Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → JoshOS

JoshOS

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoCo
201429Beneath the SurfaceBeneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformerjam1023.683.343.393.793.722.942.502.9466

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by JoshOS

LD29 — Beneath the Surface

Le Ver by GamerTaters 2014-05-05T12:51:00

Overall a very impressive entry! However this doesn't strike me as a 'game', rather, an interactive story.

I got a "Fin" message before I feel I was at the end? The worm was still speaking, and I was about two movements away from another collectible pink blob, I never reached it and the screen faded out.

This is more artistic than a game and so I will grade it on that kind of premise.

The graphics were good, but the bump-mapping (I assume that's what's used) gives all the mud a very wet look. The textures didn't nicely wrap around the mud, but rather have some texture alignment issues that you'd expect to see on older games; however I know this isn't an easy task and to fiddle with finer details like this in the time constraints would have been difficult.

The music, if originally composed, we perfect for the cause. It had a French feel to it, and was very moody, setting the intended depressed feel to the game. The vocal work, I say the same. Depressing. Which makes the mood go straight up.

The thought of being a worm to fit the theme Beneath the surface is undeniably simple, yet, perfect!

Right, I'm gonna go cheer myself up now. :P

Please Come Back by PapyPilgrim 2014-05-10T22:46:00

Interesting game, I couldn't make it :(

I really liked the different finals.

Beneath the surface with Sir Walter Wuffington by Larzan 2014-04-29T10:29:00

This game has a great concept! I think people don't realise you can climb any land. you can 'wallclimb' by jumping at it then bouncing back a littl and back onto the wall. Nice and easy!

I think the gems spawning -in- the land is a problem but I'll overlook it. I got a score of 360; I'm sure that's quite low. Well played sir!

Klondike Nuggets by jerombd 2014-04-29T13:00:00

I'm not entirely a fan of this kind of game. But I took that emotion out and gave it an honest go.

Overall, it wasnt bad for a DOS Game lookalike!
I found there wasn't enough lamps, and the gameplay didn't feel all too rewarding; but I did enjoy myself for a good 5-10 minutes until I had absolutely no light, walking blind and suddenly died :P

Dolphin and Rainbows !?!?! by lajos 2014-05-05T13:14:00

I must admit, this is simply adorable. Something I think you'll come to re-appreciate 5, 10, 15 years down the line when your children grow up. Wonderful!

Wormhunter by Thorig 2014-05-10T19:22:00

Very fun game! I liked a lot the graphics specially those smooth animations. The music and sounds are cool too. Would have been nice more types of worms.

Sunny Day by lasergans 2014-04-29T10:35:00

Hey there;

great concept but I personally don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. I like the previous commenter took about 5 attempts to do the first challenge - I noticed that the sun's size decreases; great concept indeed, however, because the sun's too busy freaking out all over the place it took me a while to identify it was getting smaller. I think if the game mechanics were explained better (sun gets smaller) - and the sun appeared stationary when you weren't moving, that would greatly help the playability of this game.

I do again, agree with the other commenter. Interesting idea of a no-jump platformer, and this would work very well in a mobile environment! Perhaps after the compo refine this game and it could work out to be a little gem of a game :)

FedIt! by zedutchgandalf 2014-05-10T22:31:00

Nice game, music is a little bit repetitive though.

Reggid by bombjack 2014-04-29T11:06:00

Nice, simplistic game! I don't know but for once the lack of music I felt was actually pleasant.

I'm not quite sure why you fall 1000ft when you die, but the visuals match the sound well, so, who cares? XD

I feel the falling block death is a bit harsh when on the furthest to the edge columns, you can't really avoid it. D:

As you said you intended to add lava etc, that'd help make the game feel more complete. Perhaps items like bombs or drills that move on their own?

Overall a fun little gem-hunt of a game, keep it coming! :)

Wriggle Worm by gikdew 2014-05-10T22:37:00

Nice game, I had some lag with controls though.

