Darkest Friday by Cake&Code 2013-12-17T02:31:00
I wish there were more words and various difficulty levels, only because I want to play the game again and again. Really great typing game!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → managore
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | 2016 | 37 | One room | Walkie Talkie | compo | 4.60 | |
| 🥇 | 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | windowframe | compo | 4.73 | |
| 🥉 | 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Death of a Lich | compo | 4.45 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | birdsong | compo | 4.59 | |
| 🥉 | 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | HopSlide | compo | 4.49 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Sun And Moon | compo | 4.61 | |
| 🥉 | 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Javel-ein | jam | 4.31 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | 2016 | 37 | One room | Walkie Talkie | compo | Innovation | 4.94 | |
| 🥇 | 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | windowframe | compo | Fun | 4.48 | |
| 🥇 | 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | windowframe | compo | Innovation | 4.90 | |
| 🥈 | 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | windowframe | compo | Theme | 4.57 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | birdsong | compo | Theme | 4.80 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | HopSlide | compo | Innovation | 4.83 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | HopSlide | compo | Theme | 4.80 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Sun And Moon | compo | Theme | 4.32 | |
| 🥈 | 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Sun And Moon | compo | Fun | 4.51 | |
| 🥉 | 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Sun And Moon | compo | Innovation | 4.51 | |
| 🥈 | 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Javel-ein | jam | Fun | 4.24 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Holey Hell | jam | 54 | 4.25 | 3.98 | 4.26 | 4.40 | 4.51 | 3.44 | 3.88 | |||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | ADRENA-LINE | compo | 65 | 4.02 | 4.25 | 3.19 | 2.57 | 3.96 | 3.48 | 3.50 | |||
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Mr Moneybag | compo | 12 | 4.09 | 4.09 | 3.68 | 4.23 | 3.95 | |||||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Path of the Rabbit | compo | 7 | 4.33 | 4.06 | 4.08 | 3.74 | 4.32 | 3.54 | 2.51 | 3.91 | ||
| 2016 | 37 | One room | Walkie Talkie | compo | 1 | 4.60 | 4.34 | 4.94 | 4.40 | 3.86 | 3.69 | 3.72 | 59 | ||
| 2016 | 36 | Ancient Technology | cognizance | compo | |||||||||||
| 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | windowframe | compo | 1 | 4.73 | 4.48 | 4.90 | 4.57 | 4.27 | 3.60 | 3.31 | 4.07 | 79 | |
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Reap | compo | 7 | 4.32 | 3.76 | 3.85 | 3.67 | 4.59 | 3.76 | 4.38 | 62 | ||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Death of a Lich | compo | 3 | 4.45 | 4.13 | 4.27 | 4.13 | 4.61 | 3.52 | 3.15 | 4.15 | 51 | |
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | A Knife Made Of Whispers | compo | 25 | 4.11 | 3.70 | 3.76 | 3.55 | 4.16 | 3.83 | 4.32 | 71 | ||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | birdsong | compo | 1 | 4.59 | 4.27 | 4.37 | 4.80 | 4.55 | 3.94 | 4.32 | 91 | ||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | HopSlide | compo | 3 | 4.49 | 4.16 | 4.83 | 4.80 | 3.96 | 3.65 | 2.91 | 4.00 | 81 | |
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Sun And Moon | compo | 1 | 4.61 | 4.51 | 4.51 | 4.32 | 4.30 | 3.48 | 2.44 | 3.91 | 100 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Javel-ein | jam | 3 | 4.31 | 4.24 | 3.62 | 4.36 | 4.41 | 2.49 | 2.54 | 3.56 | 84 |
I wish there were more words and various difficulty levels, only because I want to play the game again and again. Really great typing game!
Wonderful use of theme and gorgeous art! I wish it had more content though.
The combat is a little confusing at first but the game is really fun!
Great idea and impressive AI given the time constraint!
This game has beautiful pixel art and reminds me a lot of old arcade games. The dragon makes for a fantastic boss, although I couldn't beat him. My only qualm is that starting from the very beginning was a bit frustrating, but if your take on the theme is You Only Get One Life, then that's understandable.
Really unique idea for a game. The AI is so good at covering all of their own pieces!
I didn't realize the pieces were accepted when rotated, and it took me a while to get around the idea of the game, but once I did I really loved it. It's a fantastically simple game!
