block move patterns I saw go by, especially the sidewinder bit the red blocks do a little later. Very minimal and amusing for how simple it is. Nicely done!
don't think I can run this right now sorry. :(
good game mechanic (the shrinking snowball idea) It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be at first glance / first start. I think with some more levels / level design there could be some interesting game play to be had hiding in this idea!
I was fighting the queen with almost 10k defense points, and 6500 offense points (thanks to a certain goodie I found) and I only got a few hits in and the game went to desktop!? I was a bit bummed at that as I had just spent all those keystrokes healing throughout this game. Sorta like playing one of those track and field games.. heh. Anyway, one of the most complete games this competition. I had a good time fighting my way along and just when you've struggled for a long while healing on those little questions, you find a magical goodie that really makes you a lot more badass so that was well timed! I did think the the letters were spread out a bit too much for my own preference on these types of games. Also, the wack crash at the final battle was a big let down.. I was watching my Defensive points because I know you said that when you die, it goes to desktop but I was WAY above 0 :) Oh well- nice game for 12 hrs or so..!
Great little game. The narration was hilarious, I love the portal tribute / idea riffing etc. Funny LD48 sum up at the end with the food pics, journal pics and talking about your screen shots. I did die once, but once I upgrade my weapons a few times the game was basically an invincible shoot fest! ;) Nice for what it was and given the timeframe.
Since I love space trader games I really did try and put good amount of effort into exploring this one. In the end, I believe it mainly suffered from needing a further round of play balancing, tweaking, control refinement etc. I was able to use an exploit on a cargo route to beef up my ship so that I could explore for long amounts of time. If I hadn't found the exploit, I get slaughtered in seconds. I also experienced the stuck in limbo effect where you fly of screen and disappear. I tried really hard to get use to controls too and feel that they are too hard to use for me at this point even with a lot of effort. If you release a tweaked version of this game, I'd gladly check it out again!
as long as you capture territory early it is pretty easy going. I also had the bug someone mentioned that once I charged with my king he just kept on trucking past the enemy castle, doh! Also, quite a few odd 'clicking' bugs that made me have some trouble moving around. Good for what it was and timeframe given. Would give a later version another shot for sure.
Congratulations, you gave my mouse rug burn! ;)
But, it was worth it as I learned how to fly. Seems like this could've been a bit more fun given more tweaking / balance time. Also, as others have said- once you learn how to fly it isn't that hard and the main challenge comes from how quickly I could cycle the clean-up colors ahead of hitting various colored shapes. :)
Got fairly far in this game. I remember playing pengo/pango whatever it was called many years ago. Enjoyed reading your pdf timelog journal in the zip dir. Also like the scoring as others have mentioned.
Nice minimal platformer. Barely beat it on first try. The 'final score' seems to have a bug as it said I had 0 points? Anyway, most others have pointed out the tweaks needed with movement mechanics but I got a handle on the controls soon enough. I couldn't get the top two coins of the arrow and I think that is where I died the most was falling down blind to try and land on that itty bitty chunk. ;)
Played for awhile until I realized that wave after wave of 5 crabs was all there was. :) Liked the textured background though and the graphics were nice. Seems like if you had gotten waves of baddies in there it would have been a basic, fun shooter to entertain for a little bit anyway, better luck next time! :)
This is a pretty cool concept. It is funny to see the sports 'power' idea applied to 1/2 player car racing. Seen so many sports games use that mechanic for throwing / putting / jumping / bowling etc it is funny to see it on these little racers. Enjoyed looking at the various "car" attributes. UFO and Arrow were pretty funny. Nice all around game and polish on this one. Seems fairly complete.
as others have said.. flashbacks to bad memories of popup-death. ;) It was very funny and the graphics / messages made me want to read them rather than click at first so I think my score suffered.. ;) Also, more of a click-fest than very fun, but points for humor and scope. Also, props on the thousands of goat cookies and the dead marmint on a plate. The pictures of your shotgun wielding wife had me laughing during the compo too. :)
I may be in the minority here but I didn't find the lack of the 'turn around' button to be a problem. I was able to get a hang of the controls fairly quickly and complete all 6 levels. I guess it would seem there would be more waiting if one was falling through the rails a lot.. ;) Anyway, this game was really enjoyable and I liked the music loop and the graphics and game play reminded me of one of my old faves, Lode Runner. Great job on this, and like most have said, great name!
I got stuck on level 6.. spent a lot of time trying to figure it out but couldn't. Very fun and innovative game. Also love that it was so clearly inspired by mondrian. 5 for theme for sure. Would love to play this if the levels were known to be winnable (I started having my doubts about the one I was stuck on) and if they ramped up better. I know there is only 48hrs so this is understandable and I'm happy for the levels you managed to put in there so don't get me wrong! ;)
Great job though, really enjoyed playing it.
restart at beginning of all levels made it so that I only attempted getting past level 3 a few times before giving up. As others have mentioned, the controls and collision detection were a little dodgy which lead to tough gameplay. Level 3 was rough in that you have very little reaction time till death. :)
couldn't seem to get either download to work on my winxp box. I do have python and pygame installed though. pitty.. i really did wanna go knight bowling. :)
couldn't seem to get this to work on windows, I have python and pygame installed but no luck. Also, haven't used either before, just downloaded them to try out all these python games w/o exes ;) Your readme was amusing.
