Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → James Macgill
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | Highly Successful Research Submarine | jam | 973 | 3.48 | 3.19 | 3.88 | 3.97 | 3.70 | 2.41 | 3.12 | 3.36 |
One button games are fast becoming my favorite genre - thanks for adding another fun one to the list!
Start... oh hex snake that's different... Early... Fall mechanic.. that's new... Mid... Different soil types, and impassible ones... that's unique. Then... WTF... OMG... My TAIL noooooo.
Simple, and yet not. Wonderful Jam Entry. (A little more warning on the centipede perhaps...)
Love the mood and atmosphere. And that has to be the most unique input styles ever. It did indeed take me 8 plays to figure it out, I think it will take a few more to master.
Having a little more to eat early on before my first battle would have been nice - found the fights hard... perhaps once I have the input down a little better....
sfx on swimming add a nice touch too.
Clean take on the genre, with some nice unique touches.
Color coding the ball power to the brick color was a nice touch - of the unique elements the portals stood out as the most interesting.
Not reached the end yet - will come back and play more!
Confused a bit by the heart... I see from the notes that it was the level end. I have to say, respect for getting the menu / accessibility controls in first and running out of time on the levels rather than the other way round!
I seemed to be stuck within the top 10% of the screen. Not sure if it was picking up a background hum... Still fun idea and nice style!
I've become a fan of one button games since quamp - this was nicely themed and the difficulty curve just right!
Fun game, clever mechanic. Died by stepping off the edge, which felt a bit cruel and sudden given vs the slow loss and gain of life during the rest of the game. Great level of polish, and the sfx on pickups... perfect.
I only bought the one megaluma bulb.. triped and broke it on the first step! I'll try again now that I have a better idea of what to buy up front.
Had to switch to keyboard as buttons on controller did not seem to work (stick did though). Was a little confused on what I was supposed to do... I did scan some fish, and the shark it clearly having fun.
Mood, graphics, audio all excellent.
Felt I was getting the hang of the mechanics but I'm afraid I got very confused once I picked up the orb - died in the next pool and with no nearby spawn point I could only try a couple of times. Nice to see the retro style though, and wall jumping always fun.
Nice to see such a high level of polish on the UI and the aesthetic. Comments above already cover powerups and camera tweaks so nothing to add. Quick, easy to play. Fun and looks great.
I started by trying to avoid the shaded areas before realizing they were not harmful. Found myself playing over and over again so that has to be a good sign!
Great style, perfect music, nailed the theme. Got better once I stopped trying to avoid the ghosts, still only managed 121 so far. Off to try the post-jam version.
It is lovely to look at, and whilst a bit stumped at first I did solve the puzzle. I found the boxes to a be a little sticky at times, like there would be a direction they would not move in for a while.
Top marks for mood / style. Keep up the development enough to see your vision through!
Fun setup with the distinct tool, too hard for me to finish right now, but this feels like one I will come back to. Nice play on 'depth'.
Took a little too long to work out that I should keep tapping up rather than just holding it. After that... way more fun. Nice physics mechanics with good sense of weight.
Took me far to long to work out that I could interact with things - probably proximity would be enough for this game and not also aiming before being given the on screen tip.
On my first run the exit spawned next to the entrance which (combined with me missing the interaction prompt) had me thinking there was no exit to the level.
All that said, the mood was great, the little critters were numerous enough and speedy enough to spook and cause panic - so well played on theme and mood!
Nice, compact game. Balanced the scaling well. Nice that it could be completed in a reasonable length of time. Terminal was a little confusing at first (I kept reading the updates backwards for some reason).
Took me too long to work out the power requirement for the drill upgrades as it was not on the icons. Loved how the puzzle aspect kicks in as you start to run out of space. Nice set of mechanics to put together for a LD game.
I thought I was getting stuck, but I see I was actually reaching end states. Nice concept, played a few ways through. Nice to see replay provides different options with the same people.
Oooh, custom binary, so rare.
A little confusing at first... but that's actually worth it for the realization of the orbit mechanics when you zoom out and see why your bullets move the way they do. Some extra visual indicators of a few things would go a long way.. I was unsure initially if my WASD inputs were on global orientation or local to the ship (little thrust markers would help). Orbit lines might be nice, but might also take away the challenge.
Why build one game in a jam when you can make them all! Sound effects, especially early on, set the mood well. Combat felt a little heavy and sluggish. Nice to be able to play to the end. Bonus point for humour.
Love the scale shift as you get deeper. Started to get hard to find things deeper down though and I missed the sonar early one. Nice graphics, excellent mood, right on theme.
What a nice way to unwind, wonderful art style - the music was perfect, I loved how it adapted to the story as it progressed.
Nice to see a tutorial on a jam game. Was still left a little confused until I realized that -ve food was not the consumption rate but the deficit (no wonder they all hated me the first few times)
Played it through to 3/3 - interesting take on the theme. Finding the 2nd of the three took a while, going back over some dialog loops a few times had me wanting to speed it up.
Whew, that got intense after about 800.... going so fast I could no longer click fast enough to catch fish!
After about 500 I felt like I was just putting all my money into pressure protection and buying the odd O2 / Repair which never seemed to cost enough to make adding capacity or robustness worth while.
That said, well balanced for a game that was made in a weekend!
I know there was a keyboard alternative but I was happier using the menu, just wished it was a little smaller so I could see more of the screen.
Not sure what 'control' does for you... I wonder if it slows you down... that would explain a lot..
You drew the inside of my head
Staggeringly good entry, as others have said very addictive. Once I knew there was an end I had to reach it! 5/5 across the board from me. Tiny tiny change (and I may be wrong) would be if a sub-root could save you in the second after death.. it seemed like occasionally one would reach water just after I died.
