Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → kr4ft3r
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Sound the Horns | compo | 157 | 3.43 | 3.16 | 3.93 | 3.97 | 3.29 | 3.11 | 2.73 | 3.20 | |
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | The Collector: Star Ocean Epics | extra | ||||||||||
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | 👥 | Depths: From the Crust to the Core | jam | 421 | 3.57 | 3.07 | 3.70 | 4.60 | 3.08 | 2.85 | 3.60 | 3.31 |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | The Befitting Heights | jam | 759 | 3.33 | 2.93 | 2.84 | 3.38 | 4.00 | ||||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | Franz Bardon's Practice of Magical Evocation | jam | 857 | 3.32 | 3.11 | 3.03 | 3.06 | 2.85 | 2.98 | 2.58 | 2.93 | |
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Locked Together | compo | 335 | 2.84 | 2.81 | 3.00 | 3.45 | 2.19 | 2.38 | 3.29 | 2.88 | |
| 2023 | 52 | Harvest | 👥 | H.A.R.V.E.S.T. Harvest And Recon | jam | 721 | 2.93 | 2.84 | 3.16 | 3.73 | 2.75 | 3.21 | 2.86 | |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | Miller's Palm | jam | 662 | 3.44 | 2.86 | 3.48 | 3.80 | 3.57 | 4.05 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | Balkanization 1 | jam | 375 | 3.79 | 3.84 | 3.64 | 4.14 | 3.31 | 3.21 | 3.65 | 3.72 |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | The Fall of Alice | jam | 1833 | 2.65 | 2.22 | 3.22 | 3.70 | 3.06 | 2.61 | 2.82 | 3.11 |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Death of Sultan Murad | jam | 3.42 | 2.78 | 2.85 | 3.71 | 4.00 | |||||
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | Quicksand | jam | 559 | 3.41 | 3.34 | 3.50 | 3.09 | 3.93 | 3.50 | 3.25 | ||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | Tetriphys: The Thing That Should Not Be | compo | 346 | 3.37 | 3.32 | 2.97 | 3.50 | 3.66 | 3.60 | 2.80 | 3.36 | |
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Deep Raider | jam | 516 | 3.21 | 2.78 | 3.32 | 3.37 | 3.24 | 3.28 | 2.58 | 3.70 | |
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Natural Killer Prototype | jam | 593 | 3.00 | 2.34 | 3.34 | 3.71 | 3.75 | 3.34 | 1.80 | 3.21 |
Beautiful graphics, music and atmosphere. Terrain collision is very nicely done and allows for some special moves. I'd say biggest con is I don't see any good relation with LD38 theme, apart from map edge teleporting you from one end to another, which kind of makes it a small world I guess (though it took me a lot of walking around until I found a boss).
Really inventive, gj on that! And, being careful and tiptoing only to crush a building on your next move is hilarious xD
First I was like oh no I'm not into platformers anymore, but this one had attractive atmosphere from the start which made me walk around a bit. I have to admit I only found 4 dogs and 45 bones until I quit exploring due to character moving too slow. Rotation is the biggest problem when it comes to precise movements, also lack of going backwards, which is made worse by Y rotation axis not being in the center. I love prince of persia moment with climbing boxes. Dog lines are adorably innocent.
Cute and nice gameplay idea. It is always impressive to achieve AI who uses same system as you are to fight. Tip for new players - hold space to make nearby rocks orbit, release it to launch them long range. Good job.
From the first frame of the actual race this game makes you unavoidably grin/smile whichever, playing it feels like being tickled. I'm downloading postjam version as well. Great work.
I guess that adds vomiting acid onto bugs to my list of guilty pleasures :D Wish the aiming was easier, if you really want to keep this weird shooting angle then having a crosshair that intersects with the ground would be nice. Other than that gj, kept me busy for over 10 minutes.
Nice Slimabob, this game has making of a true LD game - funny dialogues, insane objective, cute artwork. My highest ratings go to humor and graphics.
Nice story, and cavern filled with fishes is beautiful. I'm sure you would add more creature types if you had time. Interacting the world through poking is a great idea. Big con for me is lack of invert mouse Y option, a percentage of gaming population can never feel comfortable in first person game withont invert mouse option. Also I never managed to find the king fish :S any tips?
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Too bad, I was looking forward to using that build menu more. Nice spirit and graphics.
Played through all the enemies. Though at higher challenges it seems the results of enemies actions are too chaotic which leads to what looks like winning by luck. Great example of making a finished gameplay out of basic elements and simple rules, good work.
Excellent, you found a new way to make people read, possibly, I think it could pay off to develop and polish this idea more. Very effective ending.
Very well done with graphics, sound and atmosphere, I love when a LD entry looks like a music video. The game is very hard at start, gets easier when you realize you don't have to shoot right after lockon. I believe I got very far with it in 5th try, though can't tell as there is no level numbering, points were around 60
You are too modest, this game has an intriguing story line.
Nice take on the theme. Can't describe my thrill when I built the first research station :) Think it would go smoother if E button was thrown out so build menu opens by itself.
Nice, several different allegories packed into a game that at start felt like "oh no this'll be slow" but I ended up playing to the end.
Thanks, yea, this type of game is hard to get into without tutorial. For those who are interested in going tryhard, this is how it goes down: First thing you should know, apart from wasd controls you will most likely want to use E key a lot, which accelerates forward, SPACE as well for keeping yourself up. To go to upper layers quickly, e(while looking up)+space should send you spiraling up. At start 6 young viruses drop at top layer, you can go up if you want to start tracking them early. To kill them while they're young you should simply fire several antibodies into them, tho it is nearly impossible to kill all of them before some go mature (60 seconds). Adult viruses will eventually infect a cell so you should kill them asap. They can be killed only by shooting them first, and then attaching to them (by colliding with them, which will take some movement skill unless you're tactical), and then dragging them (while attached) through the green go which will stick to the virus (but it will stick only if virus was hit by your antibodies). After that you drag the intruder to the big cell at bottom area to get eaten by it, but it will work only if eater cell tastes the green goo stuff that is attached so you have to make sure the goo touches the membrane. Yea it's crazy but simple once you get the hang of it, video would be a better explanation really.
To keep it simple - if you're confused don't try anything, just let the game run for 5+ minutes and then float around in Virustown, the inhabitants of which have bad manners and will spit sticky decoys straight into your face if you even look at them. Yea I like that, I think I'll put that in the description.
"A strong intellect has brought you far" - thanks :D amazing game. There is really nothing I would change. Love those juicy sounds when remaining archers move in for a few more vicious shots, nice details man.
Played enough to connect all the batteries and randomly click buttons on the left but I have no clue how to proceed. Very nice idea and smooth gameplay, moving stuff about is enjoyable I just wish there was a better explanation. It would be good if cables were of different color, I'm not sure if you left them white to increase difficulty, tracking their movement feels intense.
Very nice gameplay, kept me busy for a while. Has an addictive note. Became better when I realized that I can hold button rather than click, and that I can fire both at same time. Puts self control to the test as falling into rage and bursting around will often result in no enemies destroyed. Enemy complexity is on a decent level, shooting their droppings is fun. Graphics is good enough except I wish cannons themselves would look a bit better. It is very annoying that the game restarts right after you're dead if you were spamming click at the time, so you can't see your score, a 2 seconds pause there (not accepting input) would be great. GJ, solid casual.
"Do you not have anything better to do" hehe its nice how you knew someone might be staring at that pretty scene for a while. Very nice trip, wish it lasted longer.
Very good entry, love the gameplay. Population takeover is simplistically presented but is detailed enough to produce images inside my head of what is going on and how it would look like if we zoomed in to those people and their fates. In one ending I ended up with one unit of renegades and one unit of rebels with no citizens between them. The project looks complex, gj on completing it.
such a touching game. On a serious note, smart concept carried out decently well, fun boss fight, enjoyable graphics.
Nice concept, to be responsible for two characters, each with a different function in the game. Witch and her animation are hot. Wish I could pick up powerups, is that a bug or I'm missing something?
The text was well written, and gets more amusing towards the end so it is not like you just click on with no reward. GJ, and nice art style.
Very nice game idea. At start I was like how hard can this be, but then by level 3 the game became too unforgiving for my taste. Excellent job on graphics, from menus to game play it's a peace of art.
It is awesome how screenshot and description tell you nothing but the game turns out to be quite a sensory trip, won't be giving any more spoilers I recommend anyone reading this to download & try with headphones. Good job man.
Very nice graphics and general idea. On seconds try I got pretty far and kept running onto FPS issues, eventually it started updating only two times per second due to number of my ships, it felt like running out of FPS was bigger problem than running out of power. Was eager to try desktop version expecting framerate will be better but I see it is not uploaded, would you consider uploading Windows version?
Kept playing round after round mostly because of the graphics, the gameplay is very smart but is very annoying that I keep running out of energy by exactly one move. A real peace of work in overall.
Hi, I want to play this very much but windows port is messed up: 1) looks like it is frozen in black screen until i turn around and notice that I can see the floor as white dots in dark space, I can see my bullets as well but almost everything else is black. 2) no audio, I read above that there should be sound?
Hello again, sound is now working great but there is still the issue with graphics on my comp, everything is black except white dots on floor and bullets fired by me. I made a screenshot to help you make a diagnose but when I looked at the screenshot image the game was not there, it showed my desktop, what a vampire of a game. I could send you system details in private if you feel like having a go at fixing it. So far I'm impressed that you added a invertY option, many games forget about that and I need that to be able to shoot anything.
Thanks for fixing the windows version I could play it now. It felt great to see a LD entry that has 3D engine done from scratch, gives it a lot of character. Atmosphere is good, and it seems gameplay could have been as well if player had more ammo. I'm sure there is a winning tactic that involves jumping to and from the ammo refilling box, but when I turn on this sort of game I just feel like shooting a lot of stuff.
Nice, true LD entry when it comes to inventiveness. It is cool that you made a whole TV show. The poo cup not behaving same like other items (has to be clicked rather than dragged) makes it a bit more confusing. Having it repeat over with higher difficulty and a score at the end would be nice.
Very nice, love the graphics and feel. As for gameplay it kept me busy for a while, it looks like I can hold steady rule by completely favoring one class at the expense of another, by repeating one sequence until I lose all HP due to old age, which leads me into war gamble, just to have something else happen. Apart from that in overall the game is very well done, gj.
Very nice work. Lovely graphics. The strong point is your projectiles don't just shoot straight, there is an addictive complexity in their path, same for the way enemies move. And enough spells to unlock to keep the player busy for a while. I find the little flying creature's collider too unforgiving though.
Couldn't enjoy the gameplay at start as I was expecting the ship to turn towards the direction I'm looking at, eventually I got used to controls, would be more clear if camera was fixed. Managed to defeat the squid on third try. It is fun enough though could use some powerups, graphics is very good especially the tentacles.
*Warning may contain spoilers* Probably the winner of this LD's The Game I Least Expected To Replay As Many Times As I Did Award. Very nicely done, the ability to use each spell in each situation is a really nice feature. I kept going about, trading hitpoints for mana and other way around, sadly I never managed to have enough for more than two blows from that wizard AND have mana to cast anything useful. I'll probably give it another try eventually. Also it is very nice that you successfully managed to incorporate boss fight into interactive story.
Those adorable dogs playing arcades and then going for snacks and then playing more arcades, that's the best thing I have seen in a while, thanks! The game turned out much better than I expected, I recommend everyone to try it.
Good job on the atmosphere. Gameplay needs some balancing. I found game easy even on hardest setting, like I could go on pressing right buttons forever. Btw, if you want other people to play your game it is best to play, rate and comment other people's games.
Sadly I have to report I can't play this because it gets stuck at map screen, clicking does not make the start bvtton show up, that goes for both compo and fixed version of game.
Beautiful game tho it needs a lot info popups on mouse hover to explain what buttons do or what resource each icon represents. Running out of gas happens rather quickly and I'm not sure if that is how it is supposed to happen or I'm doing something wrong. In any case you did very well for such an ambitious project.
Nice artwork, tho while looking at screenshots I was hoping it'll have a bit more story or dialogue. Due to way shooting works, creatures are very challenging if you don't get to kill them with first shot, I swear I'll have nightmares about that jumpy thing chasing me around, most horrific monster in video games ever.
Nice, you should add a few more levels in separate release. I very much liked the graphics style, the way cable changes angles is annoying but a true story you can just feel its weight. I wanted to play more by the time I ran into unsolvable level.
Nice work man. Very few people are aware that shotgun is the best weapon against robots from 1991. *please* add invert mouse Y support so I can survive for longer than three minutes.
Pretty neat details in this game, gj. Tho art style is too calming for frantic gameplay you have to fall into in order to save the flame, those blue demons are the worst jerks. All in all very good concept and art style, also good call to make controls responsive and character fast.
Played it for almost an hour, mostly because it is so damn pretty in its way. It seems you can't run out of power as it keeps refilling, but that is fun by me, looks like it would be quite hard if power was limited, this way I could look around and blow up stuff in peace.
Nice style and theme. Makes me wish system admining is about shooting stuff. I love the two phase jump feel, and how it gets more dramatic towards the end.
Nice atmosphere and music, tho somewhere around level five I ran into a level I couldn't solve with multiple tries, but that just says this is a challenging game.
Ruled for 8 years on my first try. GJ on fun gameplay, with most welcome light atmosphere. UI showing up one element at a time in tutorial is a nice touch, would like to see more of that in LD games with complex UI.
Very good job on graphics and UI. I find the game very hard as once the enemies push me away I can't really tell where the Sun is, so I end up either looking for it or smacking right into it. GJ considering you did it for 48h compo. In your next LD I suggest you focus more on gameplay before perfecting UI and graphics.
When I saw control list I almost gave up downloading it, and then when I got stuck and died 10 times at around the first box I almost gave up on playing it, but then when I reread the instructions and found that you can change the jump angle and started doing well it became kind of addictive
Oh yea that girl with the red hair... I'm not sure if there is a way to save the client, he seemed not in the mood to admit the truth. Very nice, tho not much related to the theme, or I just didn't get far enough to understand connection, keep up the good work. I'd like to see you make something longer, this was quite enjoyable.
Nice, original gameplay, story and AI all in one. Pretty decent graphics too. It took me a bit to figure out that Vlad will fly in direction opposite from the cursor. Oh, once that potato looking thingy with a hat pushed me so far of the screen I never fell back lol.
The theme is kind of left out completely, which is quite a flaw for a LD entry, but the theme was crap anyway. Very pretty and cleverly made game, by sticking with simplest gameplay and one character you had time to put into atmosphere and the character. Has potential to become famous with smartphone generation, personally I lost interest after 5-10 minutes, mainly because I saw many of those moments where the asteroids weren't touching the planet but it was game over anyway, if the system was more fair perhaps it would have kept me interested a bit longer.
Very nice looking game. The looks and world atmosphere manage to make up for no action so I tried to play it to the end. I'm not sure what is going on in the intro though, but eventually I realized the angry leg bone is actually the sleeping wizard.
I wouldn't say the game is easy, climbing towards those pillars was intense, and when I got there I'm not sure if I won the game or died as I had one energy point and the screen faded out, I will try again later.
Won the game, thanks to a glitch that allows you to run without worrying about obstacles and the advisor. Not bad in overall. The gameplay is decent enough and can be fun for a while, but when advisor gets near, although a fun idea to worry about both, becomes too hard as obstacles come in too fast and seem to have large hitboxes. Luckily I found that glitch lol
The web version had problems (nothing but black screen, a bar and sounds of shooting). So I downloaded desktop version since it looked like a pretty game and it very much was. The ground tiles don't look great though, since the same texture is used for both floors and walls, also makes falling off easier. Also I think the game could do without falling off the edge feature, or make it possible only on some places. Gameplay and shooting feel great, tho I wish there is more of that, and less falling off from edge stupidly.
Interesting concept, and it is nice that you went for realistic 3D character with animations, tho the game needs a little bit more than random key hitting, such simplified gameplay could work if there was something spectacular or calming to look at while playing. Pile of clothes on the floor is a nice touch.
I like the approach to controls which makes it clear that this is an adventure game and not your typical WASD controls first person game. It is always welcome to hear voice acting in LD entries, and this one is charming in particular. I had to stop the session at room with animals as the door keypad wasn't interactable and I had no idea what to do next. Btw more people will play your game if you rate and leave comments on theirs, I found this game under Zero category.
Nice, in general I like whenever someone tries to make a nature/animal simulator. Though animation and model is obviously lacking in realism (but gj on putting the model and animation by yourself), I like the feel of movement and the way cheetah has inertia and doesn't just stop when in sprint mode.
Totally a creepy game. Being picked up is a nice touch, also that sound when pointing flashlight (at least I think that's what triggers it). The music is great, especially the high pitched instrument, which made my brain oscillate, in fact I'll go listen to it again.
The game is not even lame, I liked it. And the simplicity of it requires no tutorial, that action text is all the tut you need. MY only problem with the game is I wanted to play more after level 2 and it stops there. Btw, if you want people to play your game the best way is to rate other peoples games and leave comments so they can find you and try your entry.
Nice work for a 24h compo. In my case the controls felt horrible at first until I realized they're 2D, even then it took a bit of getting used to until I started liking them, the look of it all remind me of the way aquarium fishies move when near some surface. Picking up samples is no challenge, but nice graphic and atmosphere, the vehicle appearance and the way it moves looks legit.
It was fun. Good job on atmosphere. Tho after the third game, the camera (or the "world") started rolling the wrong way, by 4th game the camera was on the opposite end of the tube from where the player character is. The game is decently fun, peaceful and atmospheric.
Day 79 is the furthest I could go. Nice addictive gameplay.
Love it, good taste in thinking of details such as score written on houses or destructible environment. It feels good that you can shoot at anything all you want, you don't see much of that in commercial titles. Also it is nice to see a big open world in a LD compo entry. GJ on making all the models and animations yourself.
Everything is great about this game except the power system, made me tryhard which is in contrast to the game's atmosphere, I felt more like just looking around and hearing the rest of the story. Respawn glitches don't help either. Still it felt good to play this game, a good sort of old LD entry which focuses on artistic freedom and style.
Hello, put some instructions plz, the game looks like you worked hard on it so put some instructions so people can play it.
Very nice graphics and interesting concept, and though I thought I figured out the basics I didn't manage to win the second fight. Characters are adorable.
*warning may contain spoilers* Hello. As you probably already know, you did amazing job with graphics, atmosphere and sound, so this is an amazing entry. I was playing at 2 AM with headphones, enough said. So I'll just mention what is its flaw in my opinion. While the death scene was a great jumpscare that turned my whole body into a spounge, I felt like it was wrong to make that an instant game over. The problem is, first of all, I wasn't aware that turning my back on footsteps will cause instant game over, and second and bigger problem is I didn't feel going through start of the game all over again, as all that signal chasing was intense but not really fun. If player had three hitpoints I would definitely play it longer and get more into the story, or if perhaps you warned the player that he only has one hitpoint. With that being said this could have also been a Only One Hitpoint entry if it got voted out, and a few others.. But I have no choice but give you high marks as this is some quality stuff and perhaps I'll try to play it again.
Quite inventive and deep. It is only in Sacullos 3D that I managed to get the banana. Sacullos V is my favorite. Sacullos Open World was a shameless money grabbing hurried release riddled with bugs that made it unplayable, it seems you guys sold out.
Nice drawing style and theme. Also fun for a while. I don't see problem with animal cruelty, as animals are treated more humanely in this game than they are on farms in real life. And at least they get dignity of fighting back. As for some flaws: Bullets don't travel through the center of crosshair. Bullets not going through carcasses is a pain, but I guess it goes with the theme. Since bullets do hit dead animals, some sort of a juicy blood splash and sound would make this less annoying and feel more rewarding. Pushing carcasses into the grinder is least fun part, it is a slow process and you're constantly hindered by other annoyances. Perhaps the whole thing would be livelier if you were able to push dead animals a good distance by shooting them, but that is just a theory.
Great introductions story, realistic as well, I mean if last few beers on earth were inside a volcano, at least one armed raider would be down there. What I was bothered by most were blue player bullets, the color itself is not a great choice to begin with, and they don't really stand out much against floor tiles. The game is fun and looks cute in any case, feels kind of like Doom for gameboy, except with mouse controls.
An entry I most willingly replayed so far. Inventiveness is not very high here, as everything done in this game has been done in other games before, but it is an example of an old recipe well done. And it sure became a lot more fun once I figured out the right click activates powerups. Bugs are very well drawn, sounds are great, and I especially love the floor tiles.
Such a perl. A lot of depth in this simple concept. I love how you can burp something out and chew it again or use tongue to block burp while still attempting to shove bites down your throat. Good job, I think you should score high in many categories.
