Lumos

Slime Janitor by bradur 2018-08-24T16:31:01Z

Very nice. The UI is a little tiny on a 4K display, but other than that, the game works great. Slime janitoring appears to be a rather dangerous occupation to have! I like it a lot, especially the way that replaying levels gets you to instinctively "speedrun" them in order to save yourself the most amount of trouble. The background music is also quite nice to see. Good job! The only "con" I can think of is that I wish diagonal movement was a thing... :)

Spirits of Semb by seurimas 2018-08-26T13:26:00Z

Very intriguing. Some sort of a JRPG-type game where you upgrade your "heroes" by defeating their copies and merging them up into more powerful versions. Very interesting indeed. It also scales itself perfectly for 4K displays, which is always a (large) bonus. I couldn't figure out how to exchange party members, as it seemed that you're stuck with whomever you "merged" last. In addition, healing powers are far too strong, and rounds usually consist of "You deal 8 damage, X uses Revive to heal 12" over and over again. I also got ability overlaps, where my guardian of light would have two healing powers with the exact same effect, except one was stronger than the other. This leads me to believe that the "spirits" are procedurally generated as well, which is fun to see. I could see this as a full game once properly expanded though!

Crowded at the runway by HighQuality 2018-08-26T12:24:46Z

I've got to say that I really, _really_ liked this one. Setting courses with the mouse, the planes' immediate response to my orders... very intuitive, very enjoyable. And very easy, at least on speed level 1. From 3 onwards it feels like a challenge, and 7 is just hectic. I'd play the shit out of something like this that had more mechanics and a bunch more things to worry about. Right now (on speed 1, let's say) planes don't seem to spawn _too_ frequently, and the spawn rate doesn't seem to increase as time passes by -- at least I got to score 20 or so before ramping the speed up, which led to my demise -- so that might be worth considering as a potential change. Anyhow, I really like this game. A lot. Great job!

Mishap (Garbage LD42 Game) by Phobos001 2018-08-23T16:32:59Z

I believe my clicks per minute are decent, maybe even above-average. Less than those of a Cookie Clicker addict, but more than sufficient for most purposes. Alas, even a Cookie Clicker addict would be unable to crawl fast enough to escape a smashing demise. I stopped when my mouse complained to sue me for battery. Wonderful introduction though. You know you're in for a treat when the first line of the author's description contains "This game _fucking_ sucks."

Final Push by Rik_Thunder 2018-08-29T15:08:11Z

Not a bad little puzzler there. I really liked the gradual introduction of new mechanics, and I did soft-lock myself a couple of times whilst I was trying to figure out what was going on. (The small level with the three guys beside a pit: didn't notice that the tile south of the "third" guy was a pit as well.) The screen doesn't scale itself automatically on a 4K display, but manual DPI scaling makes the game quite playable. It's not that big of a deal anyway, as long as the game is playable, and this one certainly is. The biggest con I've got in mind is the fact that the only "restart" hotkey restarts _the entire game_, and not only the current level, which, given that you can absolutely do something erroneous and ruin a level completely, is _a little_ more irritating than it needs to be. In the final level, I managed to put one of the moveable walls on the left edge of the playing field, and then managed to teleport both myself and Mr Robobo _inside_ that wall. I somehow ended up pushing the wall to the right, so all went well. The robot's teleporting mechanics were somewhat random, or -- more likely -- I couldn't establish a pattern from a single go. Good game though. Very good.

Out of Space Inc. by osthekake 2018-08-24T15:58:03Z

The walls and floor are completely invisible on Firefox for some unknowable reason. Works fine on Chromium, but positioning the two thrusters on the sofa is a royal pain in the arse. I really enjoy the concept though. Unfortunately, the best I managed to do was a sofa that whirls around at amazing speeds. 10/10, would attach thrusters to furniture again. EDIT: Forgot to mention that I don't see how you run out of space in this one, though perhaps the walls grow more restrictive in later levels.

Capacity System by ToadieTechnika 2018-08-29T15:29:10Z

I like and dislike this at the same time. The visuals started giving me a headache, and I gave up at the 5x5 stage, after fucking up the penultimate or ultimate tile thrice in a row. However, the mood is great, and the way the game fits the theme is damn brilliant. Good job.

Garden by kovareka 2018-08-26T12:16:41Z

Heeey, it's like Stardew Valley! I don't think the idea is bad, but the inability to sell crops when they're ready -- and having to wait until the week ends -- really hurts one's expansion speed. As a result, the player never really runs out of space; the limited shop inventory also helps keep things "in check". Not bad though! Some tweaks and expansions and you might have an interesting little challenge game on your hands.

The Infinite Hotel by mikethewayne 2018-08-29T15:19:24Z

I like the concept, but I found the game virtually unplayable on my end. Jars don't tend to scale themselves for 4K displays, and also can't be (that easily) forced to behave. In addition, I had immense issues clicking on buttons. The third floor never got added, and I never managed to hire an assistant as well. Odd and unfortunate, as I'd've liked to see how the difficulty increases as the hotel grows larger.

The Infinite Hotel by mikethewayne 2018-08-30T14:50:47Z

@mikethewayne Win 10. Should've specified it in the other comment, apologies.

