Iceberg Explorer by tinyworlds 2013-05-02T17:15:00
Definite plus for peaceful exploration of serene environment! Would've loved to see more content and perhaps some small puzzles, but this was pretty nice as is.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → kyyninen
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Tales from the Night Shift | unfinished | ||||||||||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | 🌸 Vernal 🌼 | jam | 1031 | 2.94 | 2.70 | 3.03 | 2.37 | 2.64 | 2.81 | 3.38 | |||
| 2016 | 36 | Ancient Technology | My house is over there | jam | |||||||||||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Ginnungagap | compo | 674 | 3.06 | 2.82 | 3.11 | 2.63 | 3.08 | 1.98 | 2.64 | 3.03 | 100 |
Definite plus for peaceful exploration of serene environment! Would've loved to see more content and perhaps some small puzzles, but this was pretty nice as is.
Nice physics puzzler! I like how the levels have a mix of puzzles with definite right solution and more freeform deconstruction. One thing I felt was missing was ability to tilt the camera, I kept dragging the screen with right mouse button to no avail.
Doesn't run for me, sorry :( Java starts and crashes instantly.
Oh man, I wanted to really like it but "Game Over" that actually ends the game in 2013? I dug so deep! I'll try it again later but please consider some sort of checkpointing, or at least let player skip the intro text crawl!
Intense! Hunting with soldier seems to always be a bad idea, since Marvin can almost constantly bring enough food to table and if bullets run out when predators attack, you automatically die.
I appreciate trying to convey ideas in games without using written language, but the intro screens were pretty obtuse. Admittedly trial and error is the best way to learn. The game itself is pretty solid tower defense, I played several waves and enjoyed myself!
Also you apparently can't erase when entering name to the high scores table? I'm all the asd-starting entries...
(ps. lazer and slowdown towers ftw)
My PC didn't agree with the game at all. No sound and movement was kinda janky. Also I did a couple of runs and every time all the items in a level were the same. Is there any way to put out fires?
However I liked the general feel of it. If you are planning on expanding this, more abilities would be nice (pew pew lasers, sidethrusters, force shields, ability to ram enemies and wall blocks...), maybe on different ships to act as a kind of class selection?
Wonderful mood and love the theme, I just don't know if watching meters fill/run out is the most engaging game mechanic. Some kind of warning sound when lantern is half full would have been nice!
It's midnight now where I am, this was the perfect game to end the day and go to sleep.
Liked it! Though music shouldn't restart when the level restarts, it becomes annoying in the later, harder levels.
Love the idea of two different worlds interacting, but I had no idea what was happening in the game itself! Luckily instructions cleared that up quickly. I was little disappointed there wasn't epic end battle in the astral plane when door opened. Going past the end of game and just leaning towards rolling eternity was kinda beautiful though.
I liked that music reacted to what was happening in the game. Some more variation would've been nice, like hitting the other dude with bullets damaging him. Keep them plates spinning!
First 6DoF-shooter I've seen this Ludum Dare and pretty decent one too! Are instruction texts supposed to be visible all the time or did my computer do something wonky?
Needs more bridges ASAP
I liked the minigames best! Personally I'd prefer if game had featured frequent checkpointing as seen in VVVVVV, later levels caused me to rage quit. Then again, I never finished Super Meat Boy for similar reasons.
One of the few reporting in. Solid game! One thing I found disorienting: boss bullets in second level do MUCH more damage than other similar looking projectiles. I don't mind taking more damage from boss attacks, but they should look different.
I agree with nintendoeats about lives system. Otherwise good game and definitely keeping my eye out for post-compo version!
Concept is creative, but... I don't know. Maybe it isn't just for me. Presentation was beautiful and sounds alluring!
Wow! Effectively told poignant story without a hint of pretense! I didn't think that would be possible to make over a single weekend. Voice acting was spot on, don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
However... central mechanic of clicking stuff to remove them really broke the flow several times. At end of each and every level I found myself hunting for that last bit railing to unremember and getting frustrated for not seeing the story continue! IMHO embracing the un-gameness would have been better option here, like maybe fading stuff slowly away if the player is close enough and looks at it's general direction?
The best use of theme so far.
I liked the idea but the second rock fall level was too hardcore for me! Camera was pretty annoying in the original version, glad to see you fixed it.
Very reminiscent of Another World graphics-wise, nice! Pausing to interact and slow movement speed really bummed me out, too.
Neat! It was kind of unclear if there was an achievable end state...
Idea was original, but it really didn't engage me at all. Funny wordplay though.
I got two endings. Restart button should skip the intro screens. Also some potato-related texts overlap. Otherwise neat!
Loved it! Second level was truly tricky, level started again every time when I tried to go beyond the part with the second red cube. If falling from too high kills player there should be a mention of it in the tutorial.
Game mechanic didn't work with me at all, I honestly just kept cycling through all the colours in hope of hitting the enemies with something effective! Maybe my brain just isn't wired up properly with my eyes and fingertips... Nice mood, nevertheless.
I never found the key but had a blast nonetheless! It's always fun to try break stuff in interactive 3D enviroments, here's the results of my best efforts: http://imgur.com/RfU1jWk http://imgur.com/WTrm2D1
Latter was achieved by jumping on an NPC's head, moving towards back of their head (which causes them to spin in ludicrous speed) and jumping again. Wheeee!
Thirty Flights has been mentioned, but this reminded me of Space Funeral. There's a similar element of familiar gaming surroundings warped.
Played until I had couple of skills with every party member, so I guess your entry was pretty successful! However, I have a couple of notes:
* There seems to be no way to change your attack when you have chosen one.
* Weapon shop was never open?
* Choosing the axe wielding party member in towns was tricky!
* There's no reason to buy skills to any other party members than the two that act first, most battles are over by then and the ability to attack every enemy at the same time leaves any stragglers with minimal health.
* SP seems to do nothing?
* Not sure, but all attacks seem to do the same damage...
* Always forgot to put recently bought skill active!
* Fainted party members seemingly heal when visiting inn, but never participate in battles again.