Rude Bear Revengeance by Alex Rose 2014-04-29T16:42:00

Easily one of the best LD29 entries I have played so far. Fun, Challenging but not too hard. There were a few rope-bugs, like my rope shooting off at 1000mph through walls. That said, bugs are beyond likely with such an ambitious task in only 3 days.

good work ^^

Derpy: the next gen dungeon crawler experience by steamfiregamer 2014-04-29T16:56:00

Awful amount of lag. I have a pretty decent Gaming PC (8-core 4.0GHz Processor, 32GB RAM, 4GB Video card etc) and I couldn't get more than 10fps on this.

Many bugs too, Randomly when -trying- to open a chest the music stopped. the little bug things? They were nasty. Cant kill 'em and they push you around. When the game's lagging this bad you cant tell where the hell they're taking you and all in all it was an unplayable experience.

If the lag issue were fixed I'd give this a rating, but I'll consider it un-runnable for now. LD rules state "Do not score unrunnable entries.".

Good luck!

Soulitude by bitserum 2014-05-01T15:23:00

In regards of theme innovation, visuals and the graphical side of thigsm I really cant flaw any of it. Beautiful, gentle parralax scrolling background; good use of sound... Just all round impressive. Unfortunately it fels like an interactive piece of art rather than a game, so I can't compliment too far on the gameplay. Is the gold coin part of future plans for the game?

UnderTheLibrary by Delca 2014-05-11T11:11:00

I liked it. Some dialogs are in a bad position because they are located in places where you can die 2 or 3 times and you have to read them each time ,maybe you could find them a better position or deactivate them the first time they are opened.

The rest is good :)

Delve Into the Deep by frogcheese 2014-05-10T19:46:00

I really liked your game. Graphics are nice, music is relaxing. I like the fact that the volume increases as you get deeper. Good job.

Under Riders by calvinsm 2014-05-05T13:07:00

Similar to my game entry where you control two players, I like it.

I felt the sound was painful, and the objective of the game to begin with was very unclear. However, if better sound was used, and more thought on the level design process (Introduce the players to things gradually, ALMOST like a tutorial), provide submarine only & scuba only obstacles, have some actions prevent the scuba diver escaping somewhere and the sub have to come save them. Have 'bubbles' like in sonic, to save your scuba diver from drowning in long distance journeys etc :)

StromnetZ by Moosefly 2014-05-10T20:09:00

Nice game!. It doesn't innovate but it's still very fun :)

Making a tutorial was very impressing for a game jam.

Beneath The Lab by Techblogogy 2014-05-10T22:59:00

Awesome. Congratulations for making this portal-like game.

the vole beneath by mcapraro 2014-05-11T10:56:00

Very nice game!. Graphics are cool and I love the vole animation. Maybe you could add some sound effects but keeping them low so you don't break the ambientation.

I think it could be a great mobile game. Good job.

Bouncer by TGL 2014-05-10T19:57:00

Nice game. I didn't expect it would become a rpg haha.

Beneath the Surface by FistBumpGames 2014-04-29T17:07:00

I love breaking games.

5 seconds in I wallhopped on the wall to the left and got out of bounds - screenshot - http://i.gyazo.com/d8513d33ac9b1039f2e340838cfdc9e5.png - gif animation - http://i.gyazo.com/36ea11386b2f583ec4443875a8cef1cd.gif

Now onto the review!

Graphics; now, I've always been fussy, pixel art in my opinion should stay true; so, rotating a piece of 2x scaled pizel art by 45deg makes it look like it's not actual pixel art anymore; however, when it's all combined with the bloom-like glows etc, the game admittedly looks -gorgeous-, with alot of smooth animations left right an center, so props to you there!

The sound often lagged out; I've no idea if thats an issue with the web version of unity, or not. But the sounds weren't too bad.

the gameplay I felt lacked. The sword swing was very slow - sometimes I was able to kill a skeleton, and still be killed by them. Odd. :P But yeah, the retreating jump felt useless in combat, and the sword very slow. Also combat behind foreground decorations was the most common cause of death for me.

Overall great effort but could do with some fine tuning in my honest opinion.

Good luck!

TheCube by MaesK 2014-05-10T19:27:00

Nice and hard game.

I think a shadow for the ship would have been really good because sometimes I jumped so hight I didn't know where I was.