Heirs Kingdom by Valter 2018-08-29T14:34:21Z

Great job. It took me a few seconds to understand what I'm supposed to be doing, but once I did, everything was intuitive and simple. Fits the theme perfectly, and has the added bonus of being hilarious. Spamming vertical planks as quickly as possible seems to produce the best results, but there's certainly a lot of potential for experimentation in layouts. My best attempt achieved 94 years, the last decade or so of which saw my king partially dunked in the water. A chain reaction of heirs fighting each other caused the queen, heretofore neatly tucked into a cave, to end up falling into the water, which catapulted the king into the sky, finally sending him plummeting into the water. Wonderful little game. I can certainly see it expanded in the future, maybe with more character types and interactions.   In addition, since you asked for a "rate exchange", I'd love it if you [dropped some feedback on my own game](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/requiem-for-the-postman). I don't normally advertise like this, but hey, I'm about one rating off from being scored, and you did invite us to do that. :P I enjoyed what I saw; I hope you have it likewise.

Space Cadet by bobismijnnaam 2018-08-30T15:29:54Z

... Okay, this was interesting. 10/10, would offer spare space bars obtained from an eldritch artefact to my personal shrine to the Space Buddha again. I confess that it took me a while to realise that I had to use the Enter key to buy things from the shop, and that Space accumulated currency. To be honest, I clicked on this because of Space Cadet... You know, the pinball game from the old versions of Windows? Man, I wasted so many hours on that back in the day... Anyhow, this was interesting, but I find myself a little... puzzled by the whole thing. Not entirely sure what to think, really. You've certainly made something unusual, so you get good points for innovation, I guess... :) Oh, and you also definitely get points for the way the game fits the theme. Running out of _Space_... Bloody ingenious. Initially tried the webGL build on Firefox, and it seemed to perform awfully. Switching to Chromium, because FF tends to be arse when it comes to webGL games, made it work pretty much identically, but would not play sounds for no reason. Ultimately, I played it with the desktop build, which... well, I guess it worked fine, and I guess the slightly laggy controls, the terribly prominent motion blur (I hate that particular effect in general, but that's personal bias), and the general sense of things being... off... were done so by design. Nice!

The Server Room by wisstopher 2018-08-24T16:17:23Z

So far this is the game I've spent the longest playing, maybe because it reminds me of real life. Premise is simple, fits the theme quite well, works fine on a 4K display: very nice! However, it suffers from one devastating bug: picking up a 1024-meg rack upgrade is the last you'll see of it. Dropping the 1024-meg rack or inserting it into a slot will produce a 128-meg rack in its place. Lost 30 grand doing this, and at that point it became clear that I should be quitting. But aside from that, I like this a lot. Good job! @falzock: You're probably dropping the rack with RMB. I did the same on my first go, because you intuitively assume the "drop" key is what you need to use... that got me to glitch an upgrade in one of the servers. You have to use LMB instead, then all works as intended.

Crate-LD by IceBerg 2018-08-23T15:37:56Z

Also known as "I need to breathe in a paper bag, the game". The relentless influx of boxes is completely impossible to manage, and that's quite perfect for the theme, as well as rather amusing... and also anxiety-inducing. :) There seems to be an occasional issue with hovering over boxes, as is suggested by the first comment. In addition, I feel that some sort of a sound notification or a GUI notice that the "output colour" has changed would be very useful. Crossing the room to find a green box only to have had the required colour change in the process gave me a remarkable desire to rage-quit.

Nighttime Fortress by GroverTheGrovekeeper 2018-08-26T14:16:08Z

I like the concept... on paper. The execution, alas, leaves a lot to be desired. On my second go, I managed to warp through the wall of darkness and remain in the first room. The prices of the light grenades and light farms are unknown, and whilst the former costs 7 light, I have no idea how expensive the latter is. The shooting mechanics are unfortunately uninteresting... the mouse sensitivity is fine.

Space Plots by joatski 2018-08-23T15:47:39Z

The goal is rather unclear. On my first go, I tried to utilise the free space as much as possible, but the boxes come in so fast that planning for the long run becomes close to impossible. Getting the three "purple particle systems" extinguished -- i.e. losing -- can happen in about a second. Since there doesn't appear to be a score penalty for replacing a placed box, the best strategy I found is to simply spam right-clicks in the middle of the area, and place any extra boxes carefully if the time/input volume allows it. The score keeps ticking up, and we are absolutely immortal. All in all, I'd say this has potential, but I can't say much more than that. I like the particle systems when boxes are destroyed though, and the placement feels nice and "solid". Tiny details like these are very nice to see.

Running out of Space by Lord Matter 2018-08-23T16:07:26Z

Tough to play on a 4K display without overriding DPI scaling manually. Other than that, I like this a lot. As bare-bones as they get, but really makes you think about space debris. :D I like the style, I like the background music, I like the little thrusters and the little particle systems that they've got. Gives me some _"Super Amazing Wagon Adventure"_ vibes for some reason (buffalo?). 98 seconds on the first go. I'd obviously recommend more gameplay mechanics -- I really can't give this game a high "innovation" rating, but I quite enjoyed my brief time with it nonetheless.

Gnome Miner by SDC 2018-08-24T15:39:02Z

Not bad. Mining requires some strategy to maximise efficiency, and one has to suppress the natural urge to grab whatever ores are immediately visible. Neat little game! Scales itself well on a 4K display as well, which is a bonus.

This Game doesn't have a title yet by TommyN4tor 2018-08-24T15:48:05Z

I spent a lot of time running from the flying ghost, but it did nothing to me. There doesn't seem to be a goal of any sort, and the game also requires manual DPI scaling to be set in order to work properly on a 4K display. Unfortunately, this looks like a completely generic platformer, and I don't even see how it fits the theme. The "ghost" is too easy to avoid to be of any issue, though I'll admit I didn't wait to see if more "ghosts" spawn. Presuming they're supposed to be hostile, that is... Better luck next time?