More complete version of this could be pretty engaging and addicting!
Puzzles were a bit basic "use everything you have with everything you see," but given the time limit it can be forgiven. Good use of hero's journey, though more stages would have been appreciated!
I literally laughed out loud on couple of death messages... at least the first time I saw them. Collision detection on spikes really bummed me out. I disabled the audio pretty quickly.
...wow, that sounds so negative. I liked the game and had fun playing it! Concept is brilliant and I'd love to see updates on this.
Addicting! Definitely the best sound design and music I've heard today.
I won! The game brought back pleasant memories of DOS gaming era, particularly Lost Vikings and Lemmings. Though bubble guy's ability becomes pretty much useless when you control more than one dude, since you can bootstrap them across any height and distance: <a href="http://imgur.com/WKgSaRj">http://imgur.com/WKgSaRj</a> Just make them stand on each other and jump with the lowest snobit, and avot: grafity defied.
Congrats on your first LD entry! Usually in these types of games player hitbox is smaller than the actual sprite, so player can weave through enemy ships and projectiles and feel badass.
I'll always enjoy a Katamari. Liked how items that you can absorb lit up, I usually have major problems trying to guess what stuff I can collect in these types of games!
Definitely liked the Doom-style face in the bottom panel!
Pretty fun! I've always yearned for Katamari-like games on PC, thanks for providing! However, some times it was pretty hard to judge if character is big enough to absorb a particular item (I'm looking at you, gold bars!). And there really should be a some kind of notice when exit opens, I had to try second level couple of times because you can get big enough to reach the door before you can actually use it!
I don't see myself playing this again, but it was fun enough while it lasted :D Animations and sounds were amusing!
Player should be able to see character's remaining health somehow. In second level I had no idea with attacks damaged me and which I managed to deflect.
Stunning visuals! Nice twist on infinite runners, but controlling speed, jumping AND fighting dudes at the same time overwhelmed me pretty quickly and I ended up just speeding past everything.
I found tapping X feverishly before falling full speed the most reliable way to activate grappling hook.
Liked the game, but lines are the real killers! It's easy to get permanently stuck on them.
Fun fun fun! Abilities are hilariously unbalanced (template guy is OP as frak), only complaint I have is that collision detection is pretty wonky. Please make an extended version with even more variables!
Thanks for the comments!
re: hunger & health
Few hours before submitting I was thinking about removing health generation from eating. You would get 1 health when hunger meter empties at the dawn, no more. Decided against it, since I had no real gauge how difficult the game would be to someone else. I'll make it so in next version.
re: gunmen
I went back and forth on gunmen generation frequency. Now it's set to sparse since my room mate seemed to have major problems against them! Admittedly he was drunk at the time. Maybe larger quantity and removal of the healing during day would make them a bigger threat?
Thanks for comments everyone! I'm working on making the game more challenging based on feedback. Here's a test build for those interested: http://bit.ly/17v9aY6 It's not thoroughly playtested yet, so there might be lots of odd stuff happening!
Thanks for comments! Keep 'em coming!
re: lack of instructions
I'm torn on this subject. Personally I would prefer not to have any kind of written text as a part of the game proper, but some sort of tutorial screen is clearly needed, at least so far as to instruct what UI elements mean! I'll have to think on this. Changed entry description to offer at least some advice.
re: lack of goal
Currently the only goal of the game is to survive as long as possible. Death is the only ending state. The post-compo version features a scoring system that should give some motivation to try to survive longer. My personal high score is 4770 :)
Thanks for comments and encouragements everyone! They really mean a lot to me :)
re: sounds
I was planning on adding more effects and atmospheric sounds but time ran out! I'll see about adding some sort of gasping sound for panicking villagers and wind-loop for next version, maybe some sounds specific to time of day? Music is a bit outside of my skill set I'm afraid.
@kddekadenz & finefin
Sorry about that :( I tried to import the project to the free version of Game Maker Studio for cross platform support but it lost half the objects on the way. Maybe down the line, when I have better grasp on this programming stuff.
@Argembarger
I'd love to see that as well! Free MYSTERY STEAM GIFT (which might or might not be Psychonauts) to the first who provides screenshot with no trees and plenty of huts?
Thank you, kind strangers! For the next version I'm adding audio and trying couple of things to make stealth-based approach more viable. Here's a test build: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BylyOE6bMNbFNlJfU2FkYnFGWVU/edit?usp=sharing Again, highly experimental, probably unstable as well! (ps. try moving very slowly)
Thanks for constructive feedback!
@wademcgillis
Yeah, the compo version is pretty unbalanced in favour of player. Currently I'm working on making most of the game variables adjustable through ini-file. That should allow for rapid iteration to find that sweet spot in challenge curve.
@TenTonToon (and @Jesper Oskarsson)
Pale apparitions are ghosts that generate when villagers are sufficiently terrified of woods. I originally implemented them to give hunters something to hunt for in addition of player, and also to give player some encouragement to not go full speed ahead all the time. In post-compo version I made them appear more ghastly (glow everywhere!), but they remain still pretty unintuitive. I should rethink their generation and purpose, or at least make them only appear at night.
I originally hoped to teach game concepts through gameplay, but well, yeah :( Current tutorial in the post-compo version is hopefully pretty unintrusive, it shows few tooltips on the screen and lasts for about 10 sec. Still aiming for teaching through design, but it's going to take some time.
I'm definitely still honing the overall design of the game, and it's a real boon to have this many people comment on what works in the game and what doesn't. For that, I'm deeply grateful :)
I like the idea, but there's not much feedback on what's happening behind the curtains. Like how do education and recreation affect clones? Is attitude a good or a bad thing? Does clone need to man the computer slot of a system to make it work? Platespinning was fun, but I never had a clue if I was doing well or not!
Basic platforming fun! However, I felt that using space to collect squares was kinda unnecessary. Level design was nice, but sometimes it was impossible to deduce which platforms were solid and which weren't.
Second prototype is the most "gamey." Resource gathering is kinda tedious, mostly because holding left stick in one place is hard as balls! Also defending the base becomes pretty much impossible when faster enemies start to spawn, because viewing distance is so low you barely have time to react.