Very nice entry. However I failed to get anywhere, after my first two actions were successful (ones with corpse and jar) I couldn't come up with what to do next and clicking everything didn't help.
Quite touching, played to the end, gj on putting such big emotion into such small game.
Adorable. Great writing and induction, not too much text either, no sentence is a waste of time to read. At first run I was a bit disappointed with shortness of the game as I made all correct choices to carry out the plan and have entered dwarven city without problem. But then I replayed and found that different choices lead to lots of new content and even takes you to a different place entirely. Cute graphics as well.
This simple game manages to keep a man busy for a while. But I know more work was put into it than it seems at first. Very nice for compo entry. And the story rings like it has truth to it, I imagine server rooms to be filled with a hard drive to the head candidates.
Hey, nice idea. A lot of flaws, of course due to 48h time limit, though I think main problem here is project is too ambitious for compo entry, maybe would have been better to go for jam and get some extra time. Items are hard to aim at, a crosshair could help that, though it seems even big items have small hitboxes. Couldn't figure out how to turn flashlight on, but all in all I grabbed a decent loot.
Well that was a massacre but I sure sent a lot of data lol. Amazing job, it was well worth getting the fullscreen version. And the whole game feels completely based on the theme. Can't think of any criticism that wouldn't feel like being nitpicking, great work for a two men team.
@josscomposer true, and I usually put some effort into audio, but this was a late start one-man project and also I had real reasons to believe that sound is not as important here and player would be better off with his own music. Any tips on sound banks and/or process? I always either spend hours looking online for specific sounds (jam) or make them in simple online generators (compo) and then heavily edit in Audacity.
Hey what the hell, this game is about me :D Update: oh ok, I just read in comments it takes your itch username, very inventive. Two things make this game stand out from the start, it wasn't made in a game engine, and audio doesn't blow up my speakers when they're at default volume. The game idea is alright but only story and graphics have to do with the theme. Adorable graphics btw.
Great concept, clearly the game was based on the theme first and foremost.
**Spoiler warning** Final screen was a great touch, sadly I can't tell you in detail what my choices were since I played few days ago, but I do remember that consequences of my choices produced a person that I could imagine. Design of screens and music are really enjoyable.
If I can think of any criticism: 1) the title misled me to believe that main character is a girl, until I noticed "he" in sentences. The design felt a bit girlish as well. 2) I guess this is a funny thing to say about a game which is mostly about written content, but the stories could have been reduced a bit more, maybe by 20% at least. I am someone who likes to read, but in games not so much. While memories are all about impressions, they are not experienced as paragraphs of descriptive sentences. But it's just my point of view, I'm sure many will disagree.
It's great that you're able to create all those cool stylish graphics. I guess you focused on that and it works the atmosphere is great, while the game itself is too hard and messy. Dying is too sudden and not very fun. Nice show of your graphic skill but it would serve that purpose better if you made alpha layers work (see a lot of black squares, like on some items.
Hey. This was among first game I spotted in feed days ago and wanted to play it but it took some time to get there. I love the innovative approach and graphics style, definitely goes somewhere, in current state it is very unfinished though, I quickly run out of negative thoughts to click on and they stop falling down completely so I have to erase a lot of good ones, all thoughts end up swallowed and there is no score in the end, but I guess you know all that, but good job, with some tweaking it could be fun.
Serious game you made there. Sadly I lack tactical thinking at this hour to go far, I'll try replaying tomorrow, will postpone rating until then, since judging by comments I didn't get to see half of the game. Even with wall glitch I found which I abused to skip several layers, I usually get dehydrated. I really like the graphics style, well mostly the humans and station scene.
Hey, I tried replaying the game, fullscreen is a nice upgrade and doesn't ruin the graphics for me. A lot of things about this game is nicely done, but again I'm having trouble getting far without ending up too hungry or thirsty to dig, often without option to go back, so the biggest problem I have with the game is how much time it demands to replay, maybe save checkpoints would have saved the day.
Stayed sane for 84 seconds and proud of it. Really well done mate, usually idk what else to say when I run into an entry this good. Awesome interpretation of the theme as well.
At first I hoped this is some sort of medical game about human anatomy, but then I noticed the purpose of promised nudity is nothing else but stimulation of reproductive system, shame on you gentlemen. Since the game has already loaded in my browser I have proceeded to investigate it, but much against my will I assure you. With disgust I have built a successful brothel and sold off many a poor girl. On a more serious note, well done on a clever concept, but requires some love for written porn. At the same time I'm glad you didn't go graphical in a LD entry, that deserves some points.
Short but cute. Art and movement are great, combat is confusing or at least for me it is hard to get feel of how each of two strikes work. I wouldn't mind if you needed to gather more than two coins to move on, too easy this way. Time machine looks nice in particular.
Great job on graphics, love the style. Random villagers per each game restart is a nice touch, but it seems random generator makes almost all of them the same.
Beautiful concept demo. You really focused on polishing core mechanics and sacrificed everything else, that was smart call. Would definitely like to play more levels.
Idea, graphics, sound, gameplay, very good job on all those! Those moments when you think you fired a blank but end up on distant planet by luck are fun. Seems the scoreboard is fake though, as it always says YOU and I can't out my name in no matter how many points I get, or is it just the web version. You guys make a great team.
Congrats on coming up with such interesting concept and making it happen. Looks good as well. Nice touch adding difficulty choice, even though it's just a number representing space.
Beautiful. Definitely deserves more reviews.
Maybe you should make a compilation of IQ test games, where you don't let players see any sort of how to play instructions, and the main challenge of these games would be to figure out what is going on, what the rules are and how to win. I believe that would keep me more amused than trying to figure out written instructions and feeling stupid, and then failing to use the little of what I understood ingame and feeling stupid again. Either that or start simplifying your ideas. Some rules must be sacrificed. Nice take on the theme. The game is actually good once the rules are understood.
Frantic gameplay, left/right mouse button thing felt simple yet fresh. Really good music. Interesting graphics style. Those double color girls just break my brain, not sure if adding them is good for gameplay.
It sure felt great to see nice graphics after all my text based misery. Characters are so amusing it took me half a minute to figure out they are not X-flipping when changing direction. Demons look lovely in particular. Gameplay starts as addictive, the only problem is the game doesn't scale difficulty up (tho I'm sure you know this yet ran out of time), so after raising the first three demons and becoming invincible, I realized getting 1000 souls to summon Satan will be pure OCD and no challenge, tbh by the time I reached 800 I was thinking "I'm really not enjoying this" but I just had to see the guy. Good exercise in how to make a fool click over a thousand times. Literally the only mistake you made was not adding at least simplest form of difficulty scaling (like spawn 5 additional farmers per 100 souls owned) that is all you lack for a great game. Oh, now that I think of it, I did made a sacrifice that I had to do (tedious clicking with no challenge) in order to see Satan, so I guess you will get higher score in theme category than what I was thinking at first. Good job.
Amazing job considering you worked alone. Plenty of little details in graphics. Some sort of marker or color change which shows whether stat is going up or down would be useful. Music is crazy but it goes well with game's tick timer. I can't say I was very successful and got very far, but the game kept me amused for some time.
Nice music and graphics. Main character is very likable. It took me a while to figure out what the instructions say. I found this sacrifice of health can be avoided by slashing and then jumping over and behind the enemy in time, ofc good timing and space above heads is needed. I fell down a few times and when I finally got to what I expect to be end game the last skeleton got me stuck by pushing me into wall as I jumped, so I ended up forever stuck there midair between skeleton's big skull and wall.
You have talent for writing in a clear way, my brain didn't hiccup while reading at any point. And very good engagement with characters. (Warning, spoilers ahead...) On the first run, I almost didn't give Bertram my capelet, not knowing what consequences for sacrificing myself lie ahead. Was it not for his damn lack of complaining. Everyone arrived safe and sound. I replayed and went through other options. Interesting ways to end. Good job in overal!
Very nice, was enjoyable to walk through, even though the challenge was minimal. Well thought-out monologues and graphic style in particular.
At first it wasn't clear how it relates to the theme, but once I got into the member circle I started to appreciate how the game works, nice idea there. It would be worth if you can finish at least that one case (level?) and publish post-jam, I'd give it another go. I'm curious as to what was supposed to happen, but also I want to meet that rabbit guy, there are not enough cartoon rabbits these days.
Adorable Bogart-like mouse and graphics in general, gj!
If you want, give my loop a spin when you can, I failed to publish in time so its not listed on LD :`( https://krafter.itch.io/the-word
Amazing job for a solo guy, well rounded game. The combat system where creatures attack certain fields is interesting as well, though I'm not sure if you came up with that or is it standard for some games.
And I can't tell, are creatures procedurally generated or you just did a lot of sprites?
It would be way more enjoyable with keyboard controls.. WASD for attack, arrow key for movement and numpad for use inventory. I'd play much longer with keyboard controls as it is very fun and smooth game otherwise, this way it gets tiresome.
Link to my game is on my profile text, I didn't manage to submit in time, give it a spin sometime and give feedback if you feel like.
Well, I thought Jumpy was a decent name ;( No hard feelings however, here, let me just give you the lowest possible rating in every category. There, doesn't that make me feel better? Ah, don't worry, I can't even rate games, I was too late to submit my game for LD47. Speaking of which, if you find some time to give feedback on my browser-playable game that would be great, the link is in my LD profile description.
Seriously though, this was the most inventive entry I have seen in a while, if you made something like this but where player choices actually matter you'd have a hit on your hands. Probably.
@zxcdani thanks man, appreciated! Yes, that loop with text input is the main relation to the theme, and a way to postpone players from seeing it all (there wasn't much time for writing content). The actual story is, the player is the supreme creator, who's spoken or written words have the power to unavoidably create a new universe. Or spawn the same one, if exactly the same word is used - since the seed word gets passed down to clusters, galaxies, systems and worlds, each getting their own pseudo random number generator seeds which are based on the original typed in string, therefore if you liked something about a certain planet or its civilization you can go back there by using the same word and map coordinates. You will even have the same things happen to you, if you use the same sequence of choices.
Btw your game deserves more rating/reviews, I hope you are not shy about advertising. Any sort of image on the game's LD page might also help. While it's true that not knowing what to expect works well with your game, the lack of image may be putting some people off from clicking the link.
Very nice, always good to see an entry that reminds me of early days Ludum Dare - brave game design, hand drawn pixel, not made in Unity. Captivating graphics from the starting screen.
I like in particular that combat had sufficient depth and mechanics to it (not very much, but still more than required). And gj on managing to add five unit types in two colors alone.
Soldiers look great, my favorite are pikemen but also Napoleonic musketmen, you don't see those often in games.
But long white screen didn't really serve to set the mood, like other peeps I thought it was over and turned it off the first time.
I failed to publish my game in time for LD, if you want give it a spin when you can https://krafter.itch.io/the-word
Did probably more than 20 days, I give up.. I understand many clues but just can't find the right ending. Frustrating.
As for game, you did creepy part well, it is very cute and very creepy at the same time.
My game link is on my LD profile description, I didn't manage to submit it in time for LD, give it a try if you want.
Hey, sorry to be the one to report the glitch, but I ran the game (in 1920x1080) and can't click anything in the menu, so I can't start nor quit it.
Nah, I ran it in native win10 so idk what happened there. Web build worked great of course.
Good job, a decent shooter with increasing wave heat density. I wish laser would work on slow projectiles though.
Definitely some good humor, especially the broken windshield part. Since Bob looks like a construction worker, I imagine he just climbed into my office through the window and started talking about aliens.
A bit weird that it says "the aliens destroyed the earth" when I destroy the earth, but it can be taken with humor ("Umh, yes, the aliens did it, damn those aliens...").
On third try I somehow reached level 23 too fast, was a bit disappointed that there were no more waves. But, the ending stays true to the theme (was that the end or a glitch, I'm not sure).
You didn't lie, something interesting did happen, and I get the symbolism.
Nice graphics style. Tbh I don't think I'd have patience to play until the end if the character wasn't as hot :P
Awesome humor. Moments like reaching near the cockpit entrance and thinking I'll get the new highscore but then getting stuck in tons of luggage are frustratingly funny as well.
Well done on adding the skip intro option, lots of entries would omit that under "had no time" excuse.
My only complaint is weak relation to the theme.
Btw, remember that rating and reviewing other games is the best way to get more ratings yourself. Sadly I can't rate as I didn't submit in time. My game link is on my profile description if you feel like giving a spin, any feedback appreciated.
It's always nice to see an attempt at a living city with this graphics style, takes me back to good old times when we were imagining how far will video games go in that regard.
Excellent art. The story is ok, I managed to not get myself killed, I'm happy enough with that. No point in listing shortcomings as you clearly didn't had time to make the game you wanted. Make it less ambitious next time. I made that mistake this LD, didn't even manage to publish it in time, the game's link is on my profile text.
Got me thinking, whoever was in charge of acquiring this OS and computer system must have pocketed a ton of money.
First run I didn't quite understand that I'm supposed to activate the deadHand right away, so I kind of did nothing until the end, peace negotiations worked out, smooth ride. I was the hero while munching on chips and sipping beer.
Second time I wanted to cause mayhem so I activated without using delay code, turns out there seem to have been an attack, it all worked out. Or did it? What a twist.
Due to slow peace I didn't had patience to play out the third scenario. But very inventive approach, gj.
Nice little game, it only costs you 5 minutes and a few hundred photoreceptor cells.
Eventually I figured out how it really works (didn't read description), smart game.
I played v1.1, as I'm not taking part in LD47 (failed to submit my game in time, it is linked in my LD profile text).
Loved this. There are lots of details to like so I can't really list them. You know them all anyway, having worked hard on this.
My only complaint is you made the player finish the hallways part before continuing, I spent 30 minutes there and couldn't find a way to proceed, which is pity as I really just wanted the game to continue and see the rest of the story, so please avoid such sequences if you intend on making games like this in the future.
Ah, finally did it, though I must say the sequence made me rage again, as getting the timing right is not easy, though bigger problem is that the chances of landlord appearing are not very high. Eventually I learned that I should spam click the corridor and hit space only at the moment when his size is just about to fill the center shadow area. If chances of him appearing were higher, it would be less of annoyance, but I guess it takes time and playtesting to polish little details like that. Once again, great atmosphere, I hope you continue creating.
"Cleaner's log, day 14: I have been doing an amazing job for two weeks now, and that inconsiderate SoB still has only two ways to describe my work. On the bright side, I can afford my own ship now."
Really a gorgeous game. Especially the early 20th century feel in the intro message, and the window view.
Btw, I didn't manage to submit in time for LD, but if you feel like giving my (browser based) game a try, you can find the link on my profile description.
Turned it off after first triangles, the part with square steps. Still, it took me 15 minutes to get there.
You did good, if not too good job at portraying hell.
The idea of it feels like an original game that could be a bit popular, with some polishing, for example it would be more fun for me to dangle on the chain when the rock gets stuck on upper platform rather than the rock falling through it. But I guess you might have done it that way if you had more time. Or you just wanted to torment us more. But very well done.
Very nice visuals. Once long time ago I had a dream where a fairy looked something like this, composed of spheres, and was so delicate it would fall apart from my voice and then reassemble again.
All in all a nice stimuli, would benefit from a wide screen I think. As picking up things wasn't giving rewards, best fun after a while was running through a portal at high speed and then repeating with increased acceleration.
I didn't submit in time for LD, if you feel like giving my game a try the link is in my profile text.
Very pretty, in a cartoony way. The background adds some more artsy dimension. The speed of spinning on some planets can be quite thrilling.
It seemed too easy when I figured out what left click does and finished the 1st level, but 2nd level was hell, it took 20+ tries to finish it. Well thought of difficulty modifiers, how both jumping and using left click spends oxygen while meteors kill you.
I was late to submit my game (link on profile description), any feedback would be appreciated if you get time to give it a spin.
Finally, a game where I can squish cops instead of other way around :P I like the main screen design the most, even if you didn't made all the sprites yourself it's a good idea and looks effective. Sounds made my dog quite nervous, but still better than no sounds. The game was fun enough for me to reach the bottom of the scoreboard, even though I'm not very good at this type of games. Sadly I didn't manage to publish my JS browser game in time to have it on LD, but if you find time and willpower give it a spin https://krafter.itch.io/the-word
I like the contrast of a big demon in a girls room. Did all three endings.. though the player doesn't get a reward by animation or image or something, the story and the idea of it is good.
Sorry I can't rate games, was too late to submit for LD, if you want to give my browser game a try the link is in my profile text.
Graphically, it's a beauty, and congrats on brave concept.
Stage one, considering defense cooldown and ammo, appears to be too luck based as insect spawning seems completely random.
Stage two I somehow survive though really having next to no clue if I'm doing the right thing, stage three I'm clueless and just die. Which is annoying as I want to progress in this game and be a good plant.
I love how its done in Japanese classical art style, and the girl is lovely. Seems you went for the original Prince of Persia feel, which is not an easy thing to do. However I spent 10 minutes trying to pass first screen with movable platform, and failing miserably every time. Textual tip didn't help. Any tips? I really want to see other screens of this game.
I played post jam version, not being in this LD (failed to submit my game in time, you can check it out on my profile description if you want).
Very nice, I am a sucker for games/programs with these life-like cells, living inside a loop of their rules. Graphics is enjoyable as well.
It's cool that you implemented undo button, and managed to make all these levels.
What is interesting in particular is that most of first 10 levels seemed like they are beyond my intelligence level, but then giving it a few more tries I managed to pass them, and even understand how I did it, congrats on that. But the Pulsating Mass is where I had to give up. I did try manually selecting last level though, what a ride.
Touching stuff, nice humor (subtle and based on truth as any good humor). You probably had some influences I don't know about, but parts of it remind me of a novel called Bill, the Galactic Hero.
It would be great if pictures could have been larger, even if they would be pixelated, I couldn't immerse myself into those tiny black squares surrounded by so much white.
I thought I won't have patience to play through a textual adventure at first (unlike back in the day), but you made it compact and kept paragraphs short and interesting. Ironically, my game is mostly textual as well, but didn't manage to publish it in time for LD, link is in my profile description. Keep up the good work.
You guys are one hell of a team considering the amount of content and gameplay you managed to put in over one weekend. And you clearly stuck with the theme as well. Very nice!
Ah man, this is the game that everyone who were low on time wish they thought of. So simple yet aesthetical. Maybe personally I'd prefer if air loss was turn based so it could be more of a chill and tactical, but I dig this as well. Sound effect when hitting tougher block is hilarious. Having bubbles of deadly methane gas here and there could diversify the challenge, but I guess you were going for simplicity.
Very cool little game, might see it as carrying ecological message as well, "the real treasure is the fresh air".
Well I honestly wanted to play more, which is a good thing. Also the main character is adorable.
Got to 1755 ly.. If that is anything to brag about.
I like games that manage to put grand ideas (in this case entire universe) behind simple rules, so this instantly gets my sympathy. Here a lot of makeup is discarded to reveal the very core of decision making in order to be in charge of something. You have to sacrifice either what you have plenty of or what you have to in order to keep the show going, in this case get the fuel, as the only vector of progress is distance from the earth.
While I did had fun playing, with this being a jam entry I kept feeling you could have done a bit more, like do some basic textual context charade over them raw trades in numbers. I don't mean whole story (that would quickly get repetitive to read), but like one sentence (title, 4x6=24 titles, sounds... doable) per resource trade combination could improve the atmosphere (ie "Blood Fuel" when trading morale for fuel). Or maybe I am wrong and these things are better left to imaginations of players fully.
Of course I know those things can get complicated, being a lone programmer can give you a writing block for simplest things, and maybe you had a late start or not enough time to dedicate more. Planets changing colors was at least somewhat satisfying. Either way, I am glad you made this, and I had fun with it.
At start it felt hard and I was burdening myself with how will I ever manage to line up them stones, but at level 3 I noticed if I just keep randomly dropping them in then eventually things ends up working out. On a second reloaded I started realizing I got some of the rules wrong previously and game became more enjoyable.
Reaching diamonds does feel good. What I like the most is graphics and choice of colors.
This is the most well rounded LD48 entry I have seen so far. Really, congrats. You got everything right - the loop, the challenge, player progress, graphics, animations, sounds&music. All while sticking with the theme. Might be too difficult for some, but this game deserves some effort from player. Definitely should be among top 10.
What a delicates, it was a privilege to walk around in this sandy engine.
Sadly, on my first run, where I spent most of the time (until end of story), I did not had any player encounter, nor did I ran into water surface again to try planting seeds there. Might be just due to me moving mostly in one direction. Impressive work either way.
Very nice. Gentle intro to controls is a nice touch. And so many levels as well. Many of which I thought I have no chance of figuring out how to pass, but then I ended up doing it, which shows good level design skill. I only rage quit at the level where you jump left over leaves, rotate right, and then fall into some sort of faith jump with only sideways walls where I just couldn't figure out how to proceed. But reading comments of others I see there is a way to skip levels, I failed to spot that entirely, probably for the better as otherwise I wouldn't have the satisfaction to try harder and finish those level. Of all the categories I think fun is where this should score the most.