Click! Shuck! Click! Shuck!
I'm not sure how the theme ties in. Very well done getting your head around Unity, though! I hope you enjoyed it.
I really like how the birds start as squares and get built up as they spawn. Great use of theme as well!
This is a truly wonderful game! I'd love to see the source!
Really interesting idea! I like it.
Wonderful use of theme!
Good idea for a game. The action-cam is great!
It's really wonderful to see me and noddy2006's idea made into a game! I like the minimalist style and the variety of levels. Terrific job!
Fantastic game! The concept is really unique and it set a great mood.
Wonderful game!
I realize it was your take on the theme, but starting the game from the very beginning makes it fairly frustrating.
The last few levels were very well designed! I enjoyed it a lot.
That wrecking ball! I hate it!
Everything else though is wonderful! Easily one of the best use of theme yet.
I'm not sure why you would intentionally offset the bullet. Together with having to start from the beginning each time, it makes the game frustrating. Other than those two points, it was fun to figure out how to beat each level!
This is a brilliant take on the theme and an even better execution! Beautiful.
I really liked the idea of choosing your upgrades (and pet (much wow)). I also enjoyed that you could start again while keeping the stars that you'd found, which meant you could collect all of them eventually. My main complaint is that the movement felt rather slow and floaty, which made it frustrating to play at times.
Thank you for the great comments and feedback, everyone!
SpellingPhailer, SaintHeiser: I'm really sorry you found the sounds jarring, I'm not very experienced when it comes to audio (which is also why there isn't any music) so it's still a challenge to make the sound effects suitable and unobtrusive. Thanks for letting me know!
Firstly, thank you all so much for trying out my game! I'm really happy with how the game turned out and I'm delighted that so many people have enjoyed it!
Secondly, because of all the feedback and suggestions I've put together an updated version. The updated version includes:
* Slightly better balanced sound effects, and a more subdued jumping sound. It's still nowhere near perfect but hopefully it's getting closer.
* A boss level! I felt the game should finish up with a bit more of a bang.
* A timer. You can enable this by clicking on the stopwatch on the top right corner of the title screen. It keeps track of your total playing time from when you click "new game" to when you beat it. If you like, you can post a screenshot of your best time!
* Slight level tweaks. Only one or two, and you'll barely notice them, but they should make a couple of the levels work a bit smoother.
* A small reward for collecting all twelve jewels.
* The continue button now works between game exits.
I'd still like to add music but it'll take some time. I'll share the source eventually but I'd really like to clean it up first.
Thank you for the kind words, everyone! I'm currently developing an extended version with forty levels split into four chapters, with a new type of enemy and a boss for each chapter. If all goes well there will also be music and a story to give the game more depth! Here are a few teaser screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/kh7T4
I'm aiming to finish the extended version within a week, but we'll see!
Like others have said, the spikes need to be much more visible in a fast-paced game like this one. Other than that, it's really, really good!
Like others have said the introduction is too long if it's unskippable. Also I'm not sure how the theme fits in. Other than that, wonderful game!
Yaaaay.
It's a fun game! This is the happiest I've ever been to get a score of 0 on a test.
Really gorgeous game, but there isn't a whole lot to do. The bear names are great!
Hey awesome, I can't believe we had the exact same idea. I thought there might be a game or two similar to mine but, wow, this is amazing! Your game is phenomenal! And I'm so happy to see another execution of the same idea, it's kind of surreal.
It was really interesting to look at the differences between our games, especially in terms of mechanics. For example, the ability to gain momentum using up/down gives you a nice amount of freedom in Under Ytan, and I thought this was used really well in level 9 when you had to dive into the ground in order to shoot yourself across the gap.
I love the splash and the bubbles when you dive into the floor, and combined with the simple palette and lighting it makes the game look and feel so good! The sound effects are perfect and the music is simple but surprisingly well suited.
Overall a fantastic experience! Really well done!
(Oh and 10/10 triangles, woo)
Absolutely amazing game! Also, I've learnt that going Rock doesn't always win. I learnt this rather slowly and painfully.
Really beautiful graphics and atmosphere!
Wow, what fantastic audio! Letting the player control the audio felt amazing.
Thank you all for the wonderful comments!
@SojaBird: I definitely want to come back to this game and add more levels.
@burgerdare: If you mean level 16, I can give you a hint: Go left!
