Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → KianaMosser
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | đź‘Ą | mote | jam | 475 | 3.68 | 3.05 | 3.21 | 3.21 | 4.21 | 4.05 | 4.18 | |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | đź‘Ą | Postal Pup | jam | 5.00 | ||||||||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | Pinball Gardener | jam | 315 | 3.71 | 3.44 | 3.58 | 4.09 | 4.37 | 3.78 | 2.90 | 3.65 |
Unfortunately we were only available for a day during LD42 and didn't have enough time to write the letters, so it's effectively just a walking simulator, but thank you for checking it out and for the compliments! :)
@CasualNothing @wilson-taylor @lighty-the-light Thanks!
@bigdylann Thanks! It's not just you - we didn't have enough time to put in the settings menu or custom camera system, but it will be fixed in our post-jam update!
@steffo I would love to, but unfortunately I don't have a machine with the proper specs to dev, test, and build on Mac or Linux :(
@sivarde Thanks for the feedback! Since there's no tutorial on controls yet I can see that it's easy to miss, but you can also interact with the creatures if you press the "sing" button when you're close enough to them. I'd love for us to add more interactions with this throughout the environment! I plan to remaster, reduce the volume and intensity for some of those sounds you mentioned :)
@proxy-games Thanks! I'm glad to hear you think we were able to execute our vision for the atmosphere! When adding more content later, we'll keep that in mind.
I think this game really shines in humor, graphics, and core mechanics, but suffers in balance/difficulty curve. It feels like an endurance test of how fast I can spam the attack key and having to go through the entire opening again if you die and spam the button AGAIN feels really tedious (am I missing a skip button?). The gameplay is like: Spawn in, get some enemies to chase me (getting the entire room is more efficient), and then sit there spamming the attack key and occasionally tapping a direction to stay the correct distance away (and the higher level you get, the more it's just spamming one button while standing still but the enemies don't feel like they really die any faster).
It's a shame because I do really enjoy that the boss chases you and I think the gameplay of kiting the boss through multiple screens while trying to kill enemies is very engaging! But I got too tired/bored of button spamming on hitlocked slimes to really experience the extent of what I think this game has to offer.
Bugs/observations: - The text occasionally doesn't draw in the correct place when moving between screens - such as from death to the main menu. - The boss gets stuck on cliffs - spent a while searching for him since I heard the music and he was trying so hard to reach me. - Walking into grass causes the "hurt" animation to play sometimes
This game is really entertaining and I loved everything about it! The fact you have multiple phases that unlock stronger attacks (while also making the music more intense) and the level up screen giving visual feedback through the player's stats is genius. The only real feedback I have is that the combat is not too engaging, but I didn't mind too much because it adds to the feeling of the player being weak/bad at the game. I think this is one of those games that I'm going to be thinking about for a long time.
Core gameplay loop is solid and I like how you rotate between different materials to fix the dam!
If you continued to add on to the game, I'd love to see different materials having different properties, maybe having a queue of which one will come next (like Tetris blocks), and a "high score" tracker so I can see how far I got.
Nice job! :)
@Arden @superpokeunicorn GAH you're right, I forgot to put the controls somewhere! Nice catch! Thanks for the crit and nice comments, guys, much appreciated! I agree with cleaning up the collisions and ball launcher physics will help it play much better (a small amount of aim assistance wouldn't hurt, either).
Given more time, I'd have loved to add more mechanics to tie the pinball and farming games together - some ideas we had were weather effects triggered by lighting up all the lights on the board, gaining new plant types by launching the ball through the ramps on the sides, or increasing the amount of water and farm areas. If anyone has more ideas, I'm all ears! :)
Small devlog on some known issues and feature speculation beyond the game jam: https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31701/first-ludum-dare-we-did-it-known-issues-feature-speculation
@pestodesign There is no “game over” condition currently, but theoretically it would be when you no longer have enough resources to farm yourself up to another life. The game over screen would tell you how well you did (total money made and crops harvested).
By the way, here’s a devlog with some bug fixes I’ve addressed that were pointed out by previous commenters: https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31719/v002-patch-bug-fixes-and-instructions-page
@roaderful Thanks! I haven't seen many 2D pinball games since the Gameboy era, and with good reason, I've found - they're hard to make! Super massive respect for the devs of games like Pokemon Pinball.
@Strato @le-american Originally you could make a net profit from farming (as you would normally expect from a farming simulator), but it was pointed out that you didn't have to play pinball at all to make money, so I lowered the gains and raised prices of things in the 0.0.2 patch - looks like I made the game too difficult, though, so I've rebalanced the monetary gains again. Thanks for the feedback!
There's no "game over" screen yet - I'm working on one that will only give you a game over if you don't have enough resources to farm yourself up to any more lives, but I've put a small "Back" button in the lower right of the screen as a hotfix until I have enough time to sit down and make it proper (I'm a student on the quarter system and work part-time). Please be careful, because you will lose your progress upon returning to the title screen!
@Potondo I agree the ball gets too fast at times - I've capped the speed and reduced the gravity a bit. I think it feels a bit better, but if it's still too fast feel free to let me know. Thanks!
@thebreakfast Thank you! We both enjoy pinball but we searched around and couldn't find anything quite like this so we figured it'd be a fun concept to make. :) The ball phasing though the launcher in specific circumstances is a known issue I'm looking into fixing. I've implemented a hotfix to this in the meantime: you no longer lose a life if the ball bugs through the launcher. I do think it'd be cool to implement some sort of weeds or pests that have an effect on the garden. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm glad to hear you think this game has potential.
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Devlog highlighting the fixes made that were addressed in this comment:
https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31882/version-003-hotfixes-and-balancing
@FabianLC Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the honesty. Beyond potential mechanics I’ve mentioned previously, is there anything you think would help the two mesh together better?
@FabianLC Cool, thanks for the suggestions! :) We’re working on the “game over” and score tallying. By dropping money in the pinball machine during the game, do you mean that sometimes things will drop into the game that you can hit with the pinball for money?
@ghust1995 Thanks! It would be cool to port to mobile considering the pinball machine is vertical.
@LeReveur Definitely planning on playing and rating other games when I get the chance! Lots of cool ideas out there. Thank you for the tip!
@adhesion Yeah, we didn't have time to implement it during the Jam, but in an upcoming update the ramps will be used to give you resources to farm. I'm going to allow the ramps to give your ball a small boost through them as well, which will get the ball through the orbit more reliably. Still tweaking the physics and collisions to get something that feels nice, but I think it's improving. Score will be based on the total money you've earned, plants harvested, and perhaps other aspects. :) It's cool that you also made a pinball game! I don't see very many of them around nowadays. I'll have to give yours a play!
@goat-toaster-games Sure, an explanation can be added! I'll also explain briefly here: You can click an item from your inventory to select it, and a farm plot to plant the seed. You can click on the plant if you have enough water in order to grow it, and once it's fully grown, click again to harvest.
@bitjester-media The ramps don't do anything yet, but they'll give you resources in an upcoming update (which will also make it easier to get up the ramps).
@WERT Thanks! We're still working on the game post-Jam and will be adding that in an update. I've mentioned some planned features already in the devlog and comments section, but is there anything you feel would add to the pinball game? We're open to suggestions! :)
Just want to say thanks for all the nice comments and feedback everyone has left! I didn't get a chance to reply since I was busy with college but I really appreciate it and will consider all your suggestions!
P.S. I still plan on playing everyone's games during the summer and leaving some comments :)