Love the look - game mentions getting more powerful but I could not work out how to do that... I did pick up some gems but it was tricky and I'm not entirely sure I followed how they spawned. Trick seems to be to not panic toooo much and let the boss free the gems, would help if they fell I think as they are hard to jump for.
Ticks all the boxes this one - humor, style, audio and great re-playability! Amazing level of polish for the time available - so nice to see well designed menus and clear instructions in game.
I appreciate how quickly you can get back into playing a level (That said, I could not bring myself to skip the voice lines!)
I'm trying to figure out the mines exactly... sometimes I have enough time to try and run away, others not so much.
Tiny bug, I once 'died on my feet'. Mine went off and I could still look around, but not move.
Thanks for providing clear how to play instruction in the game. I think I was dying from moving too soon after passing an obstacle, it was a little hard to judge some times.
Lots of potential here - I see from your responses so far that you had to cut things, we fell foul of the same thing. You did get a working game loop going and I'm busy growing my dwarf population!
Lovely game - nice compact narrative to knock out in the available time. Nice to think that no-one else explored the same house that I did.
Would have been nice if a few more of the interactable things provided clues / objects. It was also slightly odd that there was no way to talk to some of the people.
Nice play on the theme too.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. There were a couple of game breaking bugs in the first build that stoped UI buttons and tools from working and one that could cause everything to blowup almost instantly. So cool to see screen shots of subs people build!
Thanks for the feedback, the audio is not broken... it's non-existent :( we have a bunch of samples and events to tie them to but failed to pull it all together in time so shipped without audio. And we can't think of adding it as a bug fix as it is not game breaking.
The damage can be annoying - but you can get away with ignoring it for longer than you might think. Balancing the damage is hard especially with rnd and depth being combined as they currently are.
Thanks for the feedback - got the WebGL port working yesterday and yes that ESC key needs fixing! The editor is indeed a little fiddly :( I've added the list of essential first rooms to the how to play section on the site and an image to help people figure out the door placement. Rooms often have to be rotated to make them work with each other.
doors.jpg
Update - cancel key is now 'R' in the editor so it will not kick you out of fullscreen.
Thanks for the bug report on getting stuck between stations - It looks like this happens if you are sat at a station when you hit the surface. As this can be game breaking we will look at adding a patch.
And yes, we are sad we missed on integrating the audio - will absolutely be adding it post jam.
Agreed a little more starting money would make the first build a little easier to get right. Lots of balancing to do post jam.
Thanks everyone for the feedback and encouragement to keep going with this after the jam. Top of the list will be us adding audio!
@SouthpawDevelopment There is now a WebGL version.
@goldone @itskdog yeah the key bindings are a bit wonky. I switched esc to R for cancel because that clashed with exit full screen but should have swapped Q and R at the same time.
Expect building to be much improved post jam!
@zimny11 @jkoftekian thanks for the feedback. Next jam we will make sure to get tutorials and on screen tips going sooner and think a bit more about control schemes. I've tried padding out instructions in the game description but people should be able to dive in without reading all that!
@staircase27a lots of tweaking ahead post jam! Good photos are easier at deeper depths and with rarer fish. We will work to make the experience a bit more like the intro though.
@doctortm audio was sadly never wired up so not just you.
@evn thanks for the feedback. We are working on a streamlined first build experience for post jam.
@thegamerasd thanks for the feedback. Good news is the post jam version that we are working on has mouse controls for the editor. Your comment makes me think we should consider it as an option for the game play too...
@phoenix-fireflower thanks for the feedback. Yes we missed on the audio which is a shame as a build with it feels more atmospheric. And creaks and groans from the ship add to a sense of danger at depths. Will share a post jam version with sound when the contest is over. Or drop into our discord for a sneak peek.
@emperor-eagle thanks for the feedback. The editor is something we are paying a lot of attention to post jam. We now guide players through their first build and hide some rooms until after their first few dives. We will post a public link after the jam.
@macdoom Thanks for the feedback. Yep FTL was on our inspiration list, mind you so was overcooked :)
We hear you on the difficulty of getting good photos, especially on the the first level where you can only go down to 500m (It gets much easier on deeper levels, but it does not help if you can't afford to go on the deeper levels!) If you do want to play a more developed version you can [join our discord](https://discord.gg/aeQnUAE74W).
@kram Thanks for sticking with it and going back to read the instructions. Tutorials and on screen tips coming in post jam version. The system for showing them is something we will make sure to take with us when we next enter a jam!
A gem of a game - perfect take on the theme. First run through I got reckless and found 'almost' everything but dropped the debit card on the floor! Having it set over a dinner chat was a lovely touch.
Nice art style - a little too confusing to play. Not sure what 'it hurts' was telling me.
Little pockets of air that could be found on the way down would make a big difference. Going back up for air takes too long and without landmarks it is hard to 'learn' from my earlier dives which way to go.
My reflexes are not good enough for this game... I'm afraid I struggled to get through the first level.
Explored a plannet loaded up on wood and a few sheets of metal and worked out how to refuel and head back into space. Wondered what the other 'plannet' looking nav marker was and flew straight into... the black hole.
Clearly a lot more to explore here, liked the multiple bioms on the surface, as that O2 was consumed faster away from the trees.
Resource distribution was a little un-even, spent a long time with only 2 bits of wood wandering around looking then stumbled on loads of it - perhaps it was a different biome but I didn't pick up on visual cues of that was the case.
An indicator in space for how far something is would help - on the other hand... it would remove the tention of wondering if you will get there with the fuel you have.
Impressive for the time available, well done.
Agree with many of the comments above - biggest ones for me: Discovery of the purple laser took me way too long Falling back a level by going off the top is frustrating! Gets very hard very quickly - level 4 was as deep as I could get. Oh and the rar archive worked for me, but not the zip.