That being said, I think something along the lines of the first prototype would make better game. Some kind of autoscrolling survival adventure with pumping soundtrack? Dunno!
Using analog input to scale character is pretty rad idea and I hope you will make a great game utilizing it.
Fun little game! Dungeons get kinda repetitive, overworld adventures would have been appreciated. And variation in spells. Boss encounter is pretty hardcore!
Restructuring yourself is really a novel mode of transportation! I particularly liked the parts with climbing high, they were tense as hell!
Idea is novel, aiming is hard! Good use of theme.
Still running it after two hours to see if anything else happens...
Compliments compliments compliments compliments specific positive mention of controller support
Gruesome murder is the best way to start a new rating day. Lovely!
I dug the mundane setting. Keep buzzing those appliances!
This is the scaringest.
Having plant grow would've been awesome. The game was pretty fun, I played until my score was ~300 but the health mechanic isn't that engaging. Taking damage for missing a single drop feels pretty harsh. Maybe if you'd have to water the plant evenly, and watering one spot too much (or too little) would cause damage? Art is brilliant.
Fun mechanic! It runs a bit slow but playable on my computer. (Chrome/win7) There's so much particles that sometimes it's pretty hard to figure out where exactly your ball is going!
It's difficult to enter into this work because of how the subaqueous qualities of the negative space visually and conceptually activates the essentially transitional quality. I'm troubled by how the metaphorical resonance of the sexual signifier endangers the devious simplicity of the substructure of critical thinking, yet I also find this work menacing/playful because of the way the optical suggestions of the Egyptian motifs brings within the realm of discourse a participation in the critical dialogue of the 90s. 7 out of thirteen thirds anti-stars.
Could have made a nice speed-puzzler if choosing color hadn't been so tedious (cycle through color -button would have been nice), but dear god why does the screen have to wobble so?? I got nauseated and quit after 1 minute mark.
Wonderful idea, not a fan of the controls but I learned them fast enough.
Level design good, my skills bad :( Though glad I wasn't the only one who struggled with the title!
This was awesome! It would be fun if game saved a screenshot each time block fell into it's place and after defeat made a time lapse of the entire session. I'm gonna try to make one later...
Way too awesome! ~30k for first try, but I'll probably play a lot more later.
Little guy is wonderfully expressive! Though it's pretty questionable that the only way I seemed to get happiness maximized is repeatedly slapping him...
Whoa o_o Surprisingly atmospheric! Somehow reminded me of House of Leaves. Some variation in level generation would be nice, could infinitely tall/bottomless rooms be possible?
Good one! Kinda wished that you could change direction of gravity when falling, but then again building a mental map of the level bit by bit and then trying to navigate it perfectly is what makes this work.
Slick style! This could have benefited from procedural level generation, doing the first 30 seconds over and over again became frustrating to the point of ragequit. Then again maybe I'm just bad at these sort of games.
Storytelling style reminded me of a zen koan.
Mood, the colors, the animation style reminded a bit of David Firth's Salad Fingers series. Brilliant(ly depressing)!
Adventures in stream of consciousness! Lots of funny moments.
It's bloody hard, that's for certain. Who outsourced Earth defense to Rovio?? Would have loved some kind of indication where bullet is travelling depth-wise, shadow or something... That being said, graphics and audio are pretty much pitch perfect if nostalgia was the aim. Song is catchy as hell!
Lovely! Killer atmosphere, flickering light source makes spelunking experience tangible. Would have preferred if rope had shot more diagonally in relation to character movement, but this was fun too.
There were sounds? I didn't hear anything. Though Jean Michael Jarre works wonders as background music for this game!
Slick looking, works great, loved it! If you are planning to expand on this, consider adding some sort of life/shield mechanic. Death comes pretty sudden. Slowing time like in Swift/Stich could also work!
Liked the idea of dismantling an utopian society instead of building one. Combat/missionaries are pretty broken though, sometimes attempts to convert a city by force resulted in -512000 casualties for state. Game also abruptly ended by CTD, is there supposed to be an ending screen of some kind? Will keep an eye out for post-jam release!
Climbing the tower was frustrating yet fun! I loved the serene atmosphere. Is menace supposed to destroy almost everything or am I just bad at this game? :D
Nice! I think the basic attack should shoot automatically to the direction you are moving, since there is no mana there's no reason to not blast all the time.
Player health presented by background is indeed a very good idea. However I didn't like that player movement was so limited - some way to navigate y-axis would have been nice. Platforms and/or higher jump? Some kind of limited ability to levitate?
Brilliant concept! I liked that you get to try out a weapon and then have to kill similarly armed character. Enemies shooting after their defeat is pretty brutal, I think 200-ish is the highest score I've got.
How can you make these animations in such a timeframe?? Brilliant game!
Damn! Try as I might, never seem to be able to get past 20. (And in the game.)
I'd make a comment about beautiful animation but first I have to take this potato.
This was surprisingly fun! It was quite impressive seeing small neighborhoods turning into high-rises when you build a bypass through them to help congested main roads. Seeing some spots becoming industrial zones and some shopping centers almost organically was amusing and perplexing! I think I'll be playing with this for a long time.
This is surprisingly addictive management sim with interesting mechanics and theme. One thing I didn't like was manually assigning food to feeding spots, some automation here would've been better IMO. Maybe just connecting the crops and wells to specific feeding spots? Also maybe some idle-behaviour for babies, they just seem to stand on spot until some need takes them over and off they go.
Graphical presentation could also use some sprucing up :D Letters get mixed up easily and I found myself several times making the heart of radioactive vampire dance party my sleeping central...
I really liked the story. Characters were well written and memorable (Alejandra must be the WORST engineer in science fiction :D)
There's one thing in pacing I would change - the purple room should always be the last to be explored. Characters quipping feels really weird after the immense events that transpired just few moments before...
