Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Malcolm
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Uncertain Orbits | jam | 646 | 3.60 | 3.76 | 3.17 | 3.00 | 3.47 | 2.75 | 2.68 | 2.94 |
Interesting game. Perhaps should have some fluctuations in the markets to add a bit of variety and go more with the unstable theme. Post Ludum Dare play testing will help you improve this game a lot, I think.
I know, I'll get really close to the van. That'll make things easier! Hang on a minute... is the van shooting at me?
Kids in the future won't understand the lengths we had to go to to get wifi.
Game needs more power slides.
Would have liked a bit more definition/character to the vehicle but, other than that, it shows promise.
It took me a while to work out the various items and I didn't realise that the clipboard had a second page to it for a while. I was never really sure what I should be doing and what I go wrong but, I suppose, that might be the point of it?! Very slick looking but the music was a bit repetitive and felt a bit out of place.
Nicely done. Is there only one task at the moment? I submitted the first one and then it wouldn't give me another?
I forgot I was a firefighting robot and wondered why there was a spider there. Then I gots gud.
I love the fact that at some point early in the development process you thought 'How about a humanoid pig goes crazy and wrecks his apartment because the weather forecast looks a bit iffy?'. Keep up the good work!
Looks great and is totally insane. Not sure about replayability though. Also, I wasn't why, after beating my opponents one-on-one, I ended up facing a band of 3 when I only had 2?
I got stuck and it was no fault of the game, just my poor puzzling skills.
Very impressive for the time available. A bit sparse, given the amount of space that is in the game, and a few glitches (falling through floor and walls etc.)
I would definitely like to play more of this game when it is further along in development.
I got stuck and couldn't progress any further and I wasn't sure whether that was just how far you'd got to during the jam or whether I was missing something. I wasn't able to wall grab so, perhaps, that was my issue?
Found it tricky to tell the required items apart at first. Much easier once I made fullscreen.
Nicely executed game. Good visual style with polish.
Dodge didn't seem to do anything for me - except once it did some kind of spinning around on the spot animation - so I'm not sure what it was supposed to be used for. I found it a little frustrating that you had so little warning of an object falling on you and that your ability to move out the way was so limited. However, that may have been the point and part of the challenge of the game so I'm offering this a merely my opinion and not a criticism of the game.
I'm not sure I got it. Are there any controls other than the search button? Also, it seemed to stop a random points (not when I'd run out of energy).
Everyone died and I don't know why.
The problem with this game may not be that it's too complex. It may be that the game doesn't really communicate what is necessary very well (if at all, in some places). There were a number of areas where I was never sure what the correct thing to do was, even though I read all the available information carefully. I think the key is to introduce mechanics slowly and display them clearly so that the player can get to grips with them early on. Graphically it needs to display information more clearly and give feedback earlier on that the user is on the right track (or not). This game was very different and this is to be commended. So much of game dev is reacting to user feedback so I would like to see what this game is like once you've had more time to work on it.
Solid effort with plenty of scope for further development.
Might be worth thinking about increasing visual separation between the foreground entities and the background.
Not sure if this game is in the best taste and whether it is a sensitive exploration of mental health issues. However, it is just possible that this is just the kind of dark humour that people with depression and anxiety might approach a game jam with.
Game play wise, it looked good but the environment felt like something that you should be exploring rather that trying to rush through as fast as you can. At first, I didn't get that it was a race against the clock.
Music was sinister and moody but a bit repetitive. Might have been nice to start with something pleasant or neutral sounding and then become more tense over time to foreshadow an imminent mental episode.
Stylistically very impressive. With more play testing I think it should be easy to iron out the issues people (including me) have had with the initial difficulty on the game.
Took a while to work out what was going on and what to do. Even then I couldn't stop that first attack.
Took me a bit to realise that I could stand on other robots once they had fallen in.
There's a lot of game here in such a short space of time. But, because the scope and ambition of the project, it can't be considered finished. It needs sound effects and something feels a bit clunky with the character's interactions. I feel there needs to be some obvious stable places where a player can stop safely to take stock of their situation. Especially, early on when new players are unfamiliar with all of the game's mechanics.
This is intended to be useful criticism because I really do feel this has a lot of potential and I would be keen to revisit it when you've had more time to polish it. All of the above criticisms are entirely to be expected given the limited amout of time you've had to work on it so far. It might have been too big of a project for a game jam but it is definitely a worthy one. Keep at it and well done!
Different game from most I've played, so far. Good first effort. UI seems to be displaying oddly because it is supposed to be in full screen but there is no full screen button on the player. Could do with more of a feel of progression. At this point there are just a handful of identical levels with just a higher sacrifice requirement each time. Variety is the spice of life (but not one of the 13 herbs and spices or so I'm told).
There's pleasing look to this game.
Very slick looking game and, over all, it has a very polished feel. Things that were an issue for me (an not necessarily for other commenters) were that camera movement was quite extreme when close to the black hole and it both distracted me a crucial moments and hid wider view from me just when I needed to make a tactical move. The other thing was that it felt a little too chaotic so it was more of a click and hope for the best game rather than one you could play tactically. However, that chaos may well have been the whole point of the game (and in keeping with the theme) but it was frustrating how many times I seemed to be doing well but then go slammed straight into the black hole by something shooting in from off screen to fast to do anything about it.