@7heSAMA: I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Sound effects and music are two things I still really need to work on, but I think I'm slowly improving. Thank you in particular for the running commentary! On reflection I wish I had included more levels that allow you to string together jumps and dives and really flow through the level.
Thank you again for the lovely comments, everyone. I'm going to follow the advice and continue to develop The Sun and Moon!
@SaintHeiser: The exit to level 16 is to the left of the pillar! I definitely should have made that more obvious in the level itself but it just didn't occur to me at the time.
A huge, huge thank you to everyone who played my game. The comments have been absolutely amazing to read!
The music is definitely the one thing I wish I had had more time to spend on. It was one of the last parts of the game I worked on and I was running very low on time and sleep at the time. For the next Ludum Dare, I'll make sure to set aside much more time for the music.
I'm also going to keep working on The Sun And Moon and that includes way better audio. @UltimateWalrus, I've already implemented proper full screen support and I plan to support multiple windowed resolutions as well, but thank you for linking to your extension, I'll check that out, too!
Really great game!
You already know this but this game is amazing!
This has a really innovative way to tell a story. It was fantastic how you made the controls imitate the panicked and helpless feeling of drowning.
Fantastic interpretation of the theme in light of recent events! I also liked the mechanic of switching between digging and picking up.
Really terrific visuals! I wish it had audio!
Absolutely beautiful!
Definitely some of the best graphics I've seen so far! The palette, the sprites, the mini-games, all of it looks fantastic. And on top of that you have a really fun, responsive game.
This is one of those games which you can keep playing until your peripheral vision disappears and the whole world shrinks to just you, a gun and an endless supply of cubes. What a fantastic game!
(My best time after a few goes was 4:16)
I really like the simple isometric graphics, the levels look great! I'm also a big fan of the enemy movement rules, but I wish some of the enemies had an advantage over you such as being able to move more squares than you. Overall, really fun, really interesting game! Well done!
Fantastic look and feel. The digging was a really nice mechanic! Great game overall.
Great story and environment, I really liked this game! There were some occasions where I would get killed by a sea anemone which I was standing above, and other times where I would briefly get stuck in a wall or the floor while temporarily dead, and these moments were sometimes very frustrating. Overall though, this is a fantastic, fantastic game!
It took a little while to work out what was going on, but when I did I loved it! Awesome work!
I never would have guessed that I would end up playing a choose-your-own-adventure for Ludum Dare, but I'm really glad I did because this was excellent!
Wow, what an interesting idea! I really like how you have to deal with the constantly changing environment.
What a lovely game, how I wish it were longer! Beautifully done, especially the incredibly smooth graphics and really responsive controls.
Very fun! The slow motion really adds a lot to the game.
Wow, this game does a fantastic job of making you frantic. When that ogre appeared I started to lose it! Great game!!
I really liked the change in lighting. When all you had was the torch in front of you it was suddenly incredibly challenging but lots of fun!
Oh and the blocks remind me of Lego.
I really like the subtle triangular tiling of the planet. A simple yet fun game! :)
Really great concept for a game, and very original! It had a surprising amount of depth to it.
It's pretty rare to come across a game with such a unique concept. Add on to that a beautiful intro, killer music and thought provoking puzzles and you get a great game!
I could only get a 5, those high gaps would always kill me! The game is really a lot of fun and it felt great to launch myself out of the water. Considering it was made in only 4 hours this is terrific!
Wonderful music as always, and a really interesting visual style made this a lot of fun to play!
Level 2 looked gorgeous, and I also quite liked the subtle level tilt. I wish there was more of an ending, though!
What a beautiful game! The inhabitants, the water, the island itself, everything really comes together. With a fun, simple idea on top this is a really great game!
Wow, really awesome idea!
Great game, it was a hell of a lot of fun to play and the music was perfect. Level 5, Beneath The Surface, was always too much for me!
Like everyone else has said, the art is amazing! Well done.
Absolutely adorable! I wish there more levels to play around with, but great work nonetheless.
This game has a really well executed idea and is loads of fun. Well done!!
This is fantastic! The moment I saw the knife on the table I started getting really concerned. Overall, very well done!
Really fun game! I would have loved to see even more levels!
Stunning graphics and a really well thought out game mechanic! Trying to beat levels without losing a single bunny was wonderfully challenging and rewarding. Really well done!!
This is the QWOP of eating. I love it!
