Don't Drown by schsam 2018-09-04T14:19:02Z ♥ 1
Great work! The concept here is quite interesting, and the physics are impressive! It's not really optimized well though, because I was running at about 6 frames per second or less by the end of it, and I have a pretty powerful computer. The graphics are quite good, and both the raft and the water looked really nice, although the background and the cube container didn't look quite as good. The mood is awesome too, with the nice descriptive text and the great feeling of being out at sea in a cube! As far as fun goes though, it mechanically was just spinning around the torrent of water the entire game, but the visual appeal helped make it a lot more fun, especially with the quirky raft physics! Great job!
Cheers! - The Koala Squad
LD43 — Sacrifices must be made (13)
Vikrifice by Lucidus 2018-12-20T23:59:11Z ♥ 1
Alright, here's my thoughts:
The gameplay is clean, and works pretty well. It's pretty fun until it gets hard, but other than that, it's pretty well done! My rating: 4.5 stars.
Innovation... It's Mario but with Vikings, tropical rainforests, and sacrificial animals instead of plumbers, mushroom kingdoms, and flags. Oh well. My rating: 3 stars.
The theme fit well, but the interpretation of the theme is, of course, generic. My rating: 4.5 stars.
The graphics looked really nice! They did have some technical issues though. The flicker is the most obvious one, but aside from that, the player's animations had some problems. If you were using Unity, this would be because exit time is enabled on all the transitions, but in any case, they had some difficulty transitioning when you jumped, started walking, or stopped walking. My rating: 4.5 stars.
The audio sounds nice and fits very well with the game! My rating: 5 stars.
I hate having to tell everyone this, but unless your game is specifically humorous, opt out! The cat interaction was the closest the game got to "funny," but this was a stretch. My rating: 2.5 stars. I'm not going to put that rating officially though, because I think you need to opt out.
The mood was quite nice. Everything meshed to create a rather convincing mood. Of course, none of this is even close to historically accurate (although Vikings did sacrifice animals), but whatever. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Overall, this is a very well done and polished entry! My rating: 4.5 stars.
Views by arnau 2018-12-20T23:17:24Z ♥ 0
I've hit the comment length, so this is a multi-part post. Sorry for the massive text wall.
Alright, here’s my takeaway.
I’m going to have to list the major issues before I can explain the mechanics and whether they’re fun or not. So, without further ado: • The controls are annoying because you can only damage tiny slivers of the buildings which are horizontal, not vertical. In a tiny window with a horizontal aspect ratio, swiping horizontally only feels natural, but vertical feels stilted and boring. • The loss condition also felt super arbitrary, especially since most of the hitboxes were on the bottom of the buildings. • Tiny issue: Pausing the game doesn’t stop buildings from spawning, so if you pause and come back, every single row will fill with buildings. • The difficulty was all over the place. Normally, you’re supposed to use a difficulty curve that allows players to pick up the game and get used to the difficulty slowly without ever feeling like they’re being babied or that the game is punishing. However, this game completely misses the correct curve. For the first 30 seconds, it feels way too easy, whether this was the first play-through or the last. From about 30-40 seconds, it seems just about right. Then after that, it becomes a nightmare to use, and the difficulty serves more to beat the player over the head than to provide the player with engaging challenge. • You placed the bomb powerup in the upper left corner of the screen and made it a button you have to press. That causes two issues. One, it’s not apparent that the button is even a button, and I had no idea that you were supposed to press it until I saw your comment at the bottom of the Itch.io page. Two, the button requires the player to move his mouse away from the game field and press it, and even though it has no consequences, it still feels terrible, especially since it would have been quite easy to make right click trigger the bomb instead. • Finally, the tutorial is terrible. It tells you very little about the game and uses an image that doesn’t even try to represent gameplay. Heck, even the images and description did little to explain the mechanics, and that’s assuming that the player will read those (not a good assumption)! You need to include a good explanation of the game, even if it requires a wall of text at the beginning of the game (which is not something I would recommend, but it’s better than nothing). I spent the first 3 games trying to figure out what on earth I was supposed to do. Phoo! That’s a lotta issues. Anyway, here’s a summary. There are a LOT of root-level issues that are a result of some bad design choices. The game is not fun. I wish I could say it was, and there are a lot of times where I can squeeze something fun out of a game, but in this game, the only fun is provided by the other aspects of the game: graphics, audio, and other stuff. Sadly, this will only get you so far. My rating: 2 stars.
