Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Kooshy
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | Fall of RS-17 Icarus - an Akaban Tale | jam | 903 | 3.05 | 2.72 | 2.78 | 3.24 | 2.94 | 2.18 | 3.82 |
Well, the progressive text was interesting and general controls were executed well. As others have well-covered, the camera having a fixed, low angle makes aiming challenging until you lead the enemies (with some well-orchestrated maneuvers) into its line of sight (which reminded me of the old Resident Evil games in a, well, not-good way.) And, well, all the assets were pretty entertaining.
It has savegames! (And good thing too because there's a surprising amount of content!)
Throwing enemies around is great fun! The course being invisible until you paint it is an interesting take on 'start with nothing'
Love how the music gets more intense as the dragon gets angry.
The fullscreen button was a trip. :)
And then the actual game was quite clever - making each dude drop ~one~ bullet means you have to be super precise. I die almost immediately almost every time but had one pretty much perfect run where I got all of them (and never ran out of bullets - though I started with 2 by punching out both of the first dudes.)
That moment when you've built a fire and still watch the plane fly away, knowing they can't see it because you're behind them, is just so...authentic. This is a neat little experience. The sounds are neat too! I'd suggest a crosshair or something so it's easier to tell what you're aiming at (or how to adjust to aim at something.)
Edit: I swear I thought I read the notes but just realized that they explain the bars. Nvm.
Also! The berries having an unexpected effect is a neat touch. Someone stranded on a deserted island likely wouldn't know the local flora, and it makes sense there would be some experimentation.
As others have said, it's pretty difficult - definitely interesting, though. I like how the flowers work as obstacles that bite back, and then people start using them as cover! The guards add some important variety in enemies (since everyone else is stationary) but I found myself either running away from them and trying to set up shots (which was difficult because you can only shoot side-to-side, so the circles have to be wide on that axis to have time to shoot, and that side-the-side movement tends to advance the camera..potentially into more enemies.) I think being able to shoot up would have helped with that, but I'm not sure. Or maybe that's the intended result. ;)
Definitely fun. I wonder, though - is it possible to get stronger fireballs or fireballs that shoot faster? Like, when I stepped into the graveyard, I died immediately and got the impression I'd need to come back stronger. But then after doing the forest and attempting the village several times, it doesn't seem like you do get stronger - you just have more healing items. Is that right?
Fun concept, and I loved the names on the stores (individually wrapped beans, eh?)
This was fantastic! Unlocking letters is such a clever way to handle being tongue-tied. :)
Those drums are legit, and I love how even the credits are in theme. I also found myself thinking ahead, like if this island has iron ore, we should make lots of axes in case the next one doesn't, etc, and kinda thinking like I'm leading a band of explorers. That was really cool!
This is such a quirky concept! I had a good time with it even though I already kinda knew what to do from watching the streamers above, and have recommended it to some friends (including a total console junkie who should get a kick out of it.) I don't really have anything to add feedback wise - it sets an interesting goal and hits it.
Huh. I didn't really know what was going on, but there's an intense moodiness that's just captured so well. I got into the house, but on a second play I wasn't sure how to get the key to show up again. The words and clouds are clearly important, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with them. Any hints for getting started?
The untold story of those little dudes who took a ride on the capsule. Also- whenever I switched tabs and came back, it gave me a message about not being allowed to pause and that I'd regret it. What did that do?
Thanks for putting up a WebGL build! I kept seeing this on the front page but having to pass on it because it was Windows-only. Now that I've played, it's neat! I did a few rounds and enjoyed picking up the different weapons and things. It didn't seem like they really behaved that differently, but the buzzsaw was still my favorite.
That was _so_ cool. I love the story and mood. The combat and surprise platforming elements admittedly took me out of it a bit (I would be all deep in the story and tone and then randomly fighting a dude or trying to figure out how to jump over furniture) but at least some of those elements made more sense at the end. And the combination of choosing how to fill in your memories with it affecting your ghost powers was both immersive and _really_ good game design. Def recommending this around.
The CRT/TV effect combined with the retro aliens and raygun sci-fi sounds all really sell it. This was really cool!
The intro is really funny (and that it's a parody of the US president giving instructions as tweets is just clever.) I had a difficult time with the controls (the turning radius on vehicles felt really wide, and changing direction seemed to require stopping, lifting off the button, and then pressing it again (often multiple times, though that might have been me doing it too soon.) That, while racing a clock, is not a great combination.
