One Orb by patricklorio 2014-01-01T18:21:00
Well done! This was one of the more entertaining games I've played - I liked the controls, music, and art. Unfortunately, I got a libgdx crash at some point :(
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → lucentbeam
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | 👥 | Planet Pinball | jam | 461 | 3.25 | 3.35 | 3.65 | 3.55 | 3.60 | 3.10 | 3.15 | 3.15 | |
| 2016 | 37 | One room | No More Monkeys | jam | 293 | 3.56 | 3.32 | 3.37 | 3.72 | 4.39 | 3.82 | 3.38 | 3.93 | 20 | |
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | The Tower of the Tiny Wizard | jam | 584 | 3.25 | 3.25 | 3.47 | 3.77 | 3.26 | 61 | ||||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | The Case of the Mystery Mauler | jam | 373 | 3.39 | 2.96 | 3.30 | 3.91 | 3.30 | 3.23 | 3.50 | 3.57 | 39 | |
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | TUGBOAT | jam | 239 | 3.56 | 3.59 | 3.48 | 3.80 | 3.73 | 3.58 | 2.73 | 3.30 | 74 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | One Glimpse of Freedom | jam | 332 | 2.94 | 2.55 | 3.29 | 3.68 | 2.66 | 2.53 | 1.89 | 3.00 | 63 |
Well done! This was one of the more entertaining games I've played - I liked the controls, music, and art. Unfortunately, I got a libgdx crash at some point :(
This was a neat little exploration game - the aesthetic was very pleasant
Nice work! Very clever and entertaining
I enjoyed this a lot! Had a blast playing it.
Ha! I love the look of all the different penguins! My only comment (and very minor at that) is that it would be nice to have WASD controls in addition to the arrow keys, as playing left handed on the laptop with trackpad made it quite a bit harder. That being said, the control scheme and look mechanic was really fun! Awesome job.
Really amazing graphics. Controls are also quite solid, but I feel like there was supposed to be a double jump feature? I can't figure out how to stop the jetpack dogs.
Awesome idea! The two second evaluation feels slow with just one person connected, though. Perhaps the evaluation time could be dynamic with number of clients, maxing out at 2 seconds?
Having key commands would be a big help (maybe there are and I missed them?) - pressing the buttons felt really clunky to me. Also, it seems you can press a button multiple times to up the number of votes for that action.
Really nice work. I love the dashed line, map/scroll background, and 'X's. Makes for a clever and nicely unified theme.
@moomoo112 Ah yeah, sorry about that. I guess we got so used to it that it was easy to overlook in the game information. The rats just stand in place and get you if you walk within their line of sight and some range. Unfortunately some of the level designs make it so that you skirt just within/beyond their range, so it can seem sporadic...
@csanyk Fair enough! Our original idea was to extend the gameplay to rely more on sound and "feeling your way" through the obstacles, but we didn't really get there. In retrospect, using (for example) rushing water and distance-sensitive audio for it instead of spikes as the first obstacle would have a little more on track toward that goal.
Heck yes! This is awesome. I love roguelikes, and I think this is a great use of the theme. Really great job.
As others have said, it's a really good and interesting idea - it could just use with a little balancing. Shield swap speed, number of enemies, and perhaps some extended controls? Constraining to left/right made it pretty tough.
Yes!! I finally beat the boss after I realized I could fly the dagger around. Super satisfying - great job! WASHENNNNGGAAA!!
Nice job! This was really great. As others have said, at first I felt like it was a limited use of the theme, but mixing it up with the coloration really got me, in particular. Great music, nice and lighthearted mood, and solid platforming feel. Props!
A nice and simple idea, and well executed! I like GarethIW's solution to the fire popping on top of you.
Great art and music. Cute, and definitely atmospheric. Gamepad support would have gone a long way, but still really impressive given the time limit!
It's cute, and I like the shield mechanic! The difficulty could be tempered, if you want, by reducing the projectiles' speed and rate-of-fire, and increasing the speed of the umbrella (both unfolding and swinging.) But some people like their games hard!
Very stylish!
Really interesting game, with very clever mechanics. I seem to be pretty bad at it :)
Core mechanic is pretty satisfying. Sound effects are annoying.
Played with the XBox 360 controller, but still found the control scheme a little opaque. I'd prefer it if I could just point in a direction and the porcupine would do what it takes to get there, rather than having to switch over to a flight-sim-like scheme whenever I exit my balloon. Otherwise, I really liked the concept, pace, and artwork. Nice job!