Innovation… Hmm… I’m sorry, but I just don’t see any. My rating: 1 star.
Heck, this is a really interesting interpretation of the theme! I’m happy to see some uniqueness here, especially since this theme is very restrictive against creative innovations! My rating: 5 stars.
Spacebrawl by sobakaduka 2018-12-15T17:45:07Z ♥ 2
Alright, here's my thoughts:
You nailed fun. The frenetic, multilayered mechanics were really interesting to play, and very engaging. There were, of course, minor issues here and there (make the ship smaller and the rounds shorter!), but it was still a good experience! My rating: 5 stars.
Nice, innovative game! My rating: 5 stars.
Fits well with the theme and uses a significantly less generic interpretation of it! Great job! My rating: 5 stars.
The art looks quite nice, with the space aesthetic fitting well with the presented art. However, there is a major issue. Almost everything uses the exact same colors. This might not seem like a big deal until you try navigating the ship at full speed on the hardest difficulty. You see, it would be great if the important objects like turrets, crates, generators, etc. were color coded. It would make the ship so much easier to navigate and would allow the player to tell at a glance what machine he is looking at. Currently, it takes more thought to distinguish objects, because the only differentiating factor is the shape. My rating: 4.5 stars.
The mood is pretty well done, but I never really found myself immersed in the game. Maybe it was because the ships outside felt like they were programmed for galaga, or maybe it was because the fighting mechanics seemed so out of touch with reality or out of place, or maybe it was because the oxygen drained without any visible or physical indicators, and it drained incredibly fast, but something about the entire game just kept me from feeling like a part of the character I was playing as. However, the audio and graphics do set the tone somewhat well, and the frantic pace has its own mood separate from the serious one the game presents. My rating: 4 stars.
Overall, this is a quite nice entry, with good audio and a very nice, innovative interpretation of the theme. It was incredibly fun, and while it did have some substantial issues, it made up for them enough to keep me playing it longer than any other entry yet (although maybe this was because of the artificially long timer and huge ship). My rating: 4.5 stars.
The Vault by DWaM 2018-12-09T18:48:49Z ♥ 1
Alright, here's my thoughts:
It's pretty darn fun and compelling for a twine game. I don't mean to be offensive, but text-adventure games are rarely compelling to me, and even some of the most polished and creative ones rarely stick out to me more than an exposition dump at the beginning of any other game (mostly because they are one big exposition dump). Heck, my only steam release currently is a text-adventure hybrid, and I still don't like playing them. However, for a twine game, this is very well done! My rating: 4.5 stars.
Uhhh... Nope. No innovation here. I mean, maybe if you squint your eyes at the story, there's something, but not really. My rating: 2.5 stars.
The theme doesn't really even fit this. I suppose you **[SPOILERS]** "sacrifice" yourself at the end of the game, but sacrifices have to a) be trading one thing for another, bad or good, and b) they should really be willing. I don't think this was a sacrifice so much as a clickathon. I can see where you tried, but the result is just too contrived. My rating: 3 stars.
You killed it with the mood, and I suppose that's the point. My rating: 5 stars.
Overall, it's a polished entry, but the foundation is shaky. It's aimed at a stagnant genre and brings little to no innovation to distinguish itself. Additionally, it doesn't adhere to the theme hardly at all. My rating: 4 stars.
Jesus Take the Wheel by PeachTreeOath 2018-12-09T17:51:15Z ♥ 2
Alright, here's my thoughts:
The fun was top notch! It got crazy trying to protect all of the vehicles, although that is something that was an issue. It was almost impossible to control more than one car before an obstacle came onto the screen, which meant that I had only one car for pretty much the entire game. The controls could have been a bit more streamlined and that would have helped the difficulty, but I think that the massive difficulty was, for the most part, not an issue in this game. I don't know whether making the controls more or less manageable would help. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Innovation. Heck yeah. For this theme, this is the single most innovative idea I've seen used, and it works! My rating: 5 stars.
