Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → kallico
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | 👥 | Lambball | jam | 626 | 3.16 | 3.42 | 3.25 | 2.98 | 3.11 | 3.42 | 3.58 | 3.15 |
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | Servant of Lord Doof | jam | 1173 | 2.73 | 2.69 | 2.54 | 3.44 | 2.86 | 3.06 | 3.43 | 2.88 |
No points theme from me, but IMO everything else is spectacular, the puzzles are pretty clever, nice take on geometric thinking. The first few levels feel a bit handholdy but imo necessary for a concept like this. Game play/UX is very polished, visuals look great, audio is nice for the puzzler flow state. Cool shader effects.
Вобше игра каиф, интерсно што вы згатовети в будешее! :blue_heart::yellow_heart:
I love the asthetic very much. I like being able to tell my own story so to speak.
I wish however if there are multiple lines of dialogue it would do a short fade for each one. Also if a dialogue option will not provide any new text I would like it to disappear.
THE WEAVING MECHANIC IS SO AWESOMEE!!!
I found a good meta to be to push boxes to the perimeter and if a pentagram spawns on the very edge just let it fail. Very tense gameplay!
I've never experienced loss like this in a video game. Jesus. WHAT THE ACTUAL. ARHHHH!!! 5/5
Bought one of the coal tables on the eve of the 6th day forgetting to account for salaries... lost the game with 642 monies... IT WAS SO CLOSE ARG XD
The assets/UI feel really nice to use! However, I found it frustrating that after the ritual ALL the elements snapped back to base positions, meaning that I couldn't organize the items based on included or not included, and their correct positions. As a result I was constantly needing to check the previous results and that was taking me out of the gameplay loop.
Also it was trivial to memorize the Portuguese names of a few items, but if you plan on adding any more items in the future, it would be nice to have a sprite list on the drop down UI instead of names, so that the game is more accessible to non-Portuguese speakers.
Finally it wasn't clear to me that the getting red/green/yellow progressed the heart meter and that that was actually the goal, but I figured that out on the second play through.
ALSO ALSO. I loved the garlic and roses splash screen for the love ending, as a garlic lover myself :rose:
I don't have the finger detexterity RIP. I wish it was more clear when you "Cook" a monster for an order. But the art and animations
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It was really difficult to avoid the AOE attacks while in third person with the limited FOV. Maybe just a skill issue on my side :P
The models and room was great, nice low poly effect.
It was really difficult to avoid the AOE attacks while in third person with the limited FOV. Maybe just a skill issue on my side :P
The models and room was great, nice low poly effect.
The voice acting was great, however the voice player had a possibility of overlapping if you tried to move a card.
It may have been too hard to solve otherwise but I Kind of wish the cards in the correct place were able to be moved to give you more autonomy in solving the puzzle
Could really use a clear screen button. I love the illustrations and the perspective room texture + sprite shrinking is simple but effective!
Whooo boy aren't you a sneaky little game dev... With your deceptively simple puzzles that have me thinking I almost got it.. IF ONLY I COULD *JUST* MOVE THAT LITTLE CUBE!!!
Overall very fun!
Notes:
The dialogue text feels too slow being printed out.
I would have liked to see an auto end turn feature when you spend all your mana.
Not a great match for the theme, but hey its different than all the draw a summon circle/guess our runic language games lol!
I couldn't get past the level with the 3 Djin in the rectangular moat but I enjoyed the puzzle mechanics! Very simple and consice scope for a jam
Impressive considering how little time you had, but there's not much game yet. I think the handbook UI works well for the prototype. If you're going to have players memorize summoning commands, it would be nice to see them built up from a logical structure of elements. More complicated for more advanced summons. Either runes or a constructed language maybe?
I'm drawing castles out of chalk and this game is a storm washing them away. I look out the window and its dark now.
It wasn't very clear to me which upgrades let to what changes in the isopods. But overall pretty satisfying and unique entry!
Would love to see some more puzzle levels with this concept!
The walking speed feels a bit languid for my tastes.
I think turning gears, operating a pulley system, elevators, scales, see saws, would be such a fun level design playground!
I think you should be able to unlock a second flag to split up your group of rats for example.
@ugly-robot Yes! So did we. I'll keep working on update with more of my assets and @kraftbart's animation/sound effect work that we didn't have time to include.
After the first few levels I found it almost impossible to keep my cultists alive so it was alot of FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, success (bc its the one with the moat), FAIL, FAIL, ect.
