I Contemplated the Sun of Limbo by Evilion 2014-04-30T10:14:00
This made me feel surreal emotions I haven't felt since I was a child who hid under the bed during thunderstorms.
Aaaaand it succeeded at startling me big time.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Jonochrome
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Scary Ugly Face | compo | 32 | 4.03 | 3.75 | 3.51 | 3.77 | 4.01 | 3.74 | 4.22 | 4.05 | 100 |
This made me feel surreal emotions I haven't felt since I was a child who hid under the bed during thunderstorms.
Aaaaand it succeeded at startling me big time.
Gosh, that atmosphere is beautiful. Although, I find the seemingly endless paths leading to sealed pipes sorta irritating. And I had a lot of fun throwing torches around, so it bothered me that they were in limited supply, leaving you to stumble in total darkness if you run out.
This right here is my kind of game.
Looks good, feels good to play, fun world to explore, and props on the context-sensitive music. Only problem I had was that there's not much you can do to control the height of the bear's jump, and it's not 100% consistent in the water, so I kept running into enemies, but that's a relatively small complaint.
Simply incredible style and setting.
Feels like a mix of Knytt Stories and Fez, and it has many of the elements that makes those games enjoyable. Atmosphere's lovely, scenery's lovely, everything feels pretty polished. It was just cumbersome when there was a tricky or unclear jump long after the last available save point, and the block-pushing was rather slow. I was also irked by the climbing segments where you had to jump away from the wall and air-jump back onto it because the controls didn't always allow the character to move back toward the wall for whatever reason. (This is all judging the Jam version of the game.)
Solid, addicting gem.
The aesthetic pleasantly reminds me of Chip's Challenge.
I got so engaged in that, and then--abrupt lovely confusion. That was quite enjoyable.
There's not enough variety for the game to remain interesting beyond one or two levels, but saying it has a nice vibe is an understatement. So serene.
Hahahaha what bbbahaha
I wanted to be sure I did everything that's possible to do in the game before closing it. It's laid back, mischievous, clever, and gorgeous. I'll gladly play it again when it's all done.
Interesting gameplay mechanic, although I wish the ants moved a bit faster. Reminds me of Lemmings, in a way. I found it kinda fun figuring out how to navigate the ground until the level with eight apples... during which I came to the important life realization that I'm glad not to be an ant.
I think this could use clearer/better voice acting, a more cooperative camera, and a less awkward control scheme. Making turns and shooting enemies was a pain. But I love the cinematic camera angles, general tone, and Playstation-type graphics. Kept me captivated.
Yeah, I don't see this game's relevance to the theme as-is, but it's a fun adventure. Love the way the gravity changes when you're outdoors. I kinda wish the enemy fire was easier to see amongst all the flying particle effects.
Ha, looks like we both made the Sir Face pun. I like it, although I think it's kinda cheap that multiple puzzles are solved by breaking specific bricks that look just like all the other unbreakable bricks. I think there needs to be some visual hint of their fragility.
Really cool, relatable interpretation of the theme presented with gameplay that suits the concept well.
The controls feel very 'janky' for lack of a better word, and it's really hard to tell what is a wall and what isn't sometimes. Can't really give the gameplay points for polish, but the mellow mood created by the artwork and sound is great and distinct, and the idea is pretty interesting.
Awesome idea and presentation, although I managed to severely glitch out the game with loads of layers at once several times. Unless that isn't a glitch, but it sure feels like it wasn't intended.
I don't have a second player with me, so I don't know how to fairly judge the 'fun' factor as the game intended, but I liked messing around with the two sides and the game has a very nice feel.
With some more animation, a visible indication of the people's line of sight, and a less eardrum-drilling sound effect for when you're seen, I'd call this gold.
Feels like making a simple turn in the dark takes too much trial-and-error, and the text goes by too quickly unless you frequently pause your normal walking pace (making them feel unimportant, even though the text is most of the story), but I like the ambience of it, and I like the idea of using a series of hallways as a metaphor.
My complaints are that the camera does a poor job following the player and the input keys feel really unnatural. Aside from that, fine job, the contrast between the overworld and underworld is humorous.
Others have suggested for the sound effects to coincide with the different chords of the song, kinda like in Super Mario Galaxy. That's the main thing I would change about this, personally. I like the minimalism and the calm tone.
Ahhh... Very clever use of colored lines.
I love the idea behind this, but all the notes you have to interpret are vague chords with confusing pacing. Wish it was more apparent which muffled note starts each four-note melody. I was able to successfully copy one of the melodies and just couldn't figure out the rest.
Today I learned that balancing an island is hard. Love this interpretation of the theme.
The slow recharging of the bar seemed really irksome and unnecessary. All it did was make the puzzle-solving painfully slower. Voiceover was also difficult to hear and the wall-recognition didn't feel intuitive at all. But I like the tone and concept of the game, and the introduction to the controls is great.
The concept intrigued me. But having to start from the beginning with every death, especially when sometimes you can't see death coming, was too unforgiving for my tastes. If there were checkpoints, I could see a reason for the ten-minute timer.
