Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → localcoder
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Locked Away | compo | 180 | 3.36 | 3.39 | 3.07 | 1.36 | 2.35 | 2.22 | 4.09 | 52 | |||
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Cerulean | compo | 178 | 3.08 | 2.69 | 2.92 | 2.85 | 2.38 | 1.00 | 1.14 | 2.14 | 3 | ||
| 2011 | 20 | It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This! | brotherhood | compo | 232 | 2.33 | 2.22 | 3.39 | 3.06 | 1.69 | 1.60 | 2.08 | 1.80 | 7 | ||
| 2010 | 19 | Discovery | Improv | compo | 76 | 3.17 | 3.25 | 2.92 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.91 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 6 | ||
| 2010 | 18 | Enemies as Weapons | Cave Flyer (green) | compo | 83 | 2.88 | 2.80 | 2.96 | 2.96 | 2.84 | 2.92 | 1.46 | 2.33 | 9 | ||
| 2010 | 17 | Islands | i thought we had a thing | compo | 136 | 2.64 | 2.64 | 2.45 | 3.58 | 2.21 | 3.16 | 1.89 | 11 | |||
| 2009 | 16 | Exploration | oil exploration | compo | 61 | 2.91 | 3.04 | 3.26 | 3.70 | 2.26 | 1.17 | 2.50 | 2.68 | 29 | ||
| 2009 | 15 | Caverns | Cave Flyer (blue) | compo | 85 | 2.77 | 2.74 | 2.31 | 3.21 | 2.65 | 2.55 | 2.05 | 3.29 | 29 |
Great music! And I enjoyed the bright colours too.
There are some bugs or strangeness to the way that you move, for example how you can float up through solid blocks. Also, you can walk off the edge of the screen and get stuck :/ I didn't like that. But I tried again and got to the end and it was nice.
Nice game, but I stopped when I got stuckbugged in the crate room - page up didn't seem to work. The sound-making-thinggy was amusing, I didn't know why the music started the first time it came on.
This was a bit hard, until I realised I could ride off the road, then it was too easy - so I guess that was cheating :p
I found something strangely hilarious when a car started coming up behind me so I started pedalling as fast as I could...
I like the stark visual style. The physics seemed absurd until I realized how the world was oriented.
Interesting engine but there wasn't much to hold my attention once I solved the puzzle of how to play.
Very cool, but very unforgiving - I found it easy to get stuck by putting a robot on a ladder or killing an essential robot and I gave up after several attempts without getting very far through the game.
With a gentler difficulty curve I think this would be really good.
I love the way this looks - the cool colours, the robots and especially the walls as they get chipped away.
On my first attempt I thought I had to get the robots to shoot each other. Later on I worked out that I could damage them just by placing walls.
This is very amusing. "Oh no, my interchangeable dance partner is about to get some wine! Stop him!"
I got the creature at the end stuck in a corner (after I shined the light at it), and wasn't sure what was meant to happen. Right up until that glitch, though, I thought the ending was very good - I felt a lot of suspense in the final area.
I haven't seen a 2D game like this done in Unity before - I like the kind of 'paper cut out' animations.
This is pretty cool. I played a game right through, everything seems to work and is balanced. The pace is a little slower than I would like, it takes a while to get hard.
I would have preferred that 'rage' and 'explosive head' powers were more different. At the moment, in most situations it doesn't matter which one you use.
Nice responsive controls, a clever idea and it works well.
I would like to see more visual feedback when an orb blows up and when the player takes damage. Even a very simple effect would do.
It's nice that the player's ship, grapple and orb images were all made to fit together properly.
i managed to escape the maze.
It's interesting how you've made everything quite large, so the camera feels closer to the action than in most games.
Two bugs I noticed: it's easy to get stuck in the walls (as other said) and pressing enter pops up a 'high scores cleared' notice.
When I try to run the game I get the error message "Error compiling shader." This is in Windows 7.
ha, I love the economy of enemies = ammo = health, and the art is great.
It's a bit annoying that the dead enemies and their shots move at such a similar speed (as others have said). Also, the game feels like it really wants background music - even a simple beat would add a lot, I think.