Amistad by Raphael Maia 2018-08-29T15:42:59Z

I clicked for Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins, but alas, they were nowhere to be found... Who'd've thunk there was a bridge, too?! Jokes aside, I like the concept a lot, but the execution could use a little polish. Staying afloat seems impossible, buying items in bulk seems to be the only way to get a good profit going, and purchasing a colour TV or a stereo instead of a pack of smokes (because of a mis-click or the fact that after buying an item the marker resets to the top) truly makes the soul ache. Game feels impossible later on, as people's "impatience" seems to accumulate faster than the _one-way_ trip across the bridge, and given that you can be royally screwed by what appears to be RNG (the smuggler having four TVs and nothing else in the inventory when the three "customers" require cigarettes and stereos)... Yeah, being a smuggler 'cross that bridge is a dog's life. I really like the theme though. Great work.

Narrows by trAsh 2018-08-24T16:46:42Z

It's a game. I'm afraid that's about as many positives as I can give. The game comes packaged with a broken shortcut pointing to a "test" folder on Evan's desktop, the screen itself is tiny on a 4K display and can't be scaled at all (and I'm not playing games with the magnifier, that's for certain), there's no sound, and the link to the developer's discord server is a blank space. In addition, as someone whose dad and little brother got hit by a drunk driver once (fortunately sustaining only light grazes), I find your giving points for ramming people to be utterly offens... nah, I'm pulling your leg. Giving points for roadkills is fine, you just have to decide what the point of the game is. :P Honestly though, I really don't see how we're playing a drunk driver. I expected the controls would be wonky and unreliable, and that ramming people would be an instant failure or something. The Dark Souls of drunk driving games, if you would. I'd recommend making the screen a little larger, so us with higher-res monitors can see what's going on, and maybe make the controls bad, so it feels like you're trying to drive whilst drunk.

SpaceLab 42 by Wassim 2018-08-30T15:10:13Z

Yeah, what great graphics. Because tiling textures on everything really make the game look good, don't they. You've got a moderately cool menu, lads, but it's like going to the store for a bottle of beer and coming back with just the sticker on the bottle. @aevek above sums up everything that needs to be said about. Better luck next time.

Requiem for the Postman by Lumos 2018-08-31T07:05:40Z

@ddrkirbyisq Thanks for the note. I'm really sorry! I thought I'd tried out all of the resolution presets in the Unity editor, and I was under the impression that I'd made certain the game is playable on any aspect ratio. I knew I'd misjudged that when the teacup saucer ended up being a little out of frustum even on a 16:9 resolution, but I didn't think for a moment that it might be worse... Sincerest apologies, and thanks for letting me know.

Ancient Artefacts in Egypt by HueSamai 2018-08-24T17:13:27Z

Wall-climbing beats the first levels easily. Level 8 (more accurately, level ")(") is a load of bollocks, because come on, movement is flighty, fine, but having to judge a landing arbitrarily is infuriating. Level 9 appears to be broken, because the game over screen triggers when the closing walls are halfway through, and/or after touching a wall for a bit of time, and/or when descending a little after ascending, and/or there seem to be invisible spikes wider than the visible ones on the first "middle" platform? The big issue I've got with this game is that the jumping is, in one word, awful. It feels like whenever I try jumping near an edge, there's a 33% chance of it working as intended. Unfortunately, it's probably working _exactly_ as intended, and this "type" of platformer simply isn't my cup of tea... Alas, I shall never know why exactly the young Prince of Indiana Jones got himself into that situation... Other than the frustrating controls and the seemingly-broken last level, I like it. It's okay.

CLIMB by veeTHEbraun 2018-08-23T15:25:46Z

The idea is interesting, but the game lacks tutorials. The player is immediately thrust into a mode where one has to race against time, and presented with a number of buildings that all do... something. We know the final goal is to build a rocket and probably fuel it up, but the mechanics of achieving that are nebulous. The planet "eats" levels, a very interesting play on the topic, which requires having a very clear picture of what to build where. Reading all the information on the screen (what each building does), getting familiar with the odd shapes of the buildings, and even starting to come up with a strategy requires you to "lose" a few times, all the while you feel like you're not entirely certain what you're supposed to be doing. Indeed, I like the concept. The execution, however, renders it far more impenetrable than it should be. For a "real" version, I'd recommend having an unlimited-time tutorial stage first, or maybe a gradual introduction of the various resources that need to be collected, so as to ease the player into the gameplay. Other than that, good work! It also works without issue on a 4K display, which is always a bonus.

Destroy The Virus by OmarMoBadr 2018-08-26T13:40:43Z

Unfortunately, the shared "Windows" folder appears to be empty.

OutOfSense by andrazg 2018-08-23T16:23:18Z

I hate to be "that guy", but because _I am_, here's a reminder that "loosing" and "losing" mean different things. After clicking on a tiny box (the UI doesn't scale itself for a 4K display), we find ourselves in a black void, where a Metrocop tells us to pick a can up, the can being illuminated by a spotlight. I think we then have to carry it over to a couple of boxes. Doing that appears to trigger either an endless loop of "pick up that can" lines, or maybe not endless, because additional illuminated boxes and/or cans appear to spawn in the void. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing or what the goal is. I'm afraid the "message" might just be 3deep5me.

connect the dots 3D by thijs9907 2018-08-26T13:48:56Z

I like it. It's simplistic and intuitive. But honestly, I concur with @tbeakl: There are so many dots that "running out of space" is never an issue, and given that points are transferred between levels, I had 500 at the end of level 5, where the target goal for that level was 210. Far too easy. The 3D aspect also seems to introduce virtually nothing, as turning the camera only helps establish the longest possible lines... which isn't of much use anyway, as you can just spam connections and rack up shitloads of points. My recommendation would be to disallow "double dipping": once a point is used for a line, that's it. The point can't be used for any others. Perhaps point targets ought to be reduced if that's the case, but that would introduce and element of strategy and require orbiting the camera around the cluster to establish the most beneficial approaches. All in all though, it's not a bad game. It's pretty neat.

