Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Cory Martin
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Keep On | jam | 1680 | 3.29 | 3.16 | 3.70 | 3.72 | 3.58 | 3.60 | 3.14 | 3.11 | ||
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | CELL WARP / セルワープ | jam | 501 | 3.51 | 3.39 | 3.83 | 1.76 | 3.71 | 3.85 | |||
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Sellda | jam | 3.33 | 2.83 | 2.66 | 3.33 | 3.66 | ||||||
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Fire and Atlas | jam | 65 | 4.05 | 3.68 | 4.16 | 3.00 | 4.26 | 3.73 | 3.62 | |||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Monster Destroy Things | jam | 46 | 4.04 | 4.00 | 3.38 | 3.75 | 4.40 | 4.17 | 4.19 | 3.87 | 48 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | You Are Disabled | jam | 45 | 3.79 | 3.03 | 3.78 | 3.52 | 4.37 | 3.61 | 2.67 | 3.94 | 22 | |
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Potato The Destroyer | compo | 344 | 3.39 | 3.21 | 2.03 | 2.77 | 4.11 | 3.49 | 2.92 | 3.15 | 56 |
The narrative is nice, the graphics are very well done, the music is alright but its random generation shows, some of the sounds seem a bit unfitting and there are some issues with the character not jumping high enough when pressing against a wall. Overall, I enjoyed it.
Out of the dozens of LD games I've played in the last couple days, this is actually the most fun. I love it. The one button controls work great and the gameplay is really exciting. Though it's kind of annoying when it switches colors right as you're about to touch a block that's currently same color. I realize you can prevent that as a player by paying better attention to when it's going to change, but that's proven really hard to do for me. Also the rectangles would look much better if their outlines weren't rounded. But this is still a good game.
The sword controls are really fun. I wish your jumping and falling speed were faster though; it feels kind of floaty.
The graphics are gorgeous and the game is stylistically incredible. I really like the 2 hit regenerating health system too. The gameplay is super hard for me, though. If I get through the flying section, the driving section does me in quickly since I barely get to get the hang of it before there are a ton of obstacles waiting to obliterate me.
But overall, this is a really cool game.
I think this would be a lot better if the camera were more ahead of the character so you could anticipate what's ahead better. It also kinda takes too long to restart. Not bad though.
This is so much fun to play around with.
This game is mildly disturbing, largely due to the atmospheric sounds-- that's a good thing. The charging mechanic is intriguing.
I think the best strategy is to hover on the ground stationary holding space and abducting people when you need more energy.
This is far out.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! I released a post-competition version of the game that features an easier difficulty mode and another control setup among other improvements. Just make sure you don't rate the Ludum Dare entry based on that.
You have some really interesting gameplay here. It's almost arcade-like, but it feels way more meaningful. Great atmosphere and audio too. Though like spilth said, the movement's kind of spastic. Otherwise this would be incredible
This game is stylistically interesting, but I find it to be incredibly difficult.
Wind Waker and Fez are really good games to be inspired by. I really like it.
The controls are weird, but breaking those pots is so satisfying. Respect for the potatoes.
When I hit 'send', my message disappears from the text field and it doesn't send. I'm playing the OS X version. Am I doing something wrong?
To share a Stencyl game, export a .stencyl file. File > Export Game
Very interesting. This is a unique way to approach the perception of light, something I've never thought much about before. It makes me very thankful I have 2D binocular vision.
I don't like the graphics much at all; the color choices are very unappealing. I don't find the gameplay to be fun either. I like Christmas though.
This is legitimately one of the best Ludum Dare games I've ever played. It's incredibly focused and executed brilliantly. The graphics are nice and the audio is outrageously good.
I don't mind having to walk back to the bosses; I honestly think the game would lose something without that aspect.
Yet another excellent jam entry.
Neat little platformer. The graphics are nice and everything's polished pretty well.
I think the most obvious issue are with the physics: boxes falling through other boxes, boxes falling into other boxes, et cetera. There was one scenario where I had three boxes stuck in each other and I couldn't separate them.
I found the enemies to be a bit tricky to deal with. Their jumping combined with their periodic shooting can cause some annoying scenarios, especially when you're waiting for their bullet to pass but jumping means they're going to jump but it's too difficult to tell whether or not their next shot will occur during that jump.