I too was able to create a flock of workers around my barren apartment complex. They ignored the farm and factory though and sorta just wandered down into the bottom menu screen which made me laugh. I read your design doc as well. Loved the options screen- that trophy you won makes a lot more sense to me now! ;) Better luck next time on finishing something a _little_ further so we can play more! :)
I played this for a few master battle rounds. I felt a little confused as to what actions affected what with the messages during battle so perhaps I was missing something but it seemed a little unclear as to how I was doing. I did manage to win everytime but i'm not really certain how. ;)
I loved the title screen and I think it is interesting how the final game ended up so visually reduced (due to time?) from the earlier screenshots with map and unit / move icons.
Minimyst.. ;) Art style was great, theme adherence was awesome. Took me a long time to notice where one of the final objects was so I almost quit in frustration before I discovered it.. great job!
Beat easy on third attempt, couldn't figure out hard though. Read the story / plot you posted and while it helped me some I still feel as if I'm missing something basic about the game even though I was able to win. Seems like some of the patterns of my action shouldn't have resulted in my win. I am using the bug fix patch 1.11 btw. I do like where you inspiration came from and how you implemented that inspiration. I recall noticing that same google image on an initial theme search, it was cool to see you post your source / thought material. Music did start to drive me batty after a bit of play though.. :P
Well, I didn't seem to have too much trouble drawing the minims and I actually found your detection to be pretty straitforward. You are providing feedback by drawing the expected staff and cross so I was able to use that to draw the stick and circle. Not sure what is going on for most of the other commenters as I was drawing some REALLY ugly circles that it was happily recognizing. Hmmm, weird! Anyway, as far as the game goes, it did hold my interest for awhile. I eventually got frustrated by things that I believe you could easily tweak. Like someone else mentioned, allowing minim deletion would be a big plus! Nice work and bizarre game idea!
Can't really say anymore than Hamumu and DrPetter and others have said already.
nice stats. fun game on easy. On medium and above I couldn't seem to actually kill anyone because the control left/right accuracy seems to really drop strangely. Enjoyed the little tractor beam animation and the feel of the line art was great.
Well, I'm gonna have to agree with the other comments about the pace of this game. Normally I am into these types of games and maybe because it is pretty late right now but I quit out of tiredness / boredom. I see you uploaded a tweaked version that addresses much of the feedback so I won't beat a dead horse here. ;) I think I'll give that new version a try!
EDIT: Yes, the new version is a lot better paced and more fun! Awe, the blessing and curse of 48hr timelimits.. ;)
That latest exe finally worked, so that's good. I wasn't able to get too far. I got a bit of the roof built but kept dieing too easily because of unfair falling piece combos there was no way to catch. Also, the life counter seems hidden behind a white cloud.. ;) Got to around 900 points or so. Agree with others that it is way too slow to play / wait currently. Thought the construction worker was quite a character to watch and I liked the plane graphic. Also, couldn't really tell what I was catching.. :)
really liked the strange rotational world idea in theory (until I have to look at anything that wasn't rotating, then the vertigo sets in! ;) )
impressive amount of levels and polish for such short time. The graphics were enjoyable and I liked the controls well enough. Sometimes found the shooting mechanic a little tough and also when you get near the center of the levels the up/down controls seem like they should need to scale with the reduced velocity in order not to thrash up and down and die. :( Heh. Anyway, played a bunch and finished about 80% of the levels. Great job.
I could not get your game to download successfully.
Loved the music and the story / instructions were very humorous. Seems like this could be a fun enough game with a bit more tweaking and fixing some of the unfair flaws with planet placement that others have pointed out already. Never felt I could do all that well with the shield thing so I basically waved the white square around like a spazz and enjoyed the music! ;)
Never could get the download to complete, I guess no pepsi blue for me. :(
this game cracked me up. I also tried way more times than was healthy to beat the thing but have been unable thus far. I really did want to know what was past one of the really hard levels (i'm trying not to reveal any spoilers here). I think some problem I had was that often the objects move left and right outside the screen dimensions a little bit more than they should perhaps making it tough to click everything.
I seriously laughed very hard on the fourth level the first time through and then it was still worth some great chuckles on follow up plays. A lot had to do with the combination of graphics and hilarious sound effects.