Wow, absolutely beautiful!!
Throwing the arrows and barrels around was a lot of fun! Great game!
Oh my God this game is breathtaking! The silhouetted foreground, the background, the lighting, all of it is absolutely beautiful. Even the title and control instructions looks good.
I would have really liked to see frequent checkpoints. I felt so accomplished when I got past the first five skeletons but having to start from the beginning after dying to the sixth was really frustrating.
Somehow you made fishing fun! Really awesome work!
Great graphics, story and gameplay. A really nice experience!
Falling down into the other world for the first time was a very pleasant surprise! Unlike a lot of other people I think the health loss is a good way to add a layer of complexity to the game, and even if I didn't know what was on the other side the level layout was often enough for me guess where I would have to jump down.
How you played with color was interesting as well. Having a sort of matter/anti-matter system where opposite colors cause damage felt more intuitive than I would have guessed. One thing that bothered me was that when I held a ball and turned around the character would move slightly and this often caused me to fall off ledges. Other than that, great game!
Wow, what a fun game! This is fantastic!
I really like how you've layered the different levels. Great game!
I wish there were more levels because I want to keep playing this. Great graphics, great concept and great level design to bring it all together. Well done!
Really solid use of light! I was very surprised by how much depth (no pun intended) the puzzles had. Unfortunately I ended up getting stuck in a wall after returning from the second upgrade room (the one that is in complete darkness) and had to restart the game, losing all my progress. Other than that, a great game!
This game is absolutely amazing! I hope you continue to develop it.
Strafing made this into a really fun game! Great work!
A brilliantly dark experience. Fantastically done.
Very nice art and sound, and an interesting jump mechanic!
This is an incredible take on the theme! It's really great to see entries that are so ridiculously out of left field. And promoting people to leave comments on games makes it even better.
Fun game! I wish there was some way to see how the tiles would connect.
When the glitching was so well done that people legitimately think the game has crashed, that's when you know you've done a good job.
Oh and very nice art, very nice music, very nice storytelling!
Hooooly crap Rubna, this is incredible!
Wow, the style here is fantastic! I LOVE how the two layers look over each other.
Gorgeous graphics and a really nice use of theme! The game really felt alive.
Such a gorgeous game! The slow sprite cycle looks so damn nice! I had a lot of fun with this.
It looks and feels great, and it's a whole bucket of fun!
Super innovative and challenging! I am thoroughly impressed by this game.
Fantastic game, I built a dozen wonders and had a ridiculously big town before I stopped playing. Like others have said, it would be nice if there was a way to return to your town, especially since the game encourages you to go out and look for other civilizations. I'd also love to see a world map, showing all the civilizations that have been built.
Wow this is really good! A really simple idea executed perfectly!
Wow, this game is absolutely incredible! Congratulations!
Wow, really fantastic graphics!
A great original idea for a game! I had a lot of fun with this.
Easily one of my favourites. Incredibly well thought out and unique puzzles with an adorable and well polished style. Fantastic work!
This game really looks incredible. The flipping mechanic is also very interesting.
Thank you everyone for the feedback!
@oranebeast: I've added a help section, hopefully that clears up a little of the confusion!
@Wertle: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that one of the main concepts already existed in another game but I'm still a little disappointed that it wasn't as original as I'd thought. I hope you find the time to come back and discover more of the secrets!
@tigerbyte: Thanks for letting me know, although I don't think there's anything I can do to prevent that. Chrome sees a .zip file that hasn't been downloaded many times and gets a little concerned.
@Spiridios: That's a bit of a pain, hopefully that doesn't trip up too many people. Also, you've reminded me to add instructions in the help section on how to erase progress.
@01010111, steve, NicePenguins, SeriouslyCrunchy, ShivanHunter, ATTA Games, Crowbeak, CatOnMars, foolmoron, lekochen, SaintHeiser, Chris_E, Dohan, zillix, xandy, panurge, Pierrec, cleitoneldorn, Objelisks, varun, Oddly Shaped Pixels, hadesfury, jerombd, Artamus, psychomonster, Franklins Ghost, gladers, hundredhundred, ChuiGum, Lokarunith, vividhelix: Thank you all so much for playing and for the kind words! It's really encouraging to read what all of you said.
@snicklodocus: The yellow room was the first mechanic I thought of, so it's easily one of my favourites. I hope you worked out the red room in the end, it is definitely a toughy.
