Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Josh.Galecki
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | Caravana | compo | 380 | 3.11 | 2.71 | 2.54 | 2.92 | 3.47 | 3.97 | 2.86 | 3.57 |
Interesting mechanic! I don't think I've seen something like it before. I do think that the number of puzzle 'verbs' could have been increased, as I only saw the "distance" and the "loop" controls. Having more verbs, or having nodes that interact differently with the two different verbs (say, a star type that doubles the length of the basic "distance" verb) would have upped the puzzle factor a good bit. Good job for 48 hours, for sure.
I downloaded FanTheFlames_win32.zip and had some problems after running the game. When running FanTheFlames.exe, I get the following in a new console window:
Mono path[0] = 'G:/Indie Games/LD45/FanTheFlames_win32/FanTheFlames_Data/Managed' Mono config path = 'G:/Indie Games/LD45/FanTheFlames_win32/MonoBleedingEdge/etc' Initialize engine version: 2019.2.5f1 (9dace1eed4cc) [XR] Discovering subsystems at path G:/Indie Games/LD45/FanTheFlames_win32/FanTheFlames_Data/UnitySubsystems Forcing GfxDevice: Null GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=0 NullGfxDevice: Version: NULL 1.0 [1.0] Renderer: Null Device Vendor: Unity Technologies Begin MonoManager ReloadAssembly - Completed reload, in 0.091 seconds UnloadTime: 0.620300 ms
Let me know if you fix the issue (hard enough making a game in 48 hours, right?) and I'll circle back to this one.
I enjoyed your game. Here's some quick thoughts: - I wasn't able to use the keyboard controls. I had my gamepad plugged in, though, and it worked fine. I'd recommend mapping the "A" button on the gamepad to the same action as the space bar if you are looking to support a gamepad officially. - I wasn't sure what to do with the sword or at the end - did I miss out on content, or was it unfinished because of time conraints? - Good implementation of the theme. I feel like there could have been more puzzles involving body-swapping / switching states.
Welcome to Ludum Dare! This is a great game for a first attempt. One thing you learn is that you never have enough time to implement everything you were planning to during those 48 hours.
When I was playing, it seemed like I was unable to select any other spell except lightning. I tried using the mouse to click on the spell icons and using the number keys on my keyboard. As mentioned above, some sort of UI indication of which spell is selected would be nice.
Keep up the good work!
Good game, great artwork! There were some humorous touches that made me laugh, like the peanut people and the cinnamon tree trunks. It was fun to explore the world and see what enemies would yield what ingredients.
The only thing I can think of to suggest is to have some sort of direction or goal for the player - even something simple like having your cat pass judgment on your various cooking efforts. Of course, we all know that a game jam means you never have the time for everything on the feature list. Great job!
Great way to bring "Start with Nothing" to the chess table. Interesting twist, even if I did find the standard mode too easy.
Ausstein mentioned some good points and knows more about chess than me. I can point out that you could place a queen behind one or more of your pawns and there wouldn't be any direct attacks. I feel like the ability to immediately place an enemy piece under threat (like placing a bishop or rook to place the enemy king in check) made the game too simple - less strategy and more pressing the advantage once you had a 'sniper' piece. I'd be interested in trying a "no direct attacks" version.
Great idea and take on the theme. I'm always a fan of NPCs firing wildly with no regard for collateral damage. I think the game was a bit too difficult with the timer, and I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do for level 4. (I think? It's the first one after the long level that teaches the 'pidgeon' mechanic.)
The mechanics seem simple, but you balance risk / reward nicely with the ever-larger groups of enemies chasing you down. Face the herd and pick them off or keep running? I also like that dot placement started clustered and grew wider in range. I really liked that the music never stopped. Very Hotline Miami in its own way.
One suggestion would be to tie the dot placement to enemy death. Maybe the dots appear when enemies die? I'm not sure, because they didn't spawn in the enemy location or have any sort of feedback that they appeared. As much as I could tell (through a quick five or six playthroughs), the only reason to fight enemies instead of always running was so a horde of them wouldn't run you down.
Two thumbs up :)
Given the mouse+controls scheme, it might have been better to map the 'Use' key to one of the mouse buttons instead 'E'.
I didn't have enough wood left to build a torch as night fell, and things were pitch black at that point. Including a little bit of ambient light (moonlight maybe, or a small bit of light nearby the player) could allow that small extra bit of gathering needed to gather the last supplies.
Overall, good game!
Its very impressive to get all this done without having any knowledge of Unity beforehand. The graphics are great and the music really helps in setting the mood. I even kept the game open a while after seeing everything available on the computer so that I could keep listening to the music. Good job!
Interesting game. There's a bit of lack of direction going on, and I was never quite sure what the bottles were meant to do. The graphics are very nice, though, and the controls and collection mechanic works smoothly. I would suggest increasing the difficulty somewhat, as it seems too easy to collect enough change to buy soup. (And once you've done that a couple of times, there doesn't seem to be a lot else to do.) Focusing on that as the core game loop and see what sort of variations you can bring to the table there could open up some interesting options for a post-compo game.
Once I figured out how the mechanics work, I was able to get almost all the enemies killed without a problem (except for the one last gun enemy, of course). After that, though, I think it was a lot of fun trying to collect the power tokens while dodging the last enemies bullets. If you continue developing the game, you might see if that part of the game is worth fleshing out. Nice job, overall.
Fun game. I was able to finish, although I felt like it got too easy as the number of bubbles decreased. If you did something like increase the velocity of the bubbles as there are fewer bubbles out there, that might make things more challenging later on in the game. Or maybe add some "automatic loss of life" bubbles? Just some thoughts :)