Lone Spelunker

Trireme by MarekkPie 2016-08-29T04:31:00

Interesting mechanic. I'm a sucker for a PICO-8 game, and this was fun to try out. I'd love to see this fleshed out more. Some things that I'd like to see:

* Larger instructions. The arrow key graphics are a little hard to parse, especially when animated. There's plenty of room for gorgeous pixel art on the stage.

* Have the ships do something. Maybe ships are sailing your way, and your ships fight them. The goal is to push the enemy off the left of the screen with your own ships. Larger ships can deal more damage and last longer, but take longer to make, and small ships are quick to make but do less damage.

* A cursor showing where you are on the ship. I think those little dots underneath *sort of* do that, but it seems like you have to do multiple things for some dots, and it felt a little confusing. (Luckily, the onscreen instructions help zip through that.)

Overall, a fun little diversion. Enjoyed it.

THE BOX by ReboundGames 2016-08-29T01:15:00

Nice implementation of a word scramble puzzle. I had fun with it. The clues are nice and cryptic while still giving actionable hints.

Linear A by Recursiveanomaly 2016-08-30T16:20:00

This is a really interesting and fun game. Ended too soon.

@pressxtoskip - That tablet seems to be a reference to the golden treasure Jason and the Argonauts find in a tree - if you know the story, you can figure it out!

Doodle Royale by A.W. Apps 2016-09-05T07:42:00

Nice. Managed to win the game. Though there were some pretty large enemies that seemed threatening, it was the little spider monster that hit me by far.

If I were to choose one suggestion to improve the game, it would be that it needs more weapons and/or more balance between existing weapons. The club and the can are too swingy, making it easy for monsters to hit you. The shotgun lets you stand from far away, making it far more powerful. The end result is that you choose one and stick with it. It would be nice if there were a reason to switch weapons.

Overall, though, quite a fun little game. The "doodle" art style was charming, and the controls worked well enough to play it satisfactorily out of the gate.

Ancient Maze of Epla by xesenix 2016-08-29T01:20:00

Fun, challenging puzzles. It's a nice little twist on the usual Sokoban formula that makes you think. Well done.

The Trade Network by scriptorum 2016-09-02T00:01:00

Really clever puzzle design. I'd love to have a mobile version of this with a bunch of different puzzles to try out.

Happy Hunting Ground by Will Edwards 2016-09-07T01:48:00

Fun little game. I liked the art style you chose for the game, reminiscent of the cave paintings at Lascaux and other places.

For some reason it seemed a lot easier to shoot at things on the top level than below, but it was fun either way. When you nail that far shot, it's pretty satisfying.

The sabertooth tiger is a nice addition, but it comes so infrequently and it's hard enough to notice that the game ends surprisingly. I'd recommend making it bigger and making more of them.

Overall, nice little game. Tell your kids they did a great job on the graphics, too!

Ancient Technologies by csanyk 2016-08-29T04:40:00

Got 8925. Not bad. Really recreated the feel of the 2600 rather well.

Boulderama! by AtkinsSJ 2016-09-07T02:10:00

Nice start to a game. The boulders rolling with the rotating hexes worked really well, and was a fun thing to tinker with.

I agree with other commenters that the hexes should rotate faster. It made the pace of the game feel a little slow.

You might also want to have some way of easily supporting one-button mice - on OS X, you can only rotate left. For instance, let the player hold SHIFT to rotate right.

Or, better yet, let the players DIRECTLY rotate the hexes, where you click on the hex, and move the mouse around radially and the hex moves at whatever rate you rotate the mouse around the center of the hex. That would be very tactile and satisfying, I suspect.

Anyway, I enjoyed my time with this game. I liked the art style and the concept of the game. Well done.

There is no instructions!? by nitroix 2016-09-07T02:23:00

This game looks fun - reminds me of Myst and other environment escape games of its ilk - but I had real trouble controlling the camera. It wasn't capturing the mouse, so I could only turn so far left or right, and the motion was quite jerky. I didn't feel like I could be very precise with the controls, and the motion felt inconsistent.

The game does seem very inviting and I did want to explore this little world. The symbology and the mystery were inviting, and I would have liked to have been able to delve deeper into it. You clearly put a lot of work into the environment and the puzzles, and it looks like it would be a fun game to play if I could navigate it.

Aqueducts of Solomon by LoneSpelunker 2016-08-30T15:38:00

Sure, feel free to include video of the game in your compilation.

Not sure what you mean by "write #LDJAM in the game's description"...?

Aqueducts of Solomon by LoneSpelunker 2016-08-31T22:01:00

@Wan - Yes, it's based on an existing board game: one I created the first night of the compo! I came up with the idea and made a paper prototype that first night, and then I did the art and coding on Saturday and Sunday. Glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for playing.