Utterly adorable.
Lady Beardo said it perfectly.
Strangely satisfying! Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this integrated with Facebook so you could crush your friends?
Haha, pretty great little game. Maybe a little morbid, but in a funny way :)
Hey everyone, thanks for the kind comments! We're glad people are enjoying it - we had a blast making it! We're actually working on a post-jam version with some cleanups and other features we wanted to put in, including improved music :)
@mildmojo : I'm sorry to hear about the PS4 controller... We didn't have one to test, and I wouldn't be surprised if the key bindings are all completely different.
Very nice work! Pretty challenging -- took me a while to realize you could pick up the UFO's, and even then, took me a few tries after that to beat it.
Pretty interesting little game. I also found that I would lose seemingly randomly... And sometimes the cats would catch me but I didn't die? Seems like there are some strange collision issues going on. I'm not sure if it was intended, but I found the searchlight-eyed cats to be sort of ominous and creepy :)
I saw pixel-art and first-person and initially thought "Minecraft lookalike" but the art and atmosphere is a level up! Hope you really do finish it; I'd love to know what kind of story you had in mind.
Neat little game! Great mood and interesting concept.
Wow, great work!
Nice! Interesting use of the theme, and a fun little puzzle trying to figure out the right categories of words to use.
Heheh, this was entertaining, if a little bizarre. I really enjoyed the barrage animation and mechanic! Good fun.
A little frustrating at first, but the gameplay really comes together. Nice level design!
Very clever mechanic. The game does a good job of teaching you how to play it and then gradually ramping up difficulty. The colors are soothing and the sounds are pleasant, but a music track would have really brought it home.
Interesting game, though I had some trouble really feeling like I could affect the population. Beautiful art. The music gives it all a very eerie vibe.
Very interesting and original idea! I also hit the issue where I got whacked over and over by the ogre -- and yeah, it was right after I made a very long weapon. Some more prompts about the weapon parts would be really helpful.
Hah, what a bizarrre and kind of gross game :) That being said, really nice work! I like that there's a combined food/health mechanic. I was pretty surprised when I started puking my guts out! As others have said, the challenge could definitely stand to be ramped up.
Gorgeous, unique, welcoming. Best thing I've seen so far!
Hey, very nice work! I like the shared life/attack pool, and I really enjoyed the character animations and parallax fg/bg. I encountered a few bugs -- if my mouse left the active area my keyboard controls stopped working. Also, if you walk left of the start area it seems you'll fall into a void?
I... don't know what to say!
Very weird, and definitely original.
Very clever gameplay! I was particularly impressed with the concept of pressing against something to slide it. I'd have liked a visual indication of which objects slide in which direction, and whether I'm close enough to an object to slide it. The music is really lovely, but it doesn't fit the game at all. A "sizzling" sound effect would have been nice too.
Nice work! I enjoyed the graphics and the gameplay. By the second or third level it started getting a little tedious with how long the timer was... But the 4th level was a fresh change! Unfortunately, when I died on it, I wasn't quite up to chugging through the first three again.
Very nice! I like the reversal of the more common interpretation of the theme... An unconventional grenade, in that it's not really a weapon :)
Neat concept and visuals. Once I'd destroyed one white object and one red object, that seemed to be it? If not, more guidance would seem in order. I also had a lot of trouble jumping while running; kept falling off platforms and starting over. Glad to see you're continuing to work on it!
Hmm, so is it that the carrots make you smaller and the cake makes you bigger? Anyway, all around a really neat idea that I think shows a lot of promise! I really like the silly characters :)
Nice work! Looks really good, and has a fun concept. My only complaint is the reliance on mouse clicks to move... I often found myself walking toward a barrage of lasers if I misclicked or an enemy moved out of the way when I intended to hack them.
Like many forms of art, video games must struggle to balance the new with the old: a game must be familiar enough to not leave a player lost, confused, and ultimately frustrated, but offer enough innovation to provide the exciting frisson of discovery. PIPE MOUSE is a game which joyously embraces classic video game archetypes and gameplay, but which struggles to effectively transform them into a sum greater than their parts.