I liked the graphics too, don't have much more criticism to offer. Although controls were really weird (what's wrong with arrow keys??) and you can actually beat the level just by pressing D and spamming jump. Afterwards you have enough health to just beat Caesar to death without bothering to block. Speedstrats!
This was brilliant. Original, cohesive art style, reminiscent of early DOS platformers - reminded me of first few Commander Keens, for instance. Brutally difficult, too - personally I wouldn't have used instantly killing spikes, but because levels are short it's not as big deal as it first felt. You start to get a feel of your character's weight and momentum after dozen or so deaths and it feels tight. Second stage is absolutely amazing - the way you see your goal and the hazards near there almost as soon as level begins, but you have to snake around the entire level to get there... Definitely would love to see this game expanded, if level design stays at same quality!
Any chance of getting mp3's of the background music? Pretty damn good chiptune you got going there, if you don't mind me saying!
Oh, right. I had couple of issues too: Bosses were bit lacklustre and horizontal climbing had this occasional lurch when starting to move - for a second or so the character would just nudge ahead a couple of pixels at a time before resuming smooth movement.
Got to say: I Like the Hair. I loved that enemies had several different variations.
Aiming was bit hard, some kind of crosshair would have helped.
Wonderful effort! Loads of content given the timeframe. I adored the aesthetics, but controls felt a bit imprecise - especially jumping while moving and vertical movement on ladders would hitch more than occasionally and cause my death. Character's hitbox also is very unforgiving, the window to jump over barrels in those one block spaces must be two frames at max?
I feel that respawning should also work with space bar. Taking my precision claw grip off direction buttons broke my flow several times...
I'm not sure this is how medieval medicine worked...
I liked the upgrades. Bottle felt kind of wonky, sometimes it hits the ground and sometimes it falls of the screen?
One thing that was kind of awkward - music hits the epic finale just when I'm running around the level looking for the last few stragglers.
I had a good time with this. Good job!
I really enjoyed this! Steering was somewhat bothersome, some tiny inclination of the sphere's current heading could help a lot. All the time I felt that pressing the boost should propel the character forward even without any steering input.
Aesthetics were superb as was the sound design, and the little bit of story was incredibly evoking. It's a real shame there isn't more of this game...
It's interesting simulation. Not much to do, but watching ruling elites rise and fall is stimulating enough.
WebGL-version lags a lot. I liked the cohesive art style and immersive audio. Otherwise, the game felt slow and it wasn't just because of the lag: you walk slowly from one place to other, interact slowly with switches and beam pyramid thingies, and slowly comb the level to find the one place that has changed when you pressed the switch in the other side of the level.
EDIT: I played the post-jam version, and now moving feels way too fast :D Should've been more careful in what I wish for. Maybe a sprint button or slower acceleration to full speed would have felt better? One thing I think could work here is something similar to "Mark" and "Recall" spells in Elder Scrolls - use one button to mark your current location and other to teleport there instantly.
Nice! One thing I didn't like was using some menus with arrow keys and some with keypad, I'm certain that you did everything with arrows and menu button on the original device. Also, I did the third step but there was no music, so I had to look next step from the walkthrough. Although I played the snake game immediately after starting the game, maybe I broke some script triggers or something?
Synth-voice acting was a nice touch. To be completely honest I solved most puzzles by reading the comments here and brute-forcing, only in the middle ages I had tiny inkling of what I should be doing. That's mostly about me being bad at puzzles so don't worry about it :)
One thing of note: I first played this game with quality set to Fastest, which made textures so blurry that reading them was impossible. You should probably set texture resolution to full on all quality settings or have fewer of them to begin with.
Visually impressive, to say the least! Unbelievably detailed environment given the time-limit. Great job with that and audio!
I get that the wheel section was supposed to be nearly impossible to complete, but spinning by mashing felt very finicky. Almost like it didn't work half the time. Might be that I just suck at button mash.
I beat it! Nothing happened.
Fun little romp. Couple of issues, nothing gamebreaking. Exiting potion shop from second stage teleports you back to the village, and either enemy health bars are seriously bugged or I have no idea how armored enemies work. You can hit armored enemies for ages before it shows in the health bar, hit location doesn't seem to matter.
Audio feedback would've been appreciated, especially hit and death sounds for different enemies and player itself.
Crossbow is OP.
Windows-download is missing the Data folder, Web-version seems to work OK with Firefox.
I liked to graphical style and all the cartoon-like details in the ground, skeletons etc. However, difficulty is all over the place and physics are pretty buggy - after constantly dying in the bit of cavern just after you get the sidekick, I managed to finish the level by just holding right at the start and mashing jump-button. Character just floats through walls and ceilings...
Pretty good! Had this Robotron-feel to it, might have been the psychedelic colors and distorted sounds. Props for having many levels!
One thing I felt was missing is the sense of player progression. There's not much variation to enemies and environments are a bit samey too. Maybe some powerups to momentarily upgrade the eyebeam or some extra-tenacious and aggressive boss-enemies?
I'm always up for a walk in forest. Mood was spot on and I loved the music.
Physics stuff was fun at first, but frustrating very soon. Keeping the dino in balance and hauling stuff around the map from varying heights is difficult in a way it wasn't meant to be (or so I suspect). Personally I would have made the laser hat available everywhere.
Visuals work and music is fine. I especially liked the simple villager AI!
I've played several rigidbody-manipulation games during this LD but this was the first one which wasn't just blindly mashing directions and hoping for the best - I could actually plan what I was doing and react to any unseen consequences. This was the perfect game to top off my day of playing through the endless entries.
There was something funny going on with the friction of stacked slabs, if they weren't aligned well enough they seemed to slide off to different directions?
Oh god, I spent almost an hour playing this game??
It's pretty addictive, I'll give you that. Visuals are excellent too! Though I never managed to finish ._. Controls seemed to always work against me in the worst possible way. Amorphous mass of limbs sounds like a wonderful idea, but in actuality I ended up using always two or three limbs at max. One button per limb also felt limiting: I'd rather have fewer limbs and two buttons per appendage, more QWOP-like in a way. Especially rotating limbs would have been immensely more useful if they'd rotate in both directions.
