The Day Magic Died by Endurion 2013-08-26T18:37:00
Great art style. In a future version, you should consider a skybox or some other kind of background. My only really big problem was the huge hitboxes of the arrows.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → jishenaz
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Caelium Alpha | jam | 517 | 3.14 | 2.23 | 3.09 | 3.61 | 3.31 | 3.07 | ||||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Gyra | jam | 231 | 3.63 | 3.26 | 3.77 | 4.21 | 3.28 | 3.33 | 72 | |||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Galactic Space Crusher | jam | 804 | 2.90 | 3.00 | 2.83 | 1.97 | 3.33 | 2.71 | 2.75 | 55 | ||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | The Other Sky | jam | 141 | 3.59 | 3.44 | 3.10 | 3.56 | 3.22 | 3.42 | 2.35 | 3.50 | 56 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | BlockDodger | compo | 1002 | 1.90 | 2.03 | 1.45 | 1.75 | 2.23 | 1.29 | 1.14 | 1.57 | 66 | |
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | 10 Seconds In 10 Seconds | compo | 891 | 2.70 | 2.44 | 2.90 | 3.19 | 2.49 | 1.57 | 1.64 | 2.43 | 99 |
Great art style. In a future version, you should consider a skybox or some other kind of background. My only really big problem was the huge hitboxes of the arrows.
Does that guy in the cutscene have gold teeth or yellow teeth? lol
I haven't seen a tower-defense entry yet. This is exceptional. Great work!
Great defense game. I only had a little trouble with aiming.
I love the concept. Jumping was hard to get right, but a lot of retro games have that kind of jumping, so it's just me.
Nice allusion to S&S and Fez :)
Exceptional puzzle game!
A superb runner
Great mechanic
Awesome use of the theme!
Very interesting concept. There are only a few games out there with programming as a mechanic.
Fantastic! Made it to level 20.
Cute. My only problem was that movement was a little slow. Otherwise, I enjoyed it.
I like the arcade feel it exhibits.
I don't know if it's just me, but the instructions don't show in the menu. Classic "run to the finish" kind of game.
I love the graphics.
Love the retro style
This must have been hard to make! And yet the game design is great and it's fun. Awesome work. There was of rare bug where I could go through some wall, but I figured assembly language would be extremely difficult to debug.
The character moves more fluidly on an Xbox controller, but I couldn't figure out which button is used for melee.
Difficult but very fun game
Awesome music. Falling after the jump felt "floaty". Don't know if that was intended. Also, When gravity changes, controls become really hard. Have you considered changing the controls in different orientations? Great game.
Great puzzle game!
Great game. I like the screen effect.
The art-style is great, but I think the laser you shoot should disappear once it hits an enemy. The laser just floats around. Otherwise, good game.
I played single-player, but I can tell that the multiplayer would be great. This game exercises my hand!
I like the art style. Isometric controls took a little to get used to.
Didn't know I was allowed to still port. Linux version now avaliable, but not tested.
Oh, yes. I forgot to mention the numbers on the sides are ammo.
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll tweak the controls in a post-LD version, and of course add sounds and other stuff.
@SteveSalmond: Thanks a bunch. What do you mean by "overshoot"?
@OldPeculier: The cheaty AI was due to the fact I started AI late. Unity's Transform.LookAt() was the fastest thing I could do at that point.
Thanks everyone! I'll definitely make a local multiplayer in a post-LD version.
@SpiralCodeStudio: That's because you have to gain back ammo by invoking your shield as much as possible in defense mode (when you're green).
@Jupiter_Hadley: Thanks for featuring my work in that video! Controls I will tweak in a future version of the game, and I'll explain in the game how ammo works.
Beautiful game. There was one part where you get stuck because an underpass was too low to pass under. I couldn't explain where it was. Otherwise, I really enjoyed it.
One of the best I played yet.
Kawaii art style! At some point, it becomes really hard to save everyone because you can't run fast enough. It's also hard to tell where enemies might be when you're near the hospital. Great adorable game.
The controls were good and the difficulty was just right. Awesome game.
I love how the fuel is measured in time.
The particle are really cool, but it can be hard to see where the player is. Awesome job!
Lot of 10 second references here, which I personally found funny. I always wanted to make a space shooter. Great stuff.
I love the graphics. Unfortunately, it was buggy from my experience. I was pushed out the arena and cannot get back in, so I float outside as if flying. I also seem to be invulnerable to everything. I can't die.
For some reason I love games with light mechanics. There aren't enough of them. Lovely game. The messages in the game were touching.
The death messages were hilarious. I think the little musical tunes that play during death add to the humor. :) Unfortunately I still couldn't figure out how to disarm the bomb.
It seems I'm the only one that got a blue screen of death while playing this game. It occurred during the intro text. Using Windows 8.1.
After restarting the computer and trying again, the game is all black, but still plays sounds.
I was able to test the game on Windows 7. Runs perfectly. Really cool graphics and gameplay! I love walking around little planetoids. :)
Very beautiful game. I'm amazed you designed a neat language like this in little time. I enjoyed trying to decipher what the aliens were saying. You should develop this language further.