The visual design calls to mind not only the Mario game franchise, with its pipes and layered backgrounds, but also the classic pixel art of Tapper and Donkey Kong. The color scheme is pleasant enough, and Chester has a certain charm, but he lacks the distinctive characteristics that help to make a protagonist unique and memorable. The cats' potential is sadly wasted, with none of the deranged energy of a Donkey Kong or even the personality of the Angry Birds series' pigs; they are almost entirely generic, except for their burning yellow eyes (suggestive of a demonic nature that feels at odds with the rest of the material). The greatest misstep here is likely the grid overlaid on the gamescreen, a feature likely intended to evoke the arcade screens of old, but which instead distracts and confuses.
The gameplay is executed competently, although it is somewhat derivative of the classic "Pipe Mania" and, without any countdown or timer, lacks that title's compelling urgency. The addition of new game components such as blocks and splitters helps to gradually ramp up the difficulty, but it does feel like something is missing. Also, while I realize it is unreasonable to quibble with the internal logic of a video game world, the multiplication of the mouse as it travels through the splitter pipes is abstruse and mildly disturbing. Since Level 8 appears to be finished but unbeatable, the frustrating conclusion casts both mouse and player into an unceasing purgatory watched over by your grey-haired nemesis.
The music is pretty good.
Fantastic.
Love the variety of tools, and the level design! The controls got in the way a bit, and I had a lot of trouble remembering which numbers did what. I eventually noticed the icon at the top of the screen which tells you what you're using, but what if you arranged them at the bottom left, so they line up roughly with the corresponding number keys? Just a thought!
By the way, if you're interested in a more "arcade" approach to a similar mechanic, check out our game TUGBOAT. http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=25522
Wow, I really liked this! The audio, while minimal, added a lot of mood. The way it all came together definitely captured the essence of hopelessness. Reminds me of The Road.
@Lane : Thanks - it definitely was! On top of that, we suffered a few setbacks that made us not get quite as far as we'd hoped. We'll probably upload a post-jam version soon to add a few touches and help it feel a little more complete :)
Really cool art and ambient sounds/music! I wish the "battles" went faster, and perhaps as a function of the difference between your and their nuclei.
Nice work! Fun stuff. I really enjoyed seeing the police crowd and come up toward me, then start fleeing in terror when I charged. Wouldn't mind seeing the hitboxes for grabbing police a little larger - I seemed to have trouble getting ahold of very many
Haha, really solid entry! Good work. I pretended I was a dentist.
The audio was strange, but I actually really liked it. The way the music came together with the discordant and instrumental sound effects was slightly jarring, but in a moody and fitting way.
Neat little game! As others have said, it's pretty addictive. You should refine it and adapt it for mobile :)
Nice work! I'm jealous of what you were able to accomplish in the time you spent. I love the combat... I've wanted for a while to see more of this style - I guess I would call it action RPG pushed in the direction of Nuclear Throne. I wouldn't beat yourself up about the end. In all honesty, this LD's theme was too narrow in scope, so the title gave it away before even playing.
Really nice work. My first reaction was to ls, so good job on that ;) I like the concept a lot, would love to see more control and ways to poke at the world. Maybe send a flood to pare back the people when they get out of control.
Pretty neat entry. I like the core mechanic, and would love to see it expanded - perhaps being able to drop patches that slow enemies or put up temporary walls. I also think it could work well as a game in polar coordinates, with a button to switch direction! You could theme it as an alien defending against humans landing on their planet ;)
Fun little combination of mechanics - having to bounce up and down and then play the roar minigame can be tough. The simple control scheme would lend itself well to a mobile game!
Pretty funny take on the theme and blend with that... other idea. So, uh... Where did you get those sound effects? They seem a little dubious :p Might be worth adding a content warning.
I played it three times...
Very nice and soothing music - appropriate for the pace of the game.
Haha, very nice. The audio is just great. So care free!
Oh shoot, and here I thought using cursors (over WASD) would be nicer to Europeans... Would X/C/V be a better key combination for the left hand?
Interesting challenge! I got to day 12. The double taps were a nice take on expanding the controls, though I found that I frequently messed up my intended action, particularly when things started moving fast. Though that's to be expected to some extent.
Anyway, great work! Looking forward to the DLC.
Hey, very fun little game! I found it a little frustrating that units would just stand still between waves (didn't feel like I had a solid control over things), but that's minor. It was still an interesting blend somewhere between tower defense and RTS. Did you make the music?
This was a clever idea! I enjoyed inferring the story through color and sound.
Neat game! As was mentioned, some hotkeys would be hugely helpful - it was pretty tough to manage the trees via clicking only. I only sold 1 tree :(
Damn hippies! They need to get a job and leave my plants alone. What kind of berries am I growing, anyway, that they're so intent on smoking them?