Also, having more than two wheels seems to cause physics to majorly freak out...
I don't know if it was intended that unlocked limbs would be available between different playthroughs, but I would have quit after few tries if that weren't the case.
Overall judgement: I liked it!
Yeeesss, grappling was great! Jumping and handling boxes was not. As noted before, player controller felt slippery, which was made first precision platforming section a major pain. Also, grapple seems to have some kind of ammo or cooldown? It would be great if it was visible to player in some form or other.
Kudos for controller support! Web version worked perfectly. Gameplay was fun and fast, music was brilliant, especially the jingle for level completion. Personally not a huge fan of 2.5D style-sprite characters in 3D-world-presentation, but at least here it was not too obnoxious :P
Haven't circlestrafed like this for a while! I liked it. Got to the wave XI before getting swamped by romans and lag. Some variation in the gameplay would have been nice, maybe a slow hitting but deadly melee weapon or consumables of some sort?
Man, that first drop was cheap. I think you succeeded in capturing the feel of hectic booby trap escaping well!
This was pretty fun! Couple of things I missed while playing: crosshairs and changing weapons with mouse wheel. Definitely looking forward for expanded version!
Did you do sprite billboarding with shaders? I had major problems to get billboards looking right in my entry, in the end I had to resort using Unity's particle system.
Good entry. I especially liked how you eased new hazards in slowly - every time something dangerous was introduced, player has time to observe them from afar for at least few turns.
@ValiaP Funny you should mention it... I played that game first time just last week and thought "Man, I wan't to make virtual worlds that don't make much sense to anyone but me!" I didn't set out to do a homage, but my subconscious must have thought otherwise.
@yotam180 Glad you liked it and thanks for the feedback!
@steph88 Can admins do something about this particular spam bot? I've seen this identical message on dozens of entries.
Thanks to everyone for your lovely comments! Each one is appreciated.
@MaximumIllusion I apologize for being a bit misleading, there's actually no jumpscares or similar horror elements in the game. There are few loud noises, but I'd say they are avoidable and well telegraphed ahead.
@metalhaze Traffic jams are not intentional, AI drivers are just the worst. I'll try to cook up a fix for post-jam version. It was the crossroads with the monologue about traffic, right?
@sudorossy There should be more ambient light than there seems to be... This is the first time I've lit a 3D scene in Unity and something weird happens when baking the lightmaps. I considered using only realtime lighting but that would probably have been murder on performance.
@Whitepot Studios Originally I tried to stay as true as possible to the low poly stylings, but I wanted the foliage to have a certain look. Rustling leaves were impossible to achieve with ancient technology :) Good suggestion for text.
I'm humbled and overjoyed that so many people have found have enjoyed this game and found it immersive. Thank you for all the support!
@eott, @HellBlazer, @local minimum, @cakeknuckles and others re: ending.
Spoilers, I guess?
There actually isn't one. I originally was planning on having two endings (one for just founding the house, other for founding all the secret stuff) and even had some assets made, but my computer crashed and I lost hours of progress just before deadline. In current version all progression is illusionary (and apparently pretty buggy) and there are no extrinsic rewards for exploration... However, I personally think that any kind of closure in this kind of game is pretty arbitrary anyway - players will play as long as they find the experience intriguing and when they've had their fill, they quit.
Of course, in the eventual post-jam version there might be something waiting at your house when the scavenger hunt is done...
@Zeriver Bug reports are highly appreciated. I didn't have much time to playtest before submitting, so there must be lots of this kind of stuff around the map...
@xesenix Do you mean PC as in your computer or the player character? There shouldn't be anything in the game that can cause game ending state to occur...
Night vision actually sounds brilliant idea, however, I have no idea how to start implementing that kind of shader work ._. I'll start googling around and see what I can do!
@xesenix Ouch. My condolences!
@Captain Awesome Yeah, the theme really didn't come through this time... Originally I was planning to make something aesthetically similar to early FPS games - low-poly models, billboarding sprites - but further I got, more I started to slip from that goal. At one point I was even considering doing a Doom level, but this happened instead. Good thing there's no ratings this time :D
@HuvaaKoodia Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, currently there's not much to do and some of those texts are pretty misleading. I probably should have made the gameplay-lessness clear at the beginning of the game, or add some kind of world state changing event when front door is reached.
Those are actually pretty solid suggestions for adding more structured play! I'm already implementing some ｍｙｓｔｅｒｙ stuff inspired by them, hopefully I manage to release a slightly extended version before commenting ends.
@Jupiter_Hadley Much appreciated! It's actually extremely helpful to see someone playing this game for the first time, gives me a chance to see where there is room to make some improvements.
@Molpe Thanks for commenting! I enjoyed the video and I'm glad that you liked the game. Yeah, the environment scale is all over the place and it's one of the main things I'm trying to correct in the extended edition. Sadly I didn't manage to get it done during the commenting period, but it will be released during October. I hope.
Thumbs up! Personally would have loved to see the damage calculations on screen, I had no idea how and why some fights would completely decimate one side with little casualties on the other or even destroy both units. Also, are tanks independent units or vehicles to infantry?
This was pretty hardcore. Had almost Track'n'Field-feel to it, more you mashed your buttons the faster the guy moved. Deer's running on adjacent row doing damage to you and the homing nighttime enemies felt pretty unfair...
Victory with 17400! I liked the visual style and special effects. Was bit too easy, you can camp near the blue torch and almost never have to change your position.
I liked it! Pretty impressive that you coded this during the jam, prior engine work or not.
Player movement was really weird, there was this bounce coupled with FOV kick when starting to move that was almost nauseating. Also enemies kept sneaking up to me, most of the time I noticed them only when I started to take damage.
Aesthetically, sharp pixel graphics and claustrophobic geometry reminded me of Descent, which is always a plus.
This game on touch screen would destroy my life.
I liked the art style, although the character's momentum was really odd. Kind of weightless feel to it, don't know if that was intentional. Also I have no idea how I solved the last level. Good effort, overall.