There's a lot to like, though - you all did a lot with a little to make the city feel large and detailed, and even though their behavior was about the same, it was really satisfying to unlock bigger and better vehicles. And the 50's aliens sound effects were cute. :)
This was a delight. I love a condescending narrator, and the moment where he says "Don't walk there, it tickles!" was an interesting jolt. I realized it wasn't just a disembodied narrator, but actually the station itself. And I laughed out loud at the "99% of entities in the universe get this wrong" Facebook-meme. Lots of Stanely Parable vibes too, which is fun.
My only real note is that the 1's look like 7's to me in the different puzzles, which gave me a hard time.
The "button" censor is hilarious. Also- is clicking it supposed to give you keys?
And as others have said, it can be a little difficult to into - it took me a while to realize there even was an inventory and longer to figure out how to equip things. It looks like there are a lot of systems here but you kind of have to stumble onto them. Maybe a quick write-up of controls?
@dampfwaltze What the.. Yes, you do, and now that I'm seeing it again, I remember seeing it last night. I legitimately don't know why I was lost. Good job!
Making your own level as you play is a neat concept!
Great magic system! The mixing and matching to see what you can get is fun, and it's really satisfying to discover a new spell and then use it. (Especially 'Rocket Wizard' - that was hilarious!) There were a bunch of combinations I wanted to try that didn't have spells, but that's probably a result of the short timeframe.
One question: what does 'Send' do? I never figured out what to use it for.
Also, the ramp leading up the pyramid wasn't obviously a ramp to me. It took a little while to realize I could go up it.
I think I forgot what it said the premise was and was kinda weirded out by all the bad things I was doing (and kinda seemed on rails to do) - including tricking a child out of their money! It went from weird to kind of uncomfortable. And then I was like, "Oh yeah, that's the point" right about the time I hit the turning point (getting whipped by the dragon.) As others have pointed out, it's an awfully short redemption arc, _but_ it's a complete story told with only a handful of characters (playing nicely with the small town theme), quite the emotional ride, and generally a surprisingly buttoned-up and well-executed piece. Well done!
Okay, that was fun. Looooved the bow - they would line up chasing me, and I'd mow 'em all down! It was kinda cool how the weapons did different things, and you just kind of intuitively figure them out (like slashing a bunch of enemies with the sword or shooting through a bunch of enemies with the bow.) I made it 10 rounds!
So, I can pretty consistently find a big dead guy to get a starter body, and then I can move more easily and attack, but how do I steal _another_ body? They have stars on them, but I'm not sure what to press to let go of my current body and jump to another one.
Love the builder - it's kind of interesting to use the parts you're launching to nudge the ship into the right orientation to place the next part - and just full-auto shooting turrets at it was delightfully meta.
I kept getting stuck on things, which made getting around kind of difficult. And while it was clear that I needed to find a body, I only knew about the skulls from reading the comments. It would have been really cool to be able to possess the other enemies so there would have been more gameplay to being a ghost (and more things you could switch up.) Also, it wasn't clear when I was being hit (a sound effect or something would have been nice.) Annnd loved the seasonally appropriate aesthetic. :)
Like some others, I didn't really like it at first - the 3rd person camera feels like it's parented to the player object which ends up making the controls feel stiff, and I didn't realize I'd missed a pickup that let me use one of the doors in the main room, so I kept trying to figure out how to get through the one that takes the nitro.. It wasn't until I read some comments that I thought about looking around for more pickups.
And that's when it changed. The reset mechanic that seemed kind of annoying at first was suddenly lending a sense of urgency to the search around the maze (that ended up being shaped like a brain, which was a really nice touch!), and the different music in each tube and things really made the sections of the maze feel different. By the end, it was a blast! I'm not entirely sure how I opened the last door (I think it involved the flashlight colors, but trying to get the right colors on purpose, point the flashlight at the objects, etc, didn't get me there ... but mashing buttons a bit did?)
Dunno, but great fun, and a neat twist on the theme - you start with such nothing that the ability to _turn_ is a powerup. ;)
@daitse Hey, no worries! 3rd person cameras are surprisingly difficult (and this *a* reason my games are usually first person), and parenting the camera to the player gets the job done. And cool, I tried some things along those lines (like facing away from the door while cycling through colors) but don't think I tried specifically stepping off the platform. Makes sense. (And I probably slipped off while button mashing.)