Yeah, it's unfinished. It is pretty though, and very smooth and responsible and has a good feel about it. Please make more :)
While this is obviously unfinished, I enjoyed roaming around killing slimes and exploring the caves. The music feels good and adds a lot to the game.
Fantastic music. Great concept and use of the theme.
I played a few times and found a few interesting things, but without something to hook me in I don't feel driven to go back and finish the mystery.
This is very cool but I didn't enjoy the gameplay - the enemies were fast and unforgiving, and finding friendly aliens didn't feel as rewarding or exciting as it might have.
Visually, it's great. I like the variety in the planets, and tapping spacebar to make interesting shapes with the beam...
It was fun running around shooting robots and carving through the walls. It's good to hear that you going to keep working on this.
I didn't enjoy the exploration much, but the ending was clever and beautiful and definitely a Discovery.
I enjoyed this. It seems like you thought carefully about how the game works - for example how some of the characters move slightly faster or slower than others, and (I think) how they slow down more once they have been revealed as an 'other'.
Killing the 'others' on spikes made me feel a little bit strange. I'm not sure what the message is there! But it was thought-provoking.
I love the way the text looks in this game. Especially the stark black-and-white text-only title screen.
This is awesome. I never found out how to get the key...
Nice concept, I played right to the end.
I worked out by the last level that some enemies behaved differently (the reference to inky and blinky etc was what made me realise it) but even at the last level I felt like I didn't really understand how I was supposed to be playing. I only won the last level by trying to rush blindly past the last enemy, and getting lucky.
Wow, this was painfully hard but I kept trying and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed the new game mechanics on each level.
The intro was brilliant!
Great music. I enjoyed working out how to play and getting through a few challenges. I didn't finish though.
I liked the look, and the lines that show which nearby object is selected were very effective - I quickly learned the difference between the flat and the windmill, for example.
I love the way boats\resources pile up next to the windmill.
I would have preferred a smaller map, or perhaps starting in one corner so I knew which way to go.
The sacrifice concept is interesting. Each time I found a dead end at the end of a long tunnel, I wanted to go back to the start of the tunnel and sacrifice myself to let others know not to go that way. Unfortunately, it never worked because I couldn't tell which corpses I left for that purpose and which ones were simply to show me a pathway.
This feels very complete, with the intro and ending screens and level variety. You must be very good at planning your time :)
I enjoyed the colorful art and the story (although I couldn't really discern any connection between the story's different layers.)
I would have liked it more if the soldiers had better pathfinding, but it's enjoyable as it is.
It's very satisfying to watch the soldiers and imps run away as their health drops, and be chased by a hoard of enemies - sometimes the tables turn, and they all run back the other way :)
This was tough and I appreciated the frequent autosaves. And the dinosaurs.
Mainly it reminds me of a scene from Doctor Who:
Doctor: What?!
Donna: Oh!
Doctor: What?!
Donna:Who are you!?
Doctor: Wh-
Donna: Where am I!?
Doctor: WHAT!?
Donna: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PLACE!?
Doctor: WHAT!?!?
My initial strategy was to give everyone a Water Bow.
"But... I'm going to fight a Thunder Dragon!"
"Water bow. Next!"
I got better.
I enjoyed this, although at about 250k I got bored and started reading the source to see how to win faster.
It's very clever and I shall definitely be borrowing a few ideas from you :p
Very cool idea. Unfortunately as DrPetter said it seems unlikely that I will meet a partner by chance.
I tried playing with myself (opening it twice), but wish I hadn't - it would be much more fun to discover the game the way it was intended. The Q and E commands are fun, and letting the players discuss the experience afterwards was a thoughtful touch.
I also made a 2-player game, please take a look at it :)
Cool concept! And I like the waterfall effect in the background.
I liked the graphics, music, and especially the hints of a story.
But I couldn't survive for more than a few seconds! maybe people who are used to playing shmups will perform better, but I found this much too hard.
This is fantastic. I enjoyed it. It had character progression and foreshadowing and everything!