Very nostalgic! The music is fantastic. Is there anyway we can get it?
Best gravity game and simulator! Sometimes it hard to aim when your mouse is outside the game's screen, but that's a minor problem.
The controls were a little odd at first, but I got used to them pretty quickly. Beautiful game!
It was easy at first, but later it does make you think which key to get first. The in-game music was cool.
Considering this was made in C++, you went pretty far. I wouldn't know how to play sounds in SDL (or the social media links either). Good stuff.
Thank you for reporting this error.
Apparently, you need to download Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studios 2012 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/confirmation.aspx?id=30679
Tell me if that fixes the problem.
@MrBlade: Have you installed Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studios 2012?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/confirmation.aspx?id=30679
@Piat I encountered the bugs you mentioned on a separate computer. I'll have to find a way to fix it. It might take a while. I never seen this problem in my computer, even with a release build.
Thanks for the bug reports. I have a delta time calculations now, so hopefully blocks move at "normal" speeds. Tell me if it doesn't.
@mortl8324 The installer (vcredist_x86.exe) is only for getting the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studios 2012 installed. Have you tried running BlockDodger.exe without installing the redistributable?
If that doesn't work, you should try installing the redistributable again. Hopefully it won't crash Explorer again. Unfortunately, I have no control over that because the installer is made by Microsoft, no by me.
@tobbez: Appreciate the feedback.
@bowlercaptain: I actually wanted to do a scorekeeping system of some sort, but ran out of time.
Yeah, I definitely should have worked on this engine before LD, but there's never enough time. Usually I would use something like Unity, but I need to demonstrate that I could make something in C++.
Thanks for the feedback!
@Daveloper: Thanks for the feedback. I would have loved to implement difficulty scaling but that would probably take too long to test.
@jarnik: Thank you for the feedback. :)
Yeah, I was aware if the strange movement. I have to find a way for SDL to handle multiple keys. That will probably solve the movement problem. I would like to make a tiny post-LD version of this game fixing all the issues, but I wouldn't expect it soon.
@patrickgh3: Thanks man!
When I was introduced to OpenGL in college, I couldn't get my head around it. It's programming style is a little weird and takes getting used to. The more graphics concepts you are exposed to, the more easier it is to understand. Good modern tutorials for OpenGL include <http://open.gl/> and <http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/>.
@stefan: Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to make a post LD version this month for #1GAM that will include increasing difficulty.
@Jupiter_Hadley: I'm humbled that my ridiculously simple game would get a video review. Thank you :)
I made a post Ludum Dare version with difficulty scaling and better controls. Download link at top of page.
The game was really fun and cute, but after a few minutes, it lags to the point of being unplayable. Using Chrome on Windows 8.1.
I think I was the only one that felt a disconnect with the game. I didn't know those objects were people. I thought they were obstacles, so I avoided all of them.
The music was very beautiful.
This is a really cool puzzle. I got stuck on the 4th orange puzzle.
I'm surprised this game isn't getting enough attention. Really awesome mechanic! There are other games with the 1-ammo constraint, but this is one of the best ones.
This is a really cool game! Kept playing for a while. My only frustration was aiming. You risk crashing on the ceiling when trying to shoot objects out of the way.
Beautiful game with awesome mechanics!
Pretty funny game. Those speed powerups really help. Occasionally, the game would lag a little (playing online version).
I really enjoyed this game. The art and audio are well made. I liked the ending as well.
Runs fine on my Windows 7 64-bit computer. The art style is very good and the music and sounds are well done. Nice and challenging. I don't know if my grenades were useful, but I eventually got good at bullet dodging.
Very well developed game with fun puzzles and cute characters!
I have Windows 7 64-bit, and it seems to be working.
The graphical effects on the level are really cool and the mechanic of switching between the red space and blue space goes very well with the theme. It was also very fun!
There were a few issues that should be considered in a future version though. First off, the moment the game begins, you are instantly barraged by enemies. Makes the game really difficult from the start.
Also, when you want to switch worlds, sometimes it doesn't happen. I examined this further and realized it was because I was overlapped with a block in the opposite world, preventing the world transition. I totally understand this now, but there needs to be some kind of cue indicating that I cannot switch into the other world on a block overlap. Maybe a sound effect could make a good cue for that.
Overall, awesome game, even if it's unfinished. Making this game further would make it even more awesome.
I love the surreal style. Pulling and attracting the colored spaces was a little difficult, but I eventually got to the end. Very well done.
The graphics and sounds are cute. Fun little puzzle game. PuzzleScript looks interesting, I might play around with it later.
The graphics and shaders are unbelievable! Nice audio too. The controls are perfect in my opinion. This is a keeper.
Very fun arcade game. It's difficult, but that's expected. The connected platforms need some more distinguishment, perhaps connected lines.