I joked about something like this in our jam session when the theme was announced, but you nailed it. Starting with nothing is the very essence of Ludum Dare! It also reminded me a little of Burn Rate, which is not a bad thing.
My only note is that I had trouble reading the cards because they torn off at the bottom of the screen. I'm not sure if that's just me - in Chrome, I could barely see the text at all. In Firefox, I could see the flavor text but not the colorful text under it (except when the cards were flying to the screen.)
Def great fun!
That's reeeeeeeally buttoned-up, especially for a first jam. Good job!
That moment when I realized how to get past the wall of teapots opened up this game for me (which was great level design by the way - it ensures that the player understands both logical negation and how it applies to gameplay before requiring it in more complex puzzles), and then things just kept getting more and more surreal up to a fantastically surreal ending. Love it! And the philosophical reflections at the beginning of each level were interesting - they seemed like they should get old, but they really didn't. It just kept things feeling like they were in place.
Not bad for a first 3D game! The camera feels natural to control, but it clips through terrain which can be confusing (since the terrain then gets backface culled and doesn't look like it's there) - putting a collider and character controller on the camera can help with this but is only the beginning of the adventure that is 3rd person cameras! I never found the city, but it was kinda fun rolling around the countryside and just kind of thinking of _myself_ as the danger, as I become this increasingly apocalyptic snowball. Muahahah!
The inventory of abilities is really cool, and the way they're different shapes makes you really think about what goes where and what you really need. It could use some polish (things just sort of blink in and out of existence, for example) but, yaknow, 72 hours.
So cute! It took a bit to realize how to orient myself to give the items to the things, but the shadows helped. The design in general is very well thought out, and the tutorial was great. The movement felt choppy - but was it meant to create a sense of hopping maybe?
Love the dripping and cave sounds. I kinda laughed at the CONSTANT dying, and thankfully the respawn is instant and pretty forgiving (lots of checkpoints.) Would definitely want to watch Pewdiepie play this.
Thanks for the feedback! @nick-parry - you're absolutely right. We meant to bump up the walking speed and just never got to it. A sprint key also fell off the priority list ... as did a fifth ending and so much more. We're just glad you played! And a video may be coming, but there's no need to spoil things yet..
And for a clue to the fourth ending @firetwoonenine - that video mentioned above would get really boring.
@erin @stuckne1 - when you say 'white needle things' - do you mean the bundles (kinda look like noodles) you pick up from the floor, the things you click with them, or the yellow-ish kinda spaceship-shaped things?
1. The bundles are meant to be bundles of wires used for repairs 2. The things you click with them are supposed to be broken wires, though our model ended up a little rough 3. Those are amnestic autoinjectors used by researchers who might need their memory erased in an emergency..
@snowdrama Yeah, the movement speed is 1m/s. We want it to be a little slow for atmosphere, but even during development commented that that was too slow. The current development build raises it to 1.75m/s, which feels better, but we're not sure if that's the kind of fix we're allowed to publish post-jam.
As far as the fourth ending, it's not exactly something you do... Consider what the recorders are suggesting you do. (Which I know is super cryptic. We'll be sharing a detailed solution video after the play and rate process is done.)
We've made some improvements! See the changelog in the description for details, but in short, the movement speed has gotten a bump (but not so big of a bump as to damage the atmospheric feel), there's a run key (left shift) for when you want to get somewhere in a hurry, fewer textual speedbumps, and a little more guidance (plus tons of little quality of life improvements.) I invite you all to check it out and see what you think!
@nick-parry @mharring @nisovin @yolziii @ace17 @saltfactory-studio @skdf @daitse @snowdrama @le-dav @barracudadisaster @noshiz
@rrawrr It's not exactly a dead end. OooOOOoOoOO.
But yes, it's very short. We had a lot more planned, but we ran out of time really fast. :/
Platformers and this kind of superhard game aren't really my thing, but even so, you had me grinning along as I died over and over and over. And I finally got to the end ... but it was closer to 50 minutes than 15. You kept me until the end, though! And having the items tick down to show how much was left was a motivator to keep going!
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Tying the shooting and movement together makes it much harder than most Asteroids-likes. It's kind of out there and maybe not for everyone but definitely fun. And that smooth synth music is just nice.