ThunderFox by Pietro Ferrantelli 2017-08-01T22:45:22Z
Ditto, ping me as well please
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Iamsodarncool
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | š„ | Stella Brown and the Curse of the Grocery Witch | jam | 49 | 4.18 | 3.87 | 3.67 | 4.28 | 4.53 | 4.54 | 4.30 | 4.18 |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | š„ | Routine Medical Examination | jam | 415 | 3.73 | 3.73 | 3.19 | 3.34 | 3.39 | 3.95 | 4.39 | 3.41 |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | š„ | Piper's Quest | jam | 273 | 3.70 | 3.71 | 2.92 | 3.42 | 3.95 | 4.50 | 4.02 | 3.65 |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | š„ | Sniggle: Savior of Snugs | jam | 521 | 3.45 | 3.11 | 2.68 | 3.39 | 4.22 | 3.97 | 3.81 | 3.71 |
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | š„ | Hero Human Man-Pirate | jam | 748 | 3.25 | 3.04 | 2.52 | 2.78 | 3.33 | 4.04 | 4.06 | 3.56 |
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | š„ | Katie Kills Zombies | jam | 459 | 3.30 | 3.21 | 3.52 | 3.08 | 3.60 | 3.47 | 3.21 |
Ditto, ping me as well please
When I try to extract the windows version using 7zip, I get this error: "Can not open file 'E:\Users\Jimmy\Downloads\Power Plant Simulator.rar' as archive"
I agree with the other comments that dislike the screen shaking. I can see what you were trying to do with it, but I don't think it was executed successfully. I'm not sure what would improve it, but the shaking doesn't make me feel tense or excited, it just acts as a barrier to me understanding what's happening, which isn't fun.
I'd like to comment on the funness of the game itself but I couldn't get past the shaking and gave up after a couple of minutes.
It would also be nice if there was a fullscreen mode. The game being 20cm wide on my screen doesn't help with comprehending what's going on.
This is exclusively negative feedback and I know that sucks to receive. I'm sorry to deliver it but it's my honest opinion of the game. I hope you make a version with fullscreen and no shaking, because based on other comments the game is actually really fun and I'd like to play it. I just can't enjoy it in its current state.
Wow. Incredible game. The talent of the people who created it really shows.
The music is fantastic. When I started up the game I just sat there on the main menu listening to the theme and watching the city roll by. The art is all awesome, it's a very pleasing game to look at. The gameplay is fun and engaging, I love running around and avoiding the phone people. I also love all the little touches of humor, like Battery Man's feet just dragging behind him as he moves and the exploding phones. My only complaint is that it could be a little more difficult, I was able to beat it in 5 minutes on my first try.
Altogether a really polished product that is stunningly high quality for 72 hours. As someone who just started making games I aspire to be like you.
To be honest, I don't really like it. I spent 30 minutes getting past level 1 and then gave up shortly into level 2. This is going to be a fairly negative review and I hate giving those but here we go anyway.
A platformer that forgoes traditional jumping is not something you see often. I commend you for innovating in that regard. However, I didn't find the jump replacement mechanic fun at all for a couple of reasons:
* it leaves no room for error. Many times, I'd blast off to somewhere I couldn't see at the beginning of the blast and the end of the blast would be on some spikes, and there isn't time to correct the trajectory. The only way to avoid this is to play the level again and again until you've memorized it. I don't find the trial and error of this process fun at all.
* there's no room for minute adjustments. All motions are huge motions and complete commitments to a trajectory. (this is kind of a repeat of the first point)
* combat with so much recoil isn't fun. It's already really challenging to keep track of several enemies at once that are all shooting at you; the fact that 95% of angles to shoot at result in death or falling all the way back to the beginning of the level pushes combat from challenging enough to be fun to challenging enough to be a pain.
I also think that there is too little friction between the player character and the platforms. Soooo many times I would FINALLY land on a platform I was trying to get to, prematurely celebrate, and then bounce/slide off. But by far my biggest issue with the game is that it *requires* trial and error.
Of course, all of these opinions are subjective. I don't play many platformers and I don't play many super hard games; yours is both of these things, so I'm definitely not the intended audience.
It's very jarring how the enemies start charging you. I wish there was some sort of visual cue right before they did that, like flashing or shaking.
This is a very good game and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Thanks for sharing. It's quite fun to explore just a little further each time you head out. The tutorial section was also very well done; most ludum dare games I've played (including my own, shamefully) just thrust the player into the game and expect them to know what to do, but when I got to the game part of Asteroid Scavenger I already knew all I needed to know. Thank you for taking the time to add it.
The graphics, while simple, are very nice to look at. The sound design and music are excellent. Great job with all three of those things.
However, there is one major flaw that, at least for me personally, makes the game far less enjoyable than it could be: I dislike the timer. It feels arbitrary and it breaks my immersion from being a for-hire space miner. It also prevented me from ever fully upgrading my ship, which was disappointing. I don't care about getting a high score, I just want to casually explore space, going at my own pace, slowly exploring outwards and mining everything in the solar system while upgrading to a better and better ship all the time. A less arbitrary time pressure that would allow me to keep playing the game would be to have power be constantly draining at a certain rate, so your maximum time away from the space station would be limited by your maximum power but you'd have no maximum time to play the game.
Additionally, as a space nerd, there are two small changes to the ship physics I'd make to increase the realism. Firstly, I'd remove the space resistance of the ship, and make it so the only way to slow down would be to turn around and apply thrust. When I apply thrust with my spaceship and then it drifts a little bit and then it slows down and stops moving, it feels a lot less like a spaceship and a lot more like a submarine. Secondly, I'd make rotation come from thrusters that apply torque to the spaceship as a physical object rather than just rotating it. This would allow you to turn much faster and again would help with the feeling of controlling a spaceship. It would probably need an "automatically stabilize rotation" button though. Whether these changes are for the better is entirely subjective though and probably something not many people besides me would want.
Overall it's a very satisfying game to play and I'm vey impressed that it was made in 48 hours. I sincerely hope you develop it more post-jam.
@Blueman
> Thank you for the great review! Iām really glad you took the time to dissect my game.
My pleasure. It really is a joy to play.
> for Ludum Dare, I wanted to have a very compact experience as most people will play the game for no longer than 5-10 minutes.
Good philosophy. Wish I'd shared it 72 hours ago :P
> I like the idea of a full game where you are a for-hire space miner. Perhaps you could travel different galaxies, gathering parts and jobs to tweak your custom ship and explore different worlds.
Ooh, now I want to make this game. Would you mind terribly if I used the idea?
@Blueman
Neato, I'll let you know if I finish it :)
I had quite a bit of fun playing this game, spent about half an hour getting through the first five seas before I was done. I don't think I've seen a game before where you shoot out of the side as opposed to the front, it made for unique and interesting gameplay. It was also very fun to explore the seas. Procedural generation really made the game better here; although the elements of the seas were simple, not knowing how they would fit together made it exciting.
I didn't like the Crew Respect (or whatever it's called, I forget) mechanic. It felt tacked on and unnecessary (yeah, yeah, you need it for the theme. I still don't like it.) Every time I got into a firefight, the Respect meter would shoot down to zero after only a few shots, and I feel like combat would be a lot more fun if I could last longer in it. Speaking of which, health doesn't matter in this game; during combat, respect drains WAY faster than health does, so you can never die from lack of health (at least in my experience. I may be playing the game wrong). The fact that respect drains constantly means that I can't happily explore the seas at my own pace (my pace is slow) because I'm constantly worrying about doing something to keep my respect up. In short, I feel the game would be vastly improved by removing the respect mechanic.
It was very unclear what most of the upgrades did. Short descriptions for each of them would let me make much better purchasing decisions.
> I am french
You english is very good for learning it as a second language. Je souhaite je parle francais bon a toi parle anglais!
> i am 14 years old
Good on you for making games now. I just turned 17 and only started a month ago, and I strongly regret not doing it earlier.
> this is my first jam and my first finished game ever
wow- although this game is good when judged impartially, it is phenomenal for a first finished game, and one made in 48 hours no less! Good work :)
This game shows that there is elegance in simplicity: with only three inputs, you managed to create compelling and engaging gameplay. I had a lot of fun on my playthrough.