The lightning ability range and damage feel underpowered by the time you get to it
fROG.
I love the concept but I find the UI implementation completely unacceptable to play with past the first 10 waves or so. You control the fighter ants with the mouse but you also spawn ants with the mouse in the top right..
So you are constantly fighting between defending your queen and needing to summon more ants.
IMO I would suggest one of these options, in order of impl difficulty
1) You have HOTkeys 1,2,3 for the summon ant and convert to worker and fighter ants, so you don't have to redirect the ants away from the battle just to summon more of them.
2) The fighter ants are autonomous just like the worker ants and will track down and kill enemies, themselves. Maybe you are able to set a priority for the enemy types/vs distance?
3) Ants are spawned automatically as soon as you have enough resources, or upto a maximum.
Again. The concept is great, but is greatly hampered by the over reliance on mouse UI
I really love how the mechanics and level design really captures how it feels to draw without a strong visual image in your mind. Lily is literally having to leap before knowing where her feet will land. Placing that stroke on the paper before you know if it's going to capture your idea. I'm so touched, I might cry
Had to write down notes to keep track of everything, but I solved it (second try) first time I didn't understand I was making an accusation and accused the green ghost IMMIDIATELY XD
Fun little mystery lots of redherrings and misdirection!!! What a twister!
I wish I knew the murder's motive
Allowed myself to take heavy damage early on so I could dominate the battlefield after. (4!!! HEALTH LEFT)(Impossible mode) It was extremely touch and go, every inch of territory was won with a bucket of slime blood. I had especially many devastating loses where the enemy wizard nuked the army I just amassed leaving me defenseless... yet I persevered.
Unfortunately after once it was basically impossible for me to lose, it just became a slog trying to knock down the enemy wizards' tower, because he kept spawning a few slimes to defend himself.
Easy, Normal, Hard mode are very nicely balanced. Impossible is overwhelmingly difficult, but surmountable with strategy.
I like that on easy mode you can win by just spawning the spells and spawn, but on hard modes you have to use timing, take strategic retreats, and use Heavy and Ranged classes tactically.
Notes:
The lightning strike does not actually strike enemies behind the first line of defense, aka the rangers I'd really like dead. Considering the investment to learn this spell, that's a disappointment for me.
Also, ranger slimes not retreating behind the last next tank when the one in front dies also means you can't use them as effectively, since instead they just stand on the front lines and take the punishment.
Slimes only targeting the base if no enemies have spawned also means that as long at least one enemy is spawned (Which is most of the time) you can't make any progress. Turning a 8-min game into a 40 min one :(
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Thank god you added the googley eyes. Otherwise I might have had to wrestle with the fact that I'm gluing together flesh chunks! :)
Running into a skills issue, I wish I could play the game long enough to give a solid rating. But combined having to run AT the enemies to fire and needing to select the right bullet type, I can't do it
Very frustrating recognition as others have mentioned, but I think also having to draw spells while you are actively running and dodging leads to a frustrating experience. The spells are underpowered for how many enemies are coming at you, so even when you do get a spell cast it doesn't do enough to keep you alive.
I love the concept of drawing spells/storing a bank of them, however I don't think the "Survivors" format is serving that core concept very well. I would love to see a different version of this.
Even turning brightness and contrast upto max I couldn't make out anything. The mushrooms could have worked, but unfortunately they are obscured by scene geometry 80% of the time, so despite my best efforts I was not able to get anywhere. The wisp rushes to you as opposed to lingering slightly ahead and having you follow it. If you publish a version where the darkness is not so oppressive I will give another try
Why did I have to choose Satan's challenge score 😫 I played with fire and got *BURNED*!!!
I can't edit the summoning circle after the fight :(
Also maybe I chose a bad start layout but my minion is exactly par, and I'm loosing 10 souls every battle to spawn them.
This shows importance of having a COMPLETE game as opposed to a big unfinished game!
It's not very clear who the enemies are and who the freindlies are, I think it could have been a bit clearer with only using goblins and demons against enemy humans for example. Sorry to hear about your fever!
What did you use for the dialogue? Self built or a dialogue plugin?