You used the theme in a non-standard way and used it well! My rating: 5 stars.
The graphics were interesting and strange, but they worked in a unique way! The textures on the arms were a bit stretched out, but other than that, it looks great! My rating: 5 stars.
This is actually the first game that got me laughing out loud this ludum dare. Phenomenal! My rating: 5 stars.
The mood was pretty amazing, although the music wasn't a perfect fit. It had its benefits, but it still wasn't the best. However, the other sounds, graphics, and gameplay all made a really great mood. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Overall, this is one of the best entries I've seen yet! Everything about it is extremely polished and executed well, and it's all done on a strong idea foundation that fits well with the theme. Astounding work! My rating: 5 stars.
Great job, and good luck!
Cheers, The Koala Squad
Lanternal : A Mage’s Sacrifice by Liz Cooper-G4G 2018-12-06T22:59:02Z ♥ 2
Alright, here's my thoughts:
That was pretty darn fun! It kept me coming back and felt (more or less) balanced, with an appropriate difficulty curve and fitting match times. My rating: 5 stars.
Nothing new. I mean, there's something, but that can mostly be blamed on the theme. My rating: 3.5 stars.
It fit the theme, although it didn't do much inventive or new with it. My rating: 4.5 stars.
This art looks fantastic! Phenomenal work! I did find a minor issue though: The player kinda shakes back and forth by a few pixels each frame in the idle animation. But that's just nitpicks. My rating: 5 stars.
Great job with the audio! It fit well, didn't get repetitive, and sounded great! My rating: 5 stars.
Ugh. Please opt out of humor. I hate having to tell this to like every other game I rate, but I'll say it again: Always opt out of humor unless you think that your game has significant enough humorous elements to prevent the category from hurting your average score.
The mood was almost perfect! It was quite immersive, although it didn't stand out as having a particularly great mood to it. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Overall, it's a really great and polished game! The mood of the game didn't fit perfectly, and the game wasn't particularly innovative, but it's very well done! My rating: 4.5 stars.
The Mist by tpamir 2018-12-06T18:44:39Z ♥ 2
Alright, here’s my thoughts:
The game concept was a great setup for fun, but the difficulty was completely unbalanced. The randomness of each quest (not to mention the randomness of the resources resulting from them) was a huge issue. If you had focused on the feature you had already added, where each adventurer focused on different resources, and leaned into that aspect more heavily, it would help balance out the game a lot. Also, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that everyone’s nocturnal, so try changing it so that you can only act in the daytime. There’s no reason for night. My rating: 3.5 stars.
It wasn’t particularly innovative, although that is, for the most part, the themes fault. My rating: 3.5 stars
It fit the theme, and you aren’t using one of the most extremely overused interpretations of it! My rating: 5 stars
The graphics were simple, but outstanding! Great job! My rating: 5 stars.
The audio did do the job, but it didn’t stand out. My rating: 4 stars.
The mood was very well done, but the extreme difficulty, random typos, and other issues were terribly immersion breaking. My rating: 4 stars.
Overall, this is a quite artistically polished game, and has a good setup, but the gameplay backbone severely lacks tuning, and the audio and mood were mediocre. My rating: 4 stars.
Great job, and good luck!
Cheers, The Koala Squad
Catrifices by MrPiedPiper 2018-12-06T00:17:12Z ♥ 1
Here's my thoughts on it:
The gameplay was an interesting and compelling start, but it was SLOW. I mean, sure, slowness is often necessary, but it would have been quite easy to speed EVERYTHING in the game up by like 3 or 4 times, and it would be so much more fun! My rating: 4 stars.
Heck, I suppose it's somewhat innovative. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's somewhat original, and even somewhat is *great* when the theme is so **painfully** polarizing. My rating: 4.5 stars.
It fit the theme. Just like every other game that requires you to sacrifice the things you're saving. It's not your fault: this theme is making everyone do this! However, it still isn't a new interpretation of the theme. My rating: 4.5 stars.
The graphics were decent, but lacked polish, and the animations were lacking. The player seemed very floaty when walking, and you could've at least made it so that he actually LOOKS up when he WALKS up. My rating: 4 stars.