The music is groovy AF, what software did you use to make it? I'd love for you to add a download for it. However sometimes I would run into a bug where there would be two non-synchronized versions of the night music running, which was annoying because a single version of the night music is so awesome. Using the web version by the way.
I feel that the blurry and pixelated art of the game works poorly. I'd have preferred stylized MS paint graphics.
As @JesperSB said, the game would greatly benefit from multiple difficulty modes. I finished day 30 with 2572 guests, 500% of the stated goal. Simply adding a slider at the beginning for the effectiveness of solar panels would do wonders for the difficulty and replayability of the game.
I had severe input lag, where I would press a key and it wouldn't take effect for a good two or three seconds. It would happen instantly as soon as I moved the mouse though.
It made me sad that as my building grew it obstructed the view of my batteries and solar panels, and then after 50 hotels I could no longer see the new ones. For me personally, a lot of the joy of this game came from watching my hotel grow over time, so it was a major bummer when that stopped happening around day 20. Late-game would be a lot more satisfying with some clever rearranging of the graphics.
Overall I'm glad I played this game, it made me feel happy. Excellent work.
@Didactylos cannot reproduce, are you sure?
@Plepletier Each type of bolt has an energy cost, listed above their buttons in the lower left hand corner. The buttons are also greyed out when you don't have enough power for them. I'm glad you like the game!
@PeachTreeOath agreed, balance could use some work. And I'm glad you like the zombie jump animation, I spent basically the whole second day tweaking it to be perfect haha. Thanks for playing.
@TheMonax I'll pass it on to the artist :) thanks for playing our game.
@JasonKennedy
Thanks for playing and for the useful feedback.
> Things I liked
> The āverbalā banter between the gods
Agreed, glad we got our friend to do some writing for the game. Makes it more lighthearted and fun IMO.
> Varried abilites
Thank you, it was important to me that there would be different ways to approach the game and room for innovative strategies.
> intresting graphics
Agreed, I love the art style Brooke came up with for the game.
> Things for improvement
> Sounds & Voice acting for the cutscenes
That the game doesn't have sound & voice acting pains me greatly, but we ran out of time.
> Sudden increase of difficulty with the ājumpersā
The sudden increase in difficulty is intentional, we wanted the players to feel overwhelmed and shocked by both the difficulty and the fact that they were killing babies (we originally planned for them to make laughing baby noises as they jumped and screaming baby noises as they got killed).
> needed to be more clear how to āreapā the souls
What do you think could be done to make it clearer?
@klekky
> The best thing about this game is its art style.
100% agreed, Brooke did a fantastic job and the game is a joy to look at.
> The gameplay is simple yet satisfying.
Thank you! It's the only the second game I've ever made and I was really stressed out that I wouldn't be able to create something fun.
> One of the only gripes I have with it is the controls. It feels a bit awkward using the number keys to attack.
You can also attack by clicking the buttons on the screen, and the numpad keys work as well. I tried to include enough options that everyone could find something comfortable with the default configuration (sidenote: I'm really pleased that the full game can be played one-handed). You can also download the stanalone executable and adjust the controls in the launcher to whatever you please.
> good job on this one!
Cheers. Thank you for playing the game and for the useful feedback.
@Bocodillo
> The different lightning bolts were able to all find a use, which is great.
Thank you. I really wanted all the abilities in the game to be useful *and* unique.
> The art style was really well done and has a nice style.
100% agreed. I was very lucky to work with such a talented artist.
> the cut scenes were cool.
I literally spent 6 hours getting the cutscenes to work right (only ever coded once before in my life). Could be considered a waste of precious time, but I really do think they add a lot of personality and charm to the game. Shoutout to Sierra for doing such a good job writing them <3
> Audio would add a lot to the game, a good visceral lightning bolt sound is always welcome!
Ran out of time to add audio and its lack of presence is my biggest gripe with the game. It's first on the priority list when we revisit the game after Ludum Dare is over.
> I did find the summoning souls a bit clunky (being able to move while using the ability would be a huge benefit)
Collecting souls is purposefully a challenge (/pain). I agree that it could be slicker though, I'll see what I can do post-LD.
> they had a tendency to just roll off the mountain making most impossible to get.
Try summoning them the instant you kill an enemy.
> That all said I really enjoyed playing!
It makes me so happy to hear you say that. Thanks for all the great feedback.
@Flaterectomy
> This was fun to play. The basic mechanic is simple, in fact when I look at it objectively I feel itās too simple. However: the art is cute, the different attacks offer tactical decision-making, the dialogue between levels was entertaining. These things combined took what could have been too simple and turned it into a fun experience.
This is the best analysis of our game that I've seen. Thanks for breaking it down so well.
> Obviously, sound wouldāve helped sell the game a lot more.
God, I know. If only I hadn't spent 20 hours coding an upgrades system that I had to cut because it needed another 10, I could've added sound... it's my biggest regret with the game.
> I kept wanting to click mouse1 to make the dialogue between the gods become instantly visible rather than immediately skip to the next line.
This is a good idea. My cutscene system is really shitty and not flexible at all so I don't think that's possible without rewriting a lot of code, but I can easily make the text appear faster and I'll do that if there's another update.
> While the art style is cute, the scaling of some of the elements makes it a little inconsistent.
The result of two very amateur gamemakers making a game :) of all the lessons we learned during LD, this was one of them.
> All in all, nice job. :)
Cheers. Thanks for playing my dude :)
@connor-hagan
> Really fun core mechanic
Thank you! I challenged myself to create something fun and I'm extremely pleased to have done so.
> could use some more features added to it
Time constraints :) lots more coming for this game post-LD though.
> I love the design of the player character.
Me too. Despite having only two frames, I think the bolt striking animation is incredibly satisfying.
> Definitely could have benefited from sound.
For sure. My biggest regret for this game is that I didn't prioritize sound.
> I feel like the post-jam changelog is a little bit too long and warrants a new build though [...] You really should only make changes to the jam version of your game that prevents players from finishing your game.
Yeah it does feel like I'm stretching it a little. But allow me to quote the [ludum dare rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules/):
> Certain **Bug Fixes** are allowed. You **canāt** add new features, but if something broke or didnāt work correctly as you were finishing up, you can fix this after the deadline.
And here are all the things from the changelog that aren't bug fixes:
> all the levels and cutscenes are now integrated properly
This counts as something that "broke or didn't work correctly as [we] were finishing up". It was only in the last ten minutes of the jam I realized with horror that only level one worked, so I condensed all the levels into one level.
> lingering bolts now cost 100 energy, and sweeping bolts now cost 70 energy. This sould make the āconstant walls of lingering boltsā strategy nonviable, and encourage more frequent use of sweeping bolts (which are awesome).
This is what I feel the worst about. It's only changing two numbers, but it dramatically improves the gameplay. Perhaps I should revert it.
> added some text on the game over and game ending screens to say how many souls you collected the game now forces its only supported aspect ratio (16:9) the Product Name is now āKatie Kills Zombiesā instead of our old placeholder title the launcher now has a graphic of a zombie in it the game icon is now a graphic of a zombie the MWU splash screen is now darker souls no longer run away from you as much cutscenes now progress only when you hit the āProgressā button instead of any button. By default, the āProgressā button is left click. added some text to the gameplay UI that displays the current level added instructions right at the beginning of the game reduced the size of the lingering boltās hitbox to prevent an exploit where players could block off the whole cave with one lingering bolt
I wouldn't qualify any of these as new features (although it's definitely arguable that they are). They're more like... really minor general improvements.
Anyway, if I get any official notice from LD that I should revert changes I will happily do so.
> your original build should still be provided.
I thought that gamejolt allows you to download older versions but apparently not. I will shortly throw all the old versions on to google drive and put the link in the gamejolt description.
Anyway, if I get any official notice from LD that I should revert changes I will happily do so.
Thanks for playing the game and for the feedback.
@dalbinblue
> First off the graphics look great in this
They absolutely do, Brooke did amazingly and I was so lucky to work with her.
> I unfortunately couldnāt read through all the text as sometimes it would flyby too fast (it would advance multiple times on a single click if I wasnāt very fast)
Cannot reproduce, and the code uses GetButtonDown, not GetButton. It's possible you have an issue with your mouse. If possible, could you let me know which specific lines of dialogue you had the issue in?