Since the story is about dealing with one's problems, I can see correlation between rotating the levels and changing the perspective to view the problem in different light. However I don't see much correlation with the theme to be honest, but that could be just me.
Also graphic is lovely and controls are smooth.
Hell, that is awesome! Sadly I couldn't figure out how to enter the house with closed doors, but my first house now has two refrigerators. Will try again tomorrow. Won't rate until then.
You definitely score 5.0 on graphics, beautiful large sprites. It is impressive that you had time to make a game at all considering how polished and smoothly animated graphics is, and that you drew it all. Smacking the undead and seeing their skulls roll was fun. The only problem is I didn't feel much connection to the goal of rescuing the generator, with not always being sure where it is and how much health it has.
Better than any other fishing sim on the market. Seriously, I'm amazed that a game with paintbrush graphics and such simple mechanics has had me hooked until I managed to reach the ocean. It is very good that you can instantly press F as soon as you are done with previous catch, without pause and wasting time on some sort of a sequence, that helped me get sucked in. And simplicity of graphics gives it some special charisma, good job.
And I learned what "discombobulated" means.
The absurdity of the storyline and dialogues is adorable. The whole game is adorable really. Chopper controls may be difficult at start but they are not that hard, and end up adding some spice to the whole thing. I wish the game lasted let's say 10 minutes longer, it was enjoyable flying around and I was always curious what's the next thing those creatures will come up with to say.
Noir without jazz? Still, somehow the music did fit well. Maybe because it sounded a little bit like elevator music, and the guy's office seems to be an elevator.
Great art. Story is great as well, just the wording was a bit weird at times. The theme was entirely in story rather than in gameplay, which is alright considering it is a story based game. The story and characters do manage to draw one in, this game will sure stay in memory for a while. Vacation pic of Minos was the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
EDIT: oh right, I almost forgot. Someone mentioned multiple endings so I played it two more times and failed to find any other ending. Maybe because this depends on the success of fight sequence, and it is only in second playing that I noticed there is an actual choice of weapons. Third playing I made a bad choice I guess. I couldn't make myself try again for 4th time as it takes quite a while to get to that part, and story doesn't vary much until then. So my only complaint is that fight sequence choice should have been made somehow easier.
Little guy's self-blaming contemplations were adorable. Great graphic and music. Monochromatic is relaxing to the eyes. I guess graphics and music took most of your time, so you had to copy paste levels, but no worries, it was still interesting to play through.
Inspirational. There are sim games out there that help people discover their vocation. This one does a great job at helping me figure out what I never want to do. Imagine having to touch everyone's backs, indiscriminately. Respect to those who do the job though.
Speaking of backs, impressive collection of them. You came up with a well thought of and carried out game concept. Very nice graphics and music as well. My only complaint is weak relation to the theme (as far as I can tell). Good job.
@sequoiadolce thanks for playing! I'll check out your game asap, later tonight. As for notes, yes you are right. The thing is, audio was among the last things implemented, two hours before the submission (we only started working mid-Sunday), so I was just glad to have managed to make sound generation work at all.
With other high priority things to wrap up, there was no time to think about how to fit letters into scales or anything like that, for frequency I just multiplied ASCII character codes by 12, found that it sounds psychedelic enough, and was done with it. Uppercase letters sound much better though (the part where it reads the label 'ORANGE MARMALADE' sounds wonderful) but I was at my wits end by then, having just finished the struggle with implementing 1d Perlin noise to make the text wiggle (not too happy with those results either), so it didn't even occur to me to try converting chars to uppercase before getting frequency, which might have improved the sound a bit. Just your usual late start LD.
Thank you all who played so far, if I haven't reviewed your game will do it asap.
@ladybenko Thanks, that was useful! I wasn't aware how bad it sounds in Firefox. It never occurred to me that browser disagreements will affect dynamically generated audio as well. All the bookshelf details are @orb 's credit, he has done more graphics but our time and communication was limited so that is all that got into the game.
@saintchristopher777 Thanks for playing, like ladybenko discovered, sound only works well in Chrome (though it still doesn't sound too great, just less like a dial-up modem)
@wouter52 Thanks for playing. With late start we had (mid-Sunday) the first concept was that there shouldn't be any gameplay elements, just an artsy experience. Only in last few hours did I implement scoring for catching letters (as we were failing to achieve much in "artsy experience" department as well), hence the lack of fail condition.
@abigailcorfman thanks for compliment on Alice's butt, though I know it could have been made better (it is hard to do a good butt in 64x64 character). All décor stuff was drawn by @orb , he'll be glad you liked it.
@starling Thanks for playing. Initial idea was that the game should subtly describe the information overload and strong polarities of opinions we have in this age, but I didn't manage to implement any of that in the short time we had. There is a faint, awkwardly implemented shadow of that idea in the very ending, where Lewis Carroll is said to be both a beloved children's fiction writer and a pedophile, to suggest that anyone can pick their own truth, and maybe make us ponder over how one of those two statements may relate to the other, but all in all I'm not happy with how that turned out (those two statements were meant to be shown side by side, rather than one after another, someone may get the wrong impression that the aim was just to slander the guy).
Thank you all for taking time to try out our "game", much appreciated.
@dob To our defense, the design document did state that Alice is to be a realistically drawn adult girl, however it turned out neither of us is able to realistically draw an adult girl well enough, let alone animate it, so I turned to pixel art to save the day. And well, the problem with 64x64 pixel characters is you can't really tell the character age (I guess high heels weren't much of a cue), so that turned out to be awkward. It doesn't help either that we ended up with a scaling problem between Alice and shelf items, making her look smaller.
@maple hey, thanks for wanting to try the game out, I think you probably just need to click on the game window to focus and then try pressing either right on left key to start the game.
Nice, a game that will call grandma so I don't have to. Funny thing, she called me 20 minutes after I played this. And I didn't hear from her in two weeks. Coincidence? Definitely.
But very nice project, low interactivity yet it doesn't ask for much of player's time.
There is some good idea hiding in there, and you definitely score high in atmosphere. Great surrounding, player character and music. Some story is felt, even though it is not told. As for the flaws, you are well aware of them. LD is an exercise in cutting down on the project's ambition in order to round it up as much as possible. Finishing only one level that shows most of the game implemented would work better. Still, it was an interesting experience, and a glimpse into an alternate world.
From title screen to the ending, very nice and smooth experience. Last level is the prettiest I'd say, but it all looks quite good. One remark is I'd feel more comfortable if Shift (boost) wasn't an option and if it was on by default, thinking when would be the right time to hold it or let go was a bit of burden, but it is no big deal.
Implementing plenty of checkpoints was a good choice, I'm not into games that punish you for smacking into something by rewinding you all the way to the start of the level. Very good job, especially considering it was all made during the jam as you say.
I appreciate in particular how you made a small scope so polished that it can be looped through the whole game without the game immediately feeling repetitive. A very good example of keeping the ambition under control and perfecting what is possible. Ofc graphics and sound are cute as well. The smoothness of the whole thing works well, and making it all more dynamic by character being in constant state of jumping is a good choice. Very nice entry!
While it was kind of enjoyable to do the counseling and I felt I was making good progress by taking it slow and not pissing the guy off, the twist was more my cup of tea. Too bad it ended fast but I understand the amount of work you had to put into making it this far. Good job.
Quite cool straight action game. I love how the submarine is yellow, has animated rotation, and bubbles are a nice touch. Music is very fitting. Painting "money" red was a strange choice (first instinct is to avoid red stuff) but I guess you needed some contrast to blue background and were running out of unique colors.
My only complaint is no checkpoints, being sent to start is a bit harsh for LD game where most players will want to explore levels (very nice atmospheric background change on going deeper btw) and often can't invest much time into the game. But that complaint is due to the fact that I liked the game very much.
Very nice. I am not a fan of being forced to multitask like this, but if the game is funny enough it can work out, and this is certainly funny and pretty. Though it gets too hard when you have to use the left hand to fend off from the dog who seems to want to eat the aliens.
Tools like lasers and especially crusher, and their emotional reactions to being processed are a very nice touch.
One thing that doesn't add to the fun is how hard it is to pay attention to text in upper left while doing the work, some voiceover would help tremendously. Still, text is funny so this game succeeds to score the most in humor department of all I played so far.
I love that you went for an open world space game, it is among my favorite genres. And you even managed to pull it off in such a short time.
So there is plenty there to keep me interested, however I was quite unlucky in 30+ minutes that I gave to it, I couldn't get very far in this run. First I theorized that the third closest planet from start, which is in the heat zone (the Sun?), is some sort of a challenge where you have to get to it fast, of course none of my attempts worked out. My delusion was fueled by the fact that I can actually reach the planet, it is just that docking takes some time. Then I tried venturing in what seems to be completely wrong direction (top/left), died several times passing through asteroid field, and eventually failed to find anything while drifting beyond it for quite a bit. That took a heavy bite on my time already, eventually I started exploring in the other direction and of course have found the next planet, and then the next one, which I never managed to land on (putting it in the middle of an asteroid belt was a stroke of sadistic genius).
I'm not the one to advocate for easy games that babysit players, but after getting me interested with the promise of space exploration, and a funny story that I wanted to see continued, the amount of sudden deaths to asteroids which in 25% of cases were not directly my fault (I think), seemed too cruel. It is cool that I get to respawn at the last visited planet, yet with every respawn I became number which led to higher chances of an asteroid caused death. Then when I say "this is it, I'm gonna focus now", and manage to pull through to the planet, I get wacked again, due to the nerve-shatteringly long docking time. I guess a good percentage of people would give the game more shots if only the docking timer was made shorter.
So I usually never whine for this long in LD reviews, take it as a sign that I really like the game and wish I could explore it with less torment. I know it is very hard to do the balance right after doing all this work in such a short time, so I won't take it against you, and will give it another shot when I'm less tired. Very nice entry!
It is nice that you tried to make something unusual. I didn't understand the pitch aspect at first, most of the time I'd just whack the bird and it'd die. While trying out patched version I started to understand. It is good that you improved controls, but considering how hard it is to compare pitches there is a real need to make controls even simpler, so one can focus on the tones. Thinking more ways to have less buttons would help.
Still, very interesting interpretation of the theme.
Simply amazing on so many levels. The atmosphere, the polish, the puzzle difficulty balance.. And you don't have to be genius to finish the game either, just give it some time.
One guy managing to do so many screens as well, when most of others would do 2-4 and then apologize for not doing more. That's some level of jam mastery.
I've got an online friend who is Irish, so I have had a special relationship with potatoes for some time now. Needless to say, this title awoke my interest.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this is a fascinating simulator of various stages of potato being eaten. Quite enjoyable and charismatic, until that damn digestion level with green blobs, not only does A stops working and becomes replaced with Q but also I couldn't for the life of me figure out the logic behind successfully spamming to survive past reaching the first F. But very good job from what I've seen.
Well, I'm not the one to fall for a quick emotional story, but graphics and mood is well done. What is important is you had fun drawing things and putting them together. Can't say I understand fully how it relates to the theme, no one can know that better than you. Best I can come up with is observe that contrast between the man running in from distance, towards the child that came out of depths of his wife, the deepest result of their union.
Maybe you should create a tutorial for your framework, although the documentation looks ok, a tutorial showing implementation of a very simple game could help potential users decide if it is something they'd find useful, I for one am interested. Also define a scope of what it is meant to do, from quick look I guess it is something for people who like to program most aspects of the game themselves, while the framework handles resource management and elevates few other burdens.
Checkpoints, please. I just can't handle the bees. They seem to be next to invulnerable and deal too much damage. I figure hiding in cups should help, but there must be something else I haven't figured out. If the game has any difficulty, it would be a good idea to either implement checkpoints or give multiple lives at least. I tried about 5-6 times, but being set back to level 1 is just too cruel, most people on LD can't give that much time to a game.
All in all it is enjoyable, I wish I could see more of it. Simplistic graphics are charismatic and give it nice mood, reminds me of when I was a kid and didn't know how to program but wanted to make games, I'd draw static images of levels and sprites that would look something like that.
One look at the enemies and I start to realize Billy has a severe alcohol problem and is gone shooting up an empty building (at least I hope it is empty).
This is probably among top entries when it comes to how fun it is to actually play.
Very nice idea and implementation. Though, after page 4, when the waypoint seemed to be below the pocket I was in, I ended up bumping around for 15 minutes looking for a pathway and then giving up. Some sort of a 3D map would help, but I get that would take days to implement. Best entry so far in technical terms, very nice graphics as well.
Ah ok, I thought it must be some passage outside of the pocket that I missed, will give it another go to follow the story through, thanks.
To be honest I wanted to hate this game from the start, it has silly premise, gameplay that doesn't match the story (you goal is to run away from the building.. by slaughtering all the employees?), awkward hit collision. Yet on the third life I kept playing it until I won. So, fun little action game there, enjoyed it.
Nice, of the games I tried so far this one gave me most adrenaline yet. Coming up with a story, characters and voiceovers is appreciated as well. But I absolutely hate you for the ice level.
You don't see many games where the main character is a young smartphone-staring, bad-with-words, insecure-about-car-button-locations lad who just dies if he disappoints his uncle, so that aspect is a fresh air of both originality and realism at the same time. While on the first sight one may interpret this as the creepiest dating sim ever, it does a great job at describing last few generations of humans. And anything that describes humans earns its place in the history of art.
Nice gothic atmosphere there, music is quite superb. Second puzzle was quite hard, but solving it felt good. Keep taking part in LD, you'll manage to do more next time I'm sure.
Note: on Windows I had to rename folder to Menhir_Data, you might want to point that out in info.
Well, Alice's Fall is definitely more of a game than the Fall of Alice. It was exciting to see the game based on the same idea but that went in quite a different direction, that tripped me out.
It is funny to consider how the book could have ended at the start if Alice smacked her head on the platform and died during the fall.
Graphics and music are the best parts, very nice considering this is a compo game done solo and within a week.
I'm still dizzy from the last level, I feel like this textbox is upside down lol. Warning, spoilers ahead.
Impressive amount of things achieved, even for a team, having multiple levels with multiple mechanics. Smart puzzles as well. It was a good call to prevent health loss / dying on touch with enemies, lets you explore puzzles and levels in peace. Though my first 5 seconds in the game were instant death as I decided to try jumping down. I'm just glad the girl wakes up rather than dies, some games are just irresponsible in this regard.
Very nice audio as well. But of course graphics are the strongest point, characters and background in particular. Was a treat to play those surreal levels in full screen.
Great idea, even greater courage (or however you'd call it) to actually decide to go with it. I was going to say that the theme wasn't covered too well, but seeing how you sink deeper and deeper into sh*t by treating them cats too well I had to change my mind.
Superb graphics (whole thing, appearance&animations) and choice of colors, along with the music has a nice nostalgia feeling to it that goes back to the oldest cartoons.
There might be a glitch I am not sure, in some runs I was defeated even though I don't think any of the cats' bar went all the way down, and I think this is triggered in some cases by smacking cats head on the floor. Also it seems this glitch continues with some weirdness on further replays in the same browser session (until browser is refreshed). Or I'm just missing something. Either way, great entry right there!
Gorgeously animated character, full of energy. You are on the right track with graphics and atmosphere in general. I couldn't go past the first underground scene though (reaching the wires without "bruh" dying). After few attempts I clicked Exit instead of Restart by accident, and then when I went into back underground the controls stopped working. Any tips? (presuming there is a puzzle to solve)
"Play with headphones for better immersion" ..right after I unplugged headphones. D'oh!
Very nice work. It is glorious to see the background in such big image format scrolling smoothly. Can't think of any other praise that hasn't been already said. If I may be nitpicky, when compared with the rest of the experience, the fade out on the clicked river item deserves a better effect than to scale up and just disappear. But I get it is hard to get every aspect polished in such a short time, and it doesn't affect the overall feeling of awe.
Will this work on Mint? Asking in advance because the only Linux I have is on other computer, and it takes some effort to turn it on (it is guarded by Balrog).
I spent quite some time in the game because you did manage to make an atmosphere that made me wish spend time in it, but apart from having a bit of fun it was frustrating, with buttons that often don't respond to clicks, inability to deselect troops, and worst of all that movement glitch where a unit gets stuck on the road and goes to slug speed, slowing down all units behind it as well.
You did a lot for a single person, but picked a project too ambitious. Of course in LD you are free to do whatever you want to get your fun, and I hope you learned a lot while making this, but for players to have fun as well you should keep project ambition from growing more than what your process can achieve. RTS involves complicated things like pathfinding, combat rules and whatnot that will eat your time or end up not working well. I did like the idea of the game though.
It always feels good to see an entry that was made the hard core way (no game engine). Tiles look nice, idea is cool and music is great. Admittingly I turned it off after 15 minutes as it wasn't getting harder and I had plenty of remaining time stocked and ore in sight. But I understand it is hard to find time to balance difficulty, especially with the amount of work it took to code it from scratch. My only real complaint is some sort of different movement system could work out better, as my fingers were starting to hurt, it ended up feeling like I'm really digging through earth and stone. Nice entry all in all.
Hey man, good to see you've become a steady LDer.
No need to feel bad about your story writing capabilities, these are funny, related to human nature, and to the point. Character creation screen is a rare achievement for a LD entry, you clearly had fun making this.
Looking at results of other players (you might want to mention that they are listed below the app, I found them by accident), I'm impressed by the amount and spread of possible endings. You are clearly good at making these... Systems.
For those of you who want to play, I tracked it down via the guy's itch profile: https://love-slave.itch.io/lost-child-ludum-dare-48
Hey, congrats on finishing a Compo game in time. There is a start and the end (at least 3 endings that I found), so you actually finished it rather than getting sidetrack by countless other things.
Blood trail while walking is a nice touch. Graphic may be simple but it feels fitting.
In case you want to know how it went for me, first I got the worst ending as I was too busy thinking about what choice to go for after reading the text and didn't make any selection in time. On second attempt I went all the way left past the pole and outside of screen edge, which made the character invisible even when I returned back to the scene (I'm good at finding the worst possible thing to do in games), so that called for a restart. After a restart I went again towards the pole and used it, which gave me that rope ending. Figuring out what the deal will be, I replayed again just to read what happens with the knife option.
Story had a good induction, made me angry&sad and all, perhaps the weakest part was towards the end where people/person who did this are/is described as "a criminal" without any other explanation. Yet this may also be a more honest approach.. when faced with horrible stories our brains are made to look for someone to blame and to get a full explanation of what happened, which can sometimes be used against us and we end up being fed an explanation given by media, while the reality can be more complex or not even what the story told us at all. Again, congrats on finishing a Compo entry, it was an interesting experience and I hope you keep creating.
--Spoiler warning--
Ah, this awakes the nostalgia of good old days when C64 was messing with my brain and guilt tripping me while pretending to perform some sort of cognitive ability test.. Hold on...
Seriously though, very nice entry. Deep as well, who can feel completely honest while they are made to type "I am innocent"
Love it, quite some amount of content you managed to put into a box. And meaning, but in entertaining way.
Very cool. Entered Atlantis at 925 meters. It was a good choice to not make it too hard, with this being LD game and all. Card graphics are very well done.
My only complaint is, with the rest of the game running smooth, result action of a dialog should have been smoother, as in disappear right after a click rather than have a forced delay. That would help keep up with the frantic pace one may get into while uncovering cards.
Nice artwork, quite some transfer of consciousness going on there.
I had to look deep into myself to decide if there is sound in this game or I'm just imagining to hear faint whispers of it. Then I turned the system volume all the way up, and the sound was real. I learned to trust my instincts.
Very nice for the first entry.
There is a part after a few levels when you jump up right to that moving platform which goes to the left as you stand on it, and when you fall from it (fell twice, not sure what I'm supposed to do there as in both dimensions there is an obstacle there) never seems to come back making you stuck (I think), that made me stopped playing, as restarting the level and getting back there takes some effort.
But it is a cool concept and main character is cute.
I had to turn it off, I can't believe I even reached level 6, when I started planning to come here and whine about having to give up back at level 2. I knew the Underworld must be a bad place, but I did not expect it to be populated with such dicks. But it is very brave of you to make this game when you probably knew most of LD crowd won't have time or patience to perfect their skills in order to see the whole thing.
Great graphics, probably what kept me playing, very decent music. Very nice, eh, difficulty, since that seems to be what the level designer worked hard on. Now, since this is made to look like an old school game, I demand to know the invulnerability cheat code, I want to see the ending.
Very nice. Original how you alter perception to proceed, or at least I haven't seen it done before. Puzzles are of just the right difficulty, made me feel smart for managing to proceed.