Project Super Ultimate Democracy Simulator (LDJAM42) by SystematicComplexity 2018-08-24T16:22:32Z

Nice one! The Reds kicked my arse; I guess unprepared speeches only get you so far in life.

f by Koal Robertson 2018-08-26T13:59:28Z

I can't seem to collect resources from anywhere except the first planet I click. Subsequent clicks appear to do nothing. This is unfortunate, as the premise seems rather interesting, and I'd've liked to see how I'd fare. In addition, the UI is tiny on a 4K display, which requires the game be played at lower resolutions... though that's not a _massive_ drawback by itself.

Grid Jumper by ByJoshua 2018-08-26T13:03:17Z

This game is fantastic. It's an actual game! It introduces mechanics! It's intuitive! The walls shrink in the direction that you move in, meaning that it's more of a puzzle game than anything. It's easier to grasp than to explain, in all honesty, and there's an almost mathematical precision to it all... maybe because the author is German? :P Memes about Germans aside, the readme file has no extension and the chart seems to describe another game, but you really don't need a readme at all. This game is great. I love it. Beat it on the first go, making one mistake once. Deserves a LOT more attention.

Spatium Vivendi by Xplode 2018-08-23T16:13:43Z

Zero explanation of what one's supposed to be doing. Stickmen randomly became red, and clicking on them appeared to delete them. I have no idea _how_ to pump that oxygen into that room. Hey, the elevator-style background music isn't bad though.

The crushing room by Gaminantions 12 2018-08-26T12:35:02Z

Simplistic and intuitive idea, most likely not particularly original. Vertical movement in particular seemed to have some issues registering input, and the lack of diagonal movement was a thorn in the side. The impossible "ending" room also wasn't the best. Not bad, but unfortunately nothing special. Making everything sleeker and introducing more mechanics could make this an interesting game indeed.

Trapped by Neroro 2018-08-23T16:39:23Z

Not a bad little puzzle! The trick appears to be in moving vertically, as moving two spaces vertically will produce a barrier either above or below you, allowing you to move two spaces to the right. I have a feeling that some levels are outright impossible though, if, say, two barriers spawn on lines 2 and 3 in the penultimate column. All in all though, I do like the idea.

Dot Connector by spots1000 2018-08-23T16:00:04Z

Reminds me of "dots and boxes", or that one game where one player attempts to build a chain from one end of the grid to another, and the other player attempts to prevent that by building "walls". The build files archive has issues, with both the Data and Mono folders actually being inside _empty_ Data and Mono folders, which require manual replacement to work. The game also opens in what seems to be a fixed-resolution window, which doesn't scale up on a 4K display. The game itself is simple enough. You have to build a "chain" between a pair of dots, but you can mark as many extraneous dots as you like. All marked dots disappear, and you get one point. Obviously, shorter chains are better, as you don't get any benefits for making a chain longer than necessary. Cutting through the middle means shooting yourself in the foot, as dot pairs appear to be chosen arbitrarily and a required chain may quite easily be impossible to build. In one of my goes, I ended up with two dots only (as a result of building chains far longer than the theoretical minimum, in order to "kill" as many dots as possible), and I only got the "ending" dot (the green one) of the pair. In other words, the final chain was impossible to start by virtue of a bug. With all this in mind, I can say that the idea is interesting and simplistic (maybe by virtue of being simplistic), but the execution could probably be improved in a lot of ways.

Lethal Lava by Quacko2 2018-08-26T12:50:52Z

The download archive doesn't appear to contain the 64-bit version of the Unity Player DLL, and also lacks the Mono folder, making it unplayable. Copying "UnityPlayer.dll" resolved the first issue, but since I use C# 6 for my projects (creating a "MonoBleedingEdge" folder), I couldn't copy the Mono folder over properly. Repackaging is necessary to render this playable for the end user.

Venture Tri by LIMZIJIE 2018-08-26T13:54:35Z

Waiting for Google Drive to zip an unzipped folder for half an hour isn't my definition of an entertaining game to play. Sorry, but one only has so much time to wait. Please package it up before uploading it next time.

Slug Invasion by Nitrodeus 2018-08-26T13:14:12Z

I get JNI exceptions, and honestly can't be bothered to pop IntellJ open and to compile it myself. Just package an .exe, jeeeeez. May update this comment if I find the time.

Chronicles of the Mattock by NickZangus 2019-10-24T09:40:04Z

I was very impressed with the amount of work that must've been put in this... until I saw the credits for used assets. That said, it's commendable that you managed to implement a third-person action game combat system, although Dark Souls or Blade of Darkness this isn't.

On combat, the best strategy was to dodge-roll through all enemies and kill the boss, as you can actually _dodge_ the boss's attacks and the pathing of the regular skeletons is easy to abuse. This is mandated by the fact that it seems impossible to hit a regular skeleton without at least trading hits -- whilst the player is stuck in a long swinging animation that prevents movement, the skeletons glide freely. Moreover, dodging doesn't appear to grant any i-frames whatsoever, making it treacherous. The system needs a bit of _hard_ polishing, but it's a reasonable one given the time constraints.