Nice! Well executed and has some great polish.
It's an interesting mechanic, but I felt like it got stale a little quickly. There is almost always a "correct" choice - only occasionally, when both you and the enemy are getting a powerup, do you have to pause to consider your next action. I think small tweaks that would improve it would be to either make the roll button toggle a little 'power' minigame (so that the intensity of the roll was dependant on how you press/release) or to let players press a button to try to stop the spinner early. Either of those would adhere to the theme and attach a stronger sense of agency to the gameplay.
Wild! Certainly an interesting game, captures a very hectic mood.. but maybe that was the point?
Neat little game! I like the procedural levels (they are, right?) but I did get stuck between 2 platforms at one point. I think the biggest next step it needs is jump height that's sensitive to the duration of keypress, a la Mario 1.
Also, for the sake of making an executable package, I recommend you look into py2exe - it really works quite well, though you may have to google a setup script to run it with pygame.
The chorded input was a little difficult to get used to, but by about half way through the game I got the hang of it and felt proficient. I enjoyed the humor and the final boss fight. Really well done!
Whoa! Really great entry, albeit a bit tough. Awesome job picking a good clean design with a very appropriate scope.
Alright, I'm going to attempt to rebut Stuntddude's statements. He's acting like it's the end of the world, and has no sense of diplomacy. The game took a little getting used to, but was fun and a little silly and not at all unreasonable for anyone who's willing to practice for more than 30 seconds. It seems to me that the name is referential to QWOP, and supposed to feel a little out of control. I was fine with it.
If you weren't going for the "out of control" feel, I would suggest that the turning rate be slowed down slightly to allow for more precise angling. Perhaps double-tapping a direction could do a faster turn, but the again, complicating things may not be for the best.
I would suggest, however, that the player's sword disapppear for a shorter amount of time after a hit.
Nice! Great job incorporating both themes, and a very fun concept. A few minor comments about the controls: it would be nice if the turtle turned faster relative to its forward movement, and it would be great to be able to hold the button down without having that small "hiccup" before the turtle starts continuously moving. Both of those things together would make the controls a lot tighter and help with being able to successfully navigate the mazes.
Neat little idea. I like the "go at your own pace" infinite runner thing it's got going, and the music and art was very peaceful.
As others have said, there are some funny bugs about jumping and menus being off. I fixed the menu by making sure to set to my native monitor resolution on the unity launcher.
Great visuals, music, and mood! As others have said, the slow attack feels needlessly punitive, and on top of that the hitbox seems a bit small (or lower on the screen than expected?). Once I got used to it, it wasn't so bad (I had to sort of "joust" enemies), but I still think it warrants changing.
Huh, so... I haven't a clue what to make of this. It seems like the home is the thing compelling me to drink, but it's odd that the invisible wall pushes you back toward the river as it grows. I just.. I have no idea if I missed some mechanics or something.
Anyway, FYI, for whatever reason the sound_walk audio didn't play for me.
Great work! This was a little confusing at first - I think the interaction with the ground made gliding harder - but once I got the hang of it, it felt really nice.
I really enjoyed the music. It's reminiscent of Zelda 2 :)
Nice game! Very creative mechanic for a roguelike. As was stated, it would be nice to have touched up controls - going between keyboard and mouseclick for looting was a little cumbersome.
Fun little game, I enjoyed teleporting once I realized that you teleport to the cursor. As others have said, it would be nice if the attack area was larger. I also think it would be a big benefit to have the character attack in the direction you click, not just forward, so that you could move away from enemies while attacking. I found myself expecting that to be the behavior as I was playing. Also, just a quick heads-up: on levels that are vertical it can be nice to have the camera lead your character when you're falling, rather than follow behind. I went upward in the level and killed all of the slimes on those platforms first (it was fun phasing around platforms), but then when I came down I was near pits and slimes. Not getting much heads-up as I came down was a little nerve-wracking.
Oi! I tried for a while, but the level with all the spikes (the last, perhaps?) was really tough. I didn't actually stick around to beat it because the music got pretty grating. I mean, I get what it's going for, but it made it tough... Anyway, only on the second time playing did I realize that the blue pills made you jump higher. Did any other pills/candy have an effect? I think it's fine for the blue pills, since you built the levels out to show that you needed them, but if the others have an effect it would be nice to see something more explicit about it.
Really great work! Very challenging, thoughtful, and complete for a compo entry.