Having just played through, this is fucking brilliant, it must have been hard to make something as complex and bug-free. Even made me feel some goosebumps in the end. Great job!
While results haven't fully loaded yet, spotted your game in top few pages of Mood and Innovation category, congrats well deserved!
Good amount of effort. I have to point out that I don't play card games, so apologies for all the things I missed, I am here mostly for visuals and to check out interesting theme interpretation.
I never figured out what memory and introversion do, nor did I follow through what special cards do, yet somehow I managed to go through five levels by just ordering cards by symbols (as my brain likes to call them - brain, lamp, heart and eye). Which is a compliment to your game's accessibility, it would be very frustrating if I couldn't pass levels without understanding every single thing.
Great job for your first LD, very nice graphics and interpretation, you have put quite some thought into this, and you have accomplished a great deal for short time.
Brought here by a screenshot, I find mermaids interesting.
While gameplay is good (though the game is short, which is not a problem in this case at all), it is the graphical charisma that really does the most for the game. And seeing a pixelated pirate brings in that warm Monkey Island feeling. The whole game is like a mermaid, it is a love on first sight, even though you can't really do much with it. Very nice job.
Very good graphic style and music. Opening and ending letters were well done in particular. Not going to go into flaws as I know how hard it is to make it all polished in time, especially for the first entry. But having at least two frames of that drill spinning would improve the atmosphere significantly. Consider publishing a web build, you'd get more folk willing to try out the game that way. Itch.io is a good place to upload.
This was awesome. Very memorable graphics, with or without CRT. Missions are few but the whole is well rounded, you are clearly good at managing a compo project. I only wish there is a free shooting mode.
I suddenly remembered I downloaded this couple weeks ago and decided to play it at some point later. It took quite some leg work to find this page (I wish LD has better mechanisms for that).
Anyway, I love it. Unique setting, compact story that keeps me interested, lots of variations based on decisions and rolls. It running in cmd prompt based off a single executable is a plus. Though I wish it could be full screen, and orange highlight of selected option's white text is very hard to read, other than that the interface is an ascii beauty.
Also I am surprised at how well thought of the game is, and the size my party grew to. I couldn't help but spot a few mistakes in texts (example: "The turrets retract and the voice tells two among sir sorry men court.") but it's no big deal, just feels bad that I can't know what the text was meant to say. Anyway, I got the "turned off" ending, will give it another go and try out possibilities. Good job!
Very nice and chill take on the theme. Congrats on managing to do pretty graphics, AI, and drunk physics in time. Watching AIs fall into water and failing to walk through the finish line is quite funny. I can only watch them though as being the 2nd worst is the best I can do in this game.
Cool story and well delivered. For me it has associations with Stalker movie (magical zone), Naked Lunch (insects shaped like mechanical items), a bit of Solaris too.
Might be because I was feeling dizzy to begin with, but background music is mind altering, sometimes a disrupting sound would stop me from reading and I'd have to start the paragraph from the beginning, there were couple of pages where I spent minutes on, not really sure what I was thinking about.
Awesome job man. I too went for a strategy game in an unstable region that I'm familiar with, though it is more light hearted and nowhere near as complex and polished as yours. And I wanted to add a "foreign observer" faction where you mostly watch AI and make small influences (a cross between "watch AI" and your actual gameplay) but that was quite out of scope. You got nothing to kick yourself over btw, despite going for a too ambitious project the amount of gameplay you achieved by the deadline is staggering.
What is refreshing in particular is the amount of code you wrote. I don't mean to hate on game engines, but this approach should be valued more in LD events.
Despite your nice effort to inject tips into the game, it is still hard to just pick up and play, as there is lack of idea of what the general strategy would be. Of course once some effort is put in and shit starts happening I started to get idea, but still it does demand more focus than what usual LD guy who is checking the game out is willing to give. Also it would be nice to see faction names on the map all the time as I'm not great with geography. And the fact that win condition is to gain trust of as many states as possible, it does become a bit tedious work where one has to scatter attention all over the place, at least for me personally as in strategy games I prefer to focus on as few regions as possible.
Despite all that pretty impressive job with camera works and interface. I praise in particular the mouse wheel zooming where the cursor is pointing approach, even some high profile strategy games fail to implement that useful thing.
Good job, Terry Gilliam would be proud. The difficulty is alright as well, just when I would think my HR skills are not good enough I'd end up going through. The way I passed 35 meter level felt like cheating though.
Good game idea, but of course too complex to be well done as LD entry. I did like the graphics, especially planets.
Moving fleets is well done and straightforward, I like the radius circle. Sadly I couldn't figure out how to attack other fleet (if possible) or a planet or anything. I guess something was happening towards attacking a planet with me clicking around but I couldn't tell what. Also the game abruptly ended at some point, not sure why and who won. There is probably a decent market for indy space strategies, but what you should focus on most is giving players feedback so they know what is going on.
Thought I was doing great, though I failed to spot that I need 100 relationship with a community to actually win, oh well.
The graphics and the idea are just great, and the game describes reality of a large work place quite accurate. Negative answers are just hilarious.
Don't forget to give me two hearts..
Nice touches on chain movement. It is pretty cool to see thermodynamics system implemented in a game. Honestly I can't say it is much fun (though it has its moments when you discover optimization techniques), but cool to see this nevertheless. More videogames should have devices based on physics rather than just faking it.
(On first play dies in less than a second) Ah, so that's how it's going to be. Eventually I managed to survive for 30-40 seconds on normal difficulty. It is kind of unfair how sometimes the earth opens almost right below you and one can't do anything about it (I think). Well few times I managed to hand-break in time, but that never left me in a good position. But gameplay kind of falls into background here, outshined by what a cool and unique graphical experience you made. Graphically and atmospherically this is an achievement, good job.
Great job with both art and gameplay. And always good to see a top down shooter. I played the game before reading the description and had exact feeling about it, like it was some ported mystery game. Well actually it felt like I was drugged in Tokyo and found myself in an arcade house. Wish I could understand the storyline but I guess not understanding is part of the whole experience.
Locking missile feature is cool but I rarely ever got to use it effectively, except with bosses, which takes some skill. I am good at dodging for most of the game, but the snake girl boss gets me every time, I tried 5 times couldn't go past her :( Pity as according to screenshots there is more to it, will give it another try later.
Thank you all for taking time to play and give kind feedback!
@thedude3600 @fre @fabdynamic Yes showing relations is one of those things that could have been implemented in 10 minutes but you know how it is when you are in rush to publish and keep it as stable as possible. Here is a little secret: opening the developer console and hovering over a faction will show you mutual relations with factions that are currently bordering it.
@wouter52 @fre Fortify defenses is sort of a "skip turn" option which also gives +1 to rolls when defending that turn. Its main purpose is to not spend money (when stocking up to upgrade army) as all other options cost money.
@alex-aspa I got over 10 years of experience in JavaScript and coding in general, but still I run into entries that amaze me with how much has been done. By keeping the code simple yet modular (the code base is 14 classes) you can achieve complex-looking things in a short amount of time, depending on how much the project motivates you (and luck). It's all about thinking in terms of how components communicate with each other, and not being afraid to write some garbage code to get it done faster, while constantly testing so the thing doesn't fall apart.
Love the graphics. While the fluid simulator will not win whatever yearly award they give to fluid simulators, I was thrilled that you managed to implement some sort of it. I won on third or fourth try, but the way it ended is pretty much with there being only one viable position for cannons, and I spent three quarters of remaining time just spamming E button at the water pump. But I know it's hard to find time to fine-tune such game. Lovely entry!
Gives a good impression at first with them smooth graphics and movement. Considering it's a compo game pretty good job. Also, we can all agree that letters in this day and age can only bring bad news.
Hitting things was kind of disappointing to be honest, I don't think I have managed to kill a single evil letter, they have too many hitpoints or spawn too fast. And throwing a big box raises expectations that some mass effect will happen, but it is same old. But I'm sure making all these 3D stuff work took too much time to throw in all the ideas you may have had.
Hey nice, actual space shooter with shields, minimap and all. Couldn't see much relation with the theme but that is ok, it was fun to play and it looks sweet.
Great stuff, you came up with original concept and even managed to do all those levels. The flow would be better if after failing you could retry level without having to use mouse to click the button, some of the buzz is lost that way. And, after playing this game, I decided to be nicer to werewolves I run into.
Well your effective blog post got me to play this. No dog should explode if I can help it. Sadly, that's just what happened in most cases. I love you for adding checkpoints, too many LD entries get me interested but then just butcher my time by making me replay parts.
I felt kind of abused at the end as it seems all this was an elaborate scheme to blast the safe open, but that's life I guess. Absolutely adorable dog and graphics in general, congrats for managing to draw all that and code the game.
I love that the characters are animals but old school style and not them furries. Quite well done in many ways. Always good to see an entry that has a living system going on with characters that have their lives. Guys running through glass even during boss cutscene is quite funny. My only complaint is it seems unwinnable no matter how hard I try, and all is over within less than five minutes (I think). Would love to be able to run around that world for longer.
My character of choice was crocodile, for what's it worth.
Has some enthusiastic feel to it that adds to the mood. Good choice of colors, but I kind of wish the BaLancelot ball itself had some more character to it. But of course, one can't judge a Compo game too harsh for its graphics. Box textures, the grail itself and the music are quite good. It is cool that you made it somewhat moddable.
while not amazing gameplay-wise, the smoothness of movement and awesome graphics make it memorable (of course audio helps as well). It's a fluid candy and it felt good to bath in it for a while.
Very charismatic if anything, highest scores in graphics and mood. The glitch lines are kind of too wide and distracting so they reduce the enjoyment. The "hold R key" moment is brilliant (good old days when you could resolve computing problems with violence, no one would dare smack their graphics card these days).
Well done guys. I haven't read the instructions, wanting to just sit and play a pretty game without much brainwork. It didn't feel too spectacular until I discovered the eye icon, I love it. And failing to progress is actually fun which is quite an achievement. Putting the final roof on my 6 meter failure was hilarious in particular.
Victory! :) What I enjoyed most is artsy graphics, music, and I like how water state movement feels.. Watery. But it is quite risky to use. Gas state seems most efficient, but too easy to go through the walls. Ice I haven't managed to figure out how to use effectively.
Very good take on the theme. Not many enemies but it is nice to watch those tree animations.
I actually don't like hard platformers but your blog post sold it to me anyway. While it does get quite hard as levels progress, the control responsiveness and block spacing makes it the smoothest platformer I tried so far in this jam, so it is hard but not for wrong reasons.
What I liked from the start was that there is only one button (apart from movement keys), so when the "I" key turned out to not work it was actually a relief. And loved the graphics of course.
The settings scene is neat :D I love freeform entries like these, have spent quite some time and discovered a lot of scenes, though perhaps not all and I don't think I was very much near to "win" it. Eventually I had to give up due to cyclic nature and the chances of discovering something new reducing, but it was a pleasure to have this thing on my screen, well done.
Honestly highest scores I gave so far. When I read the controls I was like oh no, I'll have to aim AND jump? But you made it work so well, I spent almost an hour playing. And so many nice details. You clearly had fun making this. And you covered the theme in more than one way. But getting reset all the way to the start at secret lab level was too much for me. And being blackmailed by a trapped puppy is more of a trigger than anything. Proper LD game, well done guys.
Btw I just realized I wasn't able to make the key point on why I liked the game so much, so here it is - most devs here end up having to pick whether they'll make something with deep meaning or something with good gameplay, and this game manages to do both. Along with simple but effective visuals and multifaceted theme coverage, this entry should score high if there is any justice in the world.
It is awesome that I get to play GTA 1 again, I remember trying to find a way to play it couple of years back but haven't came up with any answer.
Anyway, quite an achievement, with traffic, pedestrians, tire tracks, decently sized map and all (how did you do it btw, reused any code?). Swapping between two modes is a contrast that works well, and it satisfies both needs, to be a good driver and to just run people over. One grief is that when I'm meant to be careful, my instincts tell me that space is a break button, which leads to awkward though funny situations. Anyway thanks for providing me with that GTA1 feeling again.
This game has charisma over the top, gj. And two cameras is amazingly cool feature.
Looked unwinnable at start until I learned a bit about how to aim, and I guess luck takes part as well (randomness of the enemy hits & misses).
Great entry, man. Even made me want to live this life for a while. This guy may have one big problem but is free from many other.
Phew, made it just in time to rate. You have achieved amazing amount of things considering it is a compo game, especially towards graphics. While the game feels unpolished, I figure you mainly wanted to convey the feeling of being a grim ripper, and well done in that regard, watching my bony guy float through the night with his cloak fluttering is a great mood piece indeed.
You should have been more clear about controls though, took me a while to figure out right MB followed by left is a way to make a proper swing. Eventually I also figured out how to get people hooked by not swinging at all. Speaking of hooks, it does feel a bit like fishing sim once you have them impaled. Funny that you have to murder entire village to get corruption to zero, but that's humans for ya.
I don't know why you opted out of the Mood category, it's the game's strong point. You created really a great mood with neat graphics and cut scenes. Even though I'm not a platformer person (the last one I played with passion was Commander Keen 4), it felt good to hop around as controls were fluid and everything was well drawn.
But if I may give you an advice, you should avoid punishing players for playing your game. It's ok if it is hard, but it shouldn't be punishing. What I mean by that is making players redo walks across the level when they make a slight mistake towards the end of it. I know we all feel our game deserves attention, but the folk on Ludum Dare usually can't give much time to a single entry. In this case, the part where you have to bounce over three flying purple things to cross the spikes, I failed it a few times (not very skilled at that stuff) and almost gave up, but then when I managed to do it instead of a reward I got an unexpected collapse and got sent back to start. And after failing the jumps again I had to give up, which is frustrating as the rest of the game is cool and I wanted to see more of it.
But good job in overall, keep going at it. Btw I played the original version, which I tend to do when rating (unless there is a clear statement about what was changed in patches, perhaps add this statement).
Wow it's been so long since I played pinball on PC, felt good. The first table takes kind of long so I fear many will give up before figuring out there are multiple tables. The "defeat your demons" took quite some time as well, with nothing much happening apart from me trying to hit that blasted upper left white ball. It kind of lacks the juice of proper pinball but those take time to make, for a 3 days game it is quite an achievement.
Very nice take on the theme, though it only starts becoming fun after I figured out how to fix each room. Jumping up the elevator platform was annoying as well, but that's just a personal preference. Anyway, no one said this power plant job would be easy.
I like games that have some system in the background, so elevator platforms stopping to function when the power room is unstable is a nice touch. Though it led to cruel situations.. Half way up the smoke room, power goes out, fixed it and half way up the smoke room again, power goes out again, fixed it, and this time just as I was leaving the power room it goes out, AGAIN. Repetition is a strong comedic device. Humor, theme and graphics are categories where you did the best I'd say.
It was enjoyable for what it is. Despite some replay value it made me wish you did more dialogues but I guess you got.. Lost in time?
I couldn't get past level four. And I'd end up knocking down most of my soldiers every time I'd click retry. But it is nice to see another strategy game, and with such original concept as well. Cool graphics overlay, though that face taking up such portion of my screen is scary ngl.
Pretty neat idea, and graphics & sounds are well done. The color palette is quite relaxing. Gameplaywise, my only complaint is it takes a bit too long until player starts getting into real trouble.
Didn't had much clue what is going on (apart from as soon as seeing walking mushrooms my instincts shout JUMP ON THEM), but graphics is absolutely gorgeous, sound as well. And just when I thought that is all there is to it, strange things started happening, nice touch. The glow effect on sprites is well thought of, gives the whole thing special atmosphere, esoteric and nostalgic. Good job guys, high up there in graphics and mood categories.
Well, 11 survivors isn't too bad :P But seriously, just wow. This is a game where I don't care if I actually had fun, how good the controls were, how much it sticks to the theme etc.. All I want now is to play an interplanetary RPG with these graphics and engine.
Nice, quite a finger breaker too. Made me want to cut off my thumb as jumping is instinctively associated with space key. Once I went pass that problem, I started confusing A and D with Q and E, and the more I'd get frustrated the more often that would happen, but I guess that is one of the challenging aspects you devised. Although the background is repetitive I do like the building style, they add to the atmosphere. In general the mood is strong with this one, very nice.
Bonus for adding those beautifully drawn cutscenes. The game is a bit punishing with level reset on first mistake, but it wasn't unreasonably hard to get to the end. I'd say the game contains a subtle morale of the story that those rejected from their rightful place in society may start blowing things up.
Was brought here by your face generation post. Feels good to see a success story when it comes to implementing fancy features.
And I quite like the game, as these days I happen to be interested in seeing some original political/management implementations in games. It runs smooth and turns out to be fun, there is nothing much to complain about this game as it is seems to be exactly what it intended to be. Good job.
I actually feel frustrated that you didn't get far with this, the idea along with graphical delivery is so cool. Characters and their faces are just adorable. Maybe you should point out in description that you can rotate around character with holding left mouse button.
Hey Cake, good to see you're still LDing, and that you explore different game styles. Impressive amount of creative freedom this one, it was enjoyable. Had to have another go and fail keeping the ship stable, both endings are quite emotional.
Keep it up!
Ye I know the feeling, this LD was the first "proper" game I felt like making in a long time. Once you start going experimental or story-driven it is hard to go back. Well just do how you feel and where the theme takes you, that's what LD is about (I think). Much love.
Daimn that was creative! I always wanted to do a LD game that involves video (as a medium that got forgotten, now everything is either 3D cards or retro pixels) so this was inspiring. Great theme coverage, a roll of toilet paper on its side is the most unstable object in the universe.
Pretty good idea, and it was delivered decently well. Sprites are neat and interesting. What hindered me from enjoying the game fully was that it's hard to keep track of information panel on the left while trying to stay alive, so either there should be less projectiles or a better way to pass that information to player. And I haven't fully figured out what "danger" is for, as all creatures were dangerous, I think.
Was pretty interesting to see this game happening on the screen, keep up the good work!
Couple of game crash reports in case you find them useful:
ERROR in action number 1 of Step Event0 for object obj_rat:
Unable to find any instance for object index '53' name 'obj_player' at gml_Object_obj_rat_Step_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_obj_rat_Step_0 (line -1)
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Create Event for object obj_devil_arrow:
Unable to find any instance for object index '53' name 'obj_player' at gml_Object_obj_devil_arrow_Create_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_obj_devil_arrow_Create_0 (line -1) gml_Object_obj_devil_Step_0 (line -1)
Quite excellent art & mood. Too many keys for my preference (and, assuming the player must always be ready to use any of the three, attacking with ring finger is not very intuitive), but they serve the purpose of what the game was meant to be.
**SPOILER warning** Hell of an atmosphere right from the start. What better induction than having to press a button that has DO NOT PRESS taped right over it, followed by sounds of an atomic splitter powering up. The institute being in Russia is quite an atmosphere booster as well. As for the game itself I'd probably feel better if I knew more about chemistry, but still I managed to make that thing happen. Are there multiple endings btw?
Once I figured out the sinking rock is not a glitch and that I'm supposed to exploit smaller ones it became fun (should have added that to instructions). I could never survive for longer than 20 seconds but I do appreciate the idea and setting, cool graphics as well.
Not sure how banana is a martyr, those monkeys got exterminated. Boss is quite a climax, those were some fine waves.
Great graphics, sounds, and mood, pretty decent theme coverage. Might add a sea sickness warning, I actually feel like this textbox is wobbling left and right at the moment (hell, five minute into writing this review and I still feel it).
Main menu is interesting, though it took me a while to figure out that I'm supposed to use the cursor to select an option. The game is perhaps too hard, judging by first four levels I managed to play (sorry I couldn't do more, it took me a long time to get to that level). Having to replay after dying didn't feel too great, as most of the do-right-or-die moments in levels are at the very end when you're supposed to touch the light. And the respawn at that particular moment wasn't helpful as by that time the situation is already beyond repair. Could be that I'm just not good at the game. But in general, the art and mood is great and it felt good to play it. Apart from still feeling seasick.
I've played both versions and decided to rate post-jam one as it is more of a game you were up to make.
Graphically it is superb but gameplay could use something more to it, as most of them pieces are not really made to be stacked up, though that adds to humor. I can tell programming this was hard, there are so many things that needed tweaking and some still do. I did had some fun with it, though it would be more fun if pieces' physical bodies had some more stability to them, when timer runs out their paper-like mass makes them too easy to tumble over which is kind of anticlimactic. Their light body mass during dragging phase is perfect, but it should probably be added to after timer runs out, or increase friction or something like that. Either way I did had some frustrating fun with it, gj.
Very good job especially for your first LD game, a lot of first-time entries that are as ambitious end up failing to implement more than a level or two in time.
One remark, it is always good to look for things that would take a tiny amount of time to implement but would improve the gameplay, in this case the smoke should have been faster, but I figure maybe you prefer it to go slow as it is a cloud of smoke after all.