Aqueducts of Solomon by LoneSpelunker 2016-09-05T08:18:00

@BloodJohn - Sadly, I didn't have time to get a proper tutorial in there in the 48 hours, but there's a full explanation of how to play "Aqueducts of Solomon" at the URL listed just below the game (http://barkingdoginteractive.com/aqueducts). It's actually pretty simple, mechanically, but it does help to quickly read how the game works.

R. Lastey, archaeologist by Aurel Bílý 2016-09-01T23:53:00

Fun little diversion. I liked the variety of the puzzles and activities, and the art style was pretty charming. Good job.

Village Store by euske 2016-09-07T01:41:00

Charming little game. I liked the mechanic where you have to fit the items in the bags. I'd like to see even more in that realm, such as not putting a heavy watermelon on top of crushable bread.

One problem is the "not giving beer to minors" thing; if you're going to do that, it needs to be more clear who you are currently selling to and whether the person is a minor. This could, in fact, be another new element - you need to "card" the customer if they are buying alcohol, rather than just trying to make a judgement call based on how they look.

I could see this game being fleshed out and being made into a fun little math game for kids. It would be a little on the "drill and kill" side of things without some expansion, but for kids who just need some practice with their low-end addition, they might as well be playing a game like this rather than just doing problems on paper.

Baba Yaga by Azlen 2016-09-07T01:57:00

Nice little game. The pestle is a little hard to control, but it sounds like that's intentional. I was able to get 7 targets, but I one of them I landed on but didn't collect - not sure why.

(You might want to block people from going left, and have some indication of the direction they need to go. I accidentally went off the left side at one point, and was unable to correct for obvious reasons.)

I thought the parallax effect in the background was really well done. Gave a real sense of depth and speed. I'd like to see the foreground sprites done with that level of detail, and perhaps animated.

Fireworks Grandmaster by local minimum 2016-09-05T07:59:00

This is a fun and clever little mechanic, trying to interpret the customers' mood and translating that into a firework display.

Suggestions:

* Make the firework explosions smaller on the screen. They are kind of ridiculously large compared to the buildings, and they often go off the screen. If nothing else, you probably want to save the really large displays for later in the game.

* I'd also make the "shows" longer; after all the reading and constructing, having only a handful of rockets go up is kind of a let-down. We should be able to see a whole series of rockets go up.

* It would be handy to have a way to go back and see what the customer said again after we know what the options are for putting into the rocket. (Or a more obvious one if there is a way to do it.)

Overall, though, good job. A fun premise, and a well-executed fireworks display.

Ice, Fire, Сodfish and Sheeps by BloodJohn 2016-09-02T19:29:00

I love the look of this game, and really want to play it. However, when I try to play the game in my browser (Safari 9.1.3 under OSX), I get this error: "An error occured running the Unity content on this page. See your browser's JavaScript console for more info. The error was: NotFoundError: DOM IDBDatabase Exception 8: An operation failed because the requested database object could not be found."

This game looks really interesting, though - reminds me of King of Dragon Pass. Bookmarking for later.

Generation 0xDEADBEEF by sftrabbit 2016-09-02T19:23:00

Nice game. I really enjoyed the "hack the world by understanding how it is represented" idea; it's fresh, clever, and original. I could see this being fleshed out into a really deep and engrossing long-form puzzle game that would do well on mobile, especially.

(...but why a sloth?)

Abacus Fighter by deadpixelsociety 2016-08-29T01:42:00

Wow, this is a really clever two-player design. This would be a good activity for kids learning the concept of place value.

Disgolem by ocarson 2016-09-01T06:07:00

Fun game. The rhythm elements were well-represented, and the on-the-fly logic made for a fun twist to the standard rhythm formula. Enjoyed my time with the game.

CAVEMAN by Swampie 2016-08-29T01:58:00

I like the feel of this game, and the low-fi graphics make it approachable. I found it very difficult to play on a laptop, so I didn't get far, but I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

Sacrifice by tayl1r 2016-08-29T00:50:00

This is a cool little diversion! Loved the presentation of the little community, the drama of the sacrifice scene, and the unnerving mechanics.

I wasn't sure whether the choice of sacrifice actually played a role. I caused the famine to pass, but I couldn't tell whether that was due to anything I did or not. If I had a suggestion, it would be to add some kind of feedback into the game to help you know what your decision's effects were (besides the obvious). I could see this being pretty compelling if it were fleshed out more, in much the same way "Werewolf" and its ilk are.

Double puzzle dungeon by Decentsauce 2016-08-31T05:32:00

Nice. Worked really well for me, and I was able to get through to the end with little trouble. You have a solid first-person dungeon crawler engine here you could use to flesh out a larger game.