That is the best hovercraft ever. I only realized after exploring many caves that this was supposed to be endless and procedurally generated. This is excellent work, even though there isn't a game. The controls were great in my opinion, it was really fun flying that hovercraft around. Those strange triangle structures are interesting. Music and light effects are also spot on.
Very cool game! The controls were a little difficult, but I got used to it. Her jumps aren't that high, but maybe that's intended. The mech is really nice, but I wasn't aware if there was a limit on how many times you can summon the mech. The mech itself was a little hard to control. The graphics and music were awesome.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
While I previously liked the jumping, I admit that the lack of momentum might have made the game too easy.
I would have loved to make more levels and better puzzles, but I ran out of time.
When the room showed up, I thought it was a still painting until I moved the character. Very nice artistic style! The effects were really cool as well. Nice choice of music.
Beautiful music and fun mechanic! It goes a little fast, but because the levels seem to be randomly generated, some plays were easier than others. My highscore was 39.
Excellent graphics and shaders! The enemies were a little difficult, but I managed to make it to the "end" with 2800 points. Listening to the suggested music was fitting for this game.
If you're developing this game further, having powerups would be nice, especially for health and better lasers.
Very compelling story. Matches the theme very well.
Very bizarre (in a good way!). The variety of different gameplay mechanics must have taken a while to implement. Lovely surreal game.
The music was nice. That map feature is really helpful, because it would be hard for me to navigate the world otherwise. Fits the theme well.
I like the air jumping mechanic.
This was a really fun game with an excellent art style. It would be nice to be able to crank the previous element instead of always cranking the next element.
Lovely game. The arm's gravity was a little hard to control, but I made it to the end. Nice graphics and dialogue.
I enjoyed rolling around the platforms with only the mouse wheel! I also liked the sound effects.
However, if you play long enough, the people seem to multiply quickly and slows down the game a lot. But that only happens after playing the game for about 10 minutes.
I did like that the health was integrated into the player and the colors change among the people when they want to throw a bomb.
Nice work!
These are some of the best graphics I've seen this LD. You guys made a voxel-ish Mario Galaxy game, and it's amazing. Please keep developing!
Concerning controls, the camera movement with mouse was a little weird, but I got used to it. What I didn't get used to was the player's momentum. It was hard to stop the player when moving and that cause me to fall off a lot.
Overall, beautiful work!
Thanks Tom!
Yes, random spawning of enemies would have been something I wanted in the game, but I only had 8 minutes to make a level. XD
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I basically dumped enemies in random parts of the scene, due to lack of time, but I do want to place an actual spawning system that will hopefully be smart.
I chose voxels because as a programmer, I found MagicaVoxel easier to use than Blender.
Thanks everyone! I originally wanted a few more enemies, but I didn't get time to make them.
A more complete version of this game would definitely have a health meter for the player.
I appreciate the feedback!
@NoWandStudios: I would definitely tweak the red plasma more if I was going to develop this game further.
@Chronodrax: I'm not too sure about camera rotation. It's something to think about, but I wouldn't want to to be too disorientating.
@peterkirk: I had more elaborate enemy behaviors planned but didn't have time the implement them.
I'm surprised this game isn't getting enough attention. This has to be one of the best physics games I played in a while! Very fun; I love toppling over the towers.
Excellent polish! I see no flaws with this game except one thing: I can't tell if I get hurt. I know there is an audio queue for getting hurt, but it sounds too similar to the adventurers.
Overall awesome work!
Great level generation and UI. I beat the bot a few times, but I notice if I keep player after several times, the screen is black but I can still see the UI and hear sounds.
But anyhow, fun fighter.
Excellent game with nice polish. The mechanics were great and there was a good amount of challenge.
Now anyone playing this game will understand how annoying it must be for animals to be captured on-the-spot by random weirdos. XD
Lovely visuals! I liked exploring space, but I ran out of fuel in the middle of space! XD
One strange thing I noticed was that if I try to go to some planets, I cannot walk there normally like I could on the first planet. I can only move with the thrusters.
Very interesting entry!
Very fun mini-game with nice music! The wackiness of this game reminds me of WarioWare for some reason (that a good thing) :D
I got a C+. It's hard managing everyone. XD
Nice game!
The graphics are stunning. I'm interested in the story. Hope you develop it further!
Awesome art and gameplay! This was a really fun game. The only thing that it's missing is music. I died from the big guy.
I found the secret passage inside part of the level interesting. It reminded me of old platformers from long time ago.
Interesting story. The graphics and sounds were great! I also liked the monochrome+red effect at the end.
This was a really nice game with excellent mechanics that are relevant to the theme.
I think the only improvement it needed was that the collision volume around the people should be a little smaller. I sometimes felt that I wasn't touching a person nearby but they would die anyway. But I was still able to go through the levels.
Awesome work!
Nice pixel art! The tutorial really helped me understand what I was supposed to be doing.
I liked how you control two characters at once with different speeds; it added dynamism to the game.
Fun little platformer! I really found the music soothing.
I'm very impressed by the procedural generation of the boss ship. How did you do that in so little time? I really loved how you can try out you ship before you use it. Very innovative.