Whilst humour is subjective, I wasn't amused by the fourth wall-breaking dialogues. Worry not, so far this has been the case with all LD games I've seen that have attempted it.

On the whole, this is a solid entry. Good job.

The Land of Milk and Honey by Skosnowich 2019-10-24T09:05:56Z

I'd love to check it out, but I won't install a JDK or JRE or whatever it's called these days just to run a game. Please consider building executable releases that bundle their requirements next time.

Mahjong Drop by LeviDSmith 2019-10-23T08:55:12Z

Not bad. The first time around I was under the impression that tiles _do_ have to be ordered, so you can imagine how well that game went; I then read the instructions again.

I appreciated the soundtrack in particular, and I like how smooth and easy-going the whole experience is. Good work.

Little Something by Meta-link 2019-10-22T15:10:00Z

Neat little idea, although it's just about that in the end. No object rotation and no player synchronisation make the addition of multiplayer a fairly trivial feature, as it's pretty much equivalent to continuously polling a JSON file somewhere on the web. Still, it's neat, and I wish there had been a sort of minimap or zoom-out feature so I could see what else was there beside the few ponds I placed. :)

All Aboard ! Thousand portholes by afendar 2019-10-23T08:42:28Z

Well, I _did_ have all the VC redist packages installed, but I still got the error with the missing DLLs. :(

Alphabet by rplnt 2019-10-23T21:46:34Z

Delightful idea. Brilliant.

Jesaouf VI by shubart 2019-10-22T12:08:31Z

Pretty funny, even if it seems to be from the "LUL SO RANDOM" variety. Rabbits and bees? Why? The theme doesn't make any sense at all, but it is rather satisfying to blow up entire screens once you luck out and stack a few spread and fire rate bonuses.

However, I am NOT giving you a high Audio score for a Depeche Mode track. (At least putting Personal Jesus there does fit thematically.) You're supposed to at least use "derivative works", not other people's content.

Money Management Simulator by Ascension 2019-10-07T10:37:41Z

Ah, I love realistic games: buy high, sell low both in real life as well as in the game. The lesson I seem to have learned from this was to make sure my salary goes up; and to never date and marry a literal gold-digger. I mean c'mon, spending 2 grand on a date and 10 grand on a wedding?! Holy shit!

Anyhow, this is a fun little game. It'd've been nice if the investment options displayed value gained/lost since the time of purchase, as -- not really paying attention -- I quickly lost track of whether my investments had grown or shrunk as time went on.

Nothing by pantoufle 2019-10-22T18:08:58Z

_Ordo ab chao_

Well well well, this is one of the better games in this batch. Reminds me a bit of "Little Inferno", but this delves far deeper into philosophical ideas. From literal nothing you produce items, seemingly at random but yet in a logical sequence -- such as an anvil appearing immediately after the porcelain vase, betraying underlying intent. This appears to be rather an anecdote on the idea of creation itself, perhaps influenced by the philosophy in the worke of Terry Pratchett, whose description of the formation of the universe (I'm afraid I don't remember the specific book| was amusingly similar.

The player, perhaps embodying God Himself -- this in a sense as metaphorical as the individual reader's understanding of theology requires -- thus produces Order out of Chaos, something out of nothing, in a short but poignant treatise on existence. It is no accident that the first item to appear from the proverbial "void" is an apple -- the fruit normally associated with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Biblical Eden. The other objects are also symbolic in their own right: a ball, a rubber duck, soap bubbles, delicate vases, anvils. Items related to childhood and ones featuring a variety of properties, again echoing the same concept as the Biblical story of the Ark. And indeed, if we were God on a quest to master our power of creation, would we not create objects differing from each other? Woult we not be in the symbolically-childish stage of our development just then, in comparison to the omnipotent and omnipresent deity we are to become in our maturity?

But suddenly, as we are so immersed in this divine work -- for what act is more divine than the act of creation? -- our work becomes undone, with proper fanfare, by the emergence of a black hole. Only after that are we granted the ability to freely summon any object we require, including a black hole. This is a perfect symbol of the power of entropy and a wonderful compositional frame in its own right. Order out of chaos, but this order cannot be maintained for all eternity; "all good things come to an end". Indeed, only after mastering destruction can we appreciate the value of creation.

Whilst simple, this game bears a deep meaning that can stay with the observant and intellectual player for a long while. Bravo!

I also managed to break a vase on soap bubbles, which isn't something you see every day.

Great game. The first for me to award a 5 in the majority of categories to, and likely the last as well.

Unfinished: The Game by jondalnas 2019-10-20T18:20:48Z

I won and the game apologised. That's a first...

Handee by Mr ChocolateSalmon 2019-10-25T13:34:22Z

9631, time taken 12, zero murders. I like it a lot, sans the fact that the game doesn't reset. Love the punching and that you can literally tear people apart unwittingly. Naturally on the first try I went peaceful, but decided to murder everyone for XP and got called a monster. (Then fell out of the level and restarted.) Nice idea, sound execution, and a 5 for humour, but it'd need more to be a proper game. Good work.

Angry Words by Madbeagle 2019-10-23T18:48:11Z

HORSE.

Great game. Wonderful execution, the audio is brilliant. Magnificent. A few of the levels actually got me in a bind for quite a while. A level reset would've indeed have been great.

Also, level 10 might be broken. It's impossible to solve.

Angry Words by Madbeagle 2019-10-24T23:37:54Z

@madbeagle Looked at the source, I'm afraid. Don't worry about how pretty it is. What matters is whether the game works, and this one certainly does.

