jodizzle

Year	LD	Theme			Game	Division	Rank	Ov	Fu	In	Th	Gr	Hu	Mo	Co
2015	33	You are the Monster			Tu Es Monstre?	compo	937	2.27	2.35	2.35	2.96	2.15	2.22	2.23	50

BROYOTORUSUM by PnDAA 2015-09-14T06:48:00

I really liked this game! I took me a while to get the hang of what was going on, but I think the game is balanced with a cool set of mechanics (there's a lot to keep track of with each additional level), is challenging with good pacing and scaling, has fantastic art, and is overall just a nice and self-contained product. I would have loved to hear some audio, but you certainly did a good job given the time constraints. I became increasingly tense as I got more and more points because I knew how much I had to lose, and I was genuinely excited when I managed to finally clutch out a win. I'd be interested to see where you could take these ideas, such as adding a point system, making the speed-up (right click) ability more useful/necessary, etc., etc.

I don't have too many criticisms, but one thing that bothered me is sometimes it seemed as if the spacing of the big entities made it impossible to shoot them all (e.g., four airplanes right on top of eachother with some trees at the bottom), which was pretty frustrating. Maybe the random generation could be fixed up, or you could relax the damage the big entities do?

Again though, great job, and congrats on the entry!

Fly On The Wall by Apostrophe 2015-09-10T02:37:00

I will say that I was a bit confused because the premise of this game didn't make too much sense to me: why were the scientist and the fly supposed to teleport at the same time in the first place? An experiment? Outside of that, though, I think it made for some interesting level design and gameplay.

The only real bug (pun intended) that I noticed was with the fly. Several times the fly would be buzzing around and then suddenly act as if it died and would respawn even though I hadn't hit a hazard. Maybe it was because I was trying to fit the fly through too narrow a gap? However, overall I found the behavior of the fly to be valuably frustrating; it was almost like there was a sub-game of "playing the difficult to control character" nested inside the larger game.

In terms of expanding the game, I think you could consider pairing up the scientist with different types of animals (and thus different transformations), or even bump the game up to controlling even more characters at the same time

Dr. Cutie & Mr. Monster by oostap 2015-09-09T08:48:00

I thought your take on the theme was quite nice. The audio and the character models combined with the multiplayer aspect was very cute. I also thought the backstory was nice :).

I noticed quite a bit of desyncing when moving around; oftentimes I would get jerky movement or become the monster only to teleport partway across the screen. Sometimes when I clicked "Go!" I wasn't able to see or control my character at all. While it was a bit hard to tell how much of an influence it was, I imagine this can't be very good for multiplayer.

The gameplay, though basic, was pretty fun and balanced well (e.g., monsters are faster but you can shoot them to deflect them back). I do wish there was some scaling though, so that players were awarded new "rights and responsibilities" (in the vein of agar.io) as they continued to succeed. This would encourage people to keep playing beyond just a shot at being put on the leaderboards. At the very least I think it might be a good idea to make the playing field bigger and to distribute the pies better, unless those already change with number of players or something like that, in which case, kudos.

Congrats on the entry! It seems especially ambitious for 72 hours.

Pik & Pok by TheGreenTie 2015-09-09T06:03:00

I really liked this game! The graphics and audio were of course amazing, and it is excellent both as a homage and on it's own.

There were a number of quirks, however, that may or may not have been intentional. Here are some things I noticed:

- The spawning/despawning of the discs seemed inconsistent: sometimes it would be short, sometimes it would be long; sometimes it seemed that standing on the discs while they were blinking caused issues; sometimes there would only be one disc per level, and once picked up and thrown it would start blinking as if to despawn and then it could be picked up again (I wasn't sure if this was intentional).
- The red dudes in World 3 would spend a lot of time hanging out off of the screen. It made dealing with them frustrating.
- An enemy could be killed by a disc that had been thrown even as it was preparing to despawn (I suspect this was intentional).