> I also liked now the enemies advanced like they were puppets. It was a funny gesture that helped the aesthetic of humor.
Thank you! I spent pretty much the entire second day tweaking the enemy movement to be just right.
> I did see a comment above that there wasnāt enough audio, so Iām wondering if the build I played was broken (I played on the web).
No, the game doesn't have any audio. There's code to play audio that doesn't function at all and for the life of me I can't figure out why, but there are no actual audio files in the game.
> it took a lot of getting used to the position of where the lightning bolt would come from since when you turned around wasnāt in the same position. Moving the place where the lightning came from closer to center would help prevent this confusion.
This is good feedback and we'll work on it for the post-LD version.
> Additionally, for most of the game, spamming the sweeping lightning bolt would complete the level with ease. Level 8 and 9 required a different strategy and were a lot more interesting. Iām not sure the best way to prevent people from sticking with this strategy (possibly enemies immune to that type of lightning) but itās worth considering who to encourage experimentation on different strategies instead of going for a boring but effective one.
Agreed that balance is far from perfect. The sweeping bolt's disadvantage is that it destroys all the souls in its path, but since souls had to be re-purposed from a currency to a scoring system it's not as big a deal anymore.
> Also as a note to your previous comments on getting an official notice, this is a community judged and reviewed competition; there wonāt be any official notice other than your peers. While you are free and encouraged to continue developing your game after the competition and link the post-competition version here, you need to keep the original version playable as that is what you are being judged on. The only changes that you can do that would replace the original version and still be good from the competition are fixing game breaking bugs or minor fixes like spelling errors that have no bearing on the mechanics or aesthetics of the game.
Thanks for clarifying. I've added a link to all the previous versions of the game with a notice that those judging should play the version before the balance changes. Hopefully that's sufficient.
Thank you for playing the game and for leaving such detailed and helpful feedback.
@Gdrexler
So glad you enjoyed the game. No, you didn't hear incorrectly, the game has no audio in its current state. I shot you an email about music for the game... man, it would be so cool to have an original score!
@flaterectomy
> nice job on engaging with your comments in such depth.
Thanks. I figure it's the least I can do for people who have so generously played our game :)
> Looking forward to your next LD entry (assuming there will be one next time) to see how this one affects your future work.
There will definitely be more LDs from me. All of us who worked on this game want to do it again and I expect I'll be doing every single one henceforth. The biggest lesson I learned with KKZ is to scope small, hopefully the next 72-hour project is a tighter and more polished experience.
@ bombjack
> The game idea is original and fun. Having sound would have improved a lot the atmosphere of the game.
I'm so happy you enjoyed it. And thanks for pointing out that the idea was original- one of my goals for the project was to have gameplay that was unique.
I agree that the lack of sound leaves an unpleasant void, it will be the first priority when we revisit this game for a more polished release.
I really like this game. The combination of sound, gibs, and instantaneity of the enemy disappearing makes eating people really satisfying in this game. The abilities are all interesting and nicely varied, although I wish the cooldowns were individually balanced. The dash ability is 10x more powerful than the lightning strike ability, so why do they have the same cooldown time?
All in all I enjoyed my time playing Power of Blood. Solid work.
This game is awesome! I love it and I will be sharing it with all my friends. The difficulty balance is, in my opinion, perfect; the game is accessible enough that you can jump in and play, but challenging enough that it takes real focus and effort to succeed in it. Every time I died in the game I felt compelled to retry and do better. Managing power and health made me panic a lot, which is something I love to feel in games. I also really like how the music reacts to what's going on in the game, it's a very nice touch.
Overall it's a very solid, very fun game that feels great to play. As someone new to programming and game development I'm starstruck that you were able to create it in 48 hours.
I tried to think of something to improve but I'm at a loss. The game is just so awesome :D
Addictive and very challenging game. Wonderfully filled with tension and panic from start to finish.
Because the game is so fast-paced, the slow clicking interface really creates a barrier to success. It would be nice if you could hover over a tile and then hit a key on the keyboard to assign a building to it. Ditto with the citizens; the game would be a lot easier to play if they were just listed along the bottom of the screen at all times and you could hover over them and hit a key to assign a job. This would also let the player easily see when a new citizen has arrived.
Overall I really enjoyed the game. Great work, especially for using a new engine. I hope you go on to develop this concept further, it is legitimately really fun.
I played with this for a couple minutes but I couldn't figure out what was going on or why things were happening. It would be enormously helpful if you'd include some basic instructions. I hope I can learn to play the game though, I can sense that there's a lot of depth to it...
I really enjoyed this. I've never played an interactive written story so this was a new experience for me.
The writing was great, suspense kept me locked to my screen. The timing of the appearance of transitions and of the sound effects was spot on and heightened the mood of a story that already had a great one.
Whether or not it was intentional, I like that it would take several minutes of clicking to redo the choice at the end. It makes the choice more final and real.
Was the story perhaps inspired by Worm? Do you intend to do more with the world of this game?
I had a lot of fun with this game. It reminds me of [Asteroid Scavenger](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/asteroid-scavenger) by @blueman which was one of my favourites from LD39. Others have praised most of the things I like about Being Plundered so I won't repeat their words.
I found that the best strategy is to rush out, mine an asteroid, and rush back to the station without ever interacting with the pirates at all. You can easily move faster than the pirates or their bullets so it's easiest to just never fight them :) plus you save money on repairing your ship. Early in the game I found it fun to fight the pirates (I've never seen this type of combat in a game before but I really like it) but in my pursuit of $100k it was just better to avoid them.
I don't like that weird shaky effect on the background while mining, it's disorienting. I also wish that you could keep playing after reaching $100k. I was looking forward to mining every single asteroid in the whole map.
Solid game, I'm really glad I played it :)
(spoiler alert)
This is a great example of games as art. It was very interesting feeling my own emotions change over the course of a game: from "really? A game where removing body hair is the goal? Tasteless, stupid and offensive" to "hahaha stupid assholes you can't judge me ya jerks" to finally "what a wholesome positive message." Additionally, sound and graphics are both very pleasing. Creates a very nice atmosphere.
Good work.
I like this game quite a bit. It's a simple concept but it's very well done. The difficulty curve is just about perfect for me. The music is very pleasing.
My only gripe is that there isn't any way to lose, you can move on to the next level without carrying a single item. But it's a very fun game to play, and my favourite of LD40 of those I've played so far. Nice work :)
Neat little game. As others have said, the visuals are fantastic. I also find the gameplay pretty fun, it's cool trying to find efficient routes. I wish there was a little more feedback on how you're doing, though. The first few games I played, before I understood how the game worked, I didn't know I was failing until I'd failed.
I found using the mouse pretty awkward. I expected a click and drag interface, as in I'd click on a point of the earth and drag it to the center and then I'd be looking down at it. Instead it had that messy panning system.
This game really shows the benefits of having a dedicated game designer. Everything is exceptionally well balanced and the game is very fun to play because of it. It also looks and sounds great. Fantastic work guys :)
This is an awesome game! I really love the movement mechanics, especially how there isn't ever a down - it's all zero-g and the level is designed with that in mind. Combat is very fun but I feel it isn't challenging enough. Graphics, music and SFX are all on point, 5 stars for mood.
Excellent work guys :)
@sanyingli > 5 Star audio for you guys singing so well.
Thank you! We had so much fun making the title screen music :D
@towerhufham > PIRATE MUSIC! PIRATE MUSIC!!! I honestly enjoy just sitting at the menu screen more than playing the game. Thatās not because the game is bad, but because the menu is just so much fun.
Agreed! I love the main menu. I did the code for the jumping pirates, and testing it took 10x longer than it should have because I would just watch and laugh for a minute each time.
@corc0 > One of few games to use a story (and to voice-act it, too!). You guys did up the humor category for sure.
Thank you. We were very lucky to have @arreis (writing), @naefir (voice acting), and @brookelikestodraw (cutscene art) on the team. The story is awesome and a nice reward for beating levels.
> That sound at game overā¦ is that one of those springs that keeps your door from hitting a wall?
Yes it is! There's also SFX from a hand pump and a kitchen sink in the game. We got creative with it.