Scope Creep by 2Demigods 2019-10-20T19:19:16Z

I liked this one a lot. It does nail the feeling of improving skill as you reiterate sections, and the sudden realisation that you've found an unexpected shortcut is exactly on point as well. The game desperately needs audio, but other than that, this is the second-best game I've played this contest. (The first one also had Souls-like elements, even though that was unintentional in that case). Great job!

nothing but everything by slovnoslomo 2019-10-07T15:42:35Z

Neat little story, but the lack of the "ready?" prompt miffed me a little when the "largest possible rock you can imagine" was requested. The biggest issue this game... assuming we can call it that, as that is a debate for another place and time, has, is that it's fully silent. Audio such as pencil-scribbling sounds whilst drawing, and perhaps having the late Christopher Lee narrate it would've been ideal. :)

My contribution for this ludum dare 45 by TasakaSama 2019-10-07T10:26:09Z

With a title like this, I _had to_ take a look. Neat little spin on the theme, even if the little lamp-droid is a pain in the arse to command. The 45-second levels start getting a little difficult. Otherwise I can't say it's anything groundbreaking or inspiring, but it's a solid entry nonetheless.

KOLENdor by MaxKlimenok 2019-10-23T19:39:26Z

Spectacular game. I wasn't a big fan of the fourth-wall-breaking moments, but the game is fantastic nonetheless. Gotta admit I really enjoyed the writing style, even though the English wasn't quite correct at all times. That actually helps the mood on occasion. I'd also like to see a real combat system. :)

Other than that, this is one of my favourites for this round. Magnificent job, друзья!

A Dream of Wings by Lumos 2019-10-07T11:17:20Z

@stefanie-leitch Thanks, I greatly appreciate your feedback! You're dead on about construction work being a bit of a trap right now. Having a STR check for something extra, maybe even an additional XP point, might be what's needed to bring it up to par.

A Dream of Wings by Lumos 2019-10-21T08:27:22Z

@rodrigo-robles Thanks! Interesting to hear a negative opinion about the character's "slipperiness", I put it in deliberately -- it just _felt_ right at the time. :)

A Dream of Wings by Lumos 2019-10-24T15:25:56Z

@fabula-rasa Well, in truth this is more likely due to me buffing begging at the last minute to make the start of the game easier than it initially was. Begging used to be objectively worse than construction work. Funnily enough, I also buffed construction work at the same time, but that might not have been quite sufficient... :P

Oh！My God by AlerHugues 2019-10-07T10:46:46Z

What a bizarre offering. I didn't know I had to remove my own ghosts, and wondered why my score had anchored itself at 1000 points. A quirky premise, looks like time's been spent on the art and animations, and it's not a 300-meg download like all those unnecessarily large Unreal games. That's a boon in my book.

From Nothing by arkinrev 2019-10-11T13:35:30Z

Never found a weapon nor a spirit skull, and the game desperately needs audio, but it just _feels_ like you could get a good hack-and-slash from this. I enjoyed the style, the lighting works very well with the simple unsmoothed models. Those pillars also look pretty great, I'll give you that.

Purpose: Unknown by Frogravity 2019-10-07T11:11:59Z

Holy shit, this is the best game I've played so far. What's this? A _narrative?!_ HELL YEAH!

It's rather like Dark Souls; navigating Lordran is less confusing than this interconnected maze, and having your position reset when you run for a fight is a very clever allusion to the bonfires of the Souls series. The MIDI soundtrack takes me back 20-odd years, and is much better than the sorry excuses for audio that some people _(i.e. yours truly)_ rely on. The spin on the theme is also nothing short of ingenious.

On my mission to rip the tin cans a new one, after discovering Prof. Ihrenglass's (a name itself laced with subtly hidden meaning, as I'm sure you all can see) secret message pleading with me to save humanity, I accidentally encountered the final boss and tore it to bits with its own mega-laser. Good job, me, and great job, Frogman, for creating this fantastic entry!

Bob Bobinson's Revange by Yonman 2019-10-07T11:29:06Z

All right, gotta give a 5/5 for the theme here: you literally start with nothing, not even clothes. Can cheese the final boss using the platform though. The premise is ridiculous and nonsensical, and is only reinforced by the deadpan "OW" and blatantly-spoken "ATTACK" lines that is present in lieu of a real sound effect. Apparently we also seek to liberate the world from rabbit oppression only for our titular main character to declare himself "inevitable" and apparently destroy the world...?

Add in the rabbit goons' tendency to get stuck on platform edges and their lack of animation, and you get a hilarious, complete package that evokes thoughts of a particularly odd fever dream. It's certainly a memorable and amusing entry, I can state that much with confidence.

Fall of RS-17 Icarus - an Akaban Tale by Kooshy 2019-10-22T22:54:24Z

Four endings? More like 1 ending and 3 softlocks (all of them being: "Stargate Universe", engines, antenna, using both wires for engines and comms on the first playthrough and ending up with no route to the main computer, and I couldn't pick up the axe to sever connections..).

It's faster to walk backwards whilst strafing. The walking speed isn't an issue, though my LShift didn't seem to do anytning, considering the game is about 2 minutes long.

You get a high mood score and a middling theme score. I liked the name of the virus/entity/thing, "Mrezhek", loosely Russian-sounding for _"networker"_, and the term "amnestic" as well.

Decent game... if you made it in five hours. For three days? Not quite. Sorry.

Caravana by Josh.Galecki 2019-10-20T19:49:56Z

Graphics are on point, and I enjoyed the audio track. Nice to see Soliel, the goddess of healing, make an appearance. I can imagine this takes place in the Malazan world, at some point long, long ago. Even though I don't think that planet had two suns...