Not sure if it's been said, but some thoughts on the UI: I would have really liked if the different colored passengers all lined up in similar columns between all of the airports (with a strike/empty for that airport's target.. uh, demographic). Would have made the mental burden of optimizing a little better for me, I think... Though that would necessarily make the airport elements longer.
Also... Are the passengers OTHER UFOs?!
I played this for a lot longer than I thought I would. Once I got the orb's power, I found it really liberating and satisfying to get those orbs that were out of reach. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if there was an end - I ended up rastering over the entire map in search for any I was missing but just couldn't find them. There's some blurriness that I don't associate with frame drops - seems like the draw calls are behind? Or maybe it just doesn't have vsync enabled? Anyway, that may have made it a bit harder for me to spot them while flying.
Great mood. The visuals and occasional clips of music somehow reminded me of wandering through the forests in Ultima Online (a very positive nostalgia).
Very fun! I like the zelda-like action meets more of a puzzle/adventure mechanic quite a lot. Great job on the ending.
Wow, seriously, I'm in love with your core mechanic! This was really cute and a lot of fun. I also really appreciate the intuitive, non-obtrusive, and forgiving health system. I literally lol'd when I heard the goblins. Good variety of enemies, and nice use of level design to teach the mechanic before raising the stakes. Great work, I loved it!
Really clean and beautiful graphics. I appreciate the fast and stylish gameover screen, too, because I got it quite a lot :P. Seriously, it's pretty tough.
Related to the difficulty, I had a thought about the UI: I spent so much time looking at the edges of the screen for either the envelopes or other planet markers that I would frequently lose track of which way I was facing. The ship is, afterall, just a triangle. Perhaps having a small reticle that projects out the forward vector (just a little ways) would help players keep track of their orientation out of the corner of the eye?
Whew, took a while, but I guess it was worth it since I'm a god now.
Overall an interesting concept, but I really wish the core mechanic wasn't clicking, or at least that the pace was faster - it made it drag. Also, I never actually never got to buy the expensive fish and didn't really have the heart to start a second playthrough.
I like the SFX- are they all generated by, uh, mouth?
Really cool idea, and while it took a little bit to get my bearings, I thought it was interesting to play. My biggest comment is actually about the mood - the start timer and the music give it a sense of urgency, like it's some kind of race... But with the whole resource balance situation, the actual gameplay comes off more as a puzzle game. I think it would be worth trying to align those things a little better.
Tightly scoped and very complete little game! Nice work. Sometimes it seemed like the asteroids spawned very close to the planet, though, and didn't feel like I had a chance to respond. But, given a widescreen resolution with a radial and centered game, that's understandable (in fact, the game we made suffers the exact same issue).
As others pointed out, there's not much reason to do anything except cluster the turrets in the very center.
Still, I thought it was quite a lot of fun, andI like the vibrant and detailed look of the sprites. I'd be curious to hear some of your stretch goals that didn't make it in.
Nice work! There's an impressive amount of variation and content packed in for a jam game. As others have said, a fast forward button would have been nice. Or maybe just have the towers not autofire? I think if they had little cooldown bars, and the player had to manually click them to activate their abilities, it would make the game both more engaging and more challenging. Though I guess it would become more of a management game than a tower defense at that point...
I enjoyed this - essentially a scorched earth concept on a little planet with a twist favoring accuracy.
Echoing what others have said, the controls were a little confusing. Even after I read the help button, it took a little bit to figure how the mouse aimed the cannon. I'd recommend standard keyboard controls like left/right arrows to aim and space to fire. Or if sticking with mouse, just a little visual feedback... e.g., a handle where you drag and a little dotted line coming from the cannon indicating how its angle depends on where you've moved the mouse.
I had a fun time with this. Thanks for the positive message at the end :)
As others have said, I would have liked a little more feedback on how high I was going to jump, like a charging bar or a flashing outline around the character. Regardless, I did start to get a sense of how to finesse it by the end anyway, so maybe that was your intent. I did find the rolling off the edge of the blocks to be a little bit frustrating - was a bit more slippery than is standard for a platformer.
Really wonderful! Listening to the ways the music layers as you upgrade the tech was really quite a treat.
Very cute idea and a lot of fun! I'm not really a mobile player, but I'll definitely share it with friends who are and see what they think. I enjoyed playing on PC so that I could cheat with the mouse by dragging it far out of the window borders. I got 823 meters on my second try, which I thought was decent.