Key Adventure by g12345 2016-08-31T05:27:00

This was a really solid little game. Played great from beginning to end. I was able to get all 16 keys on the first try, but it was touch and go a few times until a heart showed up. Well done.

Watch for Falling Rocks by DDRKirby(ISQ) 2016-09-07T02:04:00

Frantic and fun, with a charming art style and interesting progression!

This is easily one of the better games I've played from this compo, and I enjoyed my time with it. I managed to survive two and a half days on my first try, and there were some moments when I felt like a boss by flinging those logs at the right time. Nice.

Lost Temple by Dietrich Epp 2016-09-05T08:13:00

Nice. I liked the style and presentation of this game.

Unfortunately, I was largely unable to play it. There was something up with the jumps in that second level where when I'd try to jump over to the platform where I'd moved it, the character would start moving significantly more slowly, and it ended up making it impossible to get across that level. (Assuming I get what you're supposed to do - step on the pressure plate to move the platform about halfway between the two sections, and then jump from one to the other to get to the second pressure plate, yes?) It ended up feeling really "floaty" on those jumps, and I suspect it wasn't behaving as intended.

Also, I felt bad for that cat down in the well in the first level. You should be able to rescue it. (Or can you?)

As other commenters have said, the music was pretty good for a compo. Well done.

Da Vinci vs Ancient Creators by kawzar 2016-09-07T00:37:00

This is a good start for a horizontal "shmup", but it needs some work before it will be truly engaging. Here are some suggestions:

* The enemies need to do something other than move in a straight line. There are places you can sit in the battlefield and never get hit. I can just press the space bar and have an arbitrarily high score.

* The hit detection and enemy shots don't seem to match up well. I'd recommend smaller sprites and some really precise hit detection if you want to make a game like this, because otherwise, you're just guessing where your hitbox is.

* The enemies need variety. I quickly lost interest when it became clear that there weren't any new enemies coming. This is particularly true for the audio effects - the same audio effect over and over again led to a somewhat aggravating soundscape which I think could be avoided if it weren't always using the same effect over and over.

* Some background variety would be good, too.

I realize all the above is really difficult to get into a compo over the span of 48 hours. What you were able to stand up - even with the points above - is still impressive and something to be proud of. The graphics, controls, and gameplay all work, and the game is certainly playable. If you intend to take it further, you certainly have a base from which to start!

red spade ♠ by Wan 2016-08-31T05:43:00

Wow. Clever, original, compelling, and fun. Great job.

Angelic Design by Joror 2017-05-18T17:13:54Z

Interesting premise. Reminds me of the "Small World" board game in a lot of ways.

I get the feeling that there's a lot going on "under the hood" in this game, but it just wasn't exposed very well to the player. I realize that's hard in a game jam - a post-compo version with better on boarding would be a good idea!

I liked the element where you raise up races and they decline, only to make room for new races. Gave it a grand feel.

I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing, with regard to cursing, exalting, etc. And there was something about "tasks" that I didn't know what I was supposed to do in order to complete them. I got all the way to the 1000 years, and it said to exalt the heroes - which I had been doing all along - but then it appeared that there wasn't anything to do after that.

I didn't care for the manner of navigating the map. I think I would have preferred a smaller, static map that wouldn't have to be scrolled just to get to the edges, and instead had a slightly smaller world where it could all be reached without scrolling. It seems that the only reason it was there was to give you access to the very corners of the map that were intruded upon by the HUD displays, so I think you could slightly revamp them to the point where it doesn't require moving the map at all.

Anyway, looks like it's the start of a compelling strategy game. I enjoyed the parts that I was able to connect with, and I suspect after getting into the rest of the mechanics, I'd enjoy them, too. This is probably a game worth fleshing out into a larger offering.

Mediator by randomhuman 2017-05-19T05:44:02Z

This is really great work, but it certainly doesn't deliver on the promise from the first scene. This is a real shame, because what's there is SO strong! I'd love to play the fully-fleshed out game of which this is the first scene. It's clear you've got some great world-building and writing in place already, and the art/animation/interaction style really lends itself to the tone. I could see this fleshed out into a commercial game. Well done.

Tooth decay by Ithildin 2017-05-18T16:46:41Z

Fun little game! The controls were responsive and supported the frantic nature of what you're trying to do. The graphics worked well, and the theme came through. Nice job!

A small world by CoderDozer 2017-05-17T06:20:40Z

Hmm. I tried to play this game in Safari, and after "Downloading..." it just says "Failure during startup, see Javascript console."