Cute atmosphere, especially the little red guy's walk and the sounds. Last level involved a lot of walking about, but that is ok considering it is the last level after all. In general, enjoyable and good looking game that doesn't feel like it has missing features, for your first entry you got this quite right, hope to see you back doing more jams.
Hey, welcome to the club of strange people who publish weird games for no rational reason, and congrats on managing to publish your first entry. Despite being rough around edges, what you made here is an atmospheric peace that manages to accomplish plenty with simple graphics so you should score decently well in mood I assume. The scenery is absolute beaut if you ask me. The ending is funny, even though I could sort of see it coming. Congrats again and hope to see more of you!
Great graphics, sound and mood.
Idea is very good as well, but the game is too unforgiving. Unforgiving as in not only hard but also makes you spend too much time going through same places to get back where you were. And some situations just say "ok, you can kill yourself now". But that's just me, someone else would probably find that enjoyable. All in all, great graphics and movement feels smooth, I couldn't get very far but it was a pleasure to give it a spin.
Graphics and music, and with that the mood are great. Cool idea and take on the theme, portrays vicious cycle democratic societies can fall into, but I kept feeling the implementation is too clunky to be as enjoyable as it could be. Maybe it's just my hate towards any sort of strategy games where reaction time is of importance. But it felt good to see this thing on the screen.
Nice how you handled ball movement logic without any advanced physics, that's exactly how it would be done if it was an 80s computer game. At times I wished you expanded it a bit with let's say jumping (some dagger angles are impossible to avoid in some situations). Graphics is absolute 5.
Oh, I get it! Each 10 seconds I refresh page in a futile attempt to actually control the bird with c key :D
Quite a good idea, and execution for a Compo entry. Sound design is top. The downside is after a few tries I had to give up as it kept being disorienting and the evil versions of will-o'-the-wisps were too fast for my stamina. I guess more of a reason to train and stay in shape, as there is not a chance I wouldn't pick up a crystal found in a forest.
After dying for 45 minutes straight, I have decided that rescuing one teddy bear is as good as rescuing all the lost girls in the world. Which is to say I gave up. Can you shed some more tips pls, as it seems the forest is either very big or procedurally generated or looping, or I'm just stupid. I'd rather postpone rating until I manage to get somewhere (all I manage to do so far is talk to Lily). Update: enemies are not that much of a problem, I manage to walk distances without running into them, I'm just failing to actually find anything, so I was wondering if that is randomized or can you point me in some direction.
Ah right, I thought that she may be the mother the girl was talking about, but whenever I'd approach her I'd get killed by a ghoul (by coincidence I guess) so I misjudged her to be a common monster. Yea quite nice touch with environment progression. The ending is interesting as well, without giving spoilers away, though I'm not sure if it's the only one. I would say, despite some flaws, one must appreciate the story of what is going on and text descriptions.
I'm quite into oldschool cyberpunk where the main character has to be at least near to losing the mind at some point, so this sat well. It is inspiring that you didn't let the lack of programming capabilities stop you from taking part.
If I may ramble a bit.. As for questions raised, I don't fear AI art itself just yet. Like a Netflix hit, it excels in style (surface) while lacking soul, as cheesy as that sounds. If it can mimic aspects of some artist's hard work, it is questionable whether those particular aspects had any true value to begin with. Of course, crowds may be pleased with the surface, but what's new about that? In any case, it was your writing that breathed life into this novel.
And that plumber was on acid. Btw your entry would go nice with music, perhaps something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcAUlEkU05A
Awesome. Sound is very good but of course it's the graphics that hit me the most. Now if those pixel lights were blinking as well, that would blew my mind even more. On the gameplay side, it is very inventive but wasn't challenging, as in I could probably go on forever. Great work!
Amazing that you made all this, graphics included. I love the NPC humor.
It's kind of sad when you think about it, all those worlds that got deleted forever just because they weren't popular enough for someone to bother porting them. The same thing might happen with us.
This game seems to tap into how brains of individuals work. In my case that meant staring frozen 90% of the time as I was looking for most perfect one among too many options. Eventually I figured the only way to move faster is do the opposite, just select random block and then wiggle the pointer around until a high enough number appears. Loved the color scheme and how everything looks neat. Pretty solid for a Compo entry.
@bredera @andrew-everage-s @matt-ravenhall thank you fellows for giving it a try. The thing is, there is a proper explanation as to why it resets every 10 steps, and that is the heart of our idea for this theme. The problem is that just finding out what the idea is takes a bit of exploring (though perhaps that is too much for an LD entry). Clicking the clock may reveal that it is not simply a game reset. Two general hints are 1) there are areas other than middle of the screen, and 2) some items can be clicked twice (as hinted by tooltip overlay which changes text) though this has to be consecutive, but I'd rather not reveal more for those who like solving what little puzzles we have out by themselves.
Well the curve was really steppe for me, but once I figured out what is going on it was a riot. High score for humor and inventiveness.
I'm not good at card games, which is pity since you seem to have a neat system laid out. Yet I played on as the atmosphere is entertaining. And I guess there is a balancing problem as I managed to defeat all the opponents by just randomly throwing cards in (due to me not understanding how to play).
Other than that, the world, characters and atmosphere is absolutely superb, great job.
Well, I won the game on second try, in less than 5 minutes total, makes me feel smart if anything lol. I guess you didn't had much time to add more to the game. Graphics are simple at first but there is something about them. Lady portraits are somehow nice.
I remember playing a game with this kind of numbers interface few years ago, I'm not sure if it's yours, couldn't find it among your previous games anyway. All I remember is it had style similarities and feminine atmosphere and theme, it left an impression in some dark psychological way since it's still in my memory. Annoying I can't find it though.
Yes it was Mourning, "Merci" I actually replayed and solved it.
Damn, a fully fledged game. Some teams barely justify their size, but you did a great job here. Also kudos for fighting the deeply rooted misconception that T-Rexes didn't use their tiny hands, latest research reveals growing amount of evidence that they forged and wielded two-handed swords.
I honestly got no complaints, everything fits perfectly.
Post feed when you finish pls.
Quite awesome graphics and the animations are butter smooth.
I was confused at first but then I realized I'm a war profiteer so it all started to make sense. Quite original and amazingly well drawn.
That was great honestly. You had idea of what effect you wanted to create on the player and worked on it until it was accomplished, pretty awesome for solo first time. Took me two replays to figure out what to do and finish it.
Fairly good stuff. Though I relied far more on basic shooting than the alchemy, so the scene ended up littered with ingredients. Event after catching up with potion brewing part (and good job on making it work in a simple way that doesn't need instructions), I'd still find basic shooting to be good enough to slay werewolves and stay alive. The fact that you can shoot as fast as you click the mouse makes it OP but more fun, I enjoyed it as simply a shooter with gorgeous graphics that is beyond Jam level.
You're welcome, humanity. Cool concept, but one that needs more time than what you get in LD to flesh out into challenging levels. Being able to click on figures instead of portraits would make the game more smooth. Of course the best part is gorgeous graphics, every screen is an eye candy.
I could tell the year is 2038 as I was using the mouse in a console lol. The take on the theme is ok, can't be too harsh there as the theme is kind of restrictive and I am yet to see someone coming up with something other than "stuff happen every 10 seconds". The game is very cool in all other aspects, ascii much appreciated. Grains of differently colored ascii will always look more lively than 3d rendering to me. Getting randomly blocked from progressing wasn't super fun, I guess you would add algo to always have at least one passage if you had time. I guess you drew inspiration from recurring nightmares of a system engineer concerning the dark future ahead. All in all congrats on constantly improving with this jam business.
Funny how it starts, I see the volume bar but it's all quiet and I keep thinking "where is the sound" and then the atmosphere just explodes with cuteness. Couldn't stop playing until I got a rating of pure 100. Would definitely carry on, was I not sure that I've sadly seen&done everything there is in the game.
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems guest density per play is random, which didn't always work well as sometimes the joint would be empty, and it's more fun to manage more of the cats at the same time.
Now of course cats are cute, but touches like makeshift cardboard reception and smileys are quite awesome.
The graphics and idea are great and I wanted to get into it, but I had to give up due to bugs. Most notably, the lever pull doesn't work most of the time, sometimes even several times in a row (it gets all the way to the right and then I let it go but it doesn't register as being pulled). Often you would be short on time by the time you run back to reach the lever, and this should be the exciting part, but then it randomly fails to work which destroys the excitement and causes frustration instead. I'd be happy to try again with at least this particular big fixed, or perhaps an explanation if there is a way to prevent it from failing, do let me know.
Great work otherwise, I see a lot of effort put in.
Ah wow, ok completed it, it is much more than meets the eye, great job.
I spotted this thing called 1001 Nights on your game list and was this close to just play that instead (some dog part of my brain was like PRINCE OF PERSIA WOOF!!1). Seriously, that thumbnail has magnetic properties. But I resisted, so here I am. Yes. Lovely game. Reached level 23. Quite some skills at project management with the amount of content. And one must appreciate the originality of having static fruit as monsters. Quite a finger to decades of tradition in gaming industry. The lady sprite is top.
Well damn, I downloaded this as graphics looked promising and I wasn't disappointed. If your game doesn't get close to winning in mood or humor there is no justice in the world. One thing I can say is there is nothing like a colored 2d cartoon to make an old fart happy for a while, thanks.
"Because that's the theme!" - brutally honest. Well, after successfully locating the executable (which is a game in itself) I was pleasantly put in the mood by the humor starting right from the intro screen. And it's always nice to see a Monogame entry.
Now, while the idea in itself is amazing, the game was too fast for me to handle, and I don't have knowledge of any of this lore. On first play, the only thing I successfully sold in 3 days was the "it sucks your ****" and I don't actually know how I managed to get that right without even glancing at the matching item's description.
Luckily, playing this game is a learning process, and also I seemed to have a sixth sense when it comes to guessing what these creatures really wanted so it all worked out. Great job tbh.
Ah, an inventory management action RPG. It was such a relief to discover I don't have to click to attack. In some ways it kind of reminds me of Diablo 3, except that you can die and it wasn't designed by people who hate video games.
Now that brings memories of living with parents :P Very cool graphics and mood. The main character has a lot of... character. I guess I didn't quite understood the instructions as it took me some time to figure out what to do, it became more fun at that point, took me 4 replays to escape.
Awesome that you managed to come up with so many different games in one. The mood is quite good. The theme is restrictive in a way that everyone (well the games I played so far) are going with "thing happens every 10 seconds", this one at least makes a different thing happen every 10 seconds.
Just like the high school, but projectiles do less damage.
Due to inconsistency in replay experience (sometimes I'd reach 4th room without much trouble, but more often I'd die in the very first or second room) it would be good if restarting took much less time, waiting for the animations to complete and then having to click New Game on each death was slowly melting the addictiveness aspect. Addictive it is though, dodging is actually fun and I wanted to see how far I can get on next retry. Gorgeous graphics and atmosphere.
Amazing scenery and atmosphere in general. Though to me it seemed like all enemies are indestructible, they can only be temporarily blown back, even the ball things for which the bio claims to "go down easy". My main problem is, please when making a FPS game do implement invert mouse Y axis, those who are used to playing with it on can barely manage playing any other way (to get the idea, turn the invert Y on in some FPS game and try aiming, that's how I felt). Congrats on managing to achieve so much in your first jam game!
I'm literally jealous of this amount of creativity. The "puzzles" were gently induced yet I felt smart for figuring them out quickly. - After writing this I glanced at other comments and noticed I forgot your advice at the start. Having replayed, it became evident that each layer is happier than previous one, and with that more meaningless, and my initial enjoyment more delusional.
Was fun to play, the level number isn't shown (I think?) so I don't know how far I got but it was pretty far. It felt an achievement passing through some levels, but wasn't way too hard at the same time. I see some complain about controls but I find them to be par of challenge. Everyone else said everything else, nice graphics and all that.
It was a big brain decision to have an easy restart button, as this is that sort of a game.
It was a really smart move to not make the game punishing, as in this sort of a game I just want to see the story progress and not have a level restart after loosing too many lives or something like that, so good job there. The "enemy" comments were absolutely hilarious.
**Contains spoilers** Very nice, you came up with this world and its rules, it all just works. Love the multi-stage way most things work. Pushing the heart around wasn't very fun, and when it disappeared through the rocks near the end I was pissed that it was some feature I wasn't warned about, but it showed up on the other side so all is ok.
The dad boat comes off a bit narcissistic tbh, when I rescued him he just goes "yeah!" and drifts away not paying any attention to me, I followed him until he disappeared into a rock that I couldn't enter, perhaps that was a boat bar and I am underaged so I wasn't allowed in. Something tells me he'll need another heart soon :/
Eh, more like "how much further can I push my chair away from the screen".
I couldn't last longer than 3-4 minutes, if my perception of time is correct. After some serious consideration, this scores decently high on innovation, theme, graphics, and mood. Very effective use of human face as a tool of disturbance. There is a chance that if someone with mental issues plays this their sanity may end up being farmed. But question remains, who is the farmer, to whom do the crops go? Do I even want to find out?
Nice to take a trip down the memory lane with this 1st person RPG approach. In essence it's a good idea but the main loop is lacking since combat isn't really fun, so you just run to the tree and back out there to spam click the spiders. The only escape from monotony is that you have to locate the spiders, so it's like a hide&seek, but after a while I'm 99% sure that I killed them all yet there was no victory event so I was just speeding between the walls in # pattern, on the bright side the walls look pretty.
@eggshelldog thanks for playing, the score is shown when you reach the end of the street, if it's not shown then we're in trouble.
@wouter52 hey there! Ye, real time feedback in UI is one essential thing I didn't had time for. Otherwise you can tell which body part is cut by the sound it makes, or visually if your eye's framerate is high enough. The 3d model in the corner is only showing where the tail is looking, of course it is a part of unfinished UI. It's only the buildings that have flashing colors that produce more crowd when shot, sadly I had no time to put in a better indicator. And ye I had fun but now comes the hard part of getting feedback for a heavily unpolished thing :D
@eggshelldog no worries, that is a good feedback, thanks. While I'm painfully aware of the need for a proper UI feedback, it never occurred to me that someone will assume the game is endless, I'll add that tip to itch page.
@stephanschue thanks for playing! You can't shoot them because I ran out of time and the purpose is to reap their heads, so shooting them is a vanity feature that I'd love to have added but wasn't essential. So in this version shooting is just a thing that has a function, to make crowds come out of buildings so you can reap more heads (buildings that are flashing colors).
@someone Thanks for playing and letting me know about Linux mistake. Ye I ran out of time to implement ongoing counter. Lasers are just a tactical thing that makes crowds run out of buildings that are marked with flashing colors. But I can't blame you for not noticing as there is no in-game tutorial, this functionality was only hinted on LD page, itch page, comments section, README.txt file, animated gif, and a picture that shows ship parts.
@bloodfin Thanks for playing - I can't think of anything that could fix this on my side, perhaps you have some controller plugged into the PC lying around with input stuck in certain position.
@hawkin thanks for playing. The tail is the camera and it's exactly where the laser shots are coming from :D Stopping and hopping was the only way to add challenge, as there was no time for 360 degrees freedom I had to make it into a flappy bird kind of thing.
Good stuff, it is a relaxing game indeed. I wouldn't mind if movement was a bit easier, seeing how the main character is an adult proficient in ice skating, whenever I'd kick the ball I was just happy that I managed to kick it rather than having some feeling of guiding it towards a goal. Some ability to rotate the camera to track the ball movement would be of help there.
The kids+teens stage had a glitch where it didn't end after everyone was out, but of course that is of no consequence, I ended up just skating around kicking the unconscious bodies for fun. The alternative camera is great, might be the DOS nostalgia but to me everything looks just prettier from that angle. I guess the most impressive aspect for me is that you did a good job simulating a populated ice skating hall.
Probably the best induction I've seen so far. Graphics and the start of the atmosphere are great, makes me sad that gameplay failures don't allow it to go any further than that. So, my first problem like with everyone else was mouse sensitivity. After spotting your comment that it can be upped with Page Up, I gave it another try. Then came my personal problem with any jam-game FPS, no Invert Mouse Y option. For those who use it, playing like that feels as bad as if you tried to play with invert Y turned on. But I can put that aside and adjust if the game is not hard, but it is just way too hard, monsters are all around, too many, way too near, doing too much damage, taking too many bullets to die. Despite having AK47 I felt like a crippled mouse surrounded by cats, life expectancy 2.9 seconds. I can't say if this was done on purpose and the action part of the game is not meant to be played for longer than few seconds, if yes the delivery wasn't great. If no, well it's a common mistake of LD game ending up too hard. But it is a really cool experience for like the first minute (or less).
Second level was quite hard, I think I replayed it the most, third and fourth surprisingly easy. After hell that was rat level the northern field turned out well, and all the following, the final day took me only two tries. I guess that's due to natural player's skill progression. All in all I had fun.
Great humor and graphics, and it is pretty based that the supervisor was drunk all the time, this detail can only come from the first hand experience. I can spot some top level programming skills in how the whole system with the drones works smooth. Btw, a restart level button would be nice.
If people were to give realistic ratings this game should outright win. I can't think of a single category where you should be rated less than 4, but mostly it's fives. Not to mention the theme, you are alchemists that produce gold out of shit.
Hey, good to see your entry as always.
Well, I started by telling myself there is no way I'll figure this out, but I managed, and ended up running around committed to the game's loop for some time, while not achieving a big success at the puzzle part though. As a personal preference, I do love to see genetics in games and stuff sprawling from seeds in deterministic ways, and plant's tiles are very pleasing to the eye, but tbh I kept wishing this potential was used in some other way than the core puzzle, I don't know in what other way but that's just me being among 1% of people who don't enjoy the connect-to-make-room style of puzzles. Also, as plants grow to absurd shapes I kept wishing for some way to use only a branch rather than the whole tree.
Other than that it's a really clever idea, and you seem to have managed to achieve your exact (I guess?) vision while relying on your code alone, and that is very impressive, great work!
You guys should be quite happy with what you made, it looks like you've set the scope just right for what you can do as a team on this particular weekend. The corn physics is well done in particular. Spotting an unaware baddie for the first time was a great experience ("wait, is this a star or..." mystery resolved when I made a sound and it started moving).
Nice one. It kept me pleasantly engaged until the victory despite there only being a very few things to do, and discovering half way through that I can hold two items at the same time helped renewed my interest. The devil is adorable in how busy and dedicated he is to the task. Dialogue minigame is not hard but is tense just enough to keep one awake and in a state of trance. The game's message is not some rare sort of enlightenment, but it's good to have a reminder.
Good job on visuals, it does look really pretty, but as you are aware the actual mechanics of what to do with bodies is too complicated. I tried following through with textual explanation but this is more of a thing that requires a video tutorial. And since player's are expected to experiment by clicking various question marks and whatnot, well it's a shame but this "body surgery simulator but you have to learn what to do AND there are enemies while you operate" approach is too demanding for a LD game. If at least the game would pause during the operation it would be more playable, as it is the mechanics are too frustrating. So, points for originality, great graphics, but the idea is too out there, and main progress is locked behind a too steep learning curve. Making a complex LD game is not a mistake in itself, but it should demand less from players. I hope you had fun making it though.
Nice, reminded me of Werewolves of London for Commodore 64, there is a shortage of such games. I can see you didn't have enough time to achieve most of the vision so that's sad as I was into the game's premise. And losing so easily by just being spotted by guards made me feel more like a shoplifter than a vampire, but still it was indeed fun stalking around for a while.
Congrats for real, quite a lot of things have been done correctly. Of course graphics is gorgeous and parallax really boosts the atmosphere, though its movement doesn't seem realistic at some moments. Physics is smooth and well done.
But what a loop. The game keeps expanding as you start by being scared of 20 meters depth but after some boosting end up a nimble mermaid and a brave explorer. Constant tension, was close to death so many times by oxygen limit alone. Haven't died once so far, I guess that big pocket was the end of many, but it's all about keeping a cool head. It was a good call to make mines colliders as forgiving though, I'd lose the will to play by now if they exploded on me touching a single pixel. Unless that's a glitch and mines don't actually work, well I hope I'll never find out. I've located the boss clamp and just $2 away from buying the net.
Ok I hit the land mine and died for the first time, was in too much of a hurry to get the boss shell. Good call to not have a permadeath. Total time 46 minutes, haven't even noticed. The final screen is a chilling reminder about nature of revenge. So perhaps not the best game of the LD52 but definitely my favorite so far, I'll make a post about it.
Nice, I can't think of any flaws worth pointing out. The game's loop with it's economical, tactical, and action aspects works decently well. It's also nice that you are bringing attention to real problems in our society, my dad was a poo farmer and those seasonal waves of goblins were a real menace to our crops and his self-esteem. Yet the government never lifted a finger to help us, all they did was they took away his railgun.