EDIT: I finally won!! ;) I hadn't realized there was a fullscreen version in my installed menu (from your installer) and using that I was able to finally click without flying out of the window. There were a lot more levels left after the cards one than I thought. Great fun, thanks again! :)
well-- I survived until a hail of cannonballs did me in at around 950. I love physics / particle sims like these. When I had seen screen shots of your game last weekend I was hoping that it would turn out something like this. A lot of fun to watch and patch the leaks from cannonballs. I played this for a long time. As others have said, retry / redraw button please! ;) Great work
Dug it. Agree with Hamumu that 5x5 grid size might be interesting to try as well. Like the basic idea and I am a fan of odd simplistic combo games. Woulda been sweet with some simple sounds as you rack up the pointless points. ;) 885 was my best with actually searching around (hadn't known about the hold right-arrow exploit.. heh)
Had a lot of fun playing this one. Only made it to level 65 though. Seems like a lot of people myself included fell for thinking there was a time limit until a little testing let me see there wasn't. The music definitely made it seem ominious about waiting around to touch the blue square and I think the audio/visual pulsing definitely made me mess up as it induced some type of trance! ;) Nice minimal game!
EDIT: I just got to level 150 ! Don't ask me why, but I was sitting around and I had to try one more time :)
PS - Thx for the trophy! I guess our games moods are on quite opposite sides of the emotional spectrum. :)
Managed to "win" on first try with optimal world, totally luck though. Liked the writing though and the game stands out on its own from a lot of the submissions. Tried a few more times to see what various combos would produce. Managed to make a "good" world and managed to die a bunch too. :)
Pretty cool game. Really fits theme well I think. Like others have said, miss the sound but I just made burbling outboard motor noises in my head.. ;)
Nice touch with the motor counter rotating with the turns! Wish it had a timed mode to add to the challenge as it is a bit too easy otherwise. Great for what it is in 48hrs though!
great music and controls. the platformer physics and collision felt really solid. Made me really wish you had a chance to make levels for this as that would have rocked!
I actually had a good bit of fun playing with this one but I definitely dig the sim-type genre of 'game' anyway. I had multiple crashes though which was a bummer because they always came once I had about doubled my malls size and it was just getting interesting watching the people make their shopping decisions.. ;) I love the little price tags flying by as they purchase away, that was a great touch! There is definitely some kinda bug (like Hamumu pointed out) where if you move the mouse while laying down 'floor' spaces it sucks your money away REALLY fast. I had to single click to lay floor to not lose my millions. ;) Great little experiment though for sure!
as i've said in non-ratings area comments, loved the art style- very well executed. Would have loved to have played this in a more finished state as the idea of only being able to jump introduces some interesting minimal game elements to the strategy (mainly focusing on timing only and pattern recognition of what/where jumping will take you.) Anyway- didn't survive too long on 'tank level' due to odd collision detection code in places. (Seems when tanks 1-tile left of grasshopper, you die)
Alright - seems like after installing Python, PyGame, PyOpenGL, and then that ez_setup thing it finally works! ;)
Couldn't really last longer then 10 seconds because either i'm missing something or all you can do is sorta swivel around to swat at the approaching rats. Death is very quick. Maybe i'm missing something though but I couldn't figure out how to play this, sorry. :(
chipmunk is such a great physics engine! Glad to see it in use here and with a level editor even. Nice work. I have used chipmunk before so I know how it can be to get everything input / setup properly but once its rollin' it is so sweet huh? ;)
I had a lot of fun with this even though I eventually gave up on level 4. I just kept having no luck near the end where either I or the gems would get stuck under a stack o sticks and I got tired of playing the early level parts to reach there. Anyway, great effort!
great user interface. very simplistic yet very effective. I beat the boss, yah! ;)
Not really sure how I made it through the infinite dungeon though. Also, I almost gave up a few times thinking I had 'reached the end' only to discover a few more options / branches. Kept me quite amused, nice job!
I also had the suspicion that shooting the red blocks seemed to make it harder sometimes.. ;) Enjoyed the trails and didn't find them laggy, but did get tough to see sometimes. I second the commenter who said they wished the red blocks once shot would fly away.. seems I couldn't figure out when they turned white versus staying red.. didn't know if they had hitpoints. Nice use of theme.
I think I had more fun messing around 'capturing' my grey shots with the purple gravity circle and then moving the circle around with them trapped inside and spazzing out. Would like to play a shmup that had this effect as it would seem it would probably be quite fun. As far as this game goes, I think it seems like others are saying more a tech demo and not much to the gameplay yet. Yes, 2.5hrs but would be fun if you had 2.5hrs more perhaps.. :) Got a million points using keeyai's spoiler.
LD32 — An Unconventional Weapon (2)
Crookman by wearehomebound 2015-05-09T21:55:00
Super cool game! That heart beat sound really worked to get me stressed out. Finally won on the 4th attempt!
A.R.B.F. by Zanzlanz 2015-05-09T19:55:00
Fun! Dug the music too a lot, really gets you into the action. Good humor on the intro setup.