Here's what the javascript output was from the console. (Sorry, don't mean to spam the comments, but I figure you'd want to be able to trace this.)

``` [Error] Assertion failed: undefined printErr (index.html:353) abort (a_small_world.js:3:12075) assert (a_small_world.js:1:7592) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:25187) doCallback (a_small_world.js:1:110515) done (a_small_world.js:1:110601) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:89322) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:90884) getDB (a_small_world.js:1:89602) getRemoteSet (a_small_world.js:1:90826) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:89271) getLocalSet (a_small_world.js:1:90721) syncfs (a_small_world.js:1:89197) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:110753) forEach syncfs (a_small_world.js:1:110677) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:1:25160) _emscripten_asm_const_v (a_small_world.js:1:28308) Yi (a_small_world.asm.js:21:28884) callMain (a_small_world.js:3:10663) doRun (a_small_world.js:3:11369) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:3:11524) [Error] abort("Assertion failed: undefined") at jsStackTrace@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:17547 stackTrace@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:17721 abort@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:3:12292 assert@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:7591 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:25186 doCallback@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:110514 done@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:110600 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:89321 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:90883 getDB@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:89601 getRemoteSet@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:90825 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:89270 getLocalSet@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:90720 syncfs@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:89196 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:110752 forEach@[native code] syncfs@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:110676 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:25159 _emscripten_asm_const_v@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:1:28307 Yi@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.asm.js:21:28883 callMain@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:3:10662 doRun@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:3:11368 https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/451977/a_small_world.js:3:11523 If this abort() is unexpected, build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 which can give more information. callMain (a_small_world.js:3:10904) doRun (a_small_world.js:3:11369) (anonymous function) (a_small_world.js:3:11524) ```

A View from Above by OfficialCodeNMore 2017-05-17T16:26:17Z

This game is a little light on content, but what is here is quite clever. I'm not sure the core conceit of the game would support a fully-fleshed out experience, but as a quick little diversion, it was interesting.

One comment - it would be nice to be able to skip the text, or always have the text advance. I was playing without audio, so it was kind of frustrating to have to wait for seemingly-arbitrary amounts of time on some text, but could advance other text immediately with the space bar. (I realize you intended for players to play with the sound on, but the reality is that not everyone will. From an accessibility standpoint alone, it's good to assume that the person playing may not be able to hear the audio of the game.) Still, that's a pretty minor point, and didn't really detract too much from the overall presentation.

Not sure how I feel about goat explosions. :smile:

Antology by ragnta 2017-05-18T16:41:27Z

Interesting little game. The art style is something that I haven't seen before - looks like it was hand-drawn and scanned in?

I liked the premise of the game, but I didn't manage to get very far. I played several games where I'd die on the first fight because the other ant would go first, which seemed to be the sole determining factor on whether I would win the battle or die. That made the game a little too "swingy" for me - I would have appreciated something that would bring more strategy to the table.

Still, it all appeared to work, had a consistent and interesting art style, and had some little humorous flourishes, like the ant leg sticking out of the grave at the end.

The Button Room by Laylow 2017-05-17T05:44:37Z

This is a nice start for a little puzzle game, but as you noted, it probably needs more content to be really satisfying. It's clear you ran out of time, and had more planned. It's a shame - I would have liked to see where you were going with it.

I did like the aesthetics of the game - the robot and its interactions would be fun in a more fleshed-out puzzle game. Reminds me of the old "point and click" adventure games somewhat.

Graphically, I liked the simplicity of the presentation. One suggestion would be to make the robot a different color than the background wall so that it doesn't get so lost against the background.

Pale White Dot by cosine 2017-05-02T04:50:26Z

Nice little incremental game. I'd like to see some more technologies to be able to be built, but as it stands, it's pretty solid.

Some suggestions:

* Make it so that you can't select text, because when you're clicking the links quickly, you often accidentally select text instead. (Also, you could make the UI elements buttons instead of text links.) * Add in some ways to buy multiple items at once. 10x, 100x, and max, for instance. * Some visualization of the fleet strength other than numbers would be nice.

Anyway, a strong offering for the time period. Quite fun for the time spent!