@Doctor Broccoli: Thanks, it was hard to make the puzzles innovative without making them also really difficult. Hopefully the hints help a little.
@Incredible Ape: It's very late of me to respond but the red screenshot is in no way a hint.
@GFM: Well done on solving the red room in the end, I'm glad to hear it was worth it.
@KevinZuhn: Thanks, I tried to come up with as many different interpretations for how the two games might be connected. There have been a lot more ideas I wish I could have included that I've thought of since then!
@rnlf: Originally I toyed with the idea of leaving a big clue in the room. A dotted outline the side of Slide, something like that. It was one of those cases where it was really tricky to estimate how obvious or non-obvious the puzzle would seem.
@sqw: Thank you for that, I double checked them with my files and they match. Sorry the response was so slow.
@rogueNoodle: It was looking pretty awful for ages, only on my third attempt did things look like something other than garbage.
@GreyShock: Well done! Almost everyone found the red room to be the hardest. I guess it's a suitable color for it.
@thebmxeur: Here's a hint. Use rot13.com to decode: Vs bayl gurer jnf fbzrguvat gb pbaarpg gur jver sebz gur cyhf gb gur zvahf.
@andrewkennedy: I'm honored to hear that!
@Tosic: Thanks, I wanted to make something a bit different.
@local minimum: I know what you mean, but I really wanted to make the two games as separate as possible. I think it would have cheapened the experience, at least for me, having them both being part of the same game. Having said that, I could have designed things better so that clicking outside the window didn't happen as often. And yes, you are absolutely correct about the misplaced yellow room arrow! I hope you manage to work out the red and yellow rooms. The hints hopefully give you a good starting point.
@ruerob: You're very welcome!
@grayhaze: It's really great to see people who interpreted the theme in similar ways!
@Sheepolution: Thank you! I was really lucky to have more inspiration strike each time I finished working on the previous puzzle.
@sqw: That bloody red room!
@dunin: Unfortunately there's no end screen or final puzzle, once you have all six letters all you can do is stand in front of them and pat yourself on the back.
@tacospice: I certainly could have made the blocks a bit easier to move around quickly. A lesson learnt, I suppose. I was glad to hear you ended up beating it, in the end!
@phaze112: I checked out your game and absolutely loved it! I think you did a way better job of making the rooms interact by overlapping them than I did.
@SteveSalmond: Those moments really are the best.
@Crocanti de Pollo: You must be one of the few people who didn't want to punch me after the red room.
@mrjohnson22: It took a bit of thinking to get them to interact in the ways that they did. There were somethings I initially was sure couldn't be done in the timeframe given. And thank you for your compliments, I really wanted the player to think "I wish I had thought of that sooner!" instead of "Oh, so THAT'S what you have to do?" and I know that the yellow room abuses that trust a little bit.
@klianc09: Even ignoring the puzzles that require the programs be separate, I still like it much better as two separate programs, to me it feels better. And it meant I could write a really silly "how to play" section.
@Alexandre Szybiak: You have some unusual homework.
@AnnaGavaldaKedavra: I'm glad you worked it out in the end.
@Marcellus: Well done!
A huge amount of fun! I wish there were more levels, more platforming... more everything! Great work.
My best time was 124.94.
I'm always impressed when someone comes up with a unique idea for a puzzle game, and this doesn't disappoint in the slightest. A move counter in the original would have been great for the extra challenge!
This game is absolutely nutso! I love the style so much.
As soon as I saw the code snippet I knew this game was going to be good. This is a fantastic commentary on current issues.
Easily one of the best takes on the theme I've seen so far. There are some incredibly well made puzzles that are even more impressive when you realize the game only uses a few mechanics but explores them all very well. I had a lot of fun with this game!
Yet another amazing game! :)
This is lovely! The paper cut-out style fits the game ridiculously well, and the trees and audience sets the stage (no pun intended) perfectly. The spotlight works very well, both to highlight the player and to cast shadows and add depth to the game. My only issue, and it is a small one, is that towards the end of the game it becomes very hard to see what's going on. Overall, a beautiful experience!
Those sound effects! That song! That ending! Incredible.
Wow! This is absolutely wonderful!
Beautiful game, I adore the style and sounds! 6108.
Wow, I love the style! Really simple and really fun.