@villeloso When the camera zooms in you can see less of the playing area of the game. My issue was that it zooms quite far in when you get close to the black hole which shuts out your view of the wider area. This means you can't see where might be the best direction to fire yourself and if there are imminent hazards that you need to avoid.
Also, the amount of camera movement seems excessive as it is constantly lurching one way then the other. It seems unnecessary as, while you need to keep track of your craft, everything in the game centres around the black hole and you need to know where your are in relation to it at all times. You could have had the game static, with no camera movement, and the game would play fine as you never need to see your ship up close.
However, I can see that camera movement makes the game more dynamic and, therefore, exciting. So, it might work to have the camera zoom in less and to use lazy following where the camera doesn't track the ship exactly and doesn't make any abrupt movements. There would be a slight lag to the camera with some easing into changes of direction. Again, this was just my feeling playing the game and I am not an authority. So, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with your game just the changes I would make if it were me. I do like the game a lot.
With that in mind, here are a few additional thoughts on refining the game. How about starting off with fewer objects (especially the red ones) so that the player can ease in to the mechanics of the game and then the difficult ramps up as the number of objects increases over time. Furthermore, it might be interesting to how most new objects start with a velocity tangential to the black hole so that they are more likely to orbit (unstably) rather than flying straight down the throat of the black hole. This would allow for a more tactical approach as the player could hop from orbit to orbit more easily. The chaos would come from the interaction between objects and the, now rarer, kamikaze objects heading straight for the black hole.
It's surprising how challenging something simple becomes once you have to split your focus between two of them at the same time. This is a solid piece of work from scratch in 48 hours.
If I were asked to suggest improvements, I think that the paddles/portals could be smaller and faster. They felt a bit sluggish to move around. Beyond splitting focus between the two paddles, I would say it lacks a real challenge. You seemed to be able to hold the ball indefinitely, when grabbed, and could just line up your shots. Also, there didn't seem to be any real likelihood of running out of 'grab energy' before completing the level, so no real need to conserve it.
Other than that, good effort!
Visually, it is very impressive and the simple audio definitely creates an ambiance. I played the Linux version that is marked as 'untested' so I'm not sure if my experience truly reflects the game that you and others have played.
I had some issues with moving the character. A single keypress seemed to move them too far and it was difficult to line them up with things. It would occasionally lag in movements/interactions and glitched when dealing with the robots. Consequently, I only got as far as the second room.
As I say, I'm pretty sure this wasn't the same experience that others had so I'm not going to be critical of it. Unfortunately, I'm not able to play the Windows version to compare.
It felt like walking around on the deck of a sailing ship. Is that a bad thing? Neigh, I tell you!
Good looking and nicely implemented game. My (attempted) helpful feedback would be that it can seem a bit cluttered around the character, especially with a big glowing sword flashing around. It's sufficiently challenging but it was common to end up with a clump of enemies in the centre and be moving round in a circle to avoid arrows. This can feel a bit repetitive and grindy.
Also, it might help to start the game of with a low cap on the max number of enemies on screen. This would allow players time to get used to the game mechanics and the subsequent ramping up of difficulty would increase the challenge.
Interesting. Is it incomplete? First go the diners glitched out and stopped eating. One quivering and the other unmoveable. The second time they all ate and disappeared, leaving me with 4 pieces of food remaining.
For reference, this was on Linux and some Unity builds for other games have been a bit glitchy.
I liked how involved the beginning and the overall premise was just for a game about knocking cans down. I had to keep playing till I won.
No More Secrets.
A good start, that I think could be developed further.
Cool beans!
Well, I definitely needed the hints but I was able to complete it. Had to turn the music off though. Good little game, as long as you know that being tense and frustrated is part of it.
Very good game. Looks great and is very polished. A little frustrating in places but that may well be due to my poor skills (I did have to give up, after all).
Took me a while to realise that 'You can now glitch the environment' meant that I could bring back the red walls with C. I found this out by accident when I go stuck at one point.
Over all, very impressive work.
Nicely polished game. Might be nice to be able to, somehow, see how the level is laid out (when the target is off the screen) for a more tactic approach. Unless the whole point is to fire off into the dark and deal with the consequences as you go.
Gives me lots to think about as a rework my game with a similar mechanic.
Oh yeah, baby! On the leader-board! Really clever and novel concept. Well done!
I was rubbish at playing this game.
Really different and interesting, well done. However, it seemed to be inevitable that you end up in a position that you can't get to the next build pickup at some point. Or perhaps that was just me lacking in skill?
Liked it a lot but it didn't seem to register when I got to the portal at the end of the second level. Happened a couple of times and I couldn't see anything that I should do differently. The throw and catch mechanic was clever. I liked it a lot.
Cool, clever, yet infuriating game. Going to come back and finish it later or break my monitor trying.
Nicely polished look to it.
As I found it difficult to read the text and pilot the ship I just ignored the AI. Which was what I told to do, so it can't be wrong, but I have no idea what it was trying to say to me.