The Morix Colony by Somnium 2017-05-03T04:09:08Z

Nice world building game. I like some of the story flourishes.

The game feels a bit like it's playing itself, though. The vast, vast majority of the time in the early game, when an option comes up, there's only one possible option available. It would be nice if there were some way to have some agency over what happens, even if the other options are not currently available.

Also, the enemy fighters make the game a bit tedious. They come SO frequently that there's no point in acceding to their demands, because even if you do, another pirate will just show up the next time you hit the advance time button. If pirate attacks were infrequent, you might consider paying when they show up, but when it's pirate after pirate after pirate after pirate, you basically have no choice but to accept the attrition.

This brings up another point - it feels like you just sit there as ruler and let the enemy hammer you. There should be some way of taking charge of the situation. We should be able to recruit more colonists electively (rather than just waiting for someone to offer). We should be able to spend money to beef up our defenses (I think one time I got a "build planetary defenses", but it didn't appear to do anything, since pirates still came fairly often and killed by colonists). As it stands, you don't really get the sense of being a ruler because you just sit back and let things happen to you.

I liked the worker placement element you had going, but it almost never came into play. I managed to win the game on the first try, but never once did I come close to filling up my planet. The maximum number of colonists I ever had was five, I think, and even that was short lived. I would have liked to see more colonists coming in, more options for placing them, and more interesting choices as to what to do with them. Most of the time during play, I only had two workers, and it's pretty obvious what the distribution should be of those two workers across two potential jobs.

This game is interesting. I like the world, the UI mechanics, and the main gameplay loop. I think all it needs is some minor tweaks and a few more expansions to the core content, and it would be really slick.

Unlucky Planet by Siridakis 2017-05-19T05:24:11Z

Nice. I liked the presentation of the game and how you can gradually beef up your capabilities while defending the planet. The game felt really responsive, and sessions went quickly enough that it didn't feel like a slog. Well done.

Raven Delivery Service by DDRKirbyISQ 2017-05-02T05:26:26Z

Well done. The controls are slick and responsive. I only played the single-player version, but I was able to quickly figure out the game and be productive. The graphics are pretty charming and well-integrated, and the gameplay feels quick. It would be interesting to see some recipes that mix ingredients, but for the abbreviated timeframe, this is really impressive.

Bureaucratic Deity Simulator 2018 by mmason 2017-05-01T05:59:11Z

I quite enjoyed this entry. The puzzle construction and design is well-integrated with the theme of the game, and the rules all make sense in that context, too, to the point where they're intuitive. Overall, quite clever.

Commander's Log by smbe19 2017-05-19T05:53:51Z

Wow - there is a lot of simulation and depth to this game for the span of the game jam! This is very cool. Reminds me of games like Prison Architect, Dwarf Fortress, and the like. Well done. Bookmarking this to come back and play it later.

The world is (a) flat by Jordgubben 2017-05-19T16:28:16Z

Nice little adventure game. I liked the illustrations and the premise. I had the same concerns as other players about the UI, but reading your notes, it sounds like you've got that under control for future games with the same engine - looking forward to playing them in LD39.

I managed to get to the end, but I wasn't able to wake up the roommate - is that possible?

Pixel Town by automatonvx 2017-05-02T04:29:57Z

Nice. I enjoyed the various elements you need to balance - space, resources, housing, etc. - to manage the town. The pixel art did the job for the most part, even though it was pretty simple, and was charming enough for it to work. I didn't feel like the monsters were particularly aggressive, at least as far as I got, and I couldn't seem to get the "clear" command to work. But other than those minor things which I imagine could easily be tweaked, it was a pretty strong offering. Well done.

Greyer by ccglp 2017-05-18T05:31:00Z

Nice. Really liked the atmosphere you were able to build up with the shapes and simple characters. Managed to get 9/10, then blocked at the end.

Overall, well done. The jumping feels a little "floaty", but it actually meshes fairly well with the mood of the rest of the game, so it's not really a huge problem.

What Remains. by Fiote 2017-05-19T07:21:56Z

Nice. I liked this game - it had a lot going for it.

The game felt a little slow to me - building up resources and such seemed to take too long.

I'd also like the vault dwellers to be a little more intelligent. They were frustratingly bad at just deciding to become idle, even though I had set them to do a particular task. And the icons on their boxes on the right didn't seem to always correspond to what they were doing; for instance, it would say that they were idle when the icon showed that they were supposed to be pumping water.

I think it might have something to do with the "4x per day" for the water and food machines or something, but it was kind of frustrating to be out of water, tell your workers to go pump water, and have them do nothing. This issue hit me a lot with the food generation - there were times when it wouldn't even let me click that task button, and there was no UI feedback to explain why - I'm not sure why they wouldn't do anything.