You'll excuse me if I don't extol the virtues of the story. It wasn't amazing because there was pretty much no story whatsoever, just the smallest kernel of one. What's on offer is _promising,_ don't get me wrong, but there's not enough of it to qualify. I want longer dialogues and choices. :P

Combat: attacks are too slow and too weak, which, combined with the high number of enemies in the second fight, as well as the lack of any "retreating" move, mandates exploitation. You can swing whilst walking away from enemies, then instantly turn to deal damage, then turn again. This minimises the damage you receive in response. Consider making the enemies immobile during their attack animations -- this should remedy the issue at least somewhat.

No Room to Move by Thoof 2019-10-07T11:46:21Z

Crisp visuals and a sleek execution, as well as wonderful audio (even though it's rightfully supposed to go unrated). The twist on the theme is interesting, and the experience is solid once you get into the swing of things (and notice that cannonballs don't hit you when you're on the platform "beneath" them.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from a couple of major flaws: unlocking a new platform sometimes requires making a leap of faith into the depths, and in some level configurations you're able to activate a platform that's _above_ you, making this leap both necessary and 100%-deadly if you jump from too low; there's no guidance as to where the next platform will spawn. Given that you can take 10 cannon blasts, give or take, but falling into the void is an instant death, the game suffers once again when it forces players back to level 1 upon dying. (Even if _the game_ doesn't suffer, _I,_ who never play platformers, suffer. It's largely one and the same.) This ends up marring the experience, or at least artificially imposes a higher difficulty than one would normally anticipate; note that this isn't a bad thing or a downside, it's simply a note that your mileage may vary.

All in all, this game is a solid entry that may or may not be to your tastes.

Heartless Ninjas by King Kujito 2018-04-24T11:45:52Z

Interesting concept. Unfortunately, the HTML5 build suffered from terrible performance on my end, especially when having to move through the first line of defence. Graphics and audio are a good fit. Game looks and feels like it has potential for further expansion.

Heartless Ninjas by King Kujito 2018-04-24T15:55:55Z

@King Kujito: Sure, but it might've been a false alarm. Win 10, Firefox. I tried it on Chromium too, and aside from a few hitches here and there, it worked a lot better. Guess it must've been Firefox being annoying again...

Excessive 2: Excessively Incompatible by moonlightbomber 2018-04-24T12:13:14Z

Indeed, it's not a game, but a story. And the volume of said story is... about a page? It tries to have a message, I think, but that goal is completely neutered due to the lack of any mechanics at all, and due to the aforementioned minuteness of the story, as well as its triteness. Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid, and nothing interesting, either. Written in Basic though. That should count for something.

TDshooter by Genpaku 2018-04-24T10:32:13Z

Interesting idea, I guess. The lack of turret upgrades and any "walling" mechanisms is certainly a different take on most (some) TD games.

Litur Teningur by Vinterskog 2018-04-24T11:11:49Z

What an interesting idea. Let's get the "bad" things out of the way first: *"You fell out of the sky"*. My colour deficiency also made it ridiculously difficult to distinguish between green and yellow, but naturally, YMMV. :) The game is well made, and is certainly interesting, though seemingly light on mechanical complexity and any outstanding goals. The audio fits quite nicely as well. I'd suggest ~~using shades of green and yellow that don't look the same~~ adding some form of gravity-reversing mechanic to really screw with player's perceptions of direction. It'd also help with the cases of finding myself on the bottom of a hole, one tile away from doom, which unfortunately happened more frequently than I'd like. EDIT: Forgot to mention that you get bonus points for Norse coolness. :P

Secret Literature Service by Julisep 2018-04-24T12:05:39Z

... what? I'm guessing the combined genres were "adventure game" and "incomprehensible game". Was the broken English was supposed to represent Irish accents? All it managed to do was be confusing. Unfortunately, the game is very short and ends quite abruptly, right after the plot starts to pick up. Alas. I would've liked seeing what happens next, despite the fact it felt like some sort of a fever dream.

Plenty of Fish by PaterJosch 2018-04-24T12:49:55Z

This game in a nutshell: * Catch 5-6 objects whilst fishing for a wife. * Catch wife; (s)he's an Agent, apparently. * Catch 6-7 more fishpeople. * Catch two nukes that apparently result in a drastic "love meter" reduction no matter the option. * Catch 6-7 more fishpeople. Again. * Catch three diamonds in a row. * Catch an old boot, prompting my wife to marry me.

Woah.

Dragon Game by Ronaldo Jonson 2018-04-24T15:28:04Z

Interesting idea, but the execution has some issues. I didn't see the "stealth" element much, as walking into an enemy's cone-of-vision appeared to do nothing. Additionally, since only one turret can be manned at a time, turret locations aren't listed on the minimap, and some turrets have odd aiming angles, I found myself only sticking to the two on the right (the one closest to the gate, and the other one "northwards" of there). Finally, the main menu sprites look blurry on a 4K screen. With that out of the way, the positives: I quite like the derpy dragon. More importantly, this is the first tower defence game I can describe as *visceral*. The turrets are strong and feel the part, what with the thunderous booming and violent screen-shakes... I could easily see myself playing more of this, if it had a clearly-defined winning condition and maybe some more mechanical depth. On the whole, I found the game enjoyable. Nice work!

Basketball Wars by Samuel Henderson 2018-04-24T09:42:24Z

Run diagonally, clearing one of the enemy flanks. Get close enough to the hoop. Rinse and repeat.