Great style, lovely music! I liked the interchanges you had with the robot-AI-partner-thingy, even if the technology crafting itself was somewhat superfluous. Since you really can't control what resources you get, you can't make meaningful choices towards any specific outcome (I tried to go for archery as soon as possible, but, well, you need to get previous upgrades anyway).
Props for having sound effects and atmosphere track! Otherwise this was pretty frustrating. I had no idea how large player character's hitbox was and kept hitting brambles and spikes even when making a simple jump. Checkpoints would have helped.
This was really fun for couple of minutes! Only thing this needs is some variation in gameplay (powerups of some sort, perhaps? Mines, timed explosives of some kind could work...), sounds, music and endless mode and it's a full game. Good job with art, cell-shadish style worked really well and ragdolling dudes are always entertaining.
Only real criticism I have is that enemies that spawn right in front of you felt extremely unfair. Maybe they should spawn a bit further ahead to give player some time to react?
Definitely the best Hell on Earth-simulator: http://kyy.ninja/ld36/ltb.gif
Looks and sounds good. Variable jump height would have been nice. I also think there should be some kind of enemies or hazards.
I want to like it, but the feeding arm keeps getting stuck between the plate and bottom of the screen.
EDIT: seems to have something to do with quality settings. When set to Fastest, the feeding arm feels almost weightless and flops around at the speed of light until it gets stuck. Good seems to be the most optimal setting, anything higher and controlling becomes too heavy.
Anyway, who keeps putting ROCKS with confectionery? :D
What a lovely puzzle game for Sunday afternoon! Music and audio was brilliant, pixel graphics were wonderful and I loved the incidental details; the little villages, rivers... I think this would work very well on mobile, too.
One thing I would have liked to see is undo-button. Sometimes, especially in the longer levels, I would forget how I managed to get to a certain configuration, almost win but run out of turns and spend next several tries trying to retrace my steps and redo that one misspent move to achieve victory.
It's little bare (heh), but I had okay time with it. Rollerskating dinos were definitely hilarious.
One thing this sorely needs is some feedback to player. I had no idea if I did damage to enemies with my swings or when dinosaurs did damage to me. Is attack direction dependent on the camera or the facing of the character? Is damage to player caused when colliding with enemy?
I do have a free afternoon. Menu music was indeed way too loud compared to the rest of the game. I had a good time as long as it lasted, but minor gripe: I'm almost certain that this kind of attendant system doesn't work with rotary phones.
This was good! Definitely original puzzle mechanic. Only thing I felt was missing is sounds. Especially when you do the thing it was sometimes hard to instantly know if it happened or not.
Slick spritework! Good, basic gameplay with enough variation. Although the last level has lots of lag and that one raptor in the grass was pretty cheap.
Loved the cheeky writing. More than decent platforming and suprisingly smart checkpointing, except in those last two levels. Those last two god damn levels.
Also I think there's something seriously wrong with your options menu - I don't see any FOV-sliders.
Got lost in green maze with loud mini-sun, otherwise had great time. Is starting location randomized or does the game save some data between playthroughs? I've started this game few times, and sometimes I'm somewhere else...
Music is good, and I liked the story told by broad strokes. However, running up and down those samey hallways got old quick. On the whole, it fas fun while it lasted!
Vest diagram is wrong: on the bottom it reads
H_H
HSH
HHH
but in the game this is the right answer:
___
HSH
HHH
Never much cared for sliding puzzles, but this was alright.
I think that you are onto something here. Puzzleplatformer without jumping feels pretty original idea, hope that you have chance to expand this concept a bit further! Sprites looked alright and climbing animation was surprisingly slick.
This is great! Art is ｃｕｔｅ as 😽, animations were wonderful and ditto with audio! I enjoyed the fictional wrapper of the game being an actual screensaver, this kind of desktop meta-elements always bring joy to my cold, barren heart. However, I was saddened and left brokenhearted by the broom freeze - I keep hearing sounds after first couple of brushes, but nothing happens on screen until it eventually closes. You have definitely left me wanting for more!
I... really have no idea what is going on here, and thus can't comment on anything gameplay-wise. However! Audiovisual presentation was stunning, mood was incredible, and I can't say I didn't have fun running around, devouring everything that moved and pooping. I might have to try this again, later at night, with some refreshments at hand.
Shooting is good! I really liked the graphics, sounds, overall old school DOS-shareware feel. But... sliding puzzles, man. It truly is the most incompatible of genres.
Igotaminutetorateandcommentohshit
I think this was well executed. Played two player mode by myself, but I can see how this could work against multiple AI opponents. I especially like how the time keeps moving slooooooowwwwly while you ponder your next move. Art style is clear and readable!
Played the android build on [this](https://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_tab_4_10_plus-8605.php), worked fine enough! Would have preferred portrait layout though, but implementing that is probably not the best use of valuable dev time 🤔
I think this combination of genres is anything but incompatible. Which is good! I've never really liked these recipe hunting games, but mixing in a physical grid structures the experience nicely. Especially reactions that change the board spice things up neatly!
One thing I direly missed is a list of all the combinations that player has found. Trying out new recipes seems to take ages, and anything that speeds up the process would be most welcome.
Aesthetics were pretty great and theme was well thought out! However, I'm sad to say that sliding box puzzles have been the bane of my existence since a very young and tender age... Mechanically speaking, game works fine and everything feels chunky and solid, it's just that personally I didn't find this kind of gameplay very appealing.
One very concrete thing that felt extra frustrating: I don't get why you need to spend mana to see the sacred tiles. Seems like a punishment for not taking notes while playing, though I guess that applies to lots of puzzle games 😛
It's a good game! Just not exactly my cup of tea.
Agree with previous commenters re: rounder characters and shooting direction, would like to add my own suggestion: It's helpful that the pockets are larger than expected, however they should be graphically represented as such. It was kinda confusing at first when enemies disappeared from the board by just rolling nearby the holes. Fun on mobile!
Definitely one of my favorites, if not THE favorite from this jam. Making every interaction between two entities either feeding or eating was very smart design and great way to communicate mood through gameplay mechanics! Media is the message, after all.