Also, the coin hitboxes seem to be incredibly small. Typically, the norm is to have pickups have large hitboxes and hazards have smaller ones. I'm sure you're aware of that.
Nonetheless, I beat it and enjoyed it. Nice job.
This is a cool little platformer. I feel like the controls have some issues though.
In particular, the character moves forward a lot when you tap a direction, making it impossible to inch forward to position yourself for a jump and making it way too easy to accidentally fall off a platform.
I also miss a lot of triple jumps because I press the jump button too early. There ought to be some leeway. When the jump button is pressed, set an integer to something greater than zero (you'll have to play around with it to find a good value). Each frame, decrement this value by 1. When the player is on the ground, check to see if this value is greater than 0, and if is, trigger the jump.
I hope you find my feedback helpful!
I'm impressed you were able to make this for the 48 hour compo!
The audio and art are nice, the audio especially for the noise the terminal makes and the kickin song on the radio.
The ambiance is really well done. It sort of reminds me of Dark Seed a little bit.
[SPOILER WARNING]
One issue I have is, you discover how to fix the bike from the radio, which you repeat to the person standing... right next to the radio. It's also established when you turn the radio off that they are, in fact, listening to the radio.
It was enjoyable nonetheless.
Oh yeah, I also found the text difficult to read, especially when the game's not full-screen.
I found controlling the player to be pretty frustrating. Since you move so quickly, it can be hard to time your jumps to occur on the edge of a platform. I found myself falling a lot. Many platformers, including Mario, give you some leeway where you can jump a tiny bit after you've started falling off a platform. This is accomplished by having a simple timer that starts decreasing once you leave the ground and allowing you to jump during that time period.
It's sort of hard to see the player against dark backgrounds which can make things a bit annoying.
This is a good effort nonetheless. I like the villagers' reactions to you as your legs grow.
This is a really charming and well done stealth game. I think my only gripe is that it feels weird to have to position the mouse cursor precisely over the food to pick it up instead of just holding the hand in the general area.
Good work!
A big flaw with the game's design is the building mechanic. Early on, there's no reason to avoid the buildings since you'll regenerate all of your health, but later on, the buildings are in high numbers and in many cases, unavoidable and you're inevitably going to die.
I think if you had control over your jump, or if the jump were simply faster and less levitate-y, it would be better.
It's also difficult to make the people out against the background when they're on platforms.
I hope you find my criticism helpful!
I don't really find this compelling outside of the skinner-box mechanics. It would be nice if there were something more here.
Neat hotel wow. I wouldn't stay there though
It's really easy to accidentally skip text by holding down forward just for a little bit. You should only advance text when the button is initially pressed
It was also a bit annoying to have to try every door since you can't see which ones you can enter. It felt like senseless busywork
The art is nice
Nice motel
I wish I could slap things with my tentacle hands
I didn't mean to call it a motel the second time
Neat game!
The difficulty ramps up quick, and by that I mean, it's difficult from the first level. You should try ramping it up gradually. Perhaps in the first level, you would only need to place one bird to get to the end, which is horizontal to you. Then in the next level make it so you have to place several, then in the next level make it so you have to go diagonally, etc.
I like the stars that you can make disappear temporarily. They serve as a nice time pressure mechanic. Though I think they should indicate when they're about to become solid again.
The meteors are tough as heck. It's a big challenge to not only remember the pattern, but to remember where exactly they travel, which is especially difficult for the ones that move diagonally. The latter problem could be solved by having them leave behind a trail that stays around for a while.
This is a really creative mechanic though so I'm more forgiving of those things. Good job!
This is pretty funny. It's surprisingly a fun challenge to read through the options and pick the one that won't offend any of the honkers. The failure screen does take a bit too long though. I also wish the text were more readable.
Very cool. I think this would be much more fun if the monster were more responsive and fleet-footed. His movement is pretty stiff at the moment, which might be because he's supposed to be a big monster, but I think it took away from my enjoyment a bit.
Nonetheless, this was a cool entry. I ran into the movement freeze bug, but you guys fixed that in the post-competition version it seems.
Nice. It gets really intense when there are a lot of garden invaders chasing you.
My only gripe with the gameplay is the garden invaders can spawn on or next to you. I'd make it so they can only appear offscreen.
As MapleQuest mentioned, some simple sound effects would have been very beneficial.
I like the animations. Even though I suppose they're not really impressive from a technical animation standpoint, they're really lively.