The game was really fun. Always appreciated a nice space shooter.
The graphics were awesome! I liked the boss fight at the end, to see who was the better monster. :)
Towards the end of the boss level, the camera would be angled a little low, which didn't happen in the other levels. The player also had a little too much momentum, so it was a bit hard to move, but I did eventually get used to it.
Nice work!
Nice procedural faces! These would be great in a game with cuteness-aesthetics.
The death sound is hilarious. Awesome graphics! Unfortunately, I gave up because I kept dying. XD
Okay, I just played the web version (no graphical bugs), and I must say, it was really amazing!
I actually don't mind the sounds of the UFO, because by the way it was moving on the ground, I could tell that the UFO was meant to be a bit wonky. I liked the style.
I somehow survived the barrage of tanks, there must have been at least 50 of them firing at once at some point. XD
Best game yet!
The art and music were great, but I found the game a bit hard. I died many times at level two only to be zapped back to the beginning of the game. But it was a nice little game.
Wonderful game! Had a very cozy atmosphere to it.
On occasion, I find a shifted edge of the totem above me too hard to jump over, but I can't warp to the other side because there are spikes there. This is fortunately very occasional, and I otherwise really enjoyed this game!
Amazing art!The gameplay was also nice. It oddly reminded me of deflecting spells in Ocarina of Time.
It was a little hard, but I managed to beat the Shadowdancer. The Conductrix is impossible :)
Amazing aesthetics! To make this in C must have been really hard, even with an already working engine.
Awesome game! You guys made great use of both themes and the graphics are amazing. I couldn't make it all the way up to the tower, but I kept trying, and I had fun
Gorgeous city game! I liked seeing the city grow, and it was pleasant to look at the awesome art style.
But sometimes I felt that the the question bubbles came up too often, making me compulsively answer the questions, so that I can go back to seeing the city again.
I felt that the answers did have some influence over how the city formed, but the city more or less stops growing after it said "61 Block(s) remaining".
But anyhow, it was a beautiful little city game with an inspiring, simple art style.
Awesome puzzle mechanic and great use of the theme!
Excellent game! I found the controls easy to get used to, and I think it has the perfect difficulty.
It has a very interesting movement mechanic (I never played dungeon crawlers). The art is pretty amazing; I love the retro 2.5D look.
It seemed to me that the combat was real-time, but I wonder how the game would be like if it was turn based instead. This is just admittingly just me pondering, because implementing that might require rewriting some code.
It was very interesting :)
Very beautiful game! I love the controls and I also love how the health slowly regenerates. I made it to the 6th level (aka the 3rd tank level).
Pretty cool! The game was fun and the graphics were awesome, but it was too laggy on my gaming PC. Consider offering settings for graphics.
This game is absolutely beautiful. I could stare at the beautiful art for a long time. As for the game itself, I found it hard, but I'm bad at puzzles like these. Awesome game!
Nice work! I found the game a little hard, but I kept trying. I also liked the random level layouts.
Really great game! Really tests those multitasking skills XD
I got used to the controls quickly, but I had a much better time playing with two hands (one for each button) then with two fingers from the same hand. It may be because my brain thinks that "one hand must do one task", instead of giving each finger a role.
Anyway, awesome work!
This is excellent, even though it was short. He sure has a heavy beard! If you continue making this, sound effects would enhance this already great experience.
A very relaxing platformer :)
The artstyle is very well-done, even with the simple geometry. Reminded me of Paper Mario.
As someone else said, I could just wander the scenery without much of a worry.
Awesome work!
I could not play or rate the game because the game crashes with the "RemaindersOfThe34-light.exe has stopped working" error. :(
This error always occurs right after the Rodaja splash. I'm on Windows 7. I tried both the regular and lite versions. The game looked interesting, so I hope this can be resolved.
That was a beautiful experience! Thank you for making this.
As everyone said, the controls are very hard, and it's probably because I don't know airplane physics, but even as it was hard to control, was was slowly able to navigate a little bit.
The visuals are extremely beautiful, but the audio truly wins me over. Phenomenal job!
Love that art-style and mechanics. Great game!
Very interesting. I could not tell if this was a game or interactive art. Or maybe it was both. Very "out of this world" graphics.
My tree did die once, but a new tree grew. However, it reached a certain height till it stopped growing. I clicked on many things, but didn't completely understand the meaning of them. Although I did start avoiding the black planets because I think they killed the first tree, or so I think.
The game did lag, but I don't know if that was a bug or intentional...
I only played around with this for a short time, but in that time, I was amazed by the results of this generator.
Model export would be nice, but you would need to establish a license for the models made with this program if you go that route.
(I noticed that the source repo on Github doesn't have a Licence file. I recommend adding one of your choice.)
I got 6890. Was a fun experience, especially with the tension of the whole vine starting to collapse.
I think there is a point though, when I go high enough, I cannot keep up with the pace of the vine falling, if you know what I mean.
Excellent work!
Beautiful work of art! It was fun finding out all the possibilities. Great music. My favorite ending was #14
This is one of the most jam-packed LD games I played so far! I'm amazed by the work done here!