> Just FYI for your game description, @iamsodarncool and company.
Thank you, I've added it to the game description. I really appreciate you playing our game and the detailed feedback! Thank you, sincerely.
@shieldgenerator7 > This was very cool! The first cutscene wetted my appetite for an epic adventure, and then it dumps me in this schmup-like ship collecting treasures and dodging wrecks. The gameplay felt very bland, but the story was inttriguing.
As the guy who programmed the gameplay, I agree. It's... not great and it definitely doesn't live up to the epic adventure promised by the cutscenes.
> Oh and the voice acting! Who could forget that? That was the best part! The rare voice acting on the menu screen was absolutely hilarious and the cutscene VA was pure gold. Whoever did that you are a star.
Credit to @naefir. What a talented guy :)
**To everybody pinged in this comment: Thank you so much for playing our game and for leaving feedback!** Sincerely. We appreciate it.
@avon Agreed that the gameplay could use polishing. An important lesson I learned this LD is that you'll be better at your own game than the average player simply by virtue of having tested it a lot, and thus your perception of the difficulty will be skewed.
Thanks for playing the game and the detailed feedback!
@nonstoppotato thank you! The game is incredibly hard, yes. My biggest regret of this LD is making it as challenging as it is. But MAN it is satisfying to finally beat a level, isn't it? :)
I believe in you. The end cutscene will be worth it! Thank you for playing our game.
@acoto87
> The controls could be better, though.
In what way?
@naca
> 5 star audio with no doubt for the main menu song and superb voice acting heart
Thank you :) we're very proud of the audio on this one.
> The game is fun but extremely difficult.
Indeed. My biggest regret of this LD is how hard I made the game.
> I donāt think we will ever manage to beat it.
To my knowledge, no human ever has. A couple of my IRL friends are very determined, though, so that may change soon...
> We as players can perfectly see that you had lots of fun making this game, so playing it feels really good.
That's exactly what we were going for! Glad our joy rubbed off.
> Finally, weād like to thank you for your comment on our entry, it really touched us.
Cheers. And right back at you. I'm so pleased you like our game!
@naca there are five levels. I am at least 80% sure they are all possible :)
This game was pretty awkward to play. My primary source of frustration is that the enemies DO NOT STOP COMING. I crossed the bridge, then there were enemies, then I started shooting the enemies, then they kept coming for 5 goddamn minutes. There was no break in the constant stream of them. After those 5 minutes I got bored and just sprinted past them (you can move way faster than the enemies can) and explored the map. Let me say that all the art in this game, and the environment especially, is awesome. I really liked exploring, just running ahead of all the baddies and checking out all the rooms.
Some other gripes: - the enemy hitboxes are *far* smaller than the enemies themselves. I would constantly watch my crossbow bolts pass through them. - there's no reason to use the torch, the crossbow is just so much better. - when you take your finger off the key for walking it's still a good 0.5 seconds before the character stops walking. This can be fixed in edit -> project settings -> input and increasing the gravity on "Horizontal" and "Vertical" - the ragdolls of the little green men are way bigger than the little green men
I expected and wanted stealth from this game, but there was only fighting. I'll say it again though: the art is great. Very pretty dungeon, very spooky enemies, and it's all stylistically consistent.
I love this game! I love stealth games and this is a great example. Sneaking around is so much fun, figuring out the optimal path around the guards and cameras. The music is really nice and the newspaper headlines are funny. I wish there were a few more sound effects, like when guards are chasing you.
Very good work. I'll be sending and recommending Evil Money to all my friends :)
Seconded what @parker8283 said. I want to play your game but I'm not going to compile it!
I like this game. Unique and funny premise, and excellent graphics. I grinned to myself each time I destroyed something incredibly valuable.
The movement is a bit sluggish, I wish it was more responsive. Overall a very nice experience and I'm glad I played it.
The graphics in this one are really awesome! I love the water, its foam, waves, the sun reflections, and how it gets murkier the deeper the water is. I also quite like the simple colors/shapes used in the island. And holy christ those are detailed textures; on my 4k monitor, I couldn't get the camera close enough to the terrain to notice individual pixels! Also: nice easter egg for the banner of the store :)
The water rising the more you build is cool. When lots of the island was underwater, I liked panning my camera through it. Felt like exploring a sunken city :D
The randomized generation of the island is really cool, would you mind writing a bit about how you did that?
The gameplay itself was hard to understand. How close must factories be to silos? How close must stores be to silos? Is distance measured in three dimensions or two? Can factories feed directly into stores? How many factories can one store support? How many factories can one silo support? There's no way to find these answers without either rigorous experimentation or looking at the code :/ even a .txt file with these details, included in the download, would have helped a lot.
I really think you have the beginnings of a cool, addictive game, but I just need to know what's going on!
@echo-team
\> This was an idea I had a couple of days before the jam \> game is called "Floating Islands"
Something tells me you *really* wanted "Floating Islands" to win as the theme :)
Thanks for explaining the island generation algorithm. That's so cool!!
Holy crap, this game is excellent. The best I've played so far. Where to start?
The puzzles themselves are so good. Great level design and great core game mechanics. The mechanic introduced at level 5 or so is genius and makes the gameplay so interesting.
I was thinking that it would be cool if you could push two boxes in a row, and there would be a special kind of box that could *not* be pushed this way. Would have opened up some interesting level design possibilities, where you have to line up many boxes in a row in order to efficiently push them all at once.
The music is really good, kind of dreamy and spacey. I just wish it didn't restart when you restart or complete the level. Speaking of restarting the level: THANK YOU for including the hotkey to restart. Much appreciated.
I also love the visuals, particularly the bloom. And the smooth way the character moves from one square to the next is :ok_hand:. Nice work there.
The leaderboards are a GREAT touch, thanks for including those!
One complaint I have is that I wish the "you can't go there" sound only played once if I hold the key down. It gets pretty annoying :P
Some technical questions: what's the "engine"? I see you used a lot of OS libraries, but is this something you've been working on for a while or did you throw it all together for LD? Additionally, the game appeared to run in a fairly low resolution. Is there a way to force it to run at my native screen size?
All in all this game is so FUN!!! You should be SUPER proud of what you've created. And in 48 hours, holy cow. I just wish it was longer :smile: I really sincerely hope you keep working on this post-jam and polish it up, I would buy/play the shit out of an expanded game. Maybe it could even have larger levels where the camera pans to follow the character?
Thank you for making Box Rescue!!
I get a 404 when trying to download the game.
I too could not run the game. I'm not familiar with Godot, but if it's like Unity and Unreal, built games involve both an executable and some data files. The download only contained an executable, is it possible @icecoldsombrero forgot the data files?
Thanks for the notification! Glad you've got it sorted.
This game is dope as hell. I love it. It's got that perfect video game feel, where you just get into the rhythm of it and get engrossed. I got into the *zone* with Penguin Pressure, and that is a WONDERFUL thing. I just wish it was longer - I was feeling so elated that I finished level 2, but there was no level 3 :sob:
The music started off kinda bland, but then it got AMAZING AND HARDCORE OMG I LOVE THE MUSIC SO MUCH. Could you upload the soundtrack to soundcloud or something so I can jam out to it :D though much like the game itself, I wish the music was longer. It *just* starts to get awesome and then it loops :cry: I feel like you can really expand on the music and have a really dope ass track.
Also, a small technical note: the game launches in a pretty small window which is freely resizable in both dimensions. I can stretch the game out so that Vince gets super fat. You probably didn't intend that. I'd just like an easy way to play the game fullscreen without distorting it...
To summarize: longer game! Longer music! I think you have something really special here, and I sincerely hope you expand on it post-jam. Great work :clap: :clap: :clap:
The visuals were really cool on this one. Gameplay was kinda awkward though, and I feel it suffered a lot from the lack of sound.
Cool game. I too like the cutscenes.
It's hard as balls though, and super frustrating. The locked camera angle makes it needlessly difficult.
I also think it could have used some sound effects.