Two minor issues:
1. I would have preferred keyboard controls, as some of the screens required precise movement.
2. the installer.bat _does_ make changes to the system - it creates some start menu shortcuts, and I think I saw it making some other system changes but it scrolled past too quickly. However, I'm still very happy that you made it so easy for me to get the game running.
I like the textured sky.
There was a graphics glitch where blue horizontal lines (sky?) between some of the tiles.
I got stuck in the door by the slingshot brother, which was annoying :/ Apart from that, it was a nice experience.
I enjoyed this. It looks great and was fun to play. The signpost that had its last sentence crossed out was a nice touch.
It's amazing that this can be done with javascript.
I found the mouse controls really off-putting - perhaps because of the way I moved my mouse as I played, the character seemed to be swaying around as if drowsy.
On my first attempt I got stuck in a little space and had to restart. The second time, I made it - but I did cheat a bit, by rushing onto the tower before it completely emerged :)
The companion is fantastic. Although it's obviously influenced by Portal, I've never seen it done before in a Ludum Dare. Also, playing lots of LD games in a row can be lonely, so it's nice to have some company for a change.
The level generation seems pretty good, you have to work to get all of the batteries and the different positions of the enemies end up creating some variety.
I would like to have some kind of progress meter or time limit or something to help me know how far I have gone and how far I have to go.
I also don't understand it. Mushrooms seem to be invincible, so I can protect an area of land with a wall of mushrooms, but then I still seem to lose. I didn't work out what caused that.
Very creative. I like the way that it's not simply sniping - there's some cognitive skill in looking at the targets and decide which ammo to use.
However, the game feels kind of joyless to me. I expected it to be cheeky and playful, but it actually felt silent and lonely... but maybe that is the life of a condom sniper.
Is it weird that I expected the man at the end to betray me? I guess I've been playing too many art games :)
I enjoyed it. Also found the technical note about the sideways motion interesting, I didn't notice until I read it.
Hi ToxicLogic, I fixed it - please try again :)
I was using a library that only supported 32-bit java. I have replaced it with a newer version which supports 32-bit and 64-bit java.
Oh you guys, the game is much more fun if you don't hide in the doorways! Live a little!
(I was supposed to give the shots a little explosion radius, so the doorways weren't safe, but I never got around to it :/ )
As you said, it needs a bit more content to add variety, but it was fun and I enjoyed the conversation over the top and the interesting characters in the dungeon.
I like the story progression - the set up and reversal and overdrive. The signs marking the distance to the exit are a nice touch too.
The difficulty was perfect for me - I won on my first attempt, but I felt like I was going to lose the whole way through. It was delightfully stressful...
It's very hard and I didn't finish. I did enjoy it though; after several attempts I had one run where I got into "the flow" and felt like my fingers were moving before my brain told them to. That was fun - although I still hit a rock long before the end.
Fun! I liked that each new weapon was more ridiculously powerful than the last.
I agree with the comments about the goal being a bit high and it being a bit hard to avoid running out of ammo at the start.
I particularly liked the arrows pointing to the escapees. The arrows blend together nicely into a ring that is darkest in the direction of the greatest concentration of people, which looks cool and is very useful once you have the more powerful weapons.
I liked the photos - your friend is right, your house _is_ scary! The sound was great too, I wish there was more of this.
OH MY GOD A KITTEN DISPENSER!
I gave up on the square level; it was hard. I don't like how things can kill you when you're not really that close to them, and I don't like having to click to restart the level (I'd like to be able to hit spacebar since my hand is already there.)
But I thought the first two levels were very creative and funny. The kitten dispenser and the pit of kittens were great.
that's well paid rat :)
Great concept, and the contrast between the rat race and the indie development is very powerful.
It's also great that indie development feels wonderful but you're also painfully aware of the money running out :)
I would like a little more air control or just somehow easier controls in the indie world to emphasise the difference even more.
I like the use of color and the game's distinctive appearance.
Having both the option of using rockets and the ability to rotate was a bit much for me - I didn't have much patience looking for rotation-based solutions because I knew that sometimes there was no solution and I would have to use a rocket anyway.