800bar by rnlf 2014-05-01T15:36:00

The atmosphere generated by the deep, darkness, the bubbles and the lighting emphasizing the darkness really set the mood on this one. Unfortunately the sound was lacking, and when I was on low health, it annoyed me to the point I muted my speakers.

The gameplay feels a bit off, but I think that's due to the way you jitter off of the surfaces. The levels were tricky but I beat them without much stress.

All in all, a very impressive entry

Mr. Fisk by carlmartus 2014-05-11T11:27:00

Nice and relaxing game. It would have been nice to add music and sound effects. I liked the way waves move the ship, good job.

Btw, I didn't expect to fish a submarine.

The Devil's Magnificent Return by davidc02 2014-05-02T15:41:00

Love the music, pretty cool with the art. Gameplay lacked immensely, but could be hugely improved on post-LD. Far, far too short of a level, also, even for LD standards ;)
Compliments to the firebreathing particles, although being able to use it indefinitely seemed to make it very easy!

Can't compliment the music enough though. Props to the musuican(s)!

Asteroid Tycoon by BadgerPriest 2014-05-10T19:15:00

Nice game. As people said, music gets very repetitive, but the rest of the game is cool.

(HTML5) Under YOUR Skin by luisfelipeart 2014-04-29T11:20:00

Incredibly innovative take on the theme!

For those who couldn't make it; level three is indeed impossible :P

I don't know if you were aware but you can still shot after death. So, I shot the level 3 enemy (is it a virus? :3) after death and it's healthbar went negative :P Screenshot below.

http://i.gyazo.com/3babbf11d12eac79afdebd0f0f86746e.png

Either way, more levels, and less of a difficulty ramp would have made this a touch better, but you still get the thumbs up from me.

Beneath Your House by ceosol 2014-04-29T13:18:00

Seems like an interesting concept. I found it irritating you didnt know how many "Ding-Ding" coin/rings you had collected, and I got stuck in a room on level 1. I played again and progressed easy enough. PErhaps when you get stuck in a room detect that for the player and provide a 'game over' prompt?

Good attempt though! :)

Greys by ccglp 2014-04-29T13:28:00

Oh man invisible stairs were no fun; the game didnt feel like it rewards the player all too much, so I decided to ignore the stairs completely. Interesting 'art' concept.

Beneath The Surface by adamwoolridge 2014-04-29T10:23:00

Very impressive considering the timeframe this was made in! I feel like the game was very heavily inspured by tetrisphere.
Visual effects are gorgeous however the the average sound effects and no music let this down a bit, with better audio I believe this could have had a really good atmosphere!

I know I'm thinking of tetrisphere but if there was some 'purpose' to digging to the bottom, perhaps saving a 'friend', unveiling a treasure the turrets are protecting, etc that could have also added to the game

Overall incredible effort though, I'm -very- impressed!

Ice Hop by waveformmodulations 2014-04-29T13:43:00

I see nobody downloaded this yet? It's quater of a gig, thats a high asking price for 5 minutes of gaming.

The gameplay is very slow, the game is an exploration game essentially. however, there are many little bugs that amuse me so. In the first area I can get out of bounds and fall infinitely. I can also puch some ice shards around. In the second area I can have the creature 'dance' on my head in a buggy way; very very amusing stuff.

The game's graphics and it's music are -gorgeous- however, so mu question to the submitter of this game is, why did you mot provide more screenshots?! The one you provided does absolutely NO justice to the game's graphical quality.

Robot invasion by Tosic 2014-05-02T15:36:00

For a first game attempts not too bad, but, I feel this has too many flaws for me to write about that I'm better off saying Keep practicing, you'll get much, much better.

Beneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformer by JoshOS 2014-04-29T10:13:00

Thank you all ever so much for your fantastic comments. I assure you we will take the time to look at all your games in return, as a gesture of goodwill. For those of you stuck; I have prepared a walkthrough on youtube. I won't post a link, that'll help you cheat all too much. :P Search for the user "Theclichename" on youtube, it's amongst their uploads! ;)

Beneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformer by JoshOS 2014-05-01T08:32:00

Thank you all for your honest comments, it's great to see you all enjoying the game!