The biggest issue I ran into was performance problems. This may have just been my computer acting up (though I didn't notice any extreme memory leakage or something like that), but everytime I started a run, level 1-1 would go great, then by level 1-2 things would start slowing down at an increasing (slowly increasing, but increasing) rate. World 2 was super slow, and World 3 was just about impossible to play. I could restart and get the high speeds again, but the performance would always drag down. I didn't test this extensively, but I did test it enough to notice the pattern of the problem.

Gameplay was good and clever, but the implementation was a bit too easy (though I may have actually been aided by my performance issues in this department). I especially found the "train" enemies to be way too easy to kill. Attacking them head-on with a disc would insta-gib them, and attacking them perpendicularly would do just about the same. I think it would've been cool to find a reason to try and blockade enemies in by re-arranging discs, but the situation was never dire enough to make that an issue.

Again though, amazing game. Though you are supposed to have the source code available somewhere, right?

Wolfman Kills World Peace with a Vampire Mech III by theBobcatte 2015-09-06T09:13:00

Good sense of humor. I would have liked to have seen it implemented better in game, but I respect the issue with time limit for things like these.

Couple things I noticed:
- Bad/sticky movement on WASD. I frequently had to let go of a key and re-press it to get the movement to work properly.
- Were the tanks supposed to be destructible? I tried quite a bit to destroy them, but everything just bounced off.
- It was quite easy to dodge most enemies in the flying-head mode; head-attached mode is really only relevant for the boss.
- The boss' missiles don't do damage, it seems?

One other improvement I have in mind is having the player be able to move the arm while it's firing in head-attached mode. I think that in addition to addressing the things above -- especially implementing the sense of humor better -- would make for a funner game.

Groar by treeman 2015-09-06T08:50:00

Good submission! I found the game to be a good bit of fun after I got the hang of it.

While I have changes I'd like to see, it's a bit hard to think about improvements for this game because a lot of the tools you could give to the player and challenges you could present to them would just turn it into a top-down bullet hell, which defeats the purpose. Better starting/instructions/closing functionality would be good, but that's all window dressing. It feels like either the player size is too big (which, since they're playing as a boss, is probably part of the point) or the gamespace is too small; it would be cool to be able to move around more. The attack options were great, but some of them weren't very worthwhile because they required you to stand in the way of attackers, which becomes more and more unfeasible at higher levels. It would be cool if there was some recurring way to increase health or restore health (other than beating a level), maybe without making it too powerup-y? The game could be changed so that the player played as all the individual mobs and/or bosses as you try to fight off a powerful group of enemy ships, but that seems less like an improvement and more like an overhaul headed in the direction of Dungeon Keeper.

All in all, I've never actually played a game like this, so I think that's good enough for me. This is one of the relatively few Ludum Dare games I've tested that seems like a complete work by itself -- even though it has flaws, it's an at-least-mostly-full product.

My only other more substantial criticism was regarding the AI. Most of the time, if I could get past the initial enemy blasting by shimmy-ing around, I was able to stand still and hold 'l' while the spaceships twiddled in place in the corners. Is there some weird design to their pathfinding or whatever that prompts them to do this? Because I noticed that they weren't always stuck like this forever, and that when I moved they moved with a variety of responses. I just found it particularly interesting, and was curious as to how it was implemented.

Kerberos by lcarpentier 2015-09-05T08:37:00

Interesting game (lol). I thought it was kinda weird how you could just stand at the door and block a large portion of soul traffic if you were positioned correctly (at least until the boat showed up). Also I found the head biting to be a bit difficult to use, but I guess maybe that's the point?

The audio and graphics were nice though. Congrats on the entry!

Monster's Survival by nintendo master 2015-09-05T07:57:00

Cute. I like the sounds and the animation.

Is the bar in the upper left supposed to be a health bar?