The particle effects are nice.
I like how you can scorch the leaves off the trees.
Nice job!
a typical farm
the cow with great ambitions
consumes the heavens
I have to say, it's sort of satisfying to jump on the prongers one after another as they move upwards toward you.
Congrats on making your first game!
You should make the jumping more quick. It feels more like levitation than jumping as it is.
It's a bit annoying that you'll jump again if you're holding the jump button when you land. You ought to make it so it only jumps for the initial button press.
I'd also give him the character more jump height since the jumps seem to be very precise vertically. I think the peak of Mario's jumps are around a half-tile above the highest platform he can reach.
The enemies would be more fun to fight if they died faster. It's better to have more enemies with less health than less enemies with more health. The former is way more satisfying than standing there firing at the same enemy.
There's more I could say but it'll all come to you as you continue to make games.
I think the unlocks progress too slowly. The basic laser is especially weak and it's not very fun to use and I gave up before unlocking anything else and it's really difficult early on. It's better to have a lot of enemies with low health than a few enemies with a lot of health. This game has a lot of enemies with a lot of health.
It's good that fun mode is there because at least I could try out the weapons, which were nice. I like how the lasers consist of small "particles". It makes them more interesting to use than if they were just straight lines.
It's really satisfying playing as a big boss ship. The random generation is nice and helps replay value. I can't help but feel that it wouild be better with faster bullets.
Neat entry! This helped me live out my fantasy of being furniture that spooks people, which is a desire I wasn't aware of going into this.
Given the pre-game dialogs that develop the victims as characters, it would be nice if there were some indication in the game as to which model corresponded to which character. As it is, they're pretty much nameless game objects, and they don't have to be!
It would also be good to know who each sanity level corresponded with.
At its core, the game seems to be RNG-dependent since perfect execution is rather easy to pull off in most cases. I failed twice in the second night but pulled it off with ease the third time.
I'd like there to be a more clear indication of whether you scared someone or not, like a sound effect. Them running away doesn't feel tangible enough. There were a couple instances where I wasn't sure if I actually did scare them.
Another issue is they don't seem to have a logical line of sight. I assume them being scared is based on proximity? You can trigger the dresser or the television and it looks like they'd be able to see it, but it doesn't scare them.
I hope this feedback is helpful! Good work!
It's an interesting idea, but it's incredibly difficult to memorize which colors correspond with which keys, at least for me.
I don't know what the heck is going on but I'm okay with that. I like it better that way.
It's cool. I like the world. The controls feel a bit sluggish, but I'm not sure whether that's a performance issue or not. Some of the collisions catch me by surprise.
Oh and nice art!
Nice art! Is there only one level or am I missing something? :[
I'm always impressed by how clever your game jam games are. The concept and puzzle design is on point.
One thing that I stumbled with quite a bit was remembering what switches did what. If they had some color or symbol coordination that indicated their purpose (what doors they open, whether they activate a flag, etc), that would have helped. I wound up quitting on one of the more complex puzzles because my small brain couldn't handle it.
Also something I'm finding myself wanting while reviewing these LD games is for the levels to be named or numbered so I can refer to them or even know how far I am in the game.
It was really great overall though. You should make a quick post-competition version with some sound effects, because I'd love to give it another shot!.
I like the concept, but I took a wound almost every time and my character wound out better overall with the items from the chest. It didn't seem like much of a sacrifice.
In terms of graphics, I think they would be much better with more contrast. You also ought to make the projectiles much bigger. That helps both readability and game-feel.
Also, it would be nice to know what the item I just picked up does without having to check the pause menu, and also it would be good to know the negative ramifications of each sacrifice without having to check.
I dug the vibe and the narrative elements. It seemed to come from a genuine place, emphasizing the importance of goals while we try to navigate through life. Some of the writing could have been better, but I assume English isn't your first language.
It actually took me quite a few levels to understand the movement mechanics. For example, I didn't understand in the "Some problems may avoid you at all costs..." level why I couldn't move up and down in the 3rd column from left, but could move up and down in the 5th column. I think this could be remedied by highlighting the spaces you can move to, like in some chess applications, and also playing a negative feedback sound when you try to make an invalid move.