A very innovative platformer, and excellent use of the theme! It's a keeper.
This was a neat city simulator. I imagine this was very hard to do; it would take me forever to make something similar.
I tried out both the LD and post-LD versions of the game. You're probably already aware of the bugs of the LD version, but the post-LD version is still buggy (I'm on Windows 7):
- When I'm shown the Game Over screen and I go back to the menu, the music from that session doesn't stop playing and two music sources start playing at once over each other.
- The "Selected Tile" UI in the top-left corner shows a white box with nothing in it, so I never know what I building.
- One of the buildings, upon just placing it, seems to explode into several green/yellow tiles (I think it was the nuclear plant). I don't know if this was intentional.
- There is a yellow tile that grows like the plague. XD It even creeps over other buildings. It's like "Yellow Slime of Doom" or something.
- Probably because of the "Yellow Slime of Doom" growing too much, the game eventually slows down a ton.
- Right clicking on trees usually does nothing. I managed to only get that to work once.
I know that's a lot of bugs, but I still liked this game :) Awesome work. If you keep making it, it will probably be more awesome.
Phenomenal work! I loved the cool graphical effects in each of the rooms. Audio was top notch and was very important for this game.
I especially love the glyphs made for this game. It's really cool to see developers make a "language" for their worlds :)
I was actually surprised that I won on my first try because I'm usually bad with memorization. I thought it was little short, but the polish shines here. Nice work!
Nice game! The jump controls were a little difficult and sometimes the player gets stuck against walls (if you press towards the wall). It was still good though.
Best mood! The world that formed was really beautiful. The gravity-less controls make the player feel like a forest spirit or something.
Unfortunately, there was some lag on my decent computer, so I would imagine it would be worse on others. The lag was most evident when you look at the whole forest (day or night) and when the sun was out (so I always look forward to nighttime). There might be a need to do mesh optimizations, but that might not be easy, especially if the tree leaves are being procedurally generated.
Anyhow, beautiful work of art.
This is a very innovative game mechanic. Superb!
Most funny game I played so far! I really enjoyed this one. If you want more people to play the game, I highly recommend you replace the installer with just your game packed in a zip file.
I found it hard, but very fun. The effects are very nice. I find the orbiters very hard to deal with because they can shoot any direction from far away.
I really enjoyed this nice strategy game! It's a little hard, but not terribly hard.
However, I think if this were to be further developed, it would be nice to differentiate between your units and enemy units (maybe by different colors), so that I can better understand who's attacking who.
In one play, I died very quickly (in round 2) even though I had a ton of turrets and there were a few enemies.
I think it would be nice to know the health of the planet/units, because that would help me understand why I lose.
The art style of the game is very nice and kind of reminds me of retro vector-based games like Asteroids. Overall this is a really nice game!
EDIT: I forgot my highscore, but I recall making it to Year 10.
A new take on classical gameplay is always nice (the planet attached to the turtle makes for interesting movement strategies when trying to evade asteroids). Fun game!
Great game! The graphics and audio were nice, along with the point-and-click gameplay. The game may have been a little short and a little too easy, but it was still fun.
Beautiful platformer! The player's limbs are strange looking, but in an interesting way. That accompanied with the unique jump sound makes the game feel otherworldly. I'm surprised that this is not getting enough reviews, because the game's highly polished.
The boss fight was fun and challenging, but I think it should have done something extra at its last health; to make it more interesting. The aiming is okay, but a tiny bit hard (at least it's controllable by turning the player around).
I liked the gameplay, although it's a little difficult. I managed to get 2 planets into the habitable zone while other planets were moving too quickly for me to aim properly. Nice graphics, especially the habitable planets and the orbital paths. The first person mode is a nice touch, although the game is much easier to play top-down.
I love the use of color in this game. The game is a little difficult, but this is not a bad thing. If I were to suggest one thing, I would warn the player before the fire-planets start flaring (maybe by glowing quickly before flaring).
I liked the exploration aspect while still having a goal (reach the compass' target). While I was playing, I imagine the music ["Submerged" by Autumn Continent](http://www.betweeninterval.com/autumn-continent) playing; seems fitting to me.
The controls were very interesting. They take getting use to, but after that, it's not that hard to navigate.
Graphics and lighting were nice, but I think adding very simple textures would make it look much better. By "simple" I mean something not highly detailed or colorful. Using grayscale textures can allow the meshes to keep their colors as is in the game (my textures in Caelium Alpha were not grayscale because I was too lazy :p).
The procedural characters are very impressive, but the game is a little too hard. The wild form usually doesn't match the domesticated forms completely, and the domesticated forms disappear too quickly. It is however an interesting concept.
I love the momentum of the player; makes moving around fun. My most favorite part (and also hardest for me) was level 2, where you're suppose to follow the blue trail. Graphics appear to be of a simple art style, but I don't know if that was intended or not. If you develop this further, music would be a great addition.