The Truth by HolyBlackCat 2015-09-05T07:49:00

Cool game entry. Even though it's minimal at this point, I appreciated many aspects of the gameplay: the nice tutorial area showing off what the player could do, the save point functionality worked perfectly (I would have placed some of the points in different locations, but still), the variable jumping height, the obstacles. It's all pretty standard fare, but the level design turned it into quite a nice little (and decently challenging) platformer-type game.

I wasn't a big fan of the story, but I don't judge any story made in 48 hours too harshly. I did like, however, the ghosty-alien creatures the player has to shoot in the first run through of the level. I was one of those players who went about shooting them right away, only realizing later that a) they didn't hurt me and b) they were running from me. I wouldn't say that that experience evoked any particularly powerful emotions, but it was a twist of some sort. If anything, I think too many things are directly spelled out to the player; the character dialogue is extremely revealing in a bad way. There are definitely some things that could be cleaned up in the thematic and "theatrical" departments.

One thing that bothered me about the graphics (which were overall fine) is that sometimes, because of the blocky, mono-colored-y style of the game, it was hard to distinguish between the different objects. I died a couple times during my first few runthroughs of the kill-the-aliens stage because I didn't pick out the spikes too well, and once or twice I second-guessed landing on the ground because I thought it was water. Chalk it up to me being stupid, tired, or it just not being an issue because there aren't that many objects/landscape features to begin with, but I think a more diverse color palette would help in this case.

Congrats on the entry!

Knight lighter by ripter 2015-09-05T07:04:00

Nice little game. The game play is definitely something that can be expanded into a more "full" product (level ups, new enemy types, new objectives, etc.), but it is a bit generic as of right now. I like the graphics and the styling of the enemies: they definitely set the tone (and so did the excellent title). The audio was sorta lacking with the sfx being loud and crackly and no ambient music, but nothing that can't be fixed with a bit more development.

I was a bit surprised by so many people saying the game was hard -- it seemed fairly straightforward to me; in fact, I think you can beat the game mostly by standing in the starting position, firing the tree in your way three times to remove it, and then spamming spacebar. Not to brag or anything, just an observation. Maybe you could have some tougher aspects? Unbreakable barriers to block your fireballs for instance?

Congrats on the submission!

Eat Humans by BoyWithStick 2015-08-27T05:44:00

First off, let me say that the web build didn't work for me (you mentioned it was buggy). However, I got the windows version to run well.

The audio and graphics of the game are pretty great. While some of the sounds, particularly on the sawblade, are a bit annoying (too much buzzing), I think the background music and the screams of the humans fit very nicely with the cartoon-y drawings. Together, they fit the theme well and give off a nice vibe.

My main concern is with different aspects of the gameplay that could be improved. I'd like it if the health bar was a bit more obvious and visible. The hitboxes seem a off, and I found it fairly difficult to actually land some of my shots, particularly on the gray humans when they were chasing me. In fact, it would be cool if hitting an enemy with the wrong type of ability had consequences. What if setting the green dudes on fire lead to less points, or if fire-ing frozen blue humans thawed them? There's a lot of potential for encouraging the player to use combos or cautious strategy in this type of game.

Building off that, why the preference for sawblade, awarding points (and the most points) for three different types of humans? More specifically, why not just spam sawblade and run around pressing spacebar as much as possible? Why not just spam all abilities while running around pressing spacebar on as many humans as possible? Again, since there don't seem to be any ways to use an ability wrong, I may as well just spam (or something similar) to achieve maximum score.

In terms of more basic things, I'd recommend adding some type of in-game tutorial and/or description of abilities; initially, I was pretty confused because I just guessed that I should use the mouse, discovered that clicking the mouse buttons did things (the game was probably reading my mouse as a controller), and kept playing with that assumption for a while. It would also be nice if the transition between timer running out and the title screen was less jarring. Maybe a scoreboard or something like that?