BoomBall by shrinjoy_fox 2018-04-24T10:23:56Z

When my team scored 27 goals to the opponents' 3, I decided to stop.

Neat little idea. I'd recommend adding some sort of audio-visual feedback for the cases where the player gets pushed around (or gets affected by explosions?), as right now it simply feels like control is wrenched out of me for no reason.

4K UI scaling needs work. Furthermore, I couldn't see a match timer or a set amount of goals needed to win the game, so I just stopped at one point.

But otherwise -- I enjoyed this. It's a simple concept that's executed well enough to give me a chuckle. Good work.

Robot Vs. You by Bryan Coen 2018-04-24T11:22:01Z

Short and sweet. I like this quite a bit, really! I do like minimalistic design, and the bloody firing sound had me chuckling. I quickly found out that you can avoid triggering a "healing tile" to save it for later, then promptly got stuck inside the boss for a little while. Fortunately, I managed to defeat him with ease. The lack of subsequent levels was honestly quite disappointing, as the experience was quite enjoyable, and I found the idea of triggering enemy spawns yourself to be interesting.

Note that the winning tile doesn't require that previous tiles are cleared, so a cunning player can avoid the boss, as well as a number of the other tiles, by simply walking around them (which I did on my second run). This might be worth changing in the future.

Physics Fighter by Vasco Freitas 2018-04-24T12:38:42Z

This may just be the best game I've seen yet. The concept is very entertaining, it actually *has a soundtrack*, and the mechanics are intuitive and sensible. Reminds me of some of the better Flash games from back in the day, and that's a very good thing. The big gang of guys at the end though... they get me every time. Nice job! I can certainly see this being a thing, once properly expanded.

Dungeoneer Commander by Dooda 2018-04-24T09:53:52Z

The inability to select multiple units (and to zoom out) makes this a giant bloody drag to play. I don't see any dungeon-crawling elements either: having to defeat a set of troops on a map is what many RTS games do. Perhaps if you had procedurally-generated dungeons and dropped random unit upgrades, that'd be more interesting.

The "HQ screen" UI scaling on a 4K display seems bad. Also, "Rockers" seem to give you money rather than subtract money from you... Furthermore, the enemies either fire invisible projectiles, or friendly units simply "expire" at some point for no reason.

Got to the boss, started pelting it with tank shots whilst it did nothing, but I didn't have the nerves to guide *every individual tank* up to the boss by hand.

Minion's Mobile Market by EthanTheBrave 2018-04-24T15:04:18Z

Being a shady huckster on the run from Shrek is something I never knew I wanted to be. Got 7 gp at the end of the day, which, under D&D 5e rules, is enough for a wealthy lifestyle. That's pretty good! It's nice that there's audio, and the animations are pretty good. I quite enjoyed this as a proof of concept.

X-COME (platformer + strategy) by Tropos 2018-04-24T11:03:23Z

Interesting concept, but the mechanics make it beyond infuriating to play. Having to spend an entire turn doing nothing (in other words, jumping to a ledge below), whilst the enemy is in cover and in better positions by default is not great. Whilst the latter definitely sounds like XCOM, the player's inability to flank is very noticeable.

I'm afraid I don't really like this one, largely because of the clunky movement, incredibly restricted firing ranges, and other mechanical stuff like that. With some rebalancing, however, this could make for something quite entertaining.

Ragerint by Eldemarkki 2018-04-24T15:13:34Z

Slow and steady wins the race... unless RNG says otherwise. Not bad! Could use a more diverse array of audio tracks, but at least you have audio. :) I'd recommend working on the procedural algorithm, as the effective difficulty of the levels seems to be all over the place. I had some levels generate with the ball placed on a straight, unobstructed path to the finish line; others required me to go through multiple sets of "wall spikes" with spinning traps at the end, one tile away.

Siege Of The Cloud Empire by HailBurns 2018-04-24T10:14:04Z

Heeey, this game is actually good. Pretty unfair for the enemies though, considering that 3 farms and ~70 pop was more than enough to win every single time. Spawning small squads of enemies as reinforcements per level really tilts the balance in favour of the player (especially if the player brings a large force).

Anyways, I like this a lot (which is a first). The transition to orthographic mode for the "2D" part is preeeeeetty sweet -- I've always been fond of the orthographic cam in practice.

Spawning cloud layers: I'd suggest keeping them static instead, as the WebGL build was hitching noticeably. Besides, I'm pretty sure I managed to get my army to despawn on the first run by simply jumping up to the top level before they had a chance to catch up. On another occasion, one of my own soldiers pushed me off a cloud and we had to restart the fight.

Different stages are nice, but perhaps consider gating resources somehow, so that I can't amass an army of 30/60/70 guys (at every stage) and crush the opposition without even caring.

But yeah, all in all great work. Nice job! It's actually a game that isn't terrible! I should look for more of these.

Deal Them 21 by devinwilson 2018-04-24T11:57:00Z

Never has dealing cards been more difficult. Also, those chaps are reckless. Not standing on a 17 is a recipe for disaster. Knocking their hats off and switching off the AC was more or less the only thing I managed to do. Very interesting idea and an entertaining execution, but I'd say it wouldn't hurt to make actually *dealing* the cards properly easier. :)

Shape Destroyer: Ascension by Lumos 2018-04-24T11:24:54Z

@svdvorak: That's odd. Note that you must build on tiles adjacent to roads, and that you're not allowed to build on a tile you're standing on. The game does a terrible job of explaining that (I should really add that to the "what you need to know" section above). If building simply didn't work though... well, it should have. :(