What I'd prefer to the existing UI would be something like what Dwarf Fortress does, where you assign your workers to tasks as stations. For instance, you could tell Olive that this water pump is her station, and this bed is her bed. When she is awake, she goes and pumps water at that pump. When she is sleepy, she goes to that bed to sleep. When the pump is broken, she works on fixing it, or scraps while waiting for it to be repaired, with a little notification icon to indicate that she's not really able to do her assigned job.

Anyway, despite the above comments overall, I enjoyed this game. It's clear there's a lot going on under the hood, and the game is otherwise quite strong - an impressive achievement for the time frame.

World of Echoes by multiplexor 2017-05-18T16:56:11Z

Wow, I liked this one. Reminds me of "Braid".

The art style came off as a bit "programmer art" at first, but when that first door opened, I decided that it was pretty cool looking after all.

The multiple-versions element was well done, and it brought a surprising amount of challenge for how simple a mechanic it is.

Overall, a thumbs-up effort. Well done.

A lone colony on a small planet by makiki99 2017-05-01T05:32:25Z

I liked the aesthetic of this game. Figuring out the mechanics of purifying the planet was interesting, although it felt a little odd "purifying" the planet by absolutely replacing the wilderness with mines, coal-fired plants, oil refineries, etc. Overall, the game felt pretty solid and engaging. The worst thing you could say about it is that it just needs more content because what's already there is strong. I'd love to see more terrain types with more options for building, or some other mechanics that throw a wrench in the gears, such as things that cause the corruption to spread, enemies that attack your infrastructure, etc.

I would also like to see the price of the purifiers go down, or their range increased. As it stands, covering the planet with them would be a rather long and tedious process, so having some better shortcuts might help people complete that.

But overall, a strong offering that fits the theme well, is fun to play, has a good look to it, and is fun to explore as long as it lasts. Thumbs up!

Rickshaw World by tobico 2017-05-17T19:05:53Z

This is a nice little diversion. I enjoyed walking the rickshaw around.

I do wish you could go a little faster, or that the fares you take on would generate closer to your current position. Some of the longer "drives" seemed to go on longer than they perhaps could have (although the banter was a clever way of mitigating that).

Overall, a solid effort for the time frame. I enjoyed it.

MiniWorlds by Mektidas 2017-05-19T05:17:17Z

Nice. I like how there are a lot of different games to choose from, and how you can start with the easy ones and ramp up to harder challenges. You can find the right challenge level quickly.

One suggestion: Whenever you allow arrow keys and mouse, also allow WASD and mouse. Playing the Zombies game, for instance, is really difficult on a laptop.

Tinyverse by zener 2017-05-17T06:02:46Z

Nice. This is all the fun of games like "Lunar Lander" without all the frustrating and annoying parts, like limited fuel and instantly deadly walls. Enjoyed it. Well done for such a short time frame.

The graphics were attractive. I didn't know what the green rectangles were when I first saw them - thought they were a glitch - but other than that, it was all readable at first glance. I'd recommend changing the green rectangle to a barrel or something that looks more like a power-up.

My only other gameplay suggestion would be to place all the lost travelers at the beginning of the level so you can see where they are when you pass by them. Or make it so that you have a directional indicator or something so that you don't go looking for a wanderer only to realize it was back where you've already been.

Overall, nice work.

Planet Pinball by lucentbeam 2017-05-19T05:59:54Z

I loved the idea here, but I found it pretty unplayable. The controls were responsive, but the ball coming out of nowhere, from any direction, and having to move a flipper to a place where it would intercept it and THEN timing the flip to send the ball back was pretty much a fool's errand (for me, at least). It ended up being more frustrating than satisfying.

It's a shame, really, because the rest of the game - the presentation, the graphics, the controls, the innovative concept - were all really strong. I think with some polish and features (like an indicator of where the ball is coming from next, say) would go a long way towards making this solid.

A Brief Retreat by Jakob Willforss 2017-05-19T02:08:15Z

Nice. I liked this little survival game. For such a small little sandbox and such a short development window, you packed a good amount of options and variety into the little world. Good job.

Day by Day by Frolicks 2017-05-17T06:09:43Z

That is a very clever little mechanic - rotating around the center point to get points while dodging/ramming items that float in. It felt great during play, and every time you died, you felt it was solidly your own fault. High "one more play" factor.

Really well done. I enjoyed my time with this.

Fossil Blastr by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2017-05-17T01:46:45Z

Nicely done! You got a lot of polish into this game, and it was fun finally getting a dinosaur skeleton put together. I see that you mentioned that you wanted to get in some indication that you're close to bones - I think that would definitely be a good addition, since it seems like you're just randomly digging around, hoping to find the bones before you reach the time limit.

Another good addition would be to add more bones, say from different dinosaurs, and then have part of the time challenge to assemble as many complete skeletons as you can. That strikes me as a great way to add challenge and depth to the game.

Overall, thumbs up!

Match the Fleas by DaisyChubb 2017-05-19T16:16:51Z

