Project Orpheo by zondarg 2021-04-28T01:47:13Z
That right path feels a lot harder than the left path! I tried going that way back up and there is very little timing between the laser gates and turrets.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Kraemahz
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Dreamer's Depths | compo | 761 | 2.97 | 3.08 | 2.80 | 2.83 | 2.69 | 2.63 | 3.05 |
That right path feels a lot harder than the left path! I tried going that way back up and there is very little timing between the laser gates and turrets.
Screenshot from 2021-04-26 12-31-41.png
Got trapped on an island digging down with no drills left. Pretty fun!
The core of this is absolutely solid and looks and feels as good as a fully released game. Love the atmosphere of the sounds, the lighting effects. The mechanics feel solid and responsive. Here are some things you can improve if you want to keep making it better:
* The keys are different from the instruction text I think? I had to use K for the torch instead of Z. * It would be fun if the torch had a game mechanic, like you have to grab them from the walls. * The ghosts are pretty hard to see, and I definitely died to one hiding behind a waterfall once. Maybe remove their alpha when in radius of the torch. * The chasers need a game mechanic to deal with otherwise they can just trap you and get you. Maybe they run from the torch in their face? * I had a lot of trouble getting torches to go where I wanted them to. Maybe a throw arc that you can control by holding throw and tapping move keys?
I compiled it Screenshot from 2021-04-26 12-07-46.png
But it's hard to rate as a game because it doesn't seem there is a core loop that's working. If a wait a few seasons the game ends regardless of what I do. So in the spirit of DF: losing is fun!
I enjoyed the rewarding aspect of being fast and skillful with your drill meant a very fast extraction and otherwise... a huge battle. It did feel like there was a bug with the controls because about halfway through a particularly hideous extraction I would lose control completely and the drill would do nothing but drive down into the fella's jaw... ouch. Happened both times I played (linux + touchpad)
There don't seem to be many random spawns near the edges which means you just kinda let it run and score high sometimes. I just left it going and got up to 900m+ until something spawned at the edge. So I guess the main problem here is the game lacks interactivity when you are doing "well". It would probably be better to spawn platforms from a list of patterns that force you to move back and forth rather than relying on purely random spawns (it's one of those cases where a game would be better if you faked randomness rather than actually having it be more random).
I like it! The mood was great. Just a slight nitpick on level design: when you first encounter the ambush predators you get 3 in quick succession before you have a chance to read the hint how you defeat them. That first one should be higher so you have time to read and not get hit by the next 2. Felt a little unfair with that many all at once.
This feels like a Monty Python sketch somehow.
The main game loop is really fun and engaging. I played it to the end! This works perfectly as a mobile game.
I was a bit confused by what triggered the police because at the top of the map I could just hypnotize people with the police driving by and it would never trigger. Maybe the radius is too small for them to "see" you from parts of the map?
Overall I liked it! There are some problems with the web version (you can't see your life and some of the other UI is off screen). I had to mess around a bit to figure out all the mechanics. After I did though I found the core game loop to be fun
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I tried to fix most of the issues in playtesting but it was sometimes a struggle to get areas exactly how they needed to be. I'll try to fix it in a patch later.
@jibberwocky Yeah sorry about that. I knew the sounds were out of balance but I was right up against the deadline and all the energy went out of me as soon as I finished.
@minibobbo Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback! You are absolutely correct about the time crunch, I finished the boss in the last hour before the compo ended and that day was something like 16 hours of straight work.
I appreciate the tool I was using to make the ramps since it made the game possible (https://github.com/SirRamEsq/SmartShape2D) but it had some really sharp edges around quick content creation that made me cut a bunch of level content due to some of the automation breaking pretty consistently.
My animations definitely need work, this was the first time I ever did pixel animation :laughing:. And sorry you had to do it all over again, I didn't have time for polishing but I figured it was such a short game resetting wouldn't take that much time since you had already seen most of the obstacles.
Solid. Reminds me of old kongregate games.
Incredibly frustrating but addicting!
Really a beautiful piece! The art composition and audio is great! I will look forward to seeing an extended piece if you keep working on it.
Really slick! Visuals and style points all over the place. As others have said the slow-mo feels like it needs more of a tradeoff to make it balanced.
The contrast between the walkable tiles and unwalkable tiles is very low. Maybe it was intentional but it feels like artificial difficulty that punishes having a monitor at a different color temperature than what the game was designed with. I had to sit really close to my screen to see the difference after falling off several times at the beginning.
Other than that, fun little game!
Great, expressive visuals. Solid gameplay. Gun knockback is maybe a little much. There were some pickups in one of the secret rooms I was able to get through a wall.
It's apparently very hard for me to think of words that have "x, v" in them on the spot!