There are of course plenty of other things you could add or expand upon, as is the case with all games (especially those made within a 72 hour time frame). I would definitely encourage you to keep working on this title. It has a great style and I'd love to see it fleshed out more.

Congrats on the entry!

Disastris by TerraCottaFrog 2015-08-26T02:34:00

What a great entry! I loved this game, definitely one of my favorites so far. It's great to see a game embellish one of the funner sides of the SimCity genre, and embrace the ld33 theme with style. Plus, the audio was just about perfect; definitely a highlight.

There are some features missing that I would like to see eventually: opportunities for disasters to combo (this might require a greater set of available disasters), a greater diversity in level challenges, and the ability to shoot water up and down, not just left and right (this one was more inexplicable -- was I just screwing something up?). But, all in all, it's an amazing compo product. Congrats.

Fragmented Reality by merrak 2015-08-25T04:39:00

Great game! At first I was confused by your choice of colors and the design of your blocks, but it quickly became clear how it all played into the level design. There are still places where those aspects become frustrating (I had some trouble finding the door in one of the levels), but it was fine overall. The hints at a story are also weaved in with the gameplay, to mostly positive effect.

In terms of criticisms, it would be nice if the "mirrored" image levels had a bit more to them than just a mirror image. There is the level where the player touches their mirror image, and sometimes being able to see the mirror image gave a tiny bit of help in the platforming, but I didn't notice any significant benefit (other than perhaps story purposes). Also, it would be nice if there were "look-around" camera controls; the game relies a bit too much on the a die-try again-die cycle, at least for my tastes. Maybe there can be some greater consequence for dying? Further descent into madness or something?

Again though, nice entry.

Derpzilla by FrozenCow 2015-08-25T04:07:00

Cute little game.

There's this one helicopter that I'm just unable to get, though -- it's the highest one that appears above the second large collection of tanks. Is it purposefully out of reach or do I just suck?

Crab Boss by unprompted 2015-08-24T23:49:00

I really liked the atmosphere of this game. Everything about it -- the introduction, the animations of the crab, the (despite the technical difficulties) audio and the congratulations screen -- really makes for cute, little, lighthearted game experience. I felt like the game was a bit too easy, with some strategies (navigating to a corner and spamming spacebar, moving enemies into place with crab jump and firing crab stare, those types of things) being overpowered, but overall it was positive experience, and good for 48 hours. Congrats!

Damage Control by peterkirk 2015-08-24T18:27:00

Great game! I really felt like the music, graphics and animations fit the theme and set the mood really well. I especially like how the music changes based on the timer -- playing your game was pretty stressful at times! The game is also balanced well: I never got a perfect on a level, but I never got too low a score either, and I know that by trying a level a few more times I could at least get close to a perfect.

My main criticism is with the roaring mechanic. Because touching someone is such a deficit (you lose points and you're stunned, which is bad both because of the timer and because of the possibility of hitting someone again), and because roaring is so unpredictable, it definitely lands far on the risk end of the "Risk and Reward" scale. I found myself deliberately trying to not use it, even during the fourth level (which seemed like was supposed to require it more), and when I did use it I usually regretted it. Maybe this is what you had in mind, but it would be nice if the mechanic could be tweaked to have it be both more friendly and more necessary.

Also two small bugs I noticed:
- On the fourth level, I was able to pass through the third in a series of three doors that were opened by buttons, even when the door appeared to be closed. I couldn't tell whether it was a graphical bug or a hitbox issue.
- Several times throughout the game, I lost control of my movement and just kept barreling in the direction I had last been moving (usually into a wall). It's possible that this is just a problem on my end, however.

Though again, overall a great game, especially the aesthetics.

Gravity Snake by lessmilk 2015-08-24T17:57:00

Great game! I thought the whole gravity aspect, even though it took me a little while to figure out, was really cool. I like that in the later levels there was a specific order imposed to how you have to eat the flowers, especially when it involved the player treating some flowers as blocks the first time passing through and then backtracking.