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I found a bug lmao. When standing on a dirt block next to the wall, you can shunt yourself outside of the allowed map then just walk up to the level door from the other side XD
I was able to get 3 of the aliens to come but I struggled figuring out what I could send to get the rest of them to talk to me alone so that it would be easier to decipher
@sweetwizzle I agree with the space bar! on lvl 3 I just couldn't get it so I tried using the mouse to mark my last jump position but with the restart click I was loosing that... oh well rip XD
Playing on keyboard with movement bound to WASD and select bound to ENTER was really arrgavating, because I'd have to leave the move keys or the mouse to click enter. If rebound to SPACE I think the UX would be much better. Over all fun tho!
Feels like more of an interactive demo. Unfortunately I'm not seeing what the fail state/win condition is.
Very compelling stories, I wish it was easier to see both endings quicker! And the art omygosh
The final boss is merciless, I can only get him down to 3/4 health. Nice innovation on risk of rain esp for a game jam
I wish it was bit more clear which plants each species of bug finds tasty
I did get it after a few stages, but first level is what threw me off I think. I think it would be helpful for to introduce the eat favorite -> reproduce mechanic right away. If I may suggest some changes, here's what I would do
Stage 1: Field of wheat (Basically impossible to fail, and you should see your babies multiply)
Stage 2: Field of wheat + some carrots in the center. With a small starting amount of bugs so that if you place them on the carrots, you may lose.
The rest of the stages you introduce the new bugs and what they like one at a time, as you did.
I think some good game design tweaks could be related to how you get new gems (Honestly what I was expecting to be the case):
Start with a limited number of gems As you progress through the level your enemies can "capture" more gems for you to use.
At the moment you can take as long as you like and enough gems will eventually spawn for you to win so you don't have to be strategic about which enemies you spawn.
Then leaning into the levels being a sort of puzzle for what waves to send in which order to best utilize the gems available, and if you run out you lose.
I really love the concept, and I definitely see the vision. One caveat is certain mechanics feel frustratingly unfair, like paying to move to the next level, with no benefit to you.
I've had several good runs cut short by one bad day, where after that day I was unable to make enough money to buy upgrades, barely scraping by for a few more days while the "tax man" takes all my profits.
Very fun core loop, and I think the concept has a lot of potential
I really enjoyed the music mixer design! I'm musically inept, so it was a cool way for me to "create" music in a way I'm not usually able to.
My only wish is that the viewport showed a larger area. I wanted to zoom around in my little ship but it was way too hard to predict when an asteroid would show up. I think it would have also been cool to see more of the asteroid field at once.
Great game o_0
I have questions, but I don't think I want answers.
The sound effects are kaif, gives it a really homemade by your grandpa feeling
a puzzle game made me feel stupid I love it :D
I guess my last little guy fell through the scene geometry because I scoured the map for him, and when I finally found gave up and pressed debug, he seemed to be *INSIDE* the cliff face near the blue area.
When you have a full pack of gold and only 20 seconds to get it out XD
I love it, scratches that splunky itch without being so punishing!
to add to what @sergs-workshop said, I think having a sell-upgrade loop would make this super satisfying. Faster speeder, some scanning mods, some guns to take down enemies. Impressive for just 3 days
you make laugh with your magik words funni man
@thoastbot that's so cool you saw my mock up art and remembered our game!! :id:
This is our 2nd jam actually! Our previous game was way over scoped and we didn't manage to have something cohesive finished by the deadline. This time we kept things simple and I think everything came together so well.
I think if we publish a post jam version we'll end up fixing all the things like being able to trivially end a level by closing off the gate, or the spawn locations for the sheep and wolfs like you mentioned.
Thank you so much for playing! :)
It was fun! I played several times, but my run kept getting cut short when I ran into a car and would get stuck :(
The descriptions were gross but funny!
Gave me a really cool fire girl and water boy nostalgia feeling. I struggled to get past the hook level though :(
This might be one of the more challengeing sokoban's I've played, really simple concept to understand but hoo boy those last too puzzles got me good.
hey so uhhh. which roomate made this? asking for a freind.
Why do I feel like I'm feeding not a dog but a nuclear reactor??
Really awesome idea to represent "action economy" as tetris puzzle pieces
Crafting weapons as part of a surviors like is really cool! I haven't seen that before! It would be super neat to have a deeper crafting tree, maybe even combing weapons together to get more powerful versions so that you can hyper customize your build.
As others have said this is a lot of polish for a compo game.
Wow that really got my adranalin going!!! Those blue squares are such assholes!! I must have played a dozen times
I went back and played some more because I wasn't gonna let those blue bastards win. Made it past 25 minutes, to the point where I was absolutely murdering everything on sight