I love this game! Unique and interesting gameplay, nice visuals, groovy music. Also: very clever take on the theme. Running out of *outer* space. I had a blast playing, the best I was able to do was 45 launched satellites on Cadet. Love the easter egg at 42 :smile:
A few points of criticism:
In real life, objects orbiting at the same height will have the same orbital period. Heavier objects - such as moons - are not slower. The moon in this game kind of completely blocks off an entire region of orbit; there's no point to putting a satellite there. It has the same effect on gameplay that a smaller screen would. A moon with proper velocity would have been more interesting gameplay-wise, I think. Particularly if different planets had different moons, and some had multiple moons at different heights.
Additionally, I think the cooldown timer on launching was a bit too long. Especially in the early stages when space is very empty, it was annoying to have to wait to launch.
Overall this is an excellent entry. Incredible that you did it all in 48 hours! Very well done, you should be proud :)
PS: after playing the windows version I tried the web version to see what issues you were having, but the game worked normally for me. I don't know what the problems were, but I have a lot of experience beating Unity's webplayer into submission and I'd love to help you out. If you're interested please send me an email :) - jimmycushnie@gmail.com
**@CraigDuth** > The graphics were really neat. Iām assuming hand drawn? Good use of it!
Thanks! All the art in *Sniggle* was hand-drawn by @brooke. She did an amazing job :)
**@Jamiso** > omg its dance is so cute. I feel bad for laughing at his dead parents, but the cutscenes were really well done. Sadly, I couldnāt actually play it. None of the keys worked, except for the Escape key.
Thanks for the kind words :) I think I've fixed the input issue. Could you try playing again?
---
**@ismael-rodriguez** > Cool presentation. The title screen got me hyped, then the intro-story was awesome and funny.
Thanks! We're all really pleased with both of those :)
> But the actual game play was disappointing. Sorryā¦
Oof. As the guy who was really proud of the gameplay, this hurts a bit to hear :(
> I wish the planets worked like Mario Galaxy, I found it odd to fall off to my death. I was expecting humans to be a threat. I only played a couple levels.
@pipe01 actually had the idea for mario-galaxy-esque planet behaviour, but by that point we had solidly established our gameplay and I didn't want to scrap it all and start anew. Humans *are* a threat, but you don't begin seeing them until level 4.
> Why no run animation??? The art style is cool, but the lack of animation for the main character really let me down.
Firstly, time, and secondly, it may not have worked well with the gameplay, particularly with how sniggle can cling to the side of planets. In lieu of an animation I made him wiggle side to side in midair, and personally I think it's super cute.
Thanks for your honest feedback. It's actually inspired me to make a post-jam levels pack which are more difficult and more fully explore the gameplay possible with the systems we implemented.
---
**@bentekiller** > Nice looking art style and great music to acompany it, sweet little game. The dificulty semed to escalate quickly at the end, and the shooting cross and where you actually shot is way of if youāre not on stable ground, as in donāt jump and shoot! Excelent ending, what great treasure I got!
Thanks so much for playing our game! Glad you liked the ending :) I agree that the difficulty curve isn't great. I wish I'd had more time to polish the levels.
---
**@dialglex** > Art, story, and voice acting was very good
Thank you!
> I found the main game a bit lackluster. The lack of effects and feedback when something dies made it quite boring.
When ships die, there is both a visual and audio effect. I assume you were shooting the snugs? You're supposed to save those.
> Most of the levels felt the same, even when the spaceships were introduced.
I can see what you mean. I plan on making a post-jam level pack with more interesting and varied levels.
Appreciate the honest feedback!
---
**@stames** > Very nice Graphics. This drawings were amazing.
@brooke did an excellent job :)
> But at first I thought the planats have gravaty and I could walk on all sides of them but then I died. maybe such a gravaty effect would have been nice.
You're right, that would have been cool. We considered exploring this but didn't have time.
> sadly there was no sound in the opening scene and also the game music just stopped at one point.
Sorry about that... both issues should be fixed now.
> but other then these small bugs gread game :-D Oh and at first I always shot the Snugs because I thought they were Enemys x-D
Thanks for your kind words! Perhaps your Sniggle was resentful of snugs who have living parents, and so he set out to make some new orphans.
@stames thanks for revisiting the game! Glad it's all working now. To clarify: the majority of the voice acting was done by @Lethalfirestorm - I *did* lend my voice in the ending cutscene though. I'm quite pleased you enjoyed it :)
Thanks so much for all the kind words @pixelshorts @nam-nguyen @adam-harms @amaury :blush:
Thanks for the great feedback @randomphantom ! Yeah, zooming the camera out a little would have been an improvement.
Lovely game! Very creative - and fun - game mechanics and take on the theme. The graphics are really slick, especially the dissolve transitions, and I love how almost every level has something unique about it.
However, my enjoyment of the game was somewhat ruined the the lack of ability to restart. If you trap yourself in a position where you can't win, you can't just click a button or tap a key to restart, you have to kill yourself. And when you die, it's a solid second or two before the level actually restarts. These breaks in the action really add up. If they weren't there, I would have finished the game for sure, but by level 11 I was so frustrated by them that I had to quit :/
Wow, this game is awesome! Satisfying movement, great music, SFX and art/animation, and innovative, enjoyable gameplay.
Things did get awkward when I was carrying a box and wanted to set it down. The only option is to throw it, which is not very precise. Perhaps an option to set the box down where the robot is standing, teleporting him on top of it, would have made the gameplay a little less frustrating.
I really enjoyed playing your game. It's incredible that you managed to do it all yourself in less than 2 days. Just needs a better title :)
As others have said, the art and animation in this game is stunning. It looks great, good job.
I think the character falls too fast. It makes the arrow falling mechanic really, really difficult to use, and it leaves no time to correct your mistake if you're falling off a platform.
Also, I'm really not sure how this ties into the theme...
Neat little game!
As many others have said, the visuals are great. I particularly like the explosion effects.
I feel like the controls are kind of awkward and un-responsive. If I want to change directions it's very slow to respond to my input.
Good choice of music, I just wish it didn't restart when you restart the level. You can use the [DontDestroyOnLoad()](https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Object.DontDestroyOnLoad.html) function for this.
Well done. This game has a lot of polish and it's very impressive for 3 days.
I love the aesthetics, game looks really good. The menus with button feedback and fading in and out feel really polished.
The gameplay itself is very interesting! Never seen anything like it before. I had fun with it.
I wish I could restart the game faster after dying, though - having to wait for several menu transitions is kind of annoying.
A very well done first Ludum Dare!
The game is pretty fun, but I have two big complaints:
1. The sailboats will just randomly change into pirate ships and back, there's no way to tell when it's going to happen. Incredibly frustrating to be JUST about to get a pirate ship and then have it change back into a sailboat.
2. Restarting the game is annoying as hell: I HAVE to use the mouse, I have to press TWO buttons, and the buttons are not in the same place. Ideally in a game like this you can just press spacebar to restart.
Extremely well done. This is the first game I've rated five scores in any category this jam.
I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't an ending cutscene, but oh well. Time constraints :P
This game is awesome. Very clever and fun gameplay. And what a soul-crushing ending!
I love the soundscape you created, very well done with that. The background track with weather sounds and guitar plucking is so atmospheric and creates a wonderful sense of tension. The sound effects for clicking stuff together and for bombs are also great; it's a satisfying game to listen to.
A few nitpicks: one, I wish there had been more bombs. The game was easier than I would have liked. Two, I wish there was a desktop version so I could play in full screen!
You should be very proud of your entry :)
Nice job. The game looks great; I love the balloon model, the water shader, the fire effect in the hot balloon, and the post processing.
However, it's difficult to see how you're doing. The water is moving REALLY fast towards the island which creates the impression that you're moving away from the island. I found this confusing. It was also hard to gauge how far from the island I was, because there's no way to know how big it is. Placing trees or some other props on it that have a guessable size would have helped with this.
This is such a cool game. I love the graphics; spaceships look great and the low-poly terrain is super cool too. I wish the skybox was higher resolution, but oh well.
Unfortunately I had an issue with building that prevented me from finishing the game. Selecting parts with the mouse is super unreliable for me. It takes 10+ clicks to actually pick up a part in order to move it. I have all these cool ideas for ships to build but it's just too frustrating to try to build them :(
Also, I must commend the music. Super groovy and fits the aesthetic of the game well.
Nice game. I adore the art for the cats. I found the controls really annoying, though. I think the game would benefit a lot from a controller closer to first person standard.