Visuals were great homage/parody to Harvest Moons and Stardew Valleys of the world, music loops were a bit on the short side but not distractingly so. I think only major criticisms I are the somewhat buggy picking up/feeding and growing mechanics. Sometimes it's kinda hard to feed one particular object you want if you are not in precisely right spot and there is nothing else around, picking up farmed plants happens usually only by chance and spamming space. Also what's going on with the empty gauges? Do the plants shrivel if you don't collect them quick enough? Can you stack multiple plants in the spot by watering many times?
Still, I think this game is awesome and those kinds of bugs are pretty understandable given the compo time limits. Good work!
_EDIT: Also! Checkpoints ☑️ are generally something I'd love to see more in Ludum Dare entries_
Fully voice acted tutorial in a Ludum Dare entry? Might be a first.
I don't have much feedback to add, I think you did a great job and would love to see what you have planned for future releases!
This was impressive. Loved just about everything about it, world doesn't have enough turnbased small scale tactical games. Do I detect a hint of Overland in aesthetics?
I sincerely hope you plan on expanding this. Not too much, though. Maybe a recruitable character, some sort of end game, in the tune of clearing a path for the car or some such. Keep the minuscule scale and low power curve, but... you know, make more of it!
One bug: if you go to sleep the same turn that day ends, the night time music plays constantly during rest of the game. This happened to me on the seventh night. Or if it's intended, I'd beg you to reconsider.
EDIT: 6 days seems to be fastest I can go. Harder difficulty would be appreciated, but of course that's coming from an armchair general that loves when permadeath runs of XCOM2 break down in a glorious cascade of failure and bad luck.
Yeah! I like it when LD entries have explorable environments, and although there's not too much to see here, swampy surroundings had lovely atmosphere. Sprite art was spectacular, but I think I would have preferred if at least characters were billboarded all the time? Also: ambient lights. Some will'o'wisps or creepy candles scattered about could have added a lot to the (already pretty immersing) mood.
Nice game! I liked the mellow mood provided by the sparse but well utilized audio. One major complaint: it took me (embarrassingly) long time to realize that the character can actually climb a single block just by walking at it. Also, one thing I'd love to see in this game is mouse look, rotating the view with keyboard felt pretty awkward and imprecise.
Otherwise I think you communicated the mechanics clearly and had interesting puzzle design, definitely would play more levels!
12:21. Yeah, that typing door stumped me too. Fixing case sensitivity might be a good call, I tried the correct entry several times but only got through it after I returned to take a look at these comments.
Mellow feels, serviceable art, nifty puzzles. It's a good game!
Thank you everybody for wonderful comments! As rating draws to a close, I thinks it's time to answer some questions.
@joe40001 This was extremely helpful! Certain amount of obtuseness and leaving player to discover game mechanics was intended, but I didn't realize that the only piece of advice I decided to give was so misleading! I added gameplay video and more (accurate) guidance, but I guess the damage is done at this point... _e: Also, "I didn't hate it" is a box quote for the ages_
@unless-games I've played this game now for hours and I think you are right. Especially since the endgame mostly involves manipulating other objects, moving the avatar feels really sluggish and unresponsive. I'll experiment with (near) instant transportation today and see how it feels.
@DerLasseHenrich Were you playing on Chrome? I've had time to test the game at this point and noticed this happening only on that browser. It might also have something to do with game engine itself, there's lots of audio stuff going on simultaneously and maybe it's just too much for Construct.
@justinooncx I talk about [The Genre Thing](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/vernal/vernal-now-on-itch-io-also-short-mortem) on my short mortem.
It's been a pleasure, as always. Again, thanks for playing and I hope you enjoyed your time as much as I did!
__EDIT: [Also, there's a post jam version on Itch.io...](https://kyyninja.itch.io/vernal)__
>The problem is so bad that the memes now haunt her all the time ##### me irl
Pretty funny! I always like when jam entries do something different with audio, or heck, even DO something with audio! Many seem to regard soundscapes something that you do if you have spare time at the end. I appreciate that you took the audio experience as front and center of you game.
Played the android version, analog stick analogue was somewhat inconvenient on my device at least. Bit too cramped in the corner, going southwest was awkwardish.
Works great on tablet! Every element works together brilliantly, you guys managed to create a very focused experience without anything unnecessary. I especially loved the final fish domination so much I couldn't _bear_ to look away!
As others have already said, voice acting is great and game is polished as heck! Ship it!
Also found same issues as many other players. You can get pinballed from full health to empty gauge in seconds - and speaking of that gauge! First I was wondering why my character was running around without any health, but then I noticed that the face in corner got increasingly beat up after running out of HP. Instead of having two different meters, I think you should stick to one method of tracking health.
Other QoL-improvements I can think of: Consider giving the player a couple of invincibility frames after getting hit to combat the issue of death by Astrojump. Game should inform the player in some way when the dash is ready to be used again (be it UI, sound effect, anything). I found myself either spamming the space bar constantly or completely forgetting that dash even existed.
Both my controllers are currently recharging, so can't comment on those controls yet. Mouse aiming was pretty unwieldy at times, especially since in this game you really have to be precise to build those combos.
Nitpicks aside, game is good, and you are clearly a group of talented individuals. Keep at it!
Really liked it! Neat little concept, if you ever decide to expand on this I'd love to play it.
Biggest flaw I see is the level itself. The long runway doesn't really lend itself to TD-style gameplay. IRL mini golf courses can get really complicated, lots of corners turning into itself, narrower and wider areas etc. Even something relatively simple like [this](http://www.tastulanlomakyla.fi/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tastula-minigolf-kaustinen-300x195.jpg) would be more interesting to play and offer more tactical choices for tower placement. In this current board I see no reason to put anything on the first few slots since missiles won't be much of a use there and grenades seem to generally be a sub-optimal choice.
The scoring system is pretty obtuse, even after reading the instructions. Would it be more straightforward if balls just broke down after certain amount of hits from weapons/golfers? Maybe not as flavourful, but more readable. Add hp bars to really nail down that tower defense look 👾👾👾
Good effort! Currently on the 8 wave and those tiny guys seem to get really desperate.
