I haven't wanted to shoot a dog so much since Duck Hunt. :)
All right, a serious review. I got both endings btw, though it took me 3 tries. Spoilers below. - The first music track was okay (definitely not great); the second track was quite poor IMO. However the fact that the music changes to a more somber track when you lose the dog, is a nice touch. - It took me 3 tries because I didn't realize that putting the treasure/scroll onto the pedestal would mean letting the dog go free. The significance of this was unclear... obviously it's something I learned, and maybe that was your intention. - My biggest criticism is that there really seems to be zero "gameplay" in the sense that the only interesting decisions are "do I go up, or right"? The one potentially interesting decision in the game is whether the dog lives or I do; but again, I'm not even aware of that decision until after the first playthrough. In other words it's just not very deep as a "game", it's just navigation of a maze and that's all. - The fact that you had two endings was nice and not done enough. The emotional impact of them is well-done - the dog running away with the bone is pretty droll. - One big flaw: at the start of the dungeon I had access to a button, but couldn't actually press it. The dog and I jumped on that button for a while. It's confusing and I'd imagine it could have been easily avoided (put another locked door in front of that button until the button can easily be used). - One good thing you did was player teaching, making sure that they learned to use the button before proceeding; and the button themselves "afforded" pushing and being jumped on - good design choices, all. - No bugs that I saw or anything like that - which is good for a game made on an LD timeframe. Keeping it simple was a good decision - better a game be too simple (but complete) than too ambitious (and buggy/incomplete).
Overall I give this a 3/5. Good effort - and probably better than I'll do whenever I finally dive into an LD attempt of my own...!
LD22 — Alone (2)
Best Friend by TestSubject06 2012-01-02T00:45:00
I haven't wanted to shoot a dog so much since Duck Hunt. :)
All right, a serious review. I got both endings btw, though it took me 3 tries. Spoilers below.
- The first music track was okay (definitely not great); the second track was quite poor IMO. However the fact that the music changes to a more somber track when you lose the dog, is a nice touch.
- It took me 3 tries because I didn't realize that putting the treasure/scroll onto the pedestal would mean letting the dog go free. The significance of this was unclear... obviously it's something I learned, and maybe that was your intention.
- My biggest criticism is that there really seems to be zero "gameplay" in the sense that the only interesting decisions are "do I go up, or right"? The one potentially interesting decision in the game is whether the dog lives or I do; but again, I'm not even aware of that decision until after the first playthrough. In other words it's just not very deep as a "game", it's just navigation of a maze and that's all.
- The fact that you had two endings was nice and not done enough. The emotional impact of them is well-done - the dog running away with the bone is pretty droll.
- One big flaw: at the start of the dungeon I had access to a button, but couldn't actually press it. The dog and I jumped on that button for a while. It's confusing and I'd imagine it could have been easily avoided (put another locked door in front of that button until the button can easily be used).
- One good thing you did was player teaching, making sure that they learned to use the button before proceeding; and the button themselves "afforded" pushing and being jumped on - good design choices, all.
- No bugs that I saw or anything like that - which is good for a game made on an LD timeframe. Keeping it simple was a good decision - better a game be too simple (but complete) than too ambitious (and buggy/incomplete).
Overall I give this a 3/5. Good effort - and probably better than I'll do whenever I finally dive into an LD attempt of my own...!
Abandoned by Noel Berry 2011-12-18T23:26:00
I was really impressed by this, especially for a 48-hour project from a young developer! You're really talented, great job with this game!