A great start to an interesting game. Lots of scope for polishing and extending it with more time. Well done.
Liked it. All I would ass is an option to replay the level, rather than go back to the start.
Liked the look of the game.
Good foundations built in the short time available. Just needs more level design and sound to make it a really compelling game.
Interesting. I'd like to see it when more of the level design is done.
It felt less like a game and more of an experience. I liked it but I wanted to play around with making a few atoms in a more meaningful way.
Took me a bit to work out the curtains and taking the coffee to the bedroom. However, I really loved the tappy little feet on the cat!
Found it a bit awkward to play - possibly because I was playing the browser version. Seemed that I kept dying when enemies randomly spawned directly on top of me.
This ran really slow and jerkily on my computer but it is old and the GPU is rubbish. I want to come back and play it again on my better computer tomorrow, though. Well done!
Just tried it on a better computer it it worked great. Did the camera stuck behind buildings now and then, though.
Interesting idea but was difficult to tell where things were when they were off the screen. I plummeted into the sun a couple of times when I thought I was going away from it. That said, there's definitely scope to develop this further with more time.
Had trouble clicking on the formula to start. It only seemed to be clickable when facing forward and I had to wait for it to come around.
Hi. Happy to see a Linux version here as I can't run any of these windows submissions. Are there any requirements that I need to run it as it keeps throwing an error: could not load embed Thanks.
Nice looking game with a lot of promise but a few things made it frustrating. Not being able to multi-select ships made the who;e process of select ship, zoom out, click on destination a bit tedious if you want to send a few ships to another system. Fighters seemed to always go off on their own and fight in inter-stellar space so you never knew how many were actually defending a system. Periodically, ships would decide that one of their own was an enemy and attack it but the attacks would have no effect and they'd just keep at it. Often, on taking a system, no metal mining would happen so no ships could be built.
All of these are fixable with more time and play testing so I'd like to play this again when it is more developed.
Really pleasing gameplay. With more time I would expect this to develop into a very well fleshed out game.
Press Ctrl to Duck? I was a duck the whole time. How about press Ctrl to Velociraptor? Now we're talking!
It felt like fighting the rising tide. Well done.
Distinctive art style. Movement controls were a bit awkward.
I liked this game but it was difficult to control the ship. It seemed to be necessary to use S to slow down before changing direction but it didn't seem to matter which direction you were pointing in when you did it. Might have been better to go with the Asteroids approach of just having Left, Right, and Thrust. Let the player handle their own momentum. Certainly, a good start. With feedback from play testing I'm sure you can enhance it further.
One of those strangely compelling games. I played it far more than any other game in the Jam. Which makes me sad that I couldn't quite complete the last level. I know what I need to do (roughly) but I keep failing to achieve it and it its a little frustrating to keep starting from the beginning of the level each time.
Clever mechanics and even when the physics were glitchy they were glitchy in a fun way. Simple yet challenging. I liked this game a lot. I don't think I ever really got to grips with the best way to use the red lines so maybe a few more tutorial levels where you explore the mechanics more could work?!
My only criticism would be that the music became a bit annoying after a while and there was no mute button.
Other than that, well done, good luck, and keep going!
Interesting game with a polished aesthetic.
Simple, easy to understand mechanic with a clear visual style. Challenging but not overwhelming. All in all, a good Jam game. The only thing I would add is a clear indication of when the player is hit. Maybe with an outline, glow, or colour change. Feedback to the player is really useful. Other than that just a couple of spelling mistakes in the text.
Really like the aesthetic of the ship. Lots of nice little touches in this, like the parallax stars and the rocket flames.
Well done. Might have been nice to have a bit of control of the camera movement.
Well, I feel more unstable having played this game and you certainly captured the miserable nature of the experience. So, bravo! I was actually gratified to see a clear view of the microwave at the end, for some reason.
Nicely done.
Really interesting game.
Really interesting. Had a bit of a problem with clicking on the molotov buttons either not responding or immediately throwing the molotov where the button was. Many brave revolutionaries died. Also it was tricky to tell groups apart once police were injured and turn grey.
Had an issue when I flipped just after the first rift and ended up nose down and unable to move. Screenshot.png Could find a way to free myself or quit the game. Had to tab out and close it and restart it.
I was using the Linux version. Glitchy and unplayable on a load end graphics card but seems to run fine on a GTX 1650.
Also, there were a few floating trees.
All in all, a good offering that just needs play testing and polishing to make it a finished game.
Very interesting mechanic. I think you really need to develop this further. Graphical polish will make all the difference now that you're not constrained by a 72 hour timescale.
I marked you down initially for Audio until I read the comments mentioning it. Then I realised I had turn my sound down by accident. Lack of sound really makes the game harder for some reason. My only gripe is that it was occasionally unresponsive to keypresses, resulting in my untimely demise. Oh, and my typing sucks.
@cynthia-clementine Every time you launch a projectile it counts as an attempt, so the lowest number should be 6 (for the 6 levels). I think there's an off by one error in there. The whole thing was a last minute change as I had a lives system for most of the 72 hours. In hindsight it would have been better to just count the crashes. Thanks for playing!