I really appreciate the reviews so far guys! :grinning: I definitely want to improve on the game, but progress will probably be very slow.
@thunraz: While gravity might be fun to implement, I would actually have to throw out my old code and start over, because my implementation was not designed for gravity simulation. Planetary movements rely heavily upon [Unity's object hierarchy](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Hierarchy.html). If you want a fun gravity simulator, I think [Universe Sandbox 2](http://universesandbox.com/) already does a great job at this. Thanks for your feedback.
@huvaakoodia: I agree with your camera suggestions, because even I don't like my current camera implementation. I'll try to work on this in a future version of Caelium.
@holyblackcat: I am aware that you can fix bugs after the competition, but I didn't know how bad the bugs had to be to allow fixing. Technically, the multi-planet-spawn bug doesn't crash the program (at least not for me), so I don't know if it's a bad enough bug to have the permission to fix it. I could try to fix it though.
@juan: Thanks for your suggestions! Yes, the game would be much more fun with extra features like different types of planets and rings. These features will have to be developed slowly. I definitely want to refactor the camera system, so I'll take your suggestions into consideration. I actually never intended for Caelium to follow real planetary physics, because there are already better games for that (like Universe Sandbox). Caelium is more about imagining your own solar system without serious scientific considerations.
Thanks again everyone!
As suggested, I updated the LD38 version to fix the multi-planet-spawning bug. That version is otherwise unchanged (no audio, no moons, no auto-padding, etc.)
I appreciate everyone playing! :smile: I already made a post-LD version, but I actually do intend to further develop this outside of Ludum Dare (although obviously progress will be very slow).
@zgragselus & @abhimonk: Thanks for the insights about orbital speeds. I'll take a look deeper at Kepler's laws and see how to implement this.
@kleinzach & @candlesan: The "off-axis" features you mentioned are actually partially implemented in the game, but I didn't give players the ability to adjust these properties because I still needed to test it out more. I appreciate the new camera suggestions; I would love to implement a reasonable camera of high versatility.
@smiling-cat-entertainment: That's so surreal :sweat_smile: I'm not sure if I would go that far. I wanted what I would vaguely call "semi-realism" in the game. It's a hard balance to pull between being ultra-realistic and surrealistic.
@starspell, @coleslaughter, @blobo, & @skosnowich: Yeah, the camera's zoom is bad (I was too lazy to implement a better zoom). What I should have done instead is physically move the camera forward and back; this is a better zoom effect for this game. Experimenting with consequences for altering planets sounds difficult but I agree that it would make the game more interesting. "3D orbits" will be implemented in future development as "orbital tilt". The "diorama effect" is actually intentional; glad that you like it!
@rother-games, @eli-delventhal, & @chispalbc: I admit gravity would be interesting to implement, but that's beyond the scope of this game. Universe Sandbox already does a great job at that, and I had no intentions of competing with them. This more of a tool for "imaginary solar systems" rather than a gravity simulator.
@blaster391, @athomicus: Renaming astronomical bodies is an important feature that I want to implement in the future. Same with deleting. Pausing I never thought of, and will take it into consideration.
@mathiouza & @louspirit: I appreciate your playing. I already implemented sounds and music in the post-LD version :)
@kataware & @jezzamon: I never intended to make Caelium Alpha a "game" in the formal sense of the word, but I do agree that it could have more features and dynamics to make it interesting.
@cptn-b: I was already considering multiple planet types, but having multiple star types (like neutron stars) might be interesting, but it will unfortunately be lower priority.
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Thanks again everyone! If you want to keep track of the game's (very slow) development, you could either follow me [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Jishenaz) or [bookmark/RSS my blog](https://jisyed.github.io/).
Most surreal game I've played this year. The graphics effects are really cool and add to the atmosphere, although there probably should be an option to disable it for slower computers. The mechanics of looking around for changes in the structures is an interesting mechanic, although if the game were bigger, this mechanic may become tedious after a very long time. The most difficult sector was the maze of pillars. Great work of art!
Absolutely flawless game! Love the jumping/gravity dynamics, diverse enemy behaviors, and graphical effects.
This game is very fun, as far as strategizing where to build turrets.
However, clicking on the sun constantly is very tedious. If this game were to be played very often, it might affect the lifetime of the mouse-button. That's too bad, because this game is really fun. If there was a way to gain resources without constant clicking, this game will be more playable in my opinion.
Otherwise, this is a really great game!
This game should totally win the Innovation category. It's not for everyone, but if one is even a little familiar with the command line, it makes for an interesting mechanic to control characters with. I'm interested to see how this game will further develop.
Also, I'm jealous of the CLI implementation and curved screen effect.
The dimension shifting mechanic of this game is probably one of the coolest I've seen in a long time. This game should definitely win the Innovation category!
Simple and fun arcade-like game. The graphics and effects are very impressive. It's a little hard, but games of this nature are always hard. Nice work!
Very fun entry! I played both versions. There was a bullet collision bug that seems to be fixed in the post-LD version. I loved moving around with the jetpack and shooting orbiting bullets. You should offer a downloadable version.