Hmm. When I go to the link off of the page you linked to, I just get a large fuchsia box on the screen and nothing else. Is there a particular browser we need to use to play the HTML5 version?

Dispyria by Tat2Tim 2017-05-19T06:15:44Z

Nice. I enjoyed this. I normally don't go in for platformers, because they tend to get pretty brutal in difficulty, but this one used the platformer mechanics for exploration instead of all the challenge, so that made it more enjoyable than most.

I thought I was stuck for a while there before I realized you could go underwater - that was a nice touch! Indeed, the overall aesthetic was quite well done.

There were a couple of places where I felt the hit boxes were too large. Trying to jump up near a platform quite often blocked me when it looked like it shouldn't. I realize this was probably to be more forgiving when you are standing ON a platform, so perhaps a way to reconcile those would be to have a "traveling up" hitbox and a "falling down" hitbox, so that the platforms are forgiving regardless of which direction you are coming at them from.

But really, that was a minor quibble. This was a particularly strong offering, easily one of the top 10 LD38 games I've tried so far.

Small Town by Zerbroesler 2017-05-17T06:32:04Z

Interesting start for a game. It dries up quickly because of the lack of anything else to do, but what's there is certainly fun and engaging as long as it lasts.

One thing I would like to see would be for it to block you from building if no one would be able to enter the building as placed. I started out placing buildings a little bit away from the road, just to give them some space to grow, but couldn't figure out how to get the people into the houses.

Overall, pretty nice for the short time span. You could probably flesh this out with some more mechanics and make it quite fun.

It Shakes the World Apart by lectvs 2017-05-19T06:33:42Z

Nice! A solid, complete, well-presented story. I would have liked to see more interaction with the characters, rather than linear conversations, but overall, it was really quite well done. I enjoyed it.

Across the Ancient by dawn 2017-05-17T05:36:51Z

Looks like a good start to an engine, but without any instructions or any dialogue boxes or gameplay feedback, it's hard to call this a game.

The world layout looks interesting, especially with map elements like the volcano which clearly take up more than one tile, and it's obvious that you have/had plans for more than you managed to get through here, so I'd encourage you to keep working on it.

1964 World's Fair Engineer by Lone Spelunker 2017-05-04T05:22:55Z

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments!

(@mmason) The difficulty ramps up based on how much "overage" you get while playing. Each time through your deck, you need to get more Delight points than the last time through, so if you really jack up your Delight on a pass, then that will be the baseline for the next level.

(@nilead) Glad you like it. I would like to polish up a game based on this for mobile - I think it would work really well, too. I had this idea for a special kind of deck builder where you use all your cards at once, and the "Small World" theme really drove home for me how that could work. I think I can repurpose the mechanics for a different theme, since "people who like the Small World ride's history" is a pretty niche audience. Heh. I've got some other past game jam games I need to finish polishing up first, though!

(@jackyjjc) Glad you like the game, and some good points/suggestions. Yeah, it was all done by me in the 48 hours. I cannibalized some code from other sources and Stack Overflow here and there, but the game logic, UI, rules, graphics, etc., were all done in the 48 hours. The thing that took the most time, probably was the UI and the card designs. The graphics were all done in Flash, which is a terrible coding environment, but a great cartooning environment. It took a while to get the base doll looking right, but once I did, I was able to largely copy-paste it and tweak it to make all the other dolls. Everything else was pretty simple, art-wise. The game mechanics I fleshed out using index cards before sitting down and starting coding, so I had a pretty clear idea of how it would all work before I even got started, which helped immensely.

Regarding the source code, I don't have a formal GitHub repository or anything, just a .zip file ready to go on my server when there's a place I can enter it in the ldjam.com interface to associate it with my game. (Is there a way to do this yet? I don't see one. But I think I'm missing some stuff, since everyone else's game seems to list their game's platforms on Feedback Friends, and mine just says, "Unknown". I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be specifying this info about my game...) Anyway, as this is an HTML5 game, all the source code is viewable right in your browser - I don't obfuscate it or anything - so if you're interested in peeking under the hood, just "view source".

(@automatonvx) Yeah, I would have liked to get in an interactive tutorial, but, well, 48 hours. The game is a bit difficult to get into because it's so different than most card games - even most "deckbuilder" games - so it really could benefit with some onboarding polish. Maybe in a post-compo version!

1964 World's Fair Engineer by Lone Spelunker 2017-05-17T14:00:48Z

(@jackyjjc) (@frodewin) - It doesn't look like there's going to be a way to specifically upload the source in the site interface, so I've added a link to the game description above.

(@invader) (@frodewin) (@geeitsomelaldy) - Yes, if I'd had more than 48 hours, I would definitely have but in some better onboarding and inline strategy tips, because this game works quite differently than other games in its "deck building" genre, so even people familiar with the genre would probably be confused.