Despite how buggy and finicky this is, it's still fun to play and I find the concept quite amusing.
I had no idea what I was accomplishing, but that's okay. The mood is absurd and swanky.
Just moving in one direction watching the scenery is oddly satisfying. Can't explain it.
Although I got too annoyed with the enemies to finish the game, I played past three boss battles and felt as though this is a surprisingly 'complete' adventure, if that makes any sense. It builds upon itself and reminds me of a retro Zelda dungeon. If this game had music, health upgrades (or more health to begin with), and maybe a larger mine blast radius, I'd say it would be very satisfying to play.
Collision is clumsy. Concept is nifty. Poltergeist is cute.
The collision detection feels pretty broken. But the art style is charming, and I chuckle at the idea of murderously slaying marshmallows.
The concept is brilliant. I wanted to attempt to play until the end, but there quickly came a point where the game ran too slowly for me to proceed.
I really wish the box above the surface didn't disappear when you switch to the bottom controls D:
Very peaceful, but also very buggy. Managed to glitch through a wall a few times, one such time leading to certain doom.
Free-range bullet hell starring a penguin. I don't even. I like how the gameplay feels even though I don't have the skills to play this game well.
I didn't understand the game at all, and I was a bit annoyed that not every rock-like structure I ran into seemed to break. That atmosphere is WICKED cool though.
Well, I beat all the levels and watched the non-existent ending. The design didn't always seem fair, but I had a good time.
"you kind of forced the theme in" Come on now, that hurts :( If anyone's interested, I have an explanation on my site regarding my game's relation to the theme: http://www.jonochrome.com/tangents/2014-04-27.html
And I've said this elsewhere, but I haven't said it here yet. Everyone who's commented, thanks so much! Your feedback is very encouraging and it makes me glad to have taken part in Ludum Dare and become sort of a part of the community.
Would benefit from more polish but I had some fun once I figured out what I was doing.
This is more "on the surface" than "beneath the surface" but I was laughing at myself trying to figure out how to control the ball. It's appealing in sort of the way QWOP is appealing. Only real downside to me is that random level generation can cause the flag/hole to be impossible to reach.
*HOFF CHOMP chomp chomp*
I can get the game to function using the keyboard, with some effort, but there are a number of other problems with it at this stage in development. I don't know, it just feels thoroughly incomplete, save for that stunning background art. I'm sure I'd have a great time playing this if extra time is spent tidying it up.
Nice polish. Feels slick to play.
The layout and design of this is just too perfect. Well done.
Aaaaa... I don't like to be negative, but the hitboxes feel awful to me, and I hate that the breadstick-tentacles constantly get closer to you even if you're not running into anything. I don't think it adds to the tension, it just makes the consequence of failed jumps less clear, and it didn't feel like it was my fault when I suddenly got caught after having run flawlessly for a long stretch of the road. The artwork is pretty and interesting, although it's not obvious at first glance which objects you're supposed to slide underneath when you start having to use the slide. I thought I could jump over or on top of the logs in Level 2 the same way that I could walk through trees or jump over logs in Level 1, but instead, it slowed me down. The graphics would have benefited from better distinction between things you can and can't collide with, and things that do or don't hurt your character. I also feel like it should be possible to control the length of a slide, since a lot of the problems I had from Level 2 were caused by the protagonist automatically getting back up and hitting his head on the very end of a log even when I thought I'd timed it perfectly. Sorry. I hope my input seems constructive.
My thoughts are similar to the previous comments, but I'd like to add, I like the detail of the animations and I think the Wopol is cute.
Ehhh... I didn't enjoy it. The jump is too fast and not always responsive, horizontal movement is slippery and imprecise, touching a wall keeps you from going upward which is the difference between life and death while submerged, the slow camera zoom-out effect just obscures your view so you can't see what's coming right in front of you, and the checkpoints are unforgiving. I got to the screen with the spike-box blocking an air pocket in the middle of a long passageway a few times and was too annoyed to keep playing. Died 108 times and none of those times felt like my fault.
OOohhh how badly I wish there was a brief input delay on the choice screens. Every time there are options, I keep accidentally picking the first choice (Joker) because I press a key expecting to display the next full line of dialogue. That aside, I'm very fond of this perspective of the theme.
GHfsdfjfnkjnbbb. I think the collision detective is too frustratingly sensitive. I like the idea and the general execution.
Had to use a walkthrough to realize you could bark at your owner from a certain spot, but wow. I love how well thought-out this is.
I like how, depending on the speed you play the game, it can be strategic or total chaos. Gives it some interesting replay value. Would be nice if enemies couldn't spawn right on the surface causing a near-instant death.
I wonder if the gameplay would be fairer if the character's bombs blew up immediately so it would be possible to destroy enemies falling down rapidly from above. Not sure how that would feel in gameplay but it's an idea.
Being able to see the surface before you reach it is very snazzy, and the way that's utilized is also snazzy. I didn't understand why my upward mid-air dash didn't have a consistent height though, and Level 12 is just evil.