Really great stealth game! You managed to squeeze in a huge amount of interesting and challenging content, it's really impressive. I especially liked the run-through areas that didn't have landing circles on them, using those cleverly adds an extra layer of depth to the game.
Beautiful graphics and audio. I especially like the UI, it pops really well. I beat it and loved it, but I found it a bit hard to work out what to do after picking up the book.
Like others have said, a few checkpoints would have been tremendously helpful, but even without them it's a fun game! Well done.
Great yet simple game. You executed the idea perfectly! 123.
What a fantastic idea with the ever changing room! The way the boomerang and bombs could be used in various ways was really clever, I'm looking forward to more content.
This is amazing! Really cool implementation of a great concept.
It looks great and I really like the one button mechanic. Stomping on the bugs felt really solid!
This is hilarious! Well done.
An incredible game, easily one of my favourites. Absolutely beautiful.
alvarop, oranebeast, Volute, ENDESGA: Thank you all so much!
Groydis: T-thanks. Luckily I removed the lice feature at the last moment.
koujaku: Thank you!
DrHahn: I might write up a short explanation of the shader, since I'm really happy with it and also since it's relatively straightforward.
Franklin's Ghost: Thanks!
Alexandre Szybiak: The maze is intended to be easier to solve while you're not in it, but you're right, and I would have liked to have more features that relied on the effect. I had plans to include enemies that shot bullets at you from far away, but I didn't end up with enough time to add those in, and actually I'm not sure how well they would have worked.
fullmontis: Glad you finished it. I might work on a post-compo version with a save feature.
Joris: Unfortunately I don't think I could avoid that, but thanks for sticking with it for half an hour.
elliottd, Steven Colling, naufr4g0: Thank you all!
rnlf: The "floor" thing happened by accident, but I loved the effect and had to leave it in. There's definitely no way to get the stick underneath the world until you get your wings, it's there to let you build the final nest at "the end". I would have really liked to see your implementation of this idea! It's always so cool to see how other people make use of the same concept.
Jupitron: Thanks!
eruditespirit: I'm really sorry to hear that. The only thing I can think of is to take a break every ten or so minutes, but I know that isn't a great solution.
duon44: Yeah the game gets pretty damn challenging, thanks for checking it out!
andrewkennedy: Thank you, glad you finished it.
Quikding: Thanks!
rabbit: Oh bummer. What's the error? It might be that you need Direct X 9.0c, which you can get here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34429 If that's not it, I'll see if I can add a fix in.
Absolutely beautiful!
Simple but fun! It was a bit hard to tell where the character was aiming at first, but I found that I got better at predicting it the longer I played.
Great puzzles! I especially loved the last challenge and I wish there could have been even more! Fantastic work.
This is incredible on all fronts! There is amazing depth to what originally looked like such a simple game, and working around the randomly generated terrain makes each play feel new and refreshing. Fantastic job!
I don't know how you came up with such a great idea! Switching between the swatter and hand adds a lot of depth to what might have been a frustrating experience otherwise. The visuals are fantastically cute and the whole thing radiates fun.
Wow. The story and the way it all connects and plays out is mind blowing! Absolutely loved this game.
Hahahaha I love these sort of think-outside-the-box games! I'm not sure what can be said about the game, except that the effect at the beginning when the wave of transparency ripples into the sword made me instantly impressed, and that I wish there was more to do in the game using this idea! Gorgeous animation and beautiful audio made this a short, but lovely, experience.
A fantastic game as always!
It's great to see what you could do in 72 hours, taking on a rand gen dungeon with an upgrade system and multiple modes (normal/super) is a pretty damn massive task, so obviously huge props for that!! And then throw on the audio and the astounding graphics and it's crazy that you did all that by yourself.
But there's a few things I would have loved to see that would have taken the game much further. I imagine you know this already but I'll mention it anyway because that's what feedback usually comes down to. I just want to reiterate though that expecting any of this stuff on top of everything else you did is just wanting more icing on my cake. So. Firstly, it would have been cool to see more than one enemy type. With just melee enemies the best strategy seems to come down to funneling them into a line and mashing away at the space bar, which isn't bad, but doesn't have the same level of depth as enemies that charge you, or fly over terrain, or shoot at you, or blink behind you, or any of a number of other possibilities. Secondly, I think the game needs to ramp up in some way so that it slowly gets harder and eventually nearly impossible. I only upgraded my melee damage and it alone was enough to take on any number of enemies. Thirdly, I kept forgetting to use the arrow keys to shoot, which is probably just me being an idiot but I think space bar to shoot in the direction you're facing might have been a reasonable compromise.