I had a great time driving around at high speeds. I keep dying from those pesky worms, but it's fun to go near them to attack. Great voxel style art. The player's vehicle actually reminds me of a blue spaceship I build with Legos when I was a kid :) Very fun entry!
Tonematrix music is always nice :) The art style is very cute and the gameplay is very good.
The only problem I have with it is the camera controls. It's hard to aim at spiders *(I just realized that other people have already said this)* when the snowman is between the spider and the camera. It's also hard to know if a spider will pop up behind the camera.
Other than that, this is a beautiful entry. You guys should keep working on it!
Very fun arena-style game! I think there is a bug where I don't lose all of my health (stays at 1 health even when hit again), but I don't know how to reproduce the bug. I probably would have died earlier without it.
The upgrade system is nice, but I personally couldn't see much of a difference when upgrading the rate of fire beyond the first upgrade.
When you receive messages from people, the gameplay itself should somehow pause so that you're not multitasking (trying to read the message and fending off attacking enemies at the same time).
The procedural planetoids are a very nice touch. Great game!
My most favorite part of this game is the fast long jump. It's an amazing ability! At some point, I can collect so many regular acorns that I can rapid fire the enemies and not run out (although I admit I only did this in one of the 10 rounds I played). I think that the explosive acorn should have a larger blast radius. The music playing during the acorn gathering reminds me of Super Mario Galaxy for some reason. Nice game!
Nice little simulation game! I actually managed to cover up the planet really quickly. The dynamics of the people getting resources and the grass spreading were well implemented. I don't see any problems with it, just new feature suggestions if you decide to keep making this: bigger planets and more building types (and music of course). Wonderful work!
Interesting mechanics. I was trying to figure out how to balance the population. To me it seems that the population will grow around some stars and shrink around others, but I didn't really know for sure what the pattern was (maybe blue stars shrink the population?). I also don't know when stars will explode. The controls were nice and easy.
It was short, but it was very fun while it lasted. The jumping mechanics work just fine, but maybe there should be a drop-shadow when the character jumps. The "levels" emerging were well designed.
Very pretty interactive art! I like how blooming flowers make dynamic sounds, although I think there should be a little more sounds because if you plant enough, it will become quiet for a very long time.
Wonder sandbox! I didn't play for very long, but I'll keep the download and play later. Amazing graphics, however I thought that the ambience was too quiet (my speakers were at decent volume). I've also made a sandbox called [Caelium Alpha](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/caelium-alpha), if you are interested; it's about space.
I can tell that a lot was implemented; excellent for a first time participant. I was able to beat the game, and I think the difficulty is just right (not too easy nor too hard). The boss level had an interesting design and was difficult, but beatable.
The level design of the game is impressive, since it leads the player to the wizard to acquire the important cloud ability. The width of the platforms allowed the player to strategize a way to lure the enemies to one side, then fly to the other side and attack.
As far as needed improvements, I would fix the layering issue where the "F" icon over characters draws behind the health bar, when in fact it should draw in front. And maybe make the "F" icon a darker color?
I also found it a little difficult to use the sword, since it seems that the player has to move in order to use it. But on the other hand, if the sword could be used standing, the game may perhaps become too easy.
Overall, great work!
Love the strategy elements of this game! It was a little difficult, but I eventually won, so the difficulty is just fine, even with the random events. The music is exceptional, reminds me of the uncertainty of living on the edge of the solar system. Wonderful game!
I'm going to be straight up: I'm freaking jealous of your abilities! This is just brilliant! A tonematrix on a planet with beautiful plants and a nice variety of sounds is a big win for me. I hope you keep working on this!
I'm so bad at this game! XD It's a nice new innovation to Pong. Graphics are also great.
Nice game! The controls were a little hard, but they also seemed realistic (because of moving a heavy body), so it's probably justified. I was able to win the game and I recall only using the dash feature in the last level. Beautiful art and retro sounds.
Very peaceful game :)
The simple graphics and audio are very befitting. I must admit that I didn't finish the whole thing, but looking for the constellations depicted was an interesting experience. Even though it's a small world, it's easy to get lost in it for some reason. This is probably the best game in the Mood category.
As every has already said, the procedural biomes are really cool, including the elevations, ground color, and tree sprites. Great exploration game!
Both your game and my game have limiting cameras. It can be easy to get lost in the world because of the camera angle. Maybe you should allow more camera controls (like vertical tilt or rotation for example).
I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but if you click on the player repeatedly, you can essentially get the character to "fly up" over the world and see it from a birds eye view. If it's a bug, it's one of the coolest bugs I've seen yet. :)
Also, I don't know how to quit because it goes full screen and Esc doesn't do anything.
exploroKoCoolBug.png
Very interesting experiment! I like how there are different kinds of asteroids with different sounds.
The gravity mechanic works well, but I wonder how the gravity actually affects the sounds coming out? Gravity was obviously important to maintain the music.