Ah yes. Bosca Ceoil music. I know the program well. I also know that it almost always sounds terrible. I myself am no different: My Ceoil music is absolute trash. Anyway, I know from experience that programmers aren't musicians, but do yourself a favor and go download a better program. I just yesterday learned that the guy who made SFXR also made a music software, although as to the usefulness of that program, I can't say anything, since I've never tried it. On a lighter note, your sound effects were pretty good, and you made music that sounds really good for Bosca Ceoil. My rating: 3.5 stars.
The concept is quite funny, although the actual game doesn't do much to help the funny factor. My rating: 4 stars.
The mood *sorta* works, but much of the game seems to be all over the map. Each piece works somewhat well on its own, but the pieces don't work that well in unison, and thus hurt the overall mood. It felt like the game couldn't decide if it wanted to be dark and depressing, cute and happy, or a satisfying blend of both. My rating: 3.5 stars.
Overall, it's a good start, but it needs a lot of polish to get it up and running, and needs some more overhead to ensure that the final game works with all of the parts working as expected. And for crying out loud, dump bosca ceoil already! My rating: 4 stars.
Bee Defence by antonhvid 2018-12-05T23:55:10Z ♥ 1
I have written this review twice now, and twice, my computer crashed itself on me before I could post it, forcing me to start over. Excuse any lack of details. It’s my fault. Your score hasn’t changed, I’m just more laconic.
The gameplay is somewhat fun, but the difficulty needs a lot better tuning. It’s too hard at the beginning but then gets really easy, really fast. I came up with a solution though: prevent the bears from spawning until the player has, say, 10-20 bees total. Then, make the bears gain health much faster than they do currently. My rating: 4 stars.
It’s not that innovative. The gameplay is rather basic, and the innovation that is there mostly stems from the theme, and when everybody does the exact same “innovative” thing, it gets old. My rating: 3 stars.
It fit the incredibly polarizing theme. Yay. My rating: 4 stars.
For mood, all I can say is: why did you opt out? Never opt out of mood.
I’m not going to lie here: the screenshots look bad enough that I almost didn’t rate this game. However, you took the “programmer art” and gave it life! The animations and effects truly are fantastic! Get yourself someone to collaborate with to draw better stuff for you, and your games will look amazing with those effects! My rating: 4 stars.
Overall, it’s an alright entry. Don’t let the screenshots fool you: it’s way more interesting when you’re playing than it appears. It has some major tweaks that need to be made, but its still a good game. My rating: 4 stars.
Super Sellout by Moski 2018-12-04T23:46:05Z ♥ 5
Alright, here's my thoughts:
The gameplay was somewhat fun, and the mechanics worked great early on, but they failed to stand out. They're nothing amazing, and they started to fall apart once you got to about 20 seconds left. My rating: 4.5 stars
It's a pretty innovative game, with a unique and interesting take on a runner. My rating: 5 stars.
It fit well with the theme and didn't use a generic interpretation! Great! My rating: 5 stars.
The graphics are truly the strongest part of this game, and they work wonderfully! The animations started to fall apart a bit once the game got too far in, but that's a drop in the ocean. My rating: 5 stars.
The audio was decent, but I kinda expected more from such a polished entry. The music was good at first, but grew to be obnoxious. The sound effects were fitting, but didn't sound that great. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Heck yeah, finally a game that actually has a reason not to opt out of humor! 5 stars!
You nailed the mood that you were going for, between the graphics, gameplay, and audio. My rating: 5 stars.
Overall, it's a very nice, very polished game with a unique idea that was executed on quite well. The audio and mechanics had quite a few kinks to work out, but the overall mood and polish shined bright enough to make even those issues reflect the quality of the game. My rating: 5 stars.
Good luck, and good job with your entry!
Cheers, The Koala Squad.
King's Last Stand by Pukami 2018-12-04T04:22:04Z ♥ 2
Alright, here's my feedback:
The mechanics show promise, but they aren't exactly fun yet. Having to constantly stop while shooting, coupled with the long charge animation before firing, really served to kill the fun of the game, incentivizing you to turn into a turret (which will kill you) rather than running and gunning (which is way more fun). It has potential, but some of the core mechanics need to be redone. My rating: 3.5 stars
The graphics are your strong suit. Great job with this one! The art looks great, and everything is well animated! My rating: 5 stars.