Also, is the building infinite? After a few failed attempts, I decided to just climb the stairs, hoping for an ending. But it just kept on going, and going, and going...
Nice game. A lot of my feedback is the same as has already been said, so I'll avoid repeating it. I just wish I could make the game fullscreen; it's so tiny on my 4k monitor!
Thank you so much @causacreations ! I too am really pleased with the main game's mechanics. Perhaps we will revisit it.
@nikolay-zapolnov - yeah, it would have been nice to have swimming for the player. Wasn't time for it unfortunately.
Thank you so much @kirke !
Thanks very much for the detailed feedback, @pablodap. I will pass your compliments on to Gregorio's actor :)
Thanks for the feedback, @babyking. The opening cutscene was written in 20 very rushed, very sleep deprived minutes. If we come back to the game post-jam, both cutscenes will be rewritten completely.
This seems like a neat game, but I kept dying for apparently no reason. I wasn't anywhere near an enemy piece and I couldn't figure out why I was dying. Also, there's no button to restart on the game over screen, so I had to close and restart the game each time.
I had a lot of fun with your game! I love the art and the audio.
That was bizarre. Completely unlike anything I've ever played before. But in a good way.
Nice work!
I love this game because my sense of humor is objectively terrible. Such a funny/silly concept, executed in style. Truly a giant of the "controlling the character is extremely hard and awkward" genre, right up there with QWOP and Surgeon Simulator.
The 2D graphics & UI are delightful and so damn polished. The 3D assets are nice, but I think the graphics would have benefited immensely from more advanced lighting/shadows/materials. For a 3D world, it looks awfully flat and dull.
I quite enjoy the design of the environment. Lots of interesting objects to bump into, trip on, and pee all over. The train area is particularly thrilling to navigate. Also, the trashed apartment & broken bottles are environmental storytelling at its finest; I unironically love the dark, tragic undertones of this silly game about pissing.
The spam clicking mechanic is a great gameplay analogy for holding in pee. As my clicks got more frantic and desperate, I could feel the "holding in pee" centers of my brain activate. SO immersive, it really felt like I needed to pee while playing this game, I almost peed myself in real life even!
The failure state is amazing, I love how he just keeps pissing forever and ever and never stops. Did you record your actual baby crying for the failure audio?
I tried so hard to win this game. I played through like five times, but I cannot find the damn stool. Where the fuck is that fucking stool. I am half convinced that it doesn't exist, and the in-game message is just there to troll me.
Sidenote: this game reminds me of the song "money machine" by 100 gecs (because both the song and the game are about piss babies)
HOLY SHIT YOU WEREN'T LYING
I AM THE GREATEST PISSER IN THE UNIVERSE
hey there lil piss baby.jpg
That ending music is truly glorious. Incredible finale to an incredible experience, 10/10 would piss again.
The reason I failed to find the stool before is that I didn't realize the scripted events had to be completed in a specific order. On my first playthrough, I learned that the main bathroom was unavailable, so on subsequent playthroughs I didn't try to visit it. However, unbeknownst to me, trying to play more efficiently locked me out of completing the game. It would be nice if you embraced the open world aspect of this game a little more, and allowed players to complete the story nonlinearly.
I look forward to playing the post-jam versions :D piss on, friend!
Thank you for catching the bug @chartle ! It only happened when jumping with space, we didn't catch it because we were always jumping with W or the up arrow. I have updated the game with a fix.
Thank you @chartle, @luquio, @andrewdt100 and @charred-axolotl for your kind feedback. I'm so happy you enjoyed our game ā¤
@crispypin Yeah, the climbing mechanic is a little rough. I would have liked to polish it more. In particular, it's practically impossible to climb on the side of a physics object that isn't on perfectly flat ground, because if the physics object rotates even a tiny bit, you get knocked off.
Glad you enjoyed the sound design! I'm delighted by how much humor and immersion the spatial audio adds for the dialogue scenes. Shame it doesn't work on the web version.
Oh wow, so it does! Excuse the bug haha. On subsequent playthroughs, you can move the player during the opening cutscene to skip it. You're only frozen during the first playthrough.
@anaxie-studio You can restart the current level through the pause menu, which you can open with escape or P. Thank you for playing, and for the constructive feedback!
@asukanami The water controls are a little screwy. You have to swim down first, so that the buoyancy pops you out of the water when you come up.
Yeah the rope level is pretty annoying. Thanks for playing @evan-minto :)
Fun little sandbox of interacting systems! I had a great time playing around with the world and trying to keep things in balance.
The graphics are quite pleasant. I adore the animations when a new tree grows. The kelp swaying looks great too. It's also super cool how every single pixel casts a shadow.
I think *Pixel Entropy* would go from "neat" to "very fun" with a solid balance pass. Right now, it's damn near impossible to keep the birch tree alive, but the fish live forever without any help or interaction. I wish there was more to worry about, but that my individual worries were easier to deal with, you know?
By the way, what are the purple pixels? They seem to spread along the underside of the ledge and occasionally drop into the water. They're not any of the placeable pixels, nor are they any of the creatures. So what the heck are they?
I adore the writing, world and characters! The town is so lovely and peaceful, I really enjoyed exploring it. My absolute favorite thing is that you can talk to the cat š„°
I don't really understand how RPG games work, so I've only been able to get as far as the second fight before dying. But I really want to know how the story ends... I'll come back to this later and try to finish it.
Btw, is there a way to make the game window larger, or at least fullscreen? It launches in a very tiny window, and I have to squint to see it.
Fun little game! An interesting pathfinding optimization problem. Novel interpretation of the theme.
The sound effect for "stop Aunt Mavis from drinking" made me laugh out loud, love it.
It would have been cool if the other party guests moved around, thus requiring more on-the-fly problem solving.
I found the hitboxes a little unforgiving. I would recommend making them smaller than the visuals, and also making them a little "squishy" so the player doesn't get stuck on the edges.
Overall solid entry! My highscore was 19:34 :)
Holy guacamole, that was phenomenal. Brilliant use of games as an artistic medium. So thoughtful and so fucking funny. And such a delightfully meta take on the theme.
(SPOILERS) My favorite moment was "Oh dear, I'm afraid you've relapsed." Perfect delivery.
This is by far my favorite Ludum Dare game I've ever played. I'll see you on the LD50 podium, you deserve the win. Thank you so much for making *Click to Continue*.
P.S. this game made me lose [the game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forget_the_game)
Cool game!
The opening sequence is fucking awesome, I love the camera shakes and the audio and everything. The game itself is really fun and interesting. I love the unusual controls.
Unfortunately there seems to be a bug where scrapping/patching by holding space doesn't work after the first few times. This bug prevented me from progressing very far. Also, you seem to have accidentally published a debug build; the development console is visible in the lower left. (And it's full of NullReferenceExceptions, lol)
I hope you continue to work on this! If there's a post-jam version I would be very interested in playing it :)
The art, and animation, is gorgeous! It's just a shame that I can't really admire it. If I take my eyes off the slip meter for even a a millisecond, I slip and lose.
So cool that there are multiple characters. You didn't have to do it, but you did; I appreciate the commitment.
The music is great.
Overall a solid, cohesive, enjoyable game. Nice work!
This is fantastic! The art is so fun and charming and it immediately sets the mood. The concept is ridiculous and hilarious. I love the absurdity of picking up random items, and people, and YEETING it all over the edge as we plummet towards the ground.
The game was really hard, it took me six attempts or so before I got a success.
The fact that the newspaper at the end of the game reflects not just whether you landed the ship, but also what cargo & passengers you managed to save, is an excellent touch. This detail inspired me to play the game several more times after I first succeeded.
It's outrageously funny that cows and sheep just start landing on the crashing ship.
It would've been nice to have some more visual feedback with regards to how the ship is doing. I don't really have time to watch the numbers while I'm playing, so it's hard to gauge how effective my actions are. I would like to see the speed of the scrolling background, and the rain, to get slower as the ship gets slower.
I'd like to reiterate just how much I love the art. It's such a fantastic, distinctive style. I don't think I've seen a Ludum Dare game before with hand-drawn art in monochrome, but you nailed the crap out of that style. Have you made other games with art like this?