Great stuff, really lovely world to be in. Now, I was planning to say that it's cool how the game is not demanding on the player, and it doesn't make you go through BS over some wrong-step-and-you-die BS, but the 2nd level reduced that feeling due to spikes + challenges that come up with dragging the big tooth. Making a player start the level from scratch is a risky move for LD, I guess most peeps won't mind but I'm not a big fan of platformers. The restart just felt kind of out of place for me, as I was enjoying the atmosphere and storyline progression more than the challenges.
But with that said really great job, the platforming feels smooth and not clunky, the grappling hook is fun, of course the graphics (even including the itch page) and the whole mood is just great.
Sorry but the game is too obscenely punishing to be enjoyable, despite all my good will and curiosity. Even though I figured the system out after few deaths (it's hard to tell at first that those things grow at different rates, the differences are too small, so at first it seems just loaded with glitches), I couldn't go past the second stage, and giving 20 minutes of my time to just begin scratching the surface of the game only to get taken back to stage one every time is too much so I had to give up. I may sound annoyed but that's only because I liked the premise but am unable to explore it. If the game is to be an artsy kind of experience, the worst thing you can do to it is make it as punishing. Nice nine-inch-nails kind of setting though, and when rating I took into consideration that this is a solo 48-hour entry.
Oh man I tried really hard but it's too hard. Took me 5+ retries just to produce one burger before bankruptcy. I started getting the hang of it eventually, becoming able to produce about 4-5 burgers but I'd always run out of money by then.
But it's really cool that you made the whole system work, with little workers that know what to do and all. Especially impressive considering it's a solo Compo entry and your first one as well. Keep up the good work, but please make the games easier to play, this game has a great functional world but is frustrating that I can't get very far.
Nice entry. I never quite figured out what the lose condition is, does it have something to do with them hitting you from the side? But I love how you're just trying to farm the fields and zombies are just kind of there. Getting upgrades on death is a good call.
The game is well-rounded, doesn't feel like there is too many wires sticking out, congrats on that. Controls are smooth, the graphics is great, the ship and it's sort-of 3d feel in particular. The only problem is there is no challenge in the middle (spawning) area so each round starts with just waiting to farm those two buildings. Nice job fellows.
Honestly a decent game that manages to hook you up for a while. I'm not a fan of restart on death, but here randomness is done right so it feel fresh on every replay. Second level I died a few times but then got better and managed to solve it twice in a row. I just wasn't ready for the 3rd level though, never beaten the game.
11? You call that a high score? :D Screenshot 2023-10-13 235157.png
But ye, you have clearly reached mastery of game design (and jamming, considering how well rounded the game is). Guitar is lovely touch as well.
While reading the game's description and some spell descriptions there were moments where I though it will be a pain in the ass where I have to put in some effort to understand, but on contrary everything went smoothly and I really felt like the spell set was my own personal thing. The spell replacement part felt like an interesting decision, as is the way it should be.
There is really nothing to criticize here considering it's a 48h game, apart from that I don't understand why a dark forest would have this checker pattern floor, but somehow it doesn't feel completely out of place, really good job.
Pretty good, smooth to play and the mechanics require some John Wick level of decisiveness, as trying to go slow will get you defeated, while at the same time you have to both aim and think fast to use correct attacks. I didn't think I'll get to the transponder as challenge gets real at some point, but I did it yay :P
It's a great take on the theme. The biggest (and practically the only) flaw is this cruel restart to level 1. In general, LD people who will make effort to replay the game from level 1 are rare. But it was enjoyable while it lasted, it's time limit on level 2 and full restart that got to me.
Well, I did not enjoy the click-to-move-a-bit movement, the strategy was limited to going in circles around the main mass, and the game started lagging badly around capacity 30, but it is a superb take on the theme, the graphics and in particular the colors are lovely, I especially like the floor shading and how it matches with green cube.
It does somewhat feel like bringing back that raw creative power of Flash era. But none of these "game engines" can really replicate the feel, you end up spending too much energy making them work like canvas, you can't just pour your mind's content into it.
Still pretty decent result, my perception was altered while it lasted.
@shad @clema Thank you for telling me, I messed up the publishing, try downloading Locked Together win-x64.zip https://krafter.itch.io/locked-together
@shad The only two commands really are "look (name)" and "talk (topic)" where topic can be politics, sport, or crime. So, for example, "talk politics". But yea, parser sucks.
@shad You can't talk to a specific person because you are all together and everyone can hear the conversation. Everyone randomly liking one topic is something that I should have prevented but ran out of time, as that is the most boring thing that can happen.
@adamsmccall Yes, you got it right. Those ridiculous things are the whole point. The game is different each time you play. There are 5 random types - brute, stabber, rapist, junkie, gossiper - each with random likes and dislikes. They also got tables of relations with each other and hitpoints, just like you do, so they should be able to turn on each other until someone's HP gets too low in which case a random replacement arrives. I would call it a win if you survive until one inmate gets replaced. But yea I couldn't work on it longer than a weekend so it's rough and a little more than a meme, glad you found some laughter.
@skvader-418 I always wanted to read Prokleta avlija and hopefully I will one day.
@wouter52 Thanks, it's Monogame. Was really just trying out my finite state machine dll, it helped cut some corners but didn't end up using all its features.
Well, doing drugs loses you an HP as well. That's why junkie is self-harming when he is enraged (but harms you when he loves you). Brute and stabber harm those they are enraged about, rapist harms those he is either enraged with or ecstatic about, while gossiper just alters everyone's perception of their target. It's a system that easily fails to entertain when random personalities are not in conflict, but I really didn't feel like polishing the game further on Monday.
This was good, enjoyable shooter, apart from all the f**king bubbles. Random is a bit cruel, there can be no powerups for a long time and once the bug guy spawned right on top of me. Couldn't go past 7,500 points with 6 or so playthroughs. But like I said it is really enjoyable, and there is some depth and tactics to figure out. The sound of bubbles was enjoyable in particular.
I picked 5 nice people and one complete a**hole. Because everyone has a purpose. But really great work, I especially like the after-report. And graphics. It takes skill to create so much out of so little.
There is nice makeup in the game, and it seems you have spent much time on it. Sadly I had to give up around the part with scoop-like device. The biggest issue is that main game mechanics, which is dropping and positioning stuff, is a chore that involves pressing the right buttons (too many buttons btw) and slowly guiding the objects in place. Paired with weird jump physics that is punishing if object is not perfectly positioned makes this main mechanics tedious. Actually solving the game takes more effort than what you would usually get from LD players. The character, menus, and mood is quite ok. Floating on air flow is fun and adrenaline inducing.
This really had a great feel to it, and despite all the dodging is quite relaxing. I usually get to around ~50k before losing everyone in one go. Interesting take on the theme.
Ah man, it's frustrating because you were just few hours of polishing away from a hit. With the game in its current state the graphics, character and premise are great. Dying is always funny, but it could have been more than a meme dying thing. I'd find it very enjoyable if it had: Ability to double jump, as getting stuck in a small pit for a long time isn't very fun; Ability to push with jump, for more interactivity (atm the only thing to do when stuck is wait until a bomb causes some change that will almost certainly crush you); And, maybe make it harder to get squashed by the very shape that you're pushing, but that's a matter of taste I guess. Basically, it just needs some more responsiveness, that's the only thing keeping the game from being great fun.
I'd say the odd scale that someone complained about gives that too-much-cheese-before-sleep dreamlike quality to the game, and is perfectly in place. Crossfading music between the floors is such a shift in consciousness, masterfully done. And the theme is covered in the most original way I've seen so far. Someone said having waypoints is too AAA, I agree that maybe just their design is a bit too clean and out of place, but it's good to have waypoint for LD crowd who don't have much time to drift even when willing to give 10-20 minutes to a game.
Second floor puzzle is too hard though; guardians' hints for the sequence are too easy to miss, and one could argue that the keys pointing "up" are really pointing down, and the ones pointing "down" are actually sideways, or maybe I'm missing some reference. Btw, I may be asking too much, but is there any particular symbolism for sword/scroll/key ?
In any case, there is no point in looking for flaws in a game like this, it would be like looking for flaws in a dream, it is just something that happens and it is whatever the hell it was. Good work.
The graphics are beautiful. Looping levels a marvel of engineering (ok here I'm exaggerating but it show that you know your stuff). Narrowing circle a perfect picture of losing mental space. And all this in a few files of snake_case code xD
It is a sad topic that someone who is so dedicated to his work that he can literally see the floorplan projected around him is reduced to an anxious pacman figure by the carelessness of his superior.
Well, it's nice, but what ruined it for me is no invert-Y option. You'll find that option in all FPSs because some mutants can't play without it. The fact that cowcapsules jump up and down, giving much cause for vertical aiming didn't help either. Couldn't get more than 13 kills and that's after few tries. The dash-when-yellow mechanics is too unforgiving as well. I guess it would all work out better if I could actually aim.
But the atmosphere and graphics, including color choice is quite enjoyable, and it is cool to see town being built around you, especially as you start jumping roofs. Pretty decent take on the theme.
*Spoiler warnings*
What an epic, I did not expect it will actually take me to war. Aiming with A/D and shooting with E was hard, but that's just the same man still being a gardener. The story's depth and subtle take on the theme is appreciated.
Like someone else said, default UI element is a bit raw, but I get most of the compo time window was spent polishing visuals and making that smooth movement work. It was a pleasure to play this.
Well I was hooked, despite disliking the premise, I mean flocking sheep using unruly birds is the last thing I would expect to enjoy. However, I did stop at level 17, perhaps due to missing challenge as saving one sheep is enough, and I guess my choice of upgrades was smart enough to not expect any real blocker soon. IIRC the curve was "hmm, cute" (levels 1-3) "deep immersion" (levels 4-14) "getting old" (levels 15 - 17).
But the atmosphere, humor, graphics, and programming is all quite good for 48 hours window, great job.
Great rage game. For me, Level 4 was quite hard, level 5 much easier, level 6 in-between. Level 7 a pure IQ test that I failed. Level 8, I consider reaching the first line at the top a success.
Well rounded game, it is clever in particular that the ball has character. It could be a great teaching tool to help kids learn to hate geometry.
Graphics and mood is real nice, gameplay idea could be decent as well but it's a sort of thing that needs lot more polish to be comprehendible and playable, or at least for me, I can see other people managed to even beat the game but I have no clue how they did it with the speed of clouds disappearing. Imho without the combat mechanics and with just the cloud mechanics (which relate to LD54 theme the most) it would be an enjoyable cloud-walker game as the world is pretty nice to be in, personally I'd rather enjoy the atmosphere than rapidly add numbers.
I couldn't go past level 8 due to minimum IQ requirement, but congrats on making a proper puzzle game with polished graphics, and original one too as far as I know. What exactly is the mathematical concept used here?
I want to get into this game but I don't understand, how am I to stack 3 attacks in order to kill a cultist when I lose all attacks afer a turn?
Well, I don't know how other people managed to pay off their debt in this economical climate, I was really bad at it. And, in second playthrough the second table was glitched, it was never getting served by barista, be it me or a summon. Switching to Decor showed that it was still in drag state, maybe it has something to do with me trying to drag&drop instead of just click.
But anyway, really impressive achievement for a solo jam game, considering both the gameplay complexity and gorgeous graphics. I think what I mostly wanted to say is that the Grayscale+Red color scheme works so well, makes me inspired to try it some time with some other color for a different mood.
@bigtex Thank you for being the first commenteer! I'm kind of creeped out by the number of ratings without comments already. Yes the blocks that fall as a result of deletion fall one by one, I don't know why, they use the same animation function as blocks that get added, must be something wrong with the logic code.
Yo @wouter52 I played your game first and have a lot to say, but decided to wait for a better time as I'm too drained after submission to articulate properly.
The game's title is literally the name of the book and its author. I stole the data arrays from a website that is linked in credits. I guess spirits that help with legal issues (scales) are more rare, what each spirit helps with is based on matching words in their descriptions (though most don't match to anything and give single wildcard instead). I went with horizontal-only matching because it was giving me an enjoyable slow-game kind of feel that gives more dopamine when any match is made, but I failed in justifying that through visual cues or whatever, of course a lot of people will skip reading the instructions and will end up confused.
@heretic Thanks, "absurdly pleasant" is what I was aiming for.
Great scoping ability, you went with simplest form of casual gameplay that allowed for horizontal expansion into 5 difficulty levels. Charming connection with the theme. My only complaint is the game doesn't really get noticeably harder, but balance is hard to get right.
Graphics for monsters is amazing, UI is good, backgrounds feel out of place. Music and sounds are playing along nicely. Gameplay is probably good but hard to get into (for a LD game). There is a sense that the team cohesion wasn't great, and perhaps you needed a single game designer to keep things tight.
I kind of think the game would do better with less features. While the issue with most LD games is that surplus features don't get implemented properly, here they are implemented well but are not communicated well enough. Monster and UI graphics, audio and humor shine the most.
I love the graphics, audio, and how everything runs smoothly with some clever system in the background. Managing to survive that snipe shot for the first time was a pleasant dopamine hit. But, difficulty is too high. I tink the main problem is the interface of clicking combinations is more difficult than fun. The fact that this interface stands still while at the edge of the screen but moves with ship at the middle of the screen (same like the ship) makes it look like a design flaw. Also, the tracing particles that show correct circle start late, so when a player is late he feels like it is not his fault but the game's. Instead, there should be one quick burst in shape of a ring, followed by those other tracing particles. Or something like that, maybe you just didn't had time to finish it, considering how many stuff is in the game. But, good job in overal.
It took a bit of effort but wasn't too hard nor took too long, good thing in a LD game. Great atmosphere and theme interpretation. Gave me a bit of chills as the story is relevant to these times, evil witches have appeared and have been killing friends.
Nooo you overscoped. The graphics is great with characters, animations, and color scheme, but the game idea was too ambitious. Perhaps if you threw out the buying area there would be more time to polish the battle mechanics. It was funny to watch the little enemy guy suddenly come to life, trying to run away after each round.
Short and sweet, easy to beat, which is a good thing for Ludum Dare game. Dialogues (humor of them), characters, and graphics are very good. Gameplay so and so, drawing a sigil is a good idea but needs a lot of tweaking of character controls/speed to make it work the best.
Dialogues are hilarious. I killed 5 priests to try make Azazel like me. Also, dialogues are hilarious.
I am actually proud of surviving up to 200 while struggling with same as the most, which is not really knowing geometry that much (well I mean we all used to know this stuff at some point but then it faded from memory due to not capturing elementals). I thought I couldn't draw even triangle for my life, but then it's the squares that turned out impossible. First half of the game was me running between two squares that were kindly provided by the game and a corner of the map where I accidentally figured out the triangle procedure. Then the rest was spent constantly revining one big triangle, in what can only be described as geometrical camping. Ultimately, it was me who got captured in a rapture, caught between line drawing OCD and mind altering music. I signaled to a couple of huge blocks of ice and a bunch of lightnings to halt while I try something new, forgetting that these creatures have no faculty for reason, thereby perishing out of my own folly.
So anyway, this game commits that cardinal sin of making the player feel stupid and uneducated, but still deserves high marks due to originality, effort involved, and actually making me play for quite a while.
Who are you guys? The Lava Team should become a thing if it isn't already. While this game is not super fun as a game, it gets top grades from me in all other regards. Well, I didn't figure everything out on the first play, for example I thought the starting location is the circle so I spent a minute dancing and spinning in there like an idiot, until I noticed the path (I bet those three priestesses could already guess the world is about to end). Then, when reaching the actual circle I tried dancing inside it thinking myself the central part of the ritual, of course my self absorbtion has doomed the world. But, everything became clear on the second try. Really original game, great rendition of the theme, every piece of art was fitting, and programming must not have been trivial either. And I love that each character sprite is unique. Carry on the good work.
Really a great game, so many details to like, with the only flaw being that it is too easy to die, meaning it requires more effort than what LD crowd usually gives. I noticed the "easy" option that includes healing, but it goes against gamer instincts to choose such dishonorable option, hence it doesn't really help. Just giving players 25% more hitpoints would rectify the situation I believe. Outside of LD this would also be a great game, though with more randomization to compensate for easy dying and make replays more fun.
Relatable. Replayable. Remarkable.
Certified nighlife necromancer here, according to the game's scoring system. Congrats, really good scoping gave a well rounded game. Excellent art, the ladies show surprising amount of personality and charisma, given the lack of flesh and facial features.
If you ever made a game that deserves extending, this is the one. But no pressure, it might as well remain what it is, a self contained world that does not need validation from the outside, sort of how cats are. So, I mean, no it's not perfect in game sense, there is no loop (apart from very subtle micro ones), and the tasks bring no reward, there is a sense of overscoping but it managed to fail gracefully rather than crash and burn. Some will be frustrated by lack of clarity when it comes to goals, but like I said its part of this whole game's feel that is akin to a cat. What sets it apart is how much love was put into it, how much character and lore was packed into just three cats, and especially how enjoyable and fresh it is to move like and have goals of a cat while still within constraints of a familiar platformer controller. And all those little details, too many to list, but for example how the street is called Food Street from the cat's perspective. It even has an easter egg. When you posted describing what you'll do I was like "Umh, ok, interesting.." but you guys really brought that vision to life. Loved it, and I'm a dog person.
20 economic aids summoned, and I have to say the difficulty is just right as I kept thinking I'm done for but would always manage to do it in the last second (well, apart from that last one). It's a pity that game isn't paused after new text appears as I bet I missed plenty of humor, as starting with the level where yellow appears there is no more time for messing around (ok now that I think about it there is the pause button, duh). Really great job on concept, art, and music, it was enjoyable to give this a spin.
You always come up with something madly inventive, love it. Banner-sized dimensions are a nice touch, though I had to remove most of the page with developer tools to prevent it from scrolling down. Tbh the experience was frustrating until I figured out what "use the mouse wheel" means, but it went smooth from there, and the ending has left me wondering for days to come.
It immediately captures with smoothess, I was like "oh, blocks, should I like jump or something" but the guy just hops over them like it's nothing. The movement gives much uniqueness to the game. The game idea is great and original (or at least I haven't seen it done before). Short with easy puzzles but a nice demo.
I have to complain that you sent me into OCD state with the "choose your own music" remark, and it took me a while to digest the very first sentence as it's a bit complicated, while at the same time considering if I made the right choice of music or is it too distracting. But after getting over that it was smooth sailing.
Got the "good" willow tree ending on the first play, I guess anyone who is making reasonable decisions will get there so maybe it's a psychological test in a way. With all the blood magic going on it reminds me at parts of some Clive Barker stuff but you probably had different inspirations. Anyway, it's great that you chose to experiment, Ludum Dare is good for that, though "jam" might be more suitable when there's too much unknown. I'm sure you noticed writing is hard work, and 48 hours is quite a deadline. All in all you did manage to round it up, it was enjoyable expierience, I did try other options for a bit as well.
Well, I played a few retries but couldn't catch anything, due to controls, or at least I think the issue is the sudden acceleration that happens when changing depth. I found by accident that you can move by hopping in and out of the water, which is a very nice feature and that became my main mode of travel and the only thing I was doing for 10 minutes. Great mood overall despite gameplay issue.
I often see big teams achieve much less or produce something of low cohesion. You clearly have a method, it appears everyone did their part, I hope you keep working together.
I had to give up trying eventually as executing a man of cloth for the third time would be too much for one evening. But anyway, I had a feeling this will be a good actual gaming experience and I wasn't disapointed. Apart from the obvious, that the graphics and audio is above average, what I like in particular is thoughtful writing and how all characters who remain alive have a continuation of their stories in the next day. Quite clever spectrum of differences between characters as well, though now that I think about it the blacksmith lady was the most boring one, as I couldn't quite distil her individuality. As in, she is independent and cocky but the innkeeper already stole that show, and so all that is left is a dismissive "I'm too busy to cooperate" generic NPC, it could be that I missed something but she seemed like a spot filler. But, I get that writing is hard work as well and this is a jam game. The curse of making a high quality jam game is you have to listen to complaints about tiniest of issues :P
Hey, did you turn off the ratings or it's the website glitching?
Anyway, despite the rough gameplay with glitches and having bad luck at starting rounds, I ended up playing until the "end", due to story mode. Somehow, the text between rounds and art kept me going.
In my game there is a bug where magician wins over any card even the emperor (if I udnerstood it should lose to emperor?) but that actually addded some spice to otherwise random gameplay. It was enjoyable to give this a spin.