The darkness is an interesting twist - being unable to see the platform you are jumping off makes this much more stressful than a standard one-button jumping game.
It's fun going for a run with your past self.
A bit more information (like how far we got and how much you have bought on the first screen) would help in our quest to find the best blend of items to take. Still, I made a few attempts trying to find the right mix of goods to survive.
Clever! I hope you make the 3D version one day...
The big ludum dare traps: chatting in IRC, watching Notch's livestream, and making too much art :)
Your cars look fantastic, I hope you come back to do some more work on this some time.
The bright white 'Escape with the stolen money!' message is attention-grabbing and makes it look like something exciting is about to happen.
It would be great if the rest of the game world was also filled with interesting objects and messages.
This is very cool.
There are some issues as others have mentioned.
I particularly like the music and the "Test subject number 23 is missing from his cell." announcements - they give it a lot of atmosphere.
Quite fun. I didn't play all the way through, but used the level select to try the last level - I like that you included an animation for when the game is won.
I liked the gooey physics. I didn't understand the difference between red and green apples.
Very interesting idea!
It's annoying when the animals clump together making it hard to kill the ones you want to. I'd prefer if the animals spread out more and I could hunt around for the ones I wanted to kill.
I like the music and the general fast-paced arcade-game feeling of this.
I died 329 times! mainly because I lost the ground underneath the respawn point :)
This is cool, but the small size of everything and the slidely movement made it hard for me to see and control.
I still played through to the end, and enjoyed the different ideas. (a box for a boss?!)
Very cool idea.
While I was playing, I felt that I didn't have time to (or any motivation to) look at the artificial life simulation.
This meant I didn't really appreciate the evolution that was happening. Although I did notice once the most difficult polyminoes started reappearing!
The idea behind this is very cool, but the most interesting aspects of the simulation are not visible to me when I'm playing.
I can see my creatures dying and escaping, but I don't have much information about their different traits or how they are evolving.
I would like to see the gameplay more strongly linked with the simulation.
Thanks for all the feedback so far.
I watched two of my friends play Locked Away. Both of them finished the game, but missed one little detail. Because they both missed it, I suspect that I made it far too subtle and that other people are missing it too.
If you've just finished the game, but still feel curious, this is the 'clue' I gave them: http://pastebin.com/x782KyM7
I tried to make it a bit more obvious in the post-compo version.
This game is a little bit scary :) The oven timer went off while I was playing and I jumped.
I gave up after a few attempts without finishing the first level. Maybe making the level smaller or giving me some way of feeling like I'm making progress (different wall textures ) would help keep me hooked.
The first time I played, I didn't read the instructions and thought I was meant to _avoid_ the floating people. Oops.
I played again, trying to collect them - that makes the game much more challenging.
I enjoyed the game, especially the music.
Cool! I love the crisp clear visual style. The whole presentation of the game is very slick and polished - for example, the UI for entering a name and the feedback after you lose.
The obvious area for improvement is in having sound and music - some good sounds would have a huge effect on the feel of the game.
Hi, this is a cool story, but it really needs to understand more variations of answers.
For example, here's a snippet from me playing:
Do you...
Stay in the capsule of goop. You want to know more.
Jump out of the capsule. How do you know this 'thing' is telling the truth?
> stay
What do you decide?
> stay in the capsule
What do you decide?
> help
What do you decide?
> stay
What do you decide?
> stay in
What do you decide?
I could only continue because I looked at the source code.
In some other cases I could guess the answer I wanted ("desert", "climb") but not always. For example:
What do you do?
Bite the creature's hand so it lets go, then run away.
Bite the creature's hand so it lets go, then scratch its eyeballs.
Do nothing and surrender to the creature.
> bite then scratch
The creature is angry and time is running out... what do you do?
> bite
The creature is angry and time is running out... what do you do?
> bite the creature's hand
The creature is angry and time is running out... what do you do?
> bite the creature's hand so it lets go
The creature is angry and time is running out... what do you do?
> bite the creature's hand so it lets go, then run away
The creature is angry and time is running out... what do you do?
Another case is where the text says I can "Stand motionless" but the actual command that works is "don't move".