Again, fantastic game, it was a real pleasure to play!
Definitely my favourite game so far! The text is fantastic, the graphics are so damn good and my only complaint is I wish it were longer so I didn't have to finish so soon! Holy crap, congratulations!
Absolutely delightful. Loved the graphics (amazing colours!), loved the sound (and the voice acting!), loved the puzzles (really creative!) and loved the story (and the cameo!). Thank you for this game!
Very uncomfortable, in a way that really sends a message across. I disagree with people saying it's sexist, as I think the point is to show how unsettling this sort of behaviour can be. Thanks for making this!
Not sure what else can be said. Very well done!
It's like Morty meets Lumpy Space Princess and it's amazing!! I wish I could give you a 6 for humour. Wow.
Wonderful setting and atmosphere!! I can't think of much to say about it except that it was really well done, and that it had a style all to itself. Both the visuals and audio are great. I especially like the spiral patterns formed by the energy left by the planets and their satellites!
I found myself chasing planets, wishing I could let go of the keyboard and start orbiting around them, or even around their satellites. I enjoyed shooting the planets and star, and watching the shots bounce off, although a part of me tried to find deeper meaning in shooting balls of energy at things, even though you warned that there is no winning or losing condition!
Overall a lovely experience, thank you for it.
Absolutely gorgeous! Fun puzzles, great creatures, and lots of attention to detail, I really liked it!
Very, very fun speed running game! The music and juice is incredible. My only complaint was that it was sometimes hard to find where you started, especially toward the end when the levels got very large. I managed to get a time of 2:29! http://puu.sh/hJg2H/6f4ab60340.jpg
You don't need another person telling you how good the graphics are, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Because they're amazing. Holy crap, I cannot believe how GOOD this game looks. Massive props!
This was a very fun metroidvania, with a surprisingly large scope! The powers were really satisfying to find, and it was good to see areas that really made use of each of them (though at the time I was hoping for even more challenging jetpack areas). Wonderfully crafted little world and story! :)
@Horsed: Press Z/W/Y on a keyboard or A on a controller.
Thank you everyone for the comments, I really appreciate them!
Sorry for those of you that are finding the controls awkward, especially on keyboard. Maybe I should have combined attacking, picking up and throwing into one button but I wanted the player to have more control over the character. I intentionally made the character a little slippery so you had to use a bit of momentum to get around although I might have overshot my mark! I'll make a gameplay video today for anyone who had too much trouble with the controls but wants to see the rest of the game.
Okay, onto specific comments!
@Pachow: Thanks! I'll try to do a writeup on the shader, in case that's interesting to anyone.
@fullmontis: Definitely agree with you on this! If I had more time I would have tried to tweak the levels so this issue never stood in the way.
@DragonXVI, KedumeBits: I haven't seen Closure before but it looks great! I can totally see the similarities in graphical style and the light/dark mechanics. Thanks for mentioning it!
@localminimum: I'm not sure what you mean; it is possible to jump while holding the lantern, although it isn't possible to attack, and I think that's the direction I should have gone.
@rnlf: Thank you very much! I wouldn't mind spending more time on this, adding a bunch more content as well as ironing out the controls.
@PTSnoop: I'm going to use www.rot13.com to reply to this since it's full of spoilers. Svefgyl, V'z gnxvat n thrff gung lbhe pbzzrag fnlf "pbafvqrevat gung guvf ynagrea pbagnvaf/ercerfragf gur fbhy bs lbhe qrnq ybire" be fbzrguvat gb gung rssrpg. V'z abg fher ubj sne lbh tbg, ohg nf gur fgbel hasbyqf lbh svaq bhg gung vg'f npghnyyl gur punenpgre'f bja fbhy juvpu vf va gur ynagrea, abg gurve ybiref, naq tvira ubj riragf hasbyqrq V qba'g guvax gurl ner cnegvphyneyl raguenyyrq ol gurve fbhy orvat xrcg nyvir sberire.
@Snicklodocus: Yeah I found the theme particularly tricky to work with this time! I didn't want to make an ordinary game with a meatloaf instead of a sword, or anything like that, so I tried to think of unusual ways a weapon could operate.