I'll let you in on a secret - the sound was my own voice just edited in various ways in Audacity; time is money, so they say! :)

While creating the game we made the low friction (sliding) intentionally, it allowed some leniency on certain puzzles, but it does in turn make it more difficult on intricate levels such as level 16.

Should we make a Post-LD version we will certainly take all of your comments on board. Thanks! :)

Beneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformer by JoshOS 2014-05-09T11:03:00

Thank you BadgerPriest for playing the full game! We appreciate the time taken to enjoy it to the full. I'd like to ask if you have the capability to record the crash occuring, I cannot seem to reproduce the crash.

Beneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformer by JoshOS 2014-05-12T08:42:00

Anssi@MooseflyGames - sorry that the game wasn't quite the experience you would enjoy. Thanks for letting me know about the error. What actions did you take before the error occurred?

To everyone else, thanks you ever so much for your motivational and positive comments! We're thankful for the feedback, overall as it stands we feel the game might be a little too hard, the controls too 'slippery' and the jump sound effect is disliked all round; these particular points have been taken on board and will be used if we continue to develop this game. Thanks again! :)

Dungeons and Bombs by visard 2014-04-30T10:18:00

I heavily question the legality of including the Arial.ttf font file.

As for gameplay, nice and simplistic. I found the sprite for 'treasure' to be a bit misleading, as it looks like fire.

Overall good effort, not bad considering the time restraints!

Perhaps a few things to add in the future if you're doing a Post-compo version is enemies, alternate scoring methods (killing enemies, finding the portal quickly), powerups (portal locator, larger view-area, bigger bombs, bomb-deflecting shield etc) and that kind of stuff?

Kill or Kill by GreatBigJerk 2014-05-10T22:27:00

Good game! First you have cartoon graphics and then... let's kill people!

Fishing On The Ice by DonovanWu 2014-05-10T19:50:00

I didn't expect those submarines under the water haha.

Nice game, it would be nice if it had music.

Holy Diver by talecrafter 2014-04-29T12:37:00

Bah; that's three times in a row I die on 3,000 points :P
Your asking score of 5k's quite hard ;)

Sounds are great, lovely little death-riff.
The old man instantly gave this game 10% higher score ;P

I found the Sharks to be a little too random in behaviour; as a player you couldn't manipulate them at all (for example, I'd want the sharks to follow me around just a little so I can play a chase kind of game with them :P

I like the way as your score increases the grails get deeper and thus harder to reach, nice little touch!

FoxyTank by matthias_zarzecki 2014-05-10T22:35:00

Nice game, but it was hard to find the ship after finding the parts.

The Light, It Burns! by Zyrconium 2014-05-02T15:44:00

Interesting arrow accelleration. That's all I have to say :P

Food's above & Danger Beneath the Surface! by DavidErosa 2014-05-01T15:45:00

Unexpected style of game, not bad! Good use of theme and the art&sound remind of those olden handheld gaming things you used to get which only had one game on, typically in Black and white.

The gameplay I found a little awkward but I got the hang of it. I feel the spider dies too quickly though, I had a case where an entire spider's life went, the only things appearing above ground were snakes or nothing. That, or I went to check on the eggs at the wrong time.

Neckbeard Diving by Orz 2014-05-02T15:18:00

Bump - link still down.

Kontroise by edibletoaster 2014-05-10T22:17:00

Very nice game. As you said it doesn't fit with the theme but who cares, the game is very fun.

Ridiculous Glitchez by Steven Colling 2014-04-29T13:07:00

as seems to be the trend - awesome visual style. Can't help but feel you were praying the theme was "Glitch" instead of beneath the surface :P

The gameplay felt... Well, it felt like - "What am I doing?". :P But the whole time I was somewhat mesmerized by the almost drunk glitchouts the game has. Very nice art-game! :D

a Tree... by dsoft20 2014-04-29T10:57:00

Long live the tree! http://i.gyazo.com/94326b81c20a727ca6cbd1876d9d8b2d.png

Moving on - incredible take on the terms "Beneath the surface"

Very impressed with this one. The fact that other players have an input on how this game is incredible; and the root view... oh my!

I confess it's not a game I'd spend much time playing; but seeing the collaboration of all the people who have played it impresses me greatly! It's more like a game-styles experiment, I suppose?

You get my vote :)