It also took me longer to understand the enemy movement patterns, for the same reasons I had issues understanding the player movement. I didn't understand why the skeletons would seemingly turn around before even reaching a wall (not knowing they can only move 2 spaces at a time, and no less). A similar solution to what I proposed above could be applied here as well: showing where each skull is going to move on the next turn.
I wound up haphazardly getting through most of the puzzles without even thinking, because I didn't understand the mechanics until late in the game. Once you do understand the mechanics though, it's much easier to appreciate the puzzles. I took the time to reply it again after understanding things and I wound up enjoying it more the second time. I think making things easier to understand from the beginning will go a long way!
One random bit of feedback: I think your easing/tweening/lerping algorithm for movement should ease-out, rather than ease-in. Right now, the feedback for you moving is delayed since the movement speed has to build up so gradually, and immediate feedback is usually pretty important in terms of game feel.
I'm glad I played your game. I think it could be pretty great if you make some improvements to it and are given more time to fully explore the mechanics.
I wish I understood the lose condition. The game becomes so frantic when your meters are low, you don't have time to pay attention to what's happening aside from what animals you need to grab. Do you lose when your meters are depleted, or is it when you only have one animal of a type?
I'm not sure if I can please the gods or if I'm doomed to fail every time. Am I just trying to get a high score?
The idea of having to keep two of each kind so they can reproduce is cool. As I mentioned though, it's impossible to even pay attention to it when you're scrambling to grab animals before your meters are depleted.
I'm not sure the music fit, but I understand you had to make something quick and simple for the jam. Something a bit more silly would have paired better with the game.
It might be fun to implement some small skill-based elements that allow the player to do things faster, like being able to throw the animals.
I really liked it! A lot of the puzzles were really clever. I think I might have solved some of them in unintended ways. It's always cool when a game's mechanics naturally give rise to multiple solutions. I do feel though that the level order could be tweaked a bit, as I found it to progress a bit unnaturally in terms of difficulty.
The polish was pretty good, but what blew me away was the fact that there was an animated ending cutscene. How on earth did you pull that off for the compo? Insane!
I like the art. The way you can visually see when an enemy has shields is a nice touch.
I wish choosing your ship at the start didn't seem so inconsequential. You always seem to get the same ship and weapon every time.
When the player ship takes damage, I'd like for there to be visual feedback other than the screenshake, because sometimes I can't easily tell whether I killed an enemy with my weapon or if they died from colliding with my ship.
I also echo the thoughts of wanting more enemy and weapon variety, but it's understandable not to have that given the time constraint.
I really like the idea of being able to take an enemy ship. An idea I had for if you continue working on this: it might be interesting to knock the player out of their ship when they "die" and give them an opportunity to steal another ship, but make the movement mechanics outside of a ship looser so it's not too easy, and end the game if they go off screen.
@tmpxyz You have to click on the portals. Maybe I should have made that more clear.
Screen Shot 2019-10-07 at 7.42.19 PM.png
I enjoyed it! Very snappy and straightforward.
I think one improvement you could make is to have a tiled background so you can measure the height of your jumps. Sometimes it's difficult to tell where you're able to jump to, so you wind up just trying it out to see.
Feels really responsive and fun!
I like how the worm makes accordion sounds. I'm really bad at controlling him, but it makes perfect sense. Good job!
I wish I didn't have to start the whole game over when I die.
@unept Thanks. Is the lag you're referring to the time slowdown when you're aiming? If so, that's an intentional design decision, because I want the player to have time to aim their throws. I actually put effort into making the slowdown smooth, but had to abandon it because there were too many issues in conjunction with Stencyl/Box2D, so I just raise the engine's step size instead.
@gord10ahmet Yeah, I wanted to have auto-restart but ran out of time. I wouldn't want it to restart immediately though, because you can make some cool off-screen grabs/recoveries. Something like, an auto-restart after you've been off-screen for a couple seconds is what I'd probably want to do. I also wanted to implement Smash-Bros-style indicators for when you're off-screen so you have a better idea of where you are.
Really interesting concept! Would love to see this expanded to feel a bit less repetitive.
Neat mechanics. The movement works as expected and was satisfying.
Any criticism I have has already been said.
Congrats on making a game.
It was surprisingly challenging to remember what days to water the plant on, while also killing flies. I managed to take care of the plant though!
It would be cool and useful if view out the window changed to better indicate the time of day. It's animating as it is, but I can't tell if it's supposed to be tied to the day cycle or not.