Fun and very charming game! It took me a couple tries to get it, but once I learned how it worked I had a blast. This game is deeper than it first appears, there is quite a lot of strategy to managing your defense. I love how crazy and chaotic it gets in the late game. I really like games where I have to run around performing tasks and simultaneously think carefully about the overall strategy of what I'm doing. *Dino Defense* scratches that itch wonderfully.
I agree with the others that the controls are somewhat unintuitive and difficult to get used to. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this specifically, but my primary gripe is the inability to move diagonally. If I could make one change to this game, it would be to add diagonal movement. I also found myself getting annoyed by the small camera size. I think the game would be better if you could see the whole play area simultaneously, with a fixed camera.
The visual art, music and sound are all lovely. Great interpretation of the theme as well. I've really enjoyed my time with *Dino Defense*; thank you for making this game!
I love this! Once I figured out that stealing life force makes you move faster, it became a fun & intense struggle to navigate the environment. The art is so lovely and charming -- I particularly adore the moody lighting, and the bloom VFX on the Avatars of Death. The concept/story is hilarious and awesome, I really like what you did with the theme.
A few points of criticism:
- I wish there was a hotkey to restart the game quickly, like with a hotkey or a menu item. When I was first figuring out how to play, I would often know that my doom was inevitable, but I had to wait 5-6 seconds before I could try again. Somewhat annoying. - I prefer to use arrow keys for movement, I wish those also worked in addition to WASD - The ending felt underwhelming. I was hoping for some funny hijinks with the protagonist and her husband.
Overall a very good entry. I had a great time with *On Death's Door*. Thanks for jamming!
Super cool game! I love all the different abilities, and the various emergent strategies. It's very rad that you use RNG to generate your levels; there's so much replayability!
I quite enjoyed the writing in this game. The voicelines for all the different enemies are a great touch, and all the different endings are interesting & unique.
Great interpretation of the theme as well.
This is such a wonderful, adorable game! The music is enchanting, and the art & implicit story are so compelling. The sound effects are also great. I'm immediately drawn in and eager to help my dragon mama.
I love how new mechanics keep being introduced and the difficulty keeps increasing. The pacing is \*chef's kiss* absolutely perfect. Every time I thought that the game had reached its maximum level of complexity, something novel happened. Seriously, how did you get the pacing and balance so good? How much time during the jam did you spend playtesting?
Like another commenter said, I really like the use of the mama's eyes to indicate how close she is to death. It's such an immersive and dramatic way of communicating that information.
Another small detail I really appreciate is the font used for the timer in the top left. A lot of Ludum Dare games don't take the time to make sure their font meshes with their art and mood, but the detailed, flowy numbers in your timer are just exquisite!
I want to reiterate how great I think the music is. It absolutely nails the "magical forest" vibe, while also capturing the protagonist's helpless desperation. The music adds so much.
Really sincerely excellent work. Congratulations on your first game jam!
Phenomenal job setting the mood and tone. It's rare to see a Ludum Dare game tackle such a serious, existential theme. You drew me into this world and story with the beautiful pixel art -- I particularly love how many little animations there are! -- the moody, tense music, and the excellent writing. The choices felt real and meaningful, even though they were just yes or no. I think this is because each choice/scenario was so different and unique from the others, with very different potential consequences.
A few of the in-game consequences felt weird and unfair. Why does it help AI take over the world if I refuse to work on a sex robot?
Overall a really cool and thoughtful experience. I'd like to reiterate how good the art is. (SPOILERS AHEAD) I keep thinking back to that killer android from the ending, absolutely chilling. Great work with this one š
Am I reading your credits correctly that the sprite art is original, but the environment art was not made by you during this jam? If so, you are supposed to opt-out of ratings in the graphics category.
A thrilling game that got my heart pounding! I think the difficulty curve was just right; I *barely* made it to the end of the game intact.
The dialogue and the music were quite well done, and really sold the atmosphere of growing frustration, annoyance, and losing control of the situation. I love the detail that the backseat child is the protagonist's *step*-son, as well as his rant about the mother. It adds some really nice flavor to the relationship between the two characters :)
The first-person interface was quite immersive and well done. I really like that the hand actually moves and does the tasks. Moving the mouse to the edge of the screen to turn around was also cool and it felt nice and natural.
I found the game very confusing at first (in a bad way). There was so much going on and I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing. It took until my third or fourth attempt to actually figure out how to play. I think this problem would be solved, and the game made more enjoyable overall, by adding some more juice to the direction arrows: they could pulse in size to indicate that the player needs to do something about them, and there could be a visual effect when the mouse is moving in the correct direction.
I admit to being a little disappointed by the ending. I was hoping for some more voice acting. But the art was quite nice at least :)
Overall I had a great time with your game. Thank you for making it ā¤
Fantastic entry. I love the slow realization of what's going on, the creeping science fiction horror atmosphere, and the intensity of trying to communicate as quickly as possible. And I felt tremendous relief when I finally broke the loop!
The writing really is brilliant. I think this is an excellent example of video games as a storytelling medium. You put me right in the middle of the story, got me invested in it, and made me part of it, with just a few words and buttons. Major kudos.
The emoji counter at the end is an excellent touch š
Super awesome game. I love your interpretation of the theme, and I had so much fun exploring and scrambling to get as far as I could within the 10 second lifespan. I think the game was a perfect difficulty and length; I felt super satisfied when I beat it.
The art is so good. I love 2D handdrawn art that emulates a 3D look, and this game has a fabulous execution of that. The color palette chosen is beautiful and very spacey/atmospheric.
The music is PHENOMENAL. I love how it builds up throughout the game. The music does an incredible job of setting the mood and it honestly makes the game 2x more fun and immersive. Please release the music as a standalone track!
The sound effects are also great and feel very cohesive. Also, you added sounds to your UI buttons!! That's an AWESOME level of polish that I don't think I've ever seen in a LD game before!
The one thing I didn't love about this game was the controls. The way the level is laid out, a lot of diagonal movement is required. When playing with a keyboard, this requires pressing two keys simultaneously; I found this to be an unfun level of cognitive overhead to keep track of, as compared to most games in this genre where the primary directions of movement are up/down/left/right. Maybe it works better when playing with a gamepad? I wonder if the control scheme would work better if the directions the keys correspond to were rotated 45 degrees, as if the keyboard was on an angle, so you only have to press one button to move in a diagonal direction.
Another detail I'd like to mention is that I love how your corpses stay in the level persistently. It was very cool and intense to watch them build up throughout the game.
This is one of my favorite games that I've played all LD51. Thank you for making it :)
Thanks very much @flaterectomy <3
My biggest regret with this game is that I forgot to give the player a way out of that hole. It's the only place in the whole game you can get stuck. [Edit: ah, screw it, I just added some stairs and updated the game. I think it counts within the rules for post-jam changes.]
The demons *were* supposed to kill you, but we ran out of time for that lol. So in the published build they're just for atmosphere :P
Thank you so much @tao-yuanyue!! We had THREE incredible artists on the team and they all absolutely knocked it out of the park!
@puhan Yeah, this kind of unintentionally became a rhythm game. We were planning to have some kind of visual indicator for when the realm is about to change, but we ran out of time! So now the music is the only cue, and as you noted, it was not composed with that role in mind... this is something we'll definitely fix for the post-jam Definitive Edition ;)
Thanks for playing!
Thanks very much for the kind words @dileriuml š I agree the (good) ending is way more beautiful than it has any right to be. Markku absolutely killed it with that soundtrack.
@riptidestudio Not a bug, bug alas, a missing feature! We ran out of time to make them actually do damage, so their only role in the jam version is to add atmosphere and terror.
Thanks a million for playing our game and for the very kind feedback @brainloaf-studio @witchpixels @diego-teran @digitaldude555 @exilegl @elzeu @david-forrester ā¤ā¤ā¤!!
> if the enemies cause damage and with minor adjustments, I particularly would consider a full demo :)
We're definitely doing a polished-up and extended version of the game post-jam -- a "Definitive Edition," if you will. I'll let you know when it's done <3
> I would recommend adding a timer ui since there are timed puzzles in the game and you have to count the seconds in your head
I would also recommend this, we ran out of time haha. Definitely coming in the Definitive Edition :) for now you need to pay close attention to the music!