It's a solid little game! However, I found the clicker-side of the genre-blending a little lacking. The one major meter for progression in any idle game is the autoclickers. There should be some sort of buildings that generate money, very slowly in the beginning but increasingly fast the more you upgrade them. Especially combined with limited building room this could give some interesting balancing decisions for the player - do I spend the money to get couple of bucks more in the long run or use the space for damaging towers?
Also tower targeting priorities seem a bit wonky, I think they should target the enemies that are nearest to the castle, instead of just the nearest. In some tower defense games you can manually set which enemies the towers will prioritize, though I understand that this might be too much asked for a jam game 🤓
I played several rounds, so obviously you did a good job. Congrats on your first LD game and keep on jamming!
I didn't relax at all! Surprisingly tense, however that might be just me anticipating the coming beat too intently.
Couple of suggestions: I'd really love some graphical representation on the rhythm. Kinda like Crypt of the ~~Necromancer~~ NecroDancer has that rolling meter on the ~~top~~ bottom of the screen. _(Edit: WHICH WAY IS UP AGAIN)_ Another piece of UI I would find helpful is an indicator on how high your next jump will be, drawn above the character. Maybe these elements could be combined somehow?
Also, I never used glide and boost separately. I think you could combine those inputs without changing the flow of gameplay.
I liked the trick levels best. You could add some variation by adding a couple of tracks (though that must have crossed your mind) and cycling through the different palettes every 5 or so levels. Maybe different color schemes could signal that rhythm has changed?
Summa summarum; Good effort, I'd love to play this on my smartphone, with headphones on, before going to bed or when waiting for public transport.
Pretty dope! It's an interesting concept, despite me getting extremely confused on how the turning works and constantly losing. I noticed that the ship's sprite changes based on how much it will turn next turn, but I would have preferred some sort of UI gauge for angular momentum, similar to how thrust is represented currently. Also thrust is applied before rotation, which threw me off every time. Even when I knew it was going to happen.
I never won but managed to thin the herd to one couple of times, and appreciated the variety of attacks they make (based on how many there are remaining?). I think these mechanics could translate pretty well to longer, scrolling levels like in Gradius, Life Force et al.
Okay! I liked the aesthetics, the diorama art style reminded me of Gunpoint _(or Skool Daze, if I really want to show my age)_. However, the presentation itself was somewhat misleading at some points. Especially the people on stretchers seem to meld into background at upper levels, slightly different colour scheme could have helped there. Other thing that threw me off was that if you hit moving enemies they just kind of teleport you to another location? Can't tell you how many times that ended my run. Generally giving a few invisibility frames after getting hit would have encouraged a faster pace and also made the game feel a bit more forgiving.
Also also would have loved some checkpoints every other floor or so. I saw that lucky seventh a few times, but there is no way I'm going to beat that level if I have to run through the rest of the game to get there every time I die.
Music track is well chosen and nice. I would have appreciated some audio clues on ingame actions (especially on hits, maybe gas bottle pickups and jumps). Overall, I rate this game cool and good.
Played WebGL release without audio.
Loved the art style, not a fan of the physics. Gravity feels floaty and character movement has this really thick momentum that makes accurate movement almost impossible. I think I would have preferred a controller with more discrete movement. Also you can fly around the level by spamming jump on certain situations, seems to be related to collision code?
Good stuff!
Interesting take on the plate spinning genre! Other commenters seem to have already provided the positive feedback I was going to give, so I'll just jump right into nitpicks:
There was something weird going on with the audio. When zombo-attacks started, the zombie groan played constantly, even if there weren't any enemies around. I don't know if that's a bug originating from my browser (Waterfox 56.1.0) or feature, but it didn't feel right. Also this kind of game could have really used positional audio - I get that you were going for intentionally creating stress for the player, but having cries and moans coming from respective directions would have enhanced mood and given player some very useful information.
And I managed to despawn the milk bottle at some point. These minor ramblings aside, I really liked the game!
@MichiPantera Ah, that explains it then. Maybe some reverb in that case? 🧟♀️🧟♀️🧟♀️
Well, first off: I managed to crash the game in one of the later levels when hitting a lava pool. ``` An error occurred running the Unity content on this page. See your browser JavaScript console for more info. The error was: uncaught exception: abort(119) at jsStackTrace (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:27460) stackTrace (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:27631) abort (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:4:32073) brn (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:28:1) X6i (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:8:1) J0g (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:4:1) ejn (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:28:1) invoke_iiiii (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:335192) Bum (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:21:1) MFm (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:21:1) zba (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:9:1) Ygc (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:7:1) Sjc (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:7:1) T8 (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:9:1) Q8 (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:9:1) $re (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:23:1) Wre (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:23:1) Tre (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:23:1) Dre (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:23:1) JWb (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:14:1) xWb (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:14:1) wkn (Build2.asm.code.unityweb:28:1) browserIterationFunc (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:213848) runIter (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:195909) Browser_mainLoop_runner (Build2.asm.framework.unityweb:2:215385)
If this abort() is unexpected, build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 which can give more information. ```
Also speaking of uninteded glitches, it's pretty easy to go backwards with your eyeball, drop on the background plane and to the infinity below from there. Wheeee!
Difficulty curve seems to be backwards. First level seemed painfully hard to complete, but everything afterwards is just a breeze. Monster movement feels frustrating, I think I'd prefer if it moved in small bursts, similarly to how player operates. Small pauses to give player even a tiniest sliver of time to plan ahead.
Player movement could also be tweaked. I'd rather do fewer, but longer hits than series of tiny putts to move forward. Also since you can't change your heading when you're already moving, most of the time playing is spent just staring at the screen and spamming click because you have no idea when you can make the next move. Game needs to give at least some sort of visual signal to communicate when player can hit the ball again. Easiest would be to change the tint of the ball - red when you can't hit, bluish when ready to go or something like that.
Also also one last thing. Restarting is a hassle, and I almost stopped playing on the first level because of it. Instant respawn pls