Not particularly innovative. The theme doesn't allow for much innovation, but still, it is a rather old formula. Tower defense is stale, hands down, and while the whole ammunition thing would be innovative in any other setting, it is just a side-effect of the theme. My rating: 3 stars.
A generic interpretation of the theme. At least it's light hearted. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Aaaaaaand it's time for another rant about opting out of (shocker) humor. Seriously, it doesn't have a whole lot of funny to it, so opt out! It will just hurt your overall score by lowering the average value, not increase it!
The mood is cute and nice, but is SEVERELY hurt by the complete silence the game sits in. The graphics set up something that just seems heartless without audio. Next time around, try SFXR, if you have time, or try to get someone else to make audio for you. It's WELL worth it. My rating: 3.5 stars.
Overall, I'd say that this game rather heavily relies on its graphics, and while they are quite well done, this does end up leaving the rest of the game, mechanics, audio, and all, lying in the dust. I'd suggest looking for a team to join, as that would allow you to focus on making your art good and let your teammate make the rest of the game better. My rating: 3.5 stars.
For You by FireBug 2018-12-04T03:49:30Z ♥ 2
First things first: Please opt out of graphics and humor. The game isn't particularly humorous and it certainly isn't fancy looking, so leaving the two options in is like shooting your rating in the foot. It messes with your average (overall) score.
With my usual "opt out of this" rant out of the way, here's my thoughts:
I don't find this type of game particularly compelling, although this is just my opinion. Heck, my only release on Steam is a text-adventure hybrid (Terror for Two, go check it out, shameless plug stuff, etc.), and I still don't really like the genre. However, it is particularly well made for a text-adventure, and about as compelling as any good text adventure should be. My rating: 4 stars.
It's a game based on an overused fantasy (robin hood, in case nobody else caught that) in a stagnant genre that does nothing innovative other than re-word everything. Sorry, but the innovation here is low. My rating: 2 stars.
I think that your method of implementing the theme was a bit contrived. The impact that your "sacrifices" actually had was a bare-minimum. I understand that nobody wants to die to save the kids or kill the kids to survive, but that's literally the definition of sacrifice. Don't worry about being too dark: The theme is literally asking for the darkest satanic stuff the internet has to offer. Even if you changed it so that you could only survive by sacrificing your siblings, your game would still practically be sunshine and roses in comparison to most of the entries (mine included, mind you). Still, at least you're trying to be unique with the interpretation. My rating: 3.5 stars
The mood was great. You can't do a whole lot with text to set a mood and make the user feel emotions, but you did a pretty fantastic job of it. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Overall, it was a very nice execution on a poor idea. The idea has almost no innovation, no room for the entire graphics category, and moderate fun value. Additionally, the plot drops the ball and delivers without a valuable use of the theme. Spending a little more time planning the plot would do wonders to the overall experience, for future reference. My rating: 3.5 stars.
Human Resource by Megalink 2018-12-04T03:22:41Z ♥ 3
Here's my thoughts: As far as fun goes, the mechanics were pretty good, but nothing stood out to me about it. The puzzles failed to explore the mechanics fully, opting for an easy, throw workers in this direction then that direction. The movement itself was, of course, flawless, but it failed to make itself interesting and creative. My rating: 4 stars. Not a whole lot of innovation going for this one. Sure, the game worked great, but it didn't bring anything new to the table. My rating: 3 stars. The theme was... not that great this year. It left a lot of people using pretty much the exact same game ideas, and yours wasn't that different. However, it did fit the theme to a T. My rating: 4.5 stars. The graphics.... Well done, my friend. Well done. Hats off to you. It looks amazing. My rating: 5 stars. The audio was pretty darn good, although there's no praises to be singing about it. My rating: 4 stars. The mood was great, although a variety in the mechanics would have greatly contributing to making the mood complete. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Overall, I think that this is a very good execution. For Ludum Dare, this is absolutely a quality game, and holds some of the best qualities of a successful game. Unfortunately, it didn't have a whole lot of innovation to its name, and the mechanics lacked the variety and intrigue to make the good qualities truly stand out. My rating: 4.5 stars.
Good job, good luck, and happy game development!
Cheers, The Koala Squad.