Some suggestions I have is allowing the 4 colors to be set at the same "interval". By interval, I mean send 1 asteroid per color, and give the user the option to send a "chain" of asteroids for any color. If reasonable, you may also want to add more colors (as in more sounds).
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I just played the post-LD version, and I must say that the sounds used are much better. The green ones remind me of Japan for some reason :)
This was an amazing experience! Plopped a fictional solar system named after my game :P
1 question: how do you remove planets that you make? I made a planet of the wrong size, and I regret it. It's called Eris near someone else's model of our Solar System.
Twin-stick shooters are always fun. I find it interesting that as the blue world shrinks, the enemies become less and less present on the screen. This actually makes the game very hard if your health is low. The graphics are some of best I've seen this LD; probably was a lot of hard work. I can't help but wonder what is the difference between the red enemies and green enemies?
Exceptional game!
Exceptional game. Even though it's hard, it's more fun than Lunar Lander, probably because of the multiple gravity wells.
This is a very polished and well implemented entry! I've noticed that a lot of game entries have implemented movement on spherical bodies, and I'm quite jealous of that; must have been hard to get working!
The hardest level for me was Level 9, but at least we are given a ton of time to finish that level. Level 11 was oddly easy. I love the level previews when you select levels. Spaceship and box graphics were very nice.
If there was one thing that I think should change, it's the death explosion sound effect. It's too funny! That it's funny is actually distracting when I retry a level (makes it harder to concentrate, especially Level 9).
Overall very awesome game!
*Edit: One last thing. I played the web version of the game, and the audio was too quiet. I had to turn up the volume very high.*
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The story and graphics affect the hearts of those who understand even a little bit about the sufferings happening in the world. The last level especially reminds me of the strange recent politics of locking refugees out. Very symbolic game.
As far as the game itself is concerned (without the political context), the gameplay is simple, maybe too simple. The controls were a little awkward, especially walking around. Although, I personally had no problem navigating the sea-mines.
One of the best Ludum Dare 38 games I've played so far! I could go further but stopped at World 44. Amazing graphics and gameplay. The voxels are cool, but highly detailed voxels are even more cool (as is presented in this game). Music has kind of a nice nostalgic vibe. If you decide to develop this game further, there should be more enemies and powerups. As is, it's excellent for 72 hours of development.
If there is one thing you should do, it's to offer downloadable versions of this game. As far as technical problems, camera turning with the keyboard is easy, but with the mouse drag (which I was more inclined to do), turning the camera was more difficult. The camera would not lock into place from mouse drag.
Overall, this game is elite among the jam entries!
Graphics and music were nice! The gameplay was a little difficult because I had trouble swinging the moon, although I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. I would agree with the suggestions that @earthcollapse already mentioned.
I really like the gameplay and room for strategy in this game! But for some reason, it makes my computer fans spin, even at Good graphics setting. I could of course just play the game at lowest settings.
I like the "warehouse" where you buy more train parts, although it should warn players that new engines instantly spawn while cargo cars don't. There should also be incentive to travel out to the more remote regions (remote from the warehouse), because it seemed to me that the game could be played without attending to those remote stations.
@juan When I was first playing, I was playing at *Simple* graphics settings (I said *Good* before, my mistake), with a resolution of 1024x768.
My CPU is *Core i5 750 Lynnfield* and GPU is *GeForce GTS 250*. My computer is 7 years old.
This game is probably going to win the Graphics category. Gorgeous art style! The rotation is flawless and done beautifully. It was fun to try to protect the space station while keeping nearby buildings intact.
On your game's Itch.io page, you should provide a link pointing back to this page. I had to manually type the name of your game in Ludum Dare's URL.
Very fun yet difficult game. I also had some problems with depth perception in the game, but judging by your screenshot, I was suppose to play the game at higher graphics settings (simple and fast graphics settings disable shadows). The hardest part of the game was dealing with the turrets on the red platforms on the right-half of the world. The boss was actually easy, but I'm not complaining :)
The work done here is phenomenal! I'm surprised that this is not getting enough attention. The functionality of the game is flawless, from placing tiles to walking around the world. I love the camera controls, they are the best I've seen yet. I might try similar camera controls in my game (except the walking mode).
You should keep working on this. If you want suggestions, I would try to find a way to improve performance. That's not to say that the game was running slow on my 7 year old computer (ran just fine), but my fans were spinning louder when entering the "walking mode". I would also allow the ability to change avatars.
Great work!
For the most part, the experience is relaxing, but I must admit that hearing the police siren isn't relaxing XD. The graphics are amazing including the water effects, lighting, and fish. The music is relaxing, as promised.
Unfortunately this game requires the latest CPU/GPU to run smoothly. On my computer, I could only get it running fast after going to a small resolution.
Otherwise, beautiful work of art!
This is very cinematic for a Ludum Dare game. Very impressive! I loved the planet with the glowing palm trees. Great work!
Very nice! I love the use of color, the simple voxel style, and camera movements. You guys have a lot of perseverance considering that you made this while dealing with earthquakes.
If there was 1 improvement I would suggest, I would have the train standout more (more color contrast against the railroads).