As to strategy, not knowing whether to ramp up delight or not is exactly the challenge of the game. Ramp it up too quickly, and you hurt your chances of surviving the following round. Ramp it up too slowly, and you don't stay ahead of the constantly-ticking-forward difficulty. Eventually, the game will get the better of you, because there's only a finite number of cards to buy and as set pieces get diffused through your deck, it gets harder to connect them, so the goal is to just see how far you can get, how high a Delight score you can get, how many cards you can get into your deck, etc.

If I were to flesh this out into a fully-fledged game, it would definitely need the better onboarding mentioned earlier, but it would also need a less brutal difficulty curve and an endgame goal, since just eventually losing to the card draw isn't very satisfying. But again, 48 hours! That wasn't "in the cards", so to speak, for a compo entry.

But it certainly allowed me to explore that particular game mechanic that I had the idea for - this kind of "panoramic deckbuilder". I think it has legs, and I'll probably try to flesh it out into a more polished game. Likely with a different theme and heavily tweaked mechanics.

Anyway, thanks for playing!

1964 World's Fair Engineer by Lone Spelunker 2017-05-18T21:29:58Z

(@piscythe) Yes, that situation is a consequence of the fact that you collect your Delight when you approve, not at the end of the pitch.

One of the things I was hoping to get into the game - and just didn't have time in the 48 hours - was to have you collect your Delight at the end of the pitch by showing an animation of a boat going through your ride with visitors in it. As they passed each card, it would compute the delight and award it, showing them ooh-ing and aah-ing as they went, or looking unhappy because it's all in darkness. This was all predicated on getting *animated* cards in there, with the dolls moving, water flowing, etc. The way I built the graphics would have lent themselves to this - I illustrated them in Flash, which makes it easy to animate stuff like this - but I just ran out of time.

Might be possible for a more fleshed-out version, though, although like I said above, if I make a "real" game out of this, it would probably be a different theme.

That sort of post-pitch analysis step would also fix another problem with the game, which is that you can collect Delight by collapsing backgrounds, and then reject the resultant combination card. In early rounds, you can actually have a ride with ZERO cards in it that gains impressive amounts of Delight and Research points, which is of course nonsensical. (Thematically, I pawn it off on the idea that you're still pitching these ideas to the boss "behind the scenes", but they just didn't make it into the accepted blueprints. It's obviously a contrivance, though, and it would be better if the mechanics more naturally supported the narrative in this sense.)

Thanks for playing and taking the time to comment - glad you enjoyed it.

1964 World's Fair Engineer by Lone Spelunker 2017-05-19T20:34:50Z

(@randomhuman) Yeah, the ability to move cards around was something I definitely struggled with at the design level. At one extreme, not letting the player rearrange cards would put you at the complete mercy of a bad deal. At the other extreme, letting players rearrange them at will would mean the cards being in a deck would be meaningless, defeating the whole purpose of it being a deckbuilder game - you could arbitrarily arrange them for the best score each pitch.

I intended the forklift to be a compromise between the two, but I think you're right that the availability of them was erring on the restrictive side. They probably need rebalancing in the sense that it is too expensive to buy them. The idea was that they would trickle in as you get more earning power - when your deck is small, you don't need as many as when your deck gets large, in other words. But resources are scarce enough that it is pretty painful to buy them!

Originally, I had the forklifts let you SWAP two cards, which felt pretty powerful but involved some UI clunkiness that I thought made things too confusing, but perhaps a more expensive forklift could be introduced later in play that does this, once the player has the other concepts under their belt already.

(@jordgubben) Heh. Yes, the original plan was to have the cards be animated. It just wasn't in the cards for the short timeframe of the competition, sadly.

I like the idea of zooming out and tapping the card you want to interact with. That might be a better UI for the way these are presented.

I also thought briefly about trying to add music during the compo. The obvious choice would be a song along the lines of the ones that inspired the game, but of course that would have a high probability of driving people away from the game if I managed to successfully evoke the spirit of the song too closely, since it really is a polarizing song. People have strong opinions about it!

Anyway, thanks for playing, and for taking the time to leave feedback.

5-Minute Civilization by Stevie Bushman 2017-05-19T05:33:36Z

This was a fun little game. I enjoyed it. I didn't feel like the enemy AI was all that smart - especially on my first several games, they could have annihilated me if they didn't wander randomly around the map.

The nuke seems a bit overpowered, but it strikes me as allowing you to quickly draw a game to a close instead of letting it be a long drawn-out war of attrition, which is often the problem with games of this nature.

You Are An Elevator by Pixel Maniacs 2017-05-17T01:52:49Z

From the description and other commenters, this looks like a fun game.

Unfortunately, it wasn't working for me. I called it up and got nothing but a black screen with some controls in the lower right corner that wouldn't do anything. (This was on Safari 10.1 / OS X 10.12.4.)