Genuinely loved the graphics and thoughtfully funny dialogue, also unexpected and good idea to do the minigames thing. Each (well, except the very last) seemed impossible for me to do but I ended up surprised to overcome them, which means the difficulty is just right. Though I imagine many will give up on flowers, and perhaps with circle part some won't realize there is more to the game (I actually thought that is it but kept trying to draw a better one out of pure idleness). Crocs was difficult even though I didn't had issues matching colors, purely for having to click at correct square on time, I can't imagine someone who does have color issues overcoming it but who knows. Excellent job, sir.
I'm glad that this wasn't really that much of a dating VN but a perfectly absurd little story with some details and especially an ending worth of let's say Tarantino or Coen brothers movie. I seriously like what you did with the ending and it's good that there is the option to skip to it sooner to try out variations.
Wrong theme but pretty impressive idea and implementation, this must have required some brain power.
This is a pretty good take on the theme and I appreciate the work you put into the system. I really enjoyed the story/setting and the idea. However, having spent over 30 minutes without much progress I had to quit. I do understand the meaning of some actions as I read the book early on and re-read it, but the effect on the difficulty of jobs wasn't very clear. Most successful events I had were finding an inhabited tree, preventing the evil one from entering, and not laughing at cheese in the boot (but at the price of shouting at the kid). But, like said, it was really hard to connect my actions with outcomes. Clarity of feedback is quite important in keeping a player interested. A special little game in any case, might be worth improving, perhaps even expanding it with graphics.
Don't beat yourself, what you set out to do is too ambitious for a compo or even a jam game, it needs other people to be playtesters and thorough tweaking. I get that the sense of mystery was on purpose, and it can work, if you somehow remove the confusion. For example, it seemed the difficulty was reduced for some action at some point, but at the time I noticed it too many things happened in between the action and the result (considering one screen alone may have a lot going on, like when seeing results of sending multiple people to do tasks) and I would kind of forget what I did and where; figuring this out would require writing things down or high focus, which is too much to ask for the average attention given to a jam game. But, I think it is a great idea and setting, and I believe it could work as a fully fledged game, beyond text-based.
Hmm idk, maybe there is a niche for player who like to write things down, but I'd recommend just using the empty space in the sidebar to record the last few (esoteric) actions with their locations. I forgot to mention, the lore was also amazing to read, you captured the fairy logic fairly well.
Hey, I think I know you from Mastodon, if you are that guy who made a game about transporting goods to Eastern Germany. Anyway, bravo, great writing, and humor, and what a way to deal with the theme, it was a pleasure. And I learned about personal boundaries.
Highly relatable, and I love the graphics. Some goblins stop moving towards me at some point, for the better as there was a shitload of them, and it doesn't really matter.
I tried your game now, it's a great idea and graphics are pretty, but it leaves a lot to be desired on feedback part, very important for overall experience. By feedback I mean two things, 1) due to no movement animation it was hard to say what was the move made by AI; maybe not important for gameplay, but players like to know 2) at the end I get my score but have no clue who won the game; again, maybe not important for this game, but since there is AI the players expect to know a winner. Such lack of info creates annoyance.
Those who like to rate in a fair way have to think about all other games and how justifiable it is to give a rating higher than average, considering there are games out there that will do at least twice a better job in some categories. So it is quite possible that one person may enjoy the game but is still compelled to not give higher than average rating due to fairness to other games. Also, the sad truth is your game, despite being compo, will still compete with jam games due to some people not taking the compo/jam category into much consideration.
PS I meant to write the above as a response to your thread not here, sorry.
Hi @lizz , thanks for playing! I actually checked your game out two days ago (due to Wouter loving to mention you) but am still gathering mana to write feedback. A bit underperforming these days.
So yeah, as you noted, the choices are there just to confirm the impotency of the tiny creatures. And I'm aware that this no-branching pushes the reversal of player's expectations too far. But, even if I had more time, I'd still see no point in continuing the stories, as their essences have been told before the choice has been offered to the player. I'd feel like a sellout to give players what they want, when the whole point is to make them wonder about others.
In general, lately I have been struggling with trying to figure out how a piece of interactive fiction can have both the branching narrative and provide true value at the same time, and so far I'm failing to find pro-branching arguments, but I do have some ideas for upcoming experiments.
And yup, getting the sound to work in Twine was hard, I rarely ever use it. The only thing that ended up working (with Harlowe) was HAL https://twinelab.net/harlowe-audio/#/ Basically, you download the zip, copy javascript into story's javascript window, copy CSS into story's style window, and read instructions for commands (you can play/loop and stop sounds in any passage). Use relative paths ('./music/sound.mp3'). BUT, idk how to make this work from Twine's build/test environment. I put sound folder and files where Twine project file is (which is just an .html file) and run that file directly in browser instead.
Thanks for playing @wouter52 ! I know the feeling, I'm not too enthusiastic about text-only games either, some of them are very good but it's a chore to make myself start.
Yeah, a day after publishing it occured to me that writing "tiny worms" may make someone believe that this is the only relation to the theme, but you figured it out. Thank you for kind words, much appreciated.
The thumbnail is about "And now to publish... Oh shit, I need a thumbnail!" lol. So I used the well-known symbolic of human society as a pyramid, and the arrow is showing where all the pressure of the structure is going. It is also a sort of "you are here" arrow as it is pointing at the bottom line.
I'm usually struggling with your games, the atmosphere is always enjoyable but the logic of movement is hard for my brain, and this one was hardest yet. I returned home and won but this made me feel more lucky than smart. I guess feeling lucky has its merits as well. The biggest sense of achievement was figuring out the place where I can reset the fading (while completely forgetting about "the moon will give you energy" part). I do like that these games exist, they are unique and pretty to look at.
I love the idea, but could never progress past few waves. It seems that building another church first is a good idea, as having the numbers to beat the worms is a must, thought the strange priorities of flemingtons (gathering resources over fighting) would quickly see my last church overrun. Great mood and graphics, worth expanding and balancing.
An emotional story about a mouse locked in a relationship of narcistic abuse by a never-satisfied cockroach. Really good take on the theme, I wish there is more to it, but only because I liked the premise so much.
A genuinely fun game about balancing forces that keeps adding new mechanics, while staying true to the theme, really well done. The last level is way too hard and I could only solve it by luck, but still it was fun.
This was genuinely fun, I finished all the missions except the last one, where I was on a good track and it is a good frantic fun, but the inability to get out of food shortage, now matter how tiny it is and how many buildings I destroy has put me off. Impressive achievement for a jam.
Funny idea and details, great graphics, and in technical sense it is quite an achievement, but the gameplay murdered the fun for me, I mean playing this until the end was a never ending torment (as maybe you can guess by the time it took me), and I'm only saying it harshly because I know you can do better. It took me way to long to realize I'll do better by not using LMB when near the goal, but some planets were still absolutely painful to catch up with. A general advice I'd give to anyone doing space sims is never do anything that resembles realistic physics, but that could be just my taste/handicap, and I'm aware this game wouldn't have much challenge without it, but it is a sort of thing that needs a lot of tweaking to get it right. To finish the sandwich, you prove great coding ability by making all this gravity stuff work within compo time constraint.
@wouter52 Having thought more about my perception of the game's issues (apparently not having better things to do), I'd narrow it down to this - the starry background is not giving strong enough feedback about your current direction and acceleration. And that might be almost all there is to it.
This background is taking up like 90% of the pixels on the screen and it could have been a great indicator of what is going on, that takes no effort to look at, but it is barely moving. Instead, I resort to squinting my eyes at the minimap, and it is great that you have implemented it, but it is quite a downgrade, having to switch from the whole screen to a tiny square in the corner and figuring out its tiny symbols. As it is, the main view is used only for 1) representing the setting, 2) choosing and seeing the direction the PC is pointing (but not moving) at, 3) scooping animals, 4) recognizing animals, 5) seeing the target planet position's relative direction. If it also had 6) useful movement direction&speed feedback, 7) planet distance, it would have been a much easier ride.
I think your ideas are also good, but - I was already intercepting planets sometimes, thanks to the minimap, but the hardest one to wait for and catch was Youtube, idk why exactly. And ofc acceleration tweaking would help.
I couldn't make myself try the bad options even though they are easier -- I mean, yeah my game is nothing but bad options, but when given choice I always pick more positive ones -- so I clicked the little buggers away at each step. It was a good choice to make them sad-looking rather than some vile creatures, I almost felt bad about popping them, which correlates with how misery can, in a way, become a friend, and getting rid of it is not an easy choice at the time. There is nothing to critique here, the game is what you aimed it to be, goal accomplished. The art is impressive, and you seem to have a good knowledge of renpy, well done.
Well, this is one good way to deal with branching narrative - clearly have playful fun with writing and put branches at almost every step. In which case you end up with too much work on your hands for one weekend and end up with TBCs, but short sessions are perfect for average attention span given to an LD game. A bit awkward that one can't replay the game without fully closing the tab and opening again from the link, but I'm not the type who replays obsessively to see all possible endings anyway, had three sessions in total (banana - taken away by owl / bluberries - squeezing under door / rolling down the desk). Though well writen in general, there were some more inventive descriptions where I had to put in much focus to understand what is going on, it could be just me being stupid at the time.
Setting is quite good, and having the main character be a shapeshifter is both original and a good way to set up infinite possibilities of progressing the story. My feeling of the character throughout the game is with a bit of sadness and pity, I guess intended, it is a bottled little creature dependent on its master after all. The choice of music is perfect. I think that with IF it is not a mistake to make music an optional recommendation, some IF fans prefer to be given just text while retaining full control over what music (if any) to listen to. In any case, you made a solid start here, congrats!
Six survivors, lord of the flies I am. It was interesting just figuring out how it all works. And watching all the flies dropping dead simultaneously when utilizing a wrong assumption to the fullest. I had more fun than with some games where a range of mechanics was implemented. Nice existential game with quite good graphics and general atmosphere, good job.
Pretty good, it may be linear but good effort was placed into animations and theme interpretation. I enjoyed the story and music (you can't go wrong with strong basses).
34 I never played a stacker (or however the genre can be called) this crazy, it is good that they stick and so more fun things happen other than just the boring old tumbling down, like how the entire structure can bend over one way and then you can balance it back. Quite excellent graphics, audio, mood, theme.
Brilliant and inventive matching puzzles, or at least I don't remember seeing anything like this before. As for production values, I thought there was a bigger team behind this, quite impressive achievement for two people. It was a pleasure to play this.
Damn, you were on to something, there is a sense of awe of what this could have been. Should've called in sick. Though, I might be wrong, but there seems to be general overscoping issue so you perhaps wouldn't be able to finish it anyway. Looks unique enough to put in some effort and finish it post-jam.
Well this war brilliant and definitely more than what I expected. A very gentle, gradual introduction to game rules. Adorable in so many ways. I hope more people will make themselves download this.
Pretty amazing, especially considering it's compo, and (I guess) your first Ludum Dare game as well. Graphics and controls are on point and focus only on what is important. For all its cute graphics, the game manages to have lovecraftian moment ("you're rotting away with the apple" lol). There is a minor glitch where sometimes I need to hold mouse on the bug a long time, or retry holding several times until the timer and the game actually starts, not sure if it's just me being stupid. Keep creating, you're good at this!
Please accept my apologies, I have failed to play your game during the voting period.
As usual with your games, I end up surprised that I managed to finish it, as they seem so alien and mysterious at start. A bit harsh to get a full reset on death, it took me 3 retries with dying of hunger in 2nd retry just a step away from food while in the final phase (shield). It is an optimization game that is hard to get right on the first try without a lot of luck.
It was a lovely audio visual experience that I won't pretend to understand the meaning of, and there is probably no need to, I was both the princess and the prince and overcame the challenges, yay.
Let me just say, the effort you have placed into "mute sound" and "mute music" options was wasted one because both are superb. The game is good, I was gonna say the level design isn't great but I found myself playing until solving the game so some good calls must have been made there. In overall the game is a charismatic example of created-by-humans.
Amazing work, and the idea to interpret the theme in a sort of Heart of Darkness way. I loved that NPCs were getting increasingly insane.
But the curse of making an interesting, playable game for LD is that flaws will be criticized more, as people get more annoyed, so here is my critique :) The choice of cursor color was awful. Of all the things that I can forgive if they become confusing in the messy fight situation, not knowing where the cursor is isn't one of them. Paired with sometimes not knowing where my character is, this made the game much harder than what it should be. I simply had to give up level 4, not because of level's difficulty but because of the feeling that the game should be blamed for me constantly failing to not die. Sad, because simply changing the cursor image would make the experience so much better.
There is also the unavoidable political issue, I understand you just wanted to create cruel world vibes but with polarity going on today the game will most likely attract the fascist type of crowd.
Still, pretty exceptional work for a LD game, it will stick around in my memory for a while.
After a curious flop that was PEPE's wall of pride, Wouter is back big time and reunited with Lizz yaay, this game was lovely! The only complaint I can have is getting hopelessly stuck in a corner wall on levels 1 and 2, other than that this game is well beyond average of what a Ludum Dare entry can deliver.
It is a combination of collection, exploration, pipe dream-style puzzles, and a bit of a flappy bird that works very well. It must have taken quite some discipline and experience to program this without dying (or at least I wish you a speedy recovery if you did). It was exciting to realize from the very first level that what seemed to be a secret area is in fact one, promising further exploration opportunity throughout levels.
The graphics is enchanting, beautiful shapes and pastel-like colors, even the background which seems just a single-color gradient but features graininess that adds some magic.
Excellent work, thanks for making this.
Interesting mixture of platformer and memory game. I love that the pitch of the ant's wail is in perfect harmony with the music.
Won in 01:18, yay. I love the graphics, the scenery, and that you made the camera always look where it should be.
First few minutes I wasn't sure what is the point, the obstacles and edges were easy to avoid and the descent seemed infinite. Then I remembered to try speeding up with W and that created some high adrenaline fun with jumping after hitting obstacles, and also accidentally made me discover that simply cutting paths by falling down is the best way to win, though it still took me a few deaths. It was interesting, good job.
So cool that you can just relax and play this with one hand while enjoying the 2D art and that adorable ship. Congrats on finishing your first compo game, and you even made music! Looking forward to seeing some of your progress in future.
Ah, now that's one proper Ludum Dare art game, it was really deep. And, idk but the poem seems original as well? I couldn't find reference to it and didn't spot any clarification.
I tink you are green to continue the development, but honestly I don't see it a fully featured game, rather a short experience with more polish that you didn't have time for. For example, I think the generic 3d-clipart person can remain but the anchor should go full 3D with heavy, rusty feel to it. And of course other graphical details but I wouldn't go overboard, you probably shouldn't want AAA look. There are also playability issues to tinker with - to name some, the part with projectiles is too hard (I never managed to pass) and it is easy to get lost when out of cam like when pushed by the vertical fish. You don't want such hinderence to get in the way of people experienceing your art (which is why getting the games-as-art balance right is hard). Anyway, thanks for making this.
Thanks for that superhuman effort @wouter52 , well, I guess what I failed to assert perfectly well, is that this is a post-apocalyptic future where the history as we know it is remembered only through myths and fables, with any physical evidence of the past being researched and often misinterpreted by these "collectors". Or, maybe they misinterpret them on purpose because no one would want to listen to the real history as it is too alien and complicated at this point, perhaps even offending. I can only wish it was the schrooms.
The actual LD58 entry I am still working on and will publish, the only lesson learned is that if I use my own JS framework I may randomly get overwhelmed by bugs. Thank you once again for your kind effort.
As with your previous games, along with being a piece of art it is also a very hard game of memory and optimization. Though I think this is the first one I could not solve (or at least wasn't up to keep trying past several deaths). The best I could do is die while on my way with 5th head. Still, it was fun figuring out how the world works, while soaking in the psychological and mysterious vibes. Seems graphics is larger than usual which I liked, and music is perfect mood setter.
Wow, a great case study in how to achieve variety in an efficient way.
You really got this Ludum Dare thing figured out, spewing nothing but hits lately, well done! This one is a good mix of functional, fun product and artistic inventiveness. Nothing really to complain about except that the submit button is wonky, though I'm still not sure if that is on purpose because failing to click the button is the only way to find the bonus item (stapler), maybe I missed some more in my hurry to make the button work.
Making us draw things that we (most of us) don't know what they are is a very nice touch as well. The two of you clearly compliment each other well and I hope you keep creating as a duo. PS - I know you (Wouter) are not into IF so please don't feel compelled to play my "game".
Ah, we meet again, the makers of =< 1001 Nights and Witch Contractor. Yes this is quite a unique game and was a pleasure to give it a spin. Though lack of time put in was evident in some details, the accuracy of code did not suffer, everything gameplay related works just fine. I was annoyed that esc for fullscreen didn't really work, well it would work for a split second just to taunt my eyes with visual glory that could have been. And you never really explained what the other thing is that I switch to with Q/E, though with trial and error I figured out it is some sort of eye spanking paddle.
Btw don't play this piece of crap I have in my LD profile as my LD58 game, a more appropriate entry is this other thing I made postmortemly https://krafter.itch.io/the-goblins-bag
Brilliant gameplay, with gathering items in the blackboard section, and all the work on graphics is admirable. I couldn't reach very far, though.
Awesome graphics (in my opinion) but feedback sound was lacking, like when picking up crystals or getting hit. In any case, it is always a pleasure to see LD game that goes beyond in inventiveness, great job for your first game.
Good job on colors, sound and atmosphere. And managing to do all those powerups. The way in which genres are joined makes the game awkward to play but that adds to humor if anything.
Always refreshing to see a LD entry made in C. Really did enjoy it for a while. Graphics and delivery is so cool I wish I wasn't as confused most of the time. I never did learn what shooting bullets is for.
Nice way to make paper rock scissors interesting! I like the clean black on white style, and drawing style is great.
Outstanding amount of goals achieved for a compo, and a fun game. I am interested in new ways of implementing the turn based genre for some time, this game is a nice example. Using 3D program like axis handle for movements is a nice touch. It would be great if camera could move by holding the right mouse button so I don't have to use two hands. Graphics is cool as well. Considering the amount of things you did well for such a short time, I won't be focusing on any flaws, that would just feel wrong.
Very nice. My only problem is the game is too easy for a long time at start, then by the time you reach higher level and die you get all the way back to a long and easy game. GJ on sound and graphics.
One of reasons I love this is because I remember Qbasic Gorillas. Watching enemy turn from 1st person is an interesting feature, really adds to the atmosphere. The game idea definitely has potential.
Feel free to continue this genre, there should be more (good) dialogue based games. For some reason, the whole first person four directional RPG thing works well with jokes you write, I really had some clean fun playing this. Loved waiter's reaction after setting wizard on him.
16 min 25 secs, 30.54934 wpm. Great blend. I like how words get more complex but are also related to what is going on, it is as if you are typing what people on the site were buzzing about on that day.
It is good you published, as unfinished as it is. The game is a psychedelic walker if anything. I just wish you went for Jam instead and published a more complete version. Great music!
Love the hand drawn style, there should be more hand drawn games. At first I only used hat towers as I failed to read up on what mouse wheel does. Catching half beats was fun. But when I tried other two towers it became unplayable hard for me. Green signaling color, while psychedelic, doesn't really help explain when the right moment is. Nice work in overall.
I didn't go past score 30, perhaps because I played it too early in the morning. Killing zombies with math does feel satisfying though, you managed to produce a smooth gameplay here, nice work. Calculation difficulty is just right, feels easy at start but as things get tough I may end up failing something as simple as 8/8. A tip, I find the game easier if you use numpad numbers.
There is nothing much left to say here, except GJ. Hardly any flaw to report here, except that moment when the confessor climbs the barrel and stays in the air. I'm not sure if I did something right with the order of instruments or is it an expected end, but I did manage to save that soul in the end. I'm not a fan of torture but this was some inventive stuff.
You manged to achieve a lot there. Old school RPG map is what bought me but combat part has impressive amount of complexity due to those simple but diverse factors. And character violence is for real, some of those letters were mean and fearless. Love that juicy sound of projectile connecting. I'd say this should do well in Mood category, I mostly kept playing because ASCII RPG atmosphere felt good.
Pretty smart, Tragedy has taken over life and Comedy has died but its spirit lives on, and is essential to carry on. Puzzles are well balanced, decent sound and graphics (for a LD entry). I did had fun and probably some emotional reaction as well. I don't like CX controls, it takes some processing power to recall which one is for what. I'm not really sure which two genres were combined, looks like puzzle platformer with some dialogues, all of which can often be seen in one genre.
Warning, spoiler alert *** At start I didn't feel like I can go through with clicking, but first signs of land art made me want to earn faster movement just to look around. Sorry, I didn't feel like gathering ten thousand cents to open the door, but you did manage to squeeze out about 5 or so thousand clicks in total. Coins not playing sounds when you pick them is a major let down, perhaps this was on purpose and has artistic purpose, I will never know, but it made me feel bad that I can't hear that satisfying sound, but then again art is about causing feelings, so there. Candies with colliders and physics are a nice touch, I was about to push one off the edge but then I felt sorry for it, then I remembered it will mostly likely be stopped by the same barrier which prevented my jump earlier so I went for it, as predicted the candy remained unharmed. That world is a safe place if anything. Scenery was alright to look at in a humble way, as I climbed higher I kept wishing for a bit more impressive view. Nice work in general.