> Great story. The email address part in the intro was hilarious
Thank you, I'm actually really proud of that joke, and of the payoff in the endings š
Thanks for playing and for the wonderful feedback @raffe! I'm so happy you enjoyed our game!
> The music was stupidly well made
Agreed. I got to work with two extraordinary musicians this jam, and they both did amazingly.
> and even the fact that it wasnāt the same music repeating over and over, but it had little twists
Thanks for noticing! Yeah, for each section of the game (store, streets, home) and each realm (mortal, shadow) there are two possible 10-second clips that are chosen from randomly. This works really well IMO and keeps the music feeling fresh the whole game through.
> If there was one thing that i was kinda curious of, it was why it seemed like the cool enemies on the shadow realm didnāt damage me at all, they were really running after me but couldnāt hurt me i guess?
We just ran out of time to add this š damage and death will be the first thing I add for the upcoming post-jam version.
> But yeah, an amazing entry and congrats to you guys on this game! :sunglasses:
Cheers, homie š„
This is a super cute game. The art and music are so charming, and I love the humor in the writing. Fabulous mood.
The diegetic tutorial is super cool. I've noticed a lot of LD games that do something like this have way too much lore relative to the amount of tutorial in the text, so it becomes difficult to figure out how to actually play the game. But your tutorial was 90% tutorial and had just a splash of lore to keep it interesting. And then garbage man comes back throughout the game with his cute little notes, it's so fun I love it.
I love games with multiple endings and I'm delighted by how many yours seems to have! Not only different endings for going on dates with different characters, but also different endings for being scorned by different characters!
I wasn't able to make it to a date ending after five attempts, but I'm determined to get there eventually and I'm going to come back to it later...
VICTORY: Your ambiguous destination has been reached!
What a delightful, absurd clusterfuck this game is. I was grinning the whole time. The text messages were hilarious and added a lot to the atmosphere. I just wish I had a little more time to read them!
Could you explain the "2019 US national average" thing? Why does it always go up at a constant rate? Assuming this game takes place in 2022, how is the 2019 national average changing?
I really love this entry, excellent work :)
Outstanding mood. The environment art, and especially the lighting, are incredibly spooky. And holy shit the monster!!
Like others I found the game confusing, and I couldn't figure out how to solve the puzzle. I also had severe performance problems: I have a very powerful system, but I was only getting 20-30FPS on this game, and that really negatively impacted the experience for me. The obtuseness of the gameplay combined with the headache-inducing low framerate made me decide not to finish *It Hides in the Dark*, which is a shame, because I really want to see the ending.
I enjoyed this a lot!
- The mechanics are very interesting. Lots of cool emergent strategies. The fact that you only get one attack every ten seconds made each one feel more powerful and satisfying. It was especially rewarding to bait a large number of enemies into a small area just in time for an ice or fire spell. - The diegetic spell drawings are so cool, and do a lot to enhance the feeling of buildup before a spell - The music is nice and atmospheric - The graphics are simple but quite pleasant - I am intrigued by the story and setting, and I wish there was more of it! In particular, I would've loved a sentence or two on the ending screen describing the socerex's fate after the events of the game. - I found the camera positioning a little awkward. Most of the screen space was taken up by where I had already been to, rather than where I was going. - "Counterspell" is an excellent pun
Very solid entry. Thank you for a fun few minutes :)
(Also, looks like we both made a game about a witch! How delightful!)
Give me a holler when you have the post-jam version live, I'd love to play it :D
Very cool game! I'm always a fan of physics-based gameplay so I really enjoyed this. The gameplay felt very polished; I easily figured out how to play, and I never struggled with the interface. There were so many unique and interesting items to pack, many of which made me feel tingly and uncomfortable (in a good way!). When I broke that severed arm in half, I screamed "oh my god!" out loud :O
The art was all gorgeous. I'm particularly fond of the three-eyed teleporting black cat.
Despite how fun the moment-to-moment gameplay is, I felt lost with the lack of overall progression. I was just doing the same thing over and over again forever with no noticeable changes. I wish there was a counter of how many boxes I'd packed that day, and some kind of ending to the game if I pack enough boxes and my shift ends.
The gameplay screen is very immersive and diegetic except for two things: the ten second timer doesn't actually work, and the boxes appear out of thin air. IMO, a functional timer and a little chute for new boxes to fall out of would have taken the gameplay to the next level of polish.
While I was playing the game, I felt very tense, and I was constantly trying to go as fast as possible. I played this way for one reason: the employee handbook at the beginning of the game told me there would be severe consequences if I fell behind on my work, and implied that I had an overbearing boss who would step in to punish me if I took too long. However, after reading your comments here, I see that this is not how you want the game to be played: you want players to take it slow and relaxed, experiment with the sandbox, and take the time to read all your cool item descriptions. Unfortunately the game's intro explicitly discourages this playstyle. IMO the employee handbook ought to be rephrased. Instead of threatening the player if they take too long, it should tell the player that they're free to do whatever they want. (Perhaps the protagonist is the CEO's kid so they don't need to worry about being fired :))
Overall this was a charming and extremely evocative game. I loved the atmosphere and the freaky backstory that was constantly being hinted at. Y'all did a great job and I had an awesome time playing.
A few technical notes, btw:
- It was very annoying to not be able to change the size of the game window. I like to play games in fullscreen, but I had to play this one in about one-ninth screen. - Just as a heads up, you're not supposed to ship the file that says `DebugInformation_DoNotShip` xD
I have similar feelings to @rtdmfn, who expressed them quite eloquently. This game takes an ongoing real-world war, where people are currently fighting and dying, and makes that setting lighthearted and casual and gamey. It comes off to me as very disrespectful. I actually had to stop playing after a few minutes because I felt physically ill.
I think that real-world atrocities should be avoided in game jams. There simply isn't enough time to handle the subject matter well.
Excuse the massive non-sequitur, but I also want to mention that since you did not create all the art for your game, you are [supposed](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules) to opt-out of ratings in the "Graphics" category.
> Your point is debatable, because my whole team so as me are ukrainians and we are suffered from war in some way. On the contrary, we honor people that lost their lives this way(maybe a bit wierd way), by this game.
I suppose that's fair. I am experiencing your work from a very sheltered perspective. Maybe I'll give it another try sometime and try to be more open-minded.
Re: art ratings, just keep in mind for future LDs that your team needs to make 100% of the art during the jam. The rules are very clear about this and I'm not sure how you missed it.
I LOVE games that have proper zero-g physics, with no automatic deceleration of velocity or rotation. This game does it quite well, and it's a super fun challenge trying to maneuver the ship around. I like that you really have to commit to maneuvers, since it takes several seconds to rotate the ship 180 degrees. There's very little room for screwups which makes it extra satisfying when you *don't* screw up.
As others have mentioned I wish the valid landing conditions were more forgiving, or at least more clear. Even after playing the game for 10 minutes I don't have a good sense of how slow I need to be or how close to pointing straight up I need to be. I think the gameplay would be *significantly* improved with A) a speedometer that shows how fast you're going and has the "safe landing" speed range clearly marked, and B) some landing gear on the ship, so you can better gauge your landing angle (Also because landing directly on the engine bell is a little silly :P)
When I do fail, I wish it felt more dramatic. It's a spaceship crash! I would have liked some explosion visual & sound effects.
I wasn't a fan of the way the ship instantly snaps to planets on a landing. It made all my hard work bringing the ship down gently feel less valid. I think tweening into the position over a half-second or so would really improve the feel of gameplay.
OK this last point is the nittiest of nitpicks, but I wish the ship hitbox was more accurate to its visuals. As I got more comfortable with the controls, I started attempting various epic risky maneuvers where the nose of the ship passes very close to a planet. Unfortunately, this always resulted in a game over, because while I'm a good pilot and the ship didn't actually collide with anything, its hitbox did.
One last thing I want to mention -- the art is really lovely and charming! I'm very curious, were the red stars/galaxies in the background merely an artistic choice or do they imply that this game takes place in the far cosmic future, when the only stars left are red dwarfs and distant light sources in the sky are redshifted due to the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe?
Really nice little game, thanks for making it :)
P.S. I escaped the universe
escape.png