@madameberry: The lantern itself isn't a weapon, but it's the source of your knife. My take on the theme was a weapon that only existed in a small space around a point, and I tried to emphasize this in the narrative but it was tough to get across!
Wow, so many comments!! Thank you for all the kind words/criticism/suggestions, it's really great to read all of it.
@StrayByte: Fair enough! I didn't want to make a game that took conventional weapon mechanics and swapped the gun out for a puppy launcher or swapped the sword for a meatloaf, but instead I wanted to take a normal weapon and limit its use in some unconventional way, so I tried to think of a way to reinvent melee fighting and came up with the idea that you had to stay close to some sort of energy source.
@MonoS: No worries, thanks for playing!
@phi6: I've added it to my list to check out, I'll leave a comment when I do. And thank you so much for adding me to your list!! It's an honour to be among such nice games :)
@ekun: Thank you for the detailed reply. I guess I've always been a bit inspired by Super Meat Boy, sometimes to my detriment, haha! If you're interested in the full story text, there's a link to it in the game description up the top.
@SonnyBone: I wish I had had more time to tweak the levels, I think I would have scrapped a couple of the middle levels, or at least made them a lot more interesting. Unfortunately there were a lot of ideas I didn't get time to implement. Which is exactly what you suggest, and so I agree completely!
@01010111: I need to work on more somber gameplay for sure. Though, like you, I'm not sure what to do to get there.
@Ditto: Sorry to hear you didn't like it! You're totally right about the controls, I wish I had been able to improve them. I made the attack small on purpose because I wanted the player to have to use some precision to attack, but, like the controls, maybe I overshot the mark. Oh and say hi to blomster for me!
@Jwatt: Thanks for the detailed comment! Instead of trying to build a game around one interesting mechanic like I've done in the past, this time I tried to throw in as much content and mechanics as I could. I guess it didn't stick together as well as I'd hoped it would.
@Marcus316: I tried to hint at it with the horizontal lift in the second level, but your suggestion of a vertical lift early on is a better way to introduce the idea.
@jcmoyer: I'm not sure what's causing input lag on your system but I don't have any on my system so it might be some sort of bug? It may be worth pointing out that you only throw when you let go of C, not when you press it originally.
Really cool weapon, and combined with the shader it felt amazing throwing the jam around! Also have to mention the boss, as having the weak spot rotate as it aimed at you was a terrific idea. Awesome work!
After some initial hiccups playing with the Windows build, I went back and tried the web build, and it works much more smoothly! I love the depth to this game, which a lot of tower defense games miss. Having to physically press the keys instead of simply watching your towers attack means you have to weigh up a whole lot of pros and cons. Grouping up strong keys makes them easier to press but leaves you with gaps. Putting your strong keys at the top means you can wipe out enemies faster but requires faster reflexes. Relying on the space bar can be very efficient but is also very risky. I really enjoy seeing games with these sort of decisions to make.
I can see a game like this being able to become a bigger game, if that's something you're interested in. Some waves coming only from the left or right would give the player even more decisions, and you could even do bizarre things like disable the bottom or top half of the keyboard for certain levels, encouraging the player to spread their most valuable keys out. Enemies immune to numbers, enemies immune to consonants, there are lots of ways you could add to the game, if you wanted.
Great style, great audio, great idea. Pretty much great all round!
I'm fairly sure it's due to a delay, though it could certainly be my utter lack of rhythm, but I cannot for the life of me beat the second track. I feel as though I have to press each key a split second before each note plays, which makes it incredibly difficult.
I know some people have mentioned the lack of line indicators as a good thing, and some have mentioned them as a bad thing, but I think I stand somewhere in between. I think that, as the game currently is, it is too difficult to see how 'far away' each demon is, especially given the wavy movement. This could of course be fixed by adding some sort of beat lines, but I don't think that's the be all and end all. Maybe there is a more creative solution possible, such as smaller demons for the off beats, or have them take a slightly different path, or have the off beat demons be a different colour, or some other way in which they can be distinguished.
Other than that, the game is fantastic. I cannot believe you made the tracks so quickly and fitted them into the game so well, it's mind blowing! The visuals, while very simple, do an excellent job of conveying all the necessary information (disregarding the previously mentioned complaint). The game is crazy fun, well done!
The setting and voice over is fantastic