Top atmosphere, caused by good sound, graphics and programming. Educational as well, the more you go berserk with fire, the harder it comes back at you. Haven't found it to be fun for long, but it is clear that each of you did your parts great. With this being a jam entry, I wish you took some more time to add a powerup or some variation like that.
Very nice entry. Wish I could play it in full screen. It's nice how jumping around can lead you into secret rooms. I didn't manage to get far though, as fun as being shocked and insta-killed by The Face is, eventually I got put off by randomness of it, or at least I failed to find any connection with playtime or current location to it's spawning. But it seems there is more to it than what I managed to find so far, I only saw surfaces of some puzzles but couldn't really get in deeper, so I'll def try to play more when I have more time. The game sure deserves more ratings, I think some people maybe give up due to possible confusion with text input being able to accept both single letter and two letter commands, experience would be smoother if keys which are not used (not L,R,J) were disabled.
Too hard to get into, I reread instructions twice and still I don't understand what "match similar tokens" mean, where are those tokens, how to get them. Pity as I can see there is some talent behind the game and you put a lot of effort into this, my advice is next time go for something much simpler and focus on things you are good at. Making a complex concept work is a skill which takes a lot of practice, but before you get there you should focus on trying to make something as playable as possible. After you start getting playable part right you can start making more and more complex concept which will work, at least that is my humble opinion.
Yes, I noticed your coding is excellent, but even after reading instructions you posted above I still don't get HOW you match tokens, I don't see them as anything but static objects on the right side of the screen. It feels like you are showing me a bunch of colorful mushrooms planted inside a box made of unbreakable glass and you say "just match three, it is easy enough" but I have no idea how to make them do anything. Could be just me, as it seems some other reviewers have figured out what to do, or maybe WebGL version is buggy, I tried clicking everything and everywhere and couldn't figure out how to interact with token map. As for failings to simplify ideas, maybe you are too smart and have troubles identifying with majority of people who will play the game. You can try making your mind blank and imagining what it feels like to see your game for the first time, or, since you mentioned wife's support, use her to find questions which need answering or complexities which should be removed. Sorry for writing so much but it feels bad that you have such coding knowledge yet I was unable to get fun out of your effort, just trying to help.
Aaah, so you're supposed to drag&drop.. The instructions didn't even mention the usage of mouse, I only tried clicking. Perhaps drag&drop is standard for those games but I just never played them tbh. Well, great then.
Very nice, especially love the art style of large 2D characters. At first it seems very hard and I thought I won't take more than a couple minutes of this, but eventually it turns out the difficulty is just right to make it constantly challenging. Enjoyable game really. My name on scorebord is Asdfadfsasdf.. :D
I never expected this to happen, but I ended up playing to the end and won on the first try. The best way to play is to go through textual parts as fast as possible so the action part feels less like an interference and more like natural rhythm of the game. I like how you can risk your health or camels to loot more supplies during the combat phase. GJ on gameplay, graphics, style and sound design.
Humor behind the game concept and how it starts is superb. Love the descriptions as well. As for gameplay, I did play MUDs a lot and a few text adventures, but prospect of having to solve match three game inside a text adventure is a bit of a torture for me personally, of course that is part of the humor of the whole thing, and I'm sure people who enjoy memory challenges will find it way more fun. The game can easily crash, when there is a lot of wall bouncing and perhaps fast typing, not sure. I'm curious as perhaps i may use godot engine in future, do you think those crashes are caused by rapid programming or is it engine quirks?
Why the hell does it say "safe" when I get raped by dark forces two seconds after xD Really amazing atmosphere and play with effects. It feels like you really knew what you are trying to achieve with the atmosphere and you did it. There is a certain base which I fail each time, for some reason I can't get to it before those nice people from hell ambush me, and I can't really do anything to them either it is just a strike after strike, so eventually I had to give up due to repetitiveness. Custom built 3D engine was a great decision, I don't think you would achieve this unique look in unity without spending too much time.
Very good idea and a challenging game. Good job on the characters. I'd prefer if weapon range wasn't as big (happens that I paint all the tiles adjecent to but not the one i was supposed to). With this approach you thought of, you could implement an actual image paint, like if all tiles in a room had some correct color they should be assigned to in order to see the whole image, but yea that would take lot more time to make and you chose to focus on design of character which is a good decision as well. GJ.
Well, to be honest, I was thinking "I don't like this", yet I kept playing and even came close to winning a few times, so there is definitely something to it. Good job on atmosphere/3D room and the gameplay itself is fun, so I'm not sure what is it that bothered me, perhaps the feeling that the theme didn't inspire you too much. And at times I wished I could throw that bottle or burger at cards, a side effect of this being a physics game. Rules are nice and simple, the game in overall is good.
Nice idea, sad you didn't had time to wrap it up, but seeing as this was Jam entry I feel you could have done more. But then again, I always like seeing an entry which is not made in Unity, which probably means you had harder time making it. You know all the flaws so I won't be mentioning them here. Perhaps do a post-compo version.
Nice, an original game yet easy to grasp on how to play. Level difficulty seems well paced, each level makes you try-hard a bit more.
Was attracted by graphics and premise of city building. Alien world and especially monsters are well drawn. At first I was more into the idea of quietly building a town, but those monsters kept popping up so it all looked like a bad trip, combined with lovely at first but eventually trollish sounds that they make (I had to set system volume to 4 out of 100). At some point I realized I could block off access to the pyramid by building houses all around it, after I done that a state occurred which can only be described as victory, since all the aliens stopped moving :D Haven't tried to continue playing past that point since all there was left to do was build more of what has already been built and keep spreading on like a fungi. Good job on managing to do a city builder in compo time, the setting is charismatic.
Compo version has the thing where after a few days monsters start infinite spawning, I had to try post-compo version since it looked like there is some building branch complexity behind the game. Sadly I couldn't see much of that, all I could do was upgrade town hall once and build houses (which seem to not have purpose) or maybe I failed to figure something out. The game concept is more promising than it appears on the first look, shooting action is smooth and ability to build stuff along the way is cool. it would be great if there was more useful stuff to be built, good idea in any case. The way in which stronger zombies enter (running right at you and sound effect) is well done, gives them some character. Zombies wanting to kill the mayor in particular score some humor points.
Maybe it is true that the game is easy, but I had a feeling success was coming due to my usage of tactics. To be fair I never did try randomly mass spawning ships. Sound effects are pretty decent and music is top, even though it was created by artificial intelligence, if I got that right. Graphics are not very pretty but are precise and detailed, if only the background image was prettier, the image itself is not bad but for me it doesn't work as background for red and blue ships. As for theme I am not sure which genres were combined here, I guess the way ships are selected and spawned has something to do with genre no 2 but it felt like one genre, spaceship RTS. It is fun though.
The title+screen attracted me instantly. After few minutes with compo I decided it is worth giving the post-compo version a try. I like that you went with Hexen/Heretic style, it is probably what kept me playing despite being aware that I will not bother to complete the solitare challenge. It got me exploring, decent job on the game world with rewards hidden in passages. Graphics and monsters are very good considering the pixelage you were going with. Enemies sometimes end up taking too many hitpoints before dying, but I guess you needed a way to make survival harder. There was a funny part at start when I met the first monster, I instinctively retreated and it did the same so I realized he is mirroring me on forward axis and I can make him move back and forth (worth mentioning the proper AI sets in when you get close enough to the monster).
I'd say pixel animations are very well done, although I am not sure if I saw what I was supposed to, to me it looked like the dog is running on two legs and leaning forward in a hurry, which is adorable. Dog/wolf is quite charismatic, it would be great if he could wear a musketeer style hat at some stage. No sound was a downer but I quickly forgot about that since the game managed to drag me into some sort of personal experience where after a few respawns due to troubles with the first rabbit it was time for me to move onward which I did and immediately fell into the first pit without even thinking of pressing the jump key as the texture didn't look like the pit at the time, which was kind of hilarious, all in all the game was somehow teasing me along to the very end and that is a good thing. Vector and pixel graphics are not really genres so I don't think you should score high on Theme ratings, or maybe I'm wrong I'll look it up. You should definitely keep up with pixel animations, vectors don't look as fun. Nice background tho distant leaves are almost the same color as the sky, or maybe I am just being color-blind here.
@that-guy thanks! I had a feeling someone must have already thought of it, but was too scared to google it as physics based tetris was the only idea that was inspiring me at the time.
@jose-pedro-dias sadly I didn't had time to add some clear in-game tips, you should be holding the up key most of the time to make the piece slow down and eventually float upwards. It is true that it would feel more comfortable if pieces were slower but then it would have much less of that annoying physics game character. @flatgub @theslate Thank you all for giving it a go.
@ja-viera thanks for giving it a go, maybe you need to hold directional up button more to slow down and get more control of the shape, or perhaps you are at that point where you learned to do that and are still finding it hard :D I somehow manage to get up to 5k score, just saying. I don't expect you to play further, but I will write some hints down here so I don't forget them and may post them later. At critical times (before contact), fast clicking of button opposite to the current rotation direction will slow the peace down enough to nudge it into a good place, but it sometimes really takes a lot of clicking left-right around. Altering the altitude or bouncing of the wall can help move the piece left and right without causing that annoying expected rotation (but getting a different rotation instead, which may turn out to work). While the pile is still below the half, pressing space can sometimes help fix the situation, if the pile gets higher than half, just the weight of it may eventually cause some lines to score and disappear. Mind that in compo game version, line checks are done only at moments when a new piece spawns. You need at least eight blocks approx. lined up horizontally. If a piece touches something just as it spawns, it'll be game over (it was the only way to implement game over condition in physics based tetris without losing time on thinking of and writing complex code). @ripter I am sorry to hear that, I just build the mac version and hope for the best, I cannot really test it. More of a reason to post browser version (but not until tomorrow). Thanks for letting me know!
Fun stuff, and pixelated cowboys are always cool, my only grievance is the cowboy is not really dancing. The idea is good but prototype is missing a lot of details, perhaps do postjam version.
Amazing work. Once you get used to controls and web system you can fly around the world with great confidence. I don't think the game follows the theme very much as it is not clear which genres are mixed, but I'm glad you made this, the world needs more spider sims.
Very polished. Can hardly spot anything that looks unfinished, good job on that. The game is as annoying as promised, with the ball constantly interfering, creation and destruction are locked in a struggle. If it had some more stuff to my advantage, like a chance to pick up extra ball (life) I'd definitely spend more time playing it. I went for an annoying tetris game as well, check it out when you get to.
When someone says it is their first LD game I usually don't expect much, this was surprisingly good. I think I played it to the end (if last level is where Next button stops working). My only complaint is the game doesn't relate to the theme much (as there are no incompatible genres that I noticed). If you plan to publish more polished version of the game, I'd suggest to focus on making commands more responsive. I liked relaxing atmosphere and simple colors, good job.
Very nice. Not too hard either, which means more time to enjoy floating around. It is great that you managed to add a variety of sea life with different pull resistances. My only complaint is holding mouse buttons would feel more relaxing than having to spam click them. Overall great music, atmosphere and inventiveness.
How to Play page was the first thing that impressed me, I never have willpower to do it right. The only problem is I couldn't go back to the menu so I had to refresh, perhaps because bottom of player was cut off (I played it on gamejolt)? Also each death demanded browser refresh. The game itself is cool, you truly combined two games into something third by having enemy pad reflect bullets. Graphics is decent but personally I'd prefer more colors, tho I realize it is a style choice. Good job for such a short time.
Nice, a combination of genres and something everyone would like to do irl. Each music track gives a different tone to the game, each feels like there is a different background story behind what is going on. Switching "tilesets" between restarts is a nice touch. I went for noscope rifle as the most attractive option, and tried all others, but it is only with AK that I managed to win. This has a lot to do with the fact that there is no invert mouse option, please add invert Y option when making FPS, the option exists in all 3rd/1st person games because people who use it find it very hard to aim without it (btw it should only invert mouse look and nothing else). Idea is brilliant and the implementation good enough to keep me busy for 30 minutes (I played jam version). Very nice and relaxing entry.
Fun game, great style. Love the frame animation going on inside the core, makes it all look alive and responsive. I was thinking I'm doing well, until I noticed it says "Number of lives: -52". It's great that you got to add all those powerups. GJ!
Beauty, especially the close up hand drawn animations. I'm sure you would do better background if you had more time, but that statue, with its muscle detail and facial expression is quite funny. The game itself is inventive and well delivered, however for me it is quite hard to play. I have learned that thinking about ASDW as letters while playing the game can be a mind bending challenge. Good job on finishing the combat system that you intended to make, some of the stuff on the would-do list that you posted are not very realistic for a LD entry. I'm glad you focused on the two character quality and gameplay.
Date successful! xD Good job on graphics and style, ofc it doesn't really look like old graphics but the limited palette is relaxing for eyes. Humor behind the concept is top-notch. I'd like to see what horrors those unavailable girls would bring. Not every written line was funny but I guess lines take time to polish like anything else. Amazing work considering you were solo. Oh, and I like how the main character runs like a girl.
Not a fan of football but I killed the boos and landed a goal, GG. I lost a ball at some point and was about to give up but when I found the boss I just had to go get it. Interesting choice and gameplay.
Eventually I realized dungeons are generated, I must have went 20+ levels down hoping there is an end game. I think you proved the concept can run smooth as a game, gj, all that is missing is a large variety of interactive objects to justify the text interface. Randomly generated puzzles would get me excited as well. Firing letters works smooth. It is kind of close to how brains work, we think of an action while focusing on object. The monsters are too cute to be killed but oh well.
Well done, at first it seems there is not much to the game, but as you buy upgrades and levels get harder it starts to shine in it's frantic glory. I like colors used for background, colors used for cars not that much but their drawings are good.
Very cool. A lot of LD41 entries handled the theme by combining genres in an awkward way, which requires less inventiveness, your combination actually works well. One annoying thing is I couldn't see my exact score after death. Very nice graphics and music, as for sound effects I wished they are a bit juicier, but this is still much better than not having them at all. This could turn out a quality stand alone game, if you go for it maybe replace the gears concept with something cooler and add upgrades to individual parts or different types or parts to be collected. GJ!
My experience was I got spammed by upgrades every 3-6 seconds, not sure if that was bug or intended but I managed to roleplay that this is due to may unfair favors from the government. The story / premise is very good, the gameplay idea is fine and I could feel getting a bit hooked into the idea of blocking signals, but lack of time available to put into the final game idea is evident. Considering you had only around one day the result is damn impressive.
Awesome mood, and graphics are way better than what it seems from thumbnail. I got invested in the story but then got stuck at the third signal, the DB guy in the quarry, I just couldn't figure out how to make location and frequency match and then I got frustrated and went outside to try radio but got wrecked while walking away from antenna. Then it told me I have to play again which is always a downer in a LD game so I quit. But I am interested in how the story resolves so I'll try tomorrow when I regain some juice.
Most awesome beginning of the game with atmospheric music, story (love the story btw), and visuals. However, while I did go past the first level (if tutorial level can even count as first), the rest of the game demands focus a bit beyond what Ludum Dare crowd can usually provide, also some things in that next level were not working as I expected they should so that broke my will to continue further.
Ah finally, some live action graphics. And 8 directional too, well done. It felt good to move about in such environment again.
It took me 5+ minutes to understand that signal strength reveals proximity of targets, after which the whole deal became more playable. Honestly I can't say gameplay is very fun but I appreciate any form of experimentation in Ludum Dare games, and we can never really know what works until we try. Of course, it was funny to see game instructions written on palm and all that phone bouncing.
Interesting concept, like Elite but you are that person doomed to be stuck in one station with the dead-end job of responding to requests of pilots. The atmosphere is pretty good, and it is funny that your radio plays dark moody music while you're on a dark moody station. Love the button sounds.
Cons: the surrounding space was too bright so it didn't fill me with space dread, white crosshair is hard to see against bright yellow buttons, and start-over-on-failure mechanics I'm not a fan of (though it's fair if there are no surprises to see in following days, in that case disencouraging the player from continuing is the right thing to do).
Hi, I am usually able to resolve your games but here I am totally stuck for days now, I just can't figure out how to not fade away after the first tv entrance, despite getting all the refills on the first level. Any chance of some tips?
Hello again, sorry it took me ages to have another go and win the game. Interestingly, this time you have slimmed down the game's scope to basically one puzzle with two - three small challenges to figure out. With your games' history I was expecting large spaces across multiple dimensions, but I think it is a good decision to make it smaller and easier for people to finish (though ironically this is the one I failed to win without asking for hints, and I see some others have overthought things).
The game is a world of its own as always, with childlike yet vivid and mysterious drawing style and awesome music. Stars on the sky alternate, a cloud moves, such tiny details that won't be appreciated by many but are important. Also I loved the environment change after the kids get rescued.
Spectacular amount of tension for such simple rules, well done.
Both cute and technicallz well done, but I just can't figure out how to use the rocket ingredients (though I'm sure I identified them on the map), and I'm surprised that no one asked for or provided clarification in comments.
Now this is classic Wouter52 style - create a big gorgeous world that I want to immerse myself in, and then torment me with a gameplay challenge on every step :sweat_smile: In this case the demon's name is Stamina, the unforgiving punisher of straggling drifters. Its only remedy, the tiny mushrooms, are hard to see and barely ever where I want them to be. Yet I have managed to get into the top 5 yesterday, so it can't be that bad. Though it would be more up my alley if time was not a factor but rather the distance travelled, that's just me getting too old for fast games.
An exquisite entry in most aspects, it leaves me with questions. How long did it take to associate "signal" with mycelium network? How much research did go into this? Who drew this adorable graphics? Are there any shrooms left?
Congrats on making yet another oddity of gaming within the jam's time limit.
My, what inventiveness, I'm speechless. I hope you guys get to top 10 in Theme or Innovation.
For those who are up for some groovy new shapes:
AwAAAAAAAAAHCwYGIQwhDB4zADAYAAYDKBIoEgUSDBIhDCESIBAIAQIkABIMLT8tITMhMx4tAAkkCSQJABwZHBkcISEeHgwhJBMJNiQJ
I appreciate the uniqueness of the idea, the hand drawn style, and the gameplay itself is pretty good. I was ready to give up trying to memorize signal shapes from the very start, but the gradual expansion of shapes helped it stick somewhat. Until I reached 7 signals per landing, though I did manage to get some mostly I'd fail those, and mostly due to the keyboard challenge. Pretty fine entry, you should be proud.
It took me some solid five minutes of gradual learning until I could figure out the whole story. I think you did a great job here and the only flaw is that the most obvious combo is the best way to win (maybe in following levels there is more variation but I get stuck on 2nd level despite gettimg my avg time well below the pass time). Other than that the really awesome graphics and the feel of watching those cute cars move along is very satisfactory.
Perhaps symbolism for trying to get some work done while under corporate politics? A fine LD game in any case, I love how you just came up with whatever rules you needed to make it work, and graphics is more than meets the eye. Extra points for the infinite scrolling clouds. Maybe the green light frequency should have been a bit different, atm it can easily soft lock you within last 10 or so seconds.
Cool graphics and idea (though button sound would complete the experience so much but hey you can't have it all). Sadly at part with long tunnel with lasers the interface for some reason gave up and kept registering my left as forward and so I got lasered after some seconds spent in panic, and playing it all over again is a bit too punishing due to game's speed. But still really impressive for your first LD entry.
A bit odd that the only option in game settings is to turn the music off, for I do not know who would wish to stop these divine digital hums.
The controls are infuriating but hey a lot of things are allowed when making your own game. Good vibes.
Excellent. It was interesting how after a while I became adept at catching those tiny CSSs. Also the duck world gives the whole thing this air of mystery, like I can't confidently say that I wasn't just programmed to be an assassin.
@hammeredzombie To kill the presiduck? To answer your question, I was confused at first and only spotted the message because it was somewhere in the header, and it took a few page changes. After that, for a while I was still able to only spot it when it would appear in header area. So becoming "adept" was gradual process and I had a lot of practice because only on the 3rd life did I figure out that I need to type in the whole phrase, and I went through a lot of pages until then.
Brilliant way to cross theme with story, and it wasn't too hard nor too easy. And imho the story does not need more expanding as someone suggested, it told just enough for a LD game, and not getting into specific details helps the really important elements to surface.
Looking forward to try this when it's ready, good luck
This entry found me while in the right mood for a trippy yet simple game, great job. I imagine the sphere deformation wasn't too hard to implement for you, yet you have managed to base the entire gameplay on it with much success.