I noticed when small graphical glitch: sometimes, when the snake fell parallel to the ground, it would land and then appear to be embedded about halfway into the blocks. This would persist across all blocks until the level either ended or restarted. When it happened, it didn't make the game impossible to play, but certainly a bit more annoying.

Eye of the Basilisk by dkdwrek 2015-08-24T07:06:00

Really great submission. I think it's a nicely clever twist on the top-down, survive forever type game. The graphics and music were especially nice.

A couple things I noticed:
- The eye beams don't seem super consistent, both in terms of how you have to line up with the wizards and when the animation plays.
- The game feels pretty easy overall; I found that a lot of the time I was able to just stand in the corner and wait for a couple wizards to line up before turning to face them. Since the score is passively increasing, you could argue that it isn't that necessary to use the eye beams at all.
- Taking damage on impact is good, but in combination with my first point, this can lead to scenarios where an undying wizard is banging up against the player. Maybe have a single hit do more damage but also bounce the wizard and the player apart?

Overall though it's a fun submission!

Time monster by falcon11445 2015-08-24T05:04:00

This game very much reminds me of the old-school 90s games you would play off a CD-Rom. Pretty fun!

There are lots of minor things: it seems like hitboxes could be tweaked (I think I was able to kill enemies by just jumping next to them, not landing on top of them), there are a number of bugs (sand disappearing even when not touched, I got stuck in a wall one time, etc.), and some graphical quirks (e.g., unreadable text), but I think the biggest issue is with the level difficulty. I found the earliest levels to be the hardest, while many of the later levels were pretty linear and easy. I think if you could replicate aspects of the early levels onto the later levels, it would make for a stronger game.

Congrats on submitting!

The Life of an RPG Monster by YerghaizVerot 2015-08-24T03:28:00

Are you supposed to be able to advance beyond the first enemy?

In any case, I like your pretty fun use of a (admittedly difficult/bad) theme.

Bashy Bashy by pokeplun 2015-08-24T03:23:00

Cool aesthetics! For some reason, the combination of the blocky characters, the camera position, the growing player and the other animations made me think of a mix between spore and rock 'em sock 'em robots. Definitely deserves expanding, maybe with attacking enemies?

Protect the Egg by bvanschooten 2015-08-24T03:14:00

I love this type of game. The combination of the music and the graphics really set the mood for me. It's the type of game I could casually play for hours.

I think currently it suffers a bit from being too easy. I skipped ahead to a high level and didn't find it much more challenging than the early levels. I think if the player is given the huge freedom of movement that your game currently allows (which I think is cool, as opposed to restricted movement), then there should be a LOT more things to dodge/shoot at. I love that the little dudes who give you health also attack you, but when I play there end up being so many little dudes that I can just pick some dudes up, barrel through their bullets and the other enemies, and then pick more dudes up. I think it would be exciting if my character was more at risk.

I like that the egg is one hit away from death though. That's what the game needs more of -- danger!

Monster Living in A Cave Terrorizes Nearby Village! by Unentokku 2015-08-24T02:58:00

(I was playing on normal difficulty)

Really liked the combat system. While there are lots of little details that could be ironed out (as other comments have mentioned), I think it's a great product for 48 hours. I was left confused about some ability descriptions (especially the support-y yellow abilities, many of which seemed to have similar effects), but again, it's a great idea.

In terms of implementation: how are abilities for the player and enemy chosen? Is it totally random? The enemies seemed to have a lot of defensive skills, which makes playing against them difficult. Also, while I'm guessing there's some secret, super-good strategy, combat usually left my health bar drained, and it doesn't seem like there's a way to replenish it. Maybe once you eat a defeated enemy it could heal you some? Just a thought.

I'd like to see this game with even more RPG-type elements. Also, I LOVE the title!

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LD35 — Shapeshift (1)

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LD33 — You are the Monster (23)