* * *
In my opinion, the best way to fix these kind of issues is just to watch someone else play your game. If you are careful to not give them any hints or tips, then watching them will quickly reveal where you need to make tweaks to the game easier to play.
(I also made a text adventure for this Ludum Dare, and I was lucky enough to be able to watch some friends play my game, so I could change a lot of commands to ones that they found easier to understand.)
I like the idea of defending against evolving enemies. It has a beautiful kind of hopelessness to it.
However when I was playing, I couldn't really tell that the robots were evolving. I'd like some kind of feedback that makes it clear to me what the differences between the robots are, and which 'species' have died off and which are coming back. This could be as complicated as making the robots visually different, or as simple as displaying a list at the end of each round showing the properties of each enemy robot and what its score was.
I found this a bit too hard for me - it took many many attempts to get up to the water.
I'd suggest making the first part of the game very easy so that players like me can see the water section (and realise how cool the game is) without having to try too many times.
Apart from being hard, I enjoyed this - it's a cool variation on the 'run and escape' type of game that I haven't seen before.
Nice, fast-paced game.
I had a couple of visual issues: it was hard for me to see my character (being very small and black on grey), and I found the screen flashes uncomfortable on my eyes.
I enjoyed the story, and the character sprites.
I like that the UI makes it very clear how to play.
I found the movement a little bit annoying. I would have liked to be able to change my mind while my character was sliding across, and go back the other way when I press the other direction key.
Fun, but I played more by guessing than really thinking about the different objects in the level. I played to level 8.
Cool! I love this, the puzzles are fun and make sense, it's a great use of the theme and a creative idea that works really well.
The music adds a lot to the game too.
I played the whole game.
I enjoyed this.
There's a bug, where the game displays "Dearest %(name)s" instead of using the actual name.
I played four times to get all the endings. I like how all of them are sad :')
Interesting. I like how the trees are consumed and grow back.
I'd like to see more interactivity, and a message log showing the previous few messages.
I would also like the animals to be a bit larger - I sometimes had trouble seeing them.
This reminded me of a very old game called Primordial Life by Jason Spofford. If you haven't already seen it, you might find it interesting :)
Wow, this is very ambitious. It could use a lot more polish, but what you've built here is impressive.
The future is a quick time event? Q_Q
I found it hard to understand - I never really understood how to play.
I liked a lot of the artwork, especially the way the little blobs inside the green mas jiggled around.
Oh, wow, I love that this is in QBasic - I first learned programming from making Qbasic games :) none of mine were as sophisticated as this.
I suggest that you try using FreeBasic, it's a more modern compiler that works with Qbasic code and makes .exes that work without Dosbox.
The game is cool, and brought back memories for me of playing MegaZeux. I didn't get very far (I need to go to bed) but I'm very happy that I stumbled across this game :)
Amazing!
It took me three attempts to get through (I lost once on the roguelike and once in the shooter) but I thought the difficulty was good, since you can quickly race through the early levels once you know what to do.
There's obviously a lot you could expand on, but I had a great time playing through this as it is.
nice! I love the cheerful, bouncy graphics. This grabbed my attention right from the title screen.
There are some cool ideas in here.
However some little technical issues are holding it back - the text disappearing too quickly, the slow rate of fire and the way you can get stuck.
I enjoyed finding and reading the notes. I found one ending, where you touch something blue - I'm not sure what it was. I tried collecting all the skulls but got stuck on a wall and stopped.
I played the whole game.
The game quickly becomes more interesting (and hard!) from level 4.
I had some trouble because I held down the up arrow for too long, and jumped again when I landed. I would prefer if jumping was only triggered when the key was first pressed.
I did not enjoy the sound effects :/
I liked the artwork and level design. In particular, I loved the sense of scale that came from having massive wheels right next to tiny ones.
I love the crisp and clear look of the game. The tiles, background, and repair nodes look great and are easy to see.
The music got a bit repetitive, and I would have preferred less 'floaty' movement (i.e. faster acceleration and deceleration) in this style of game.
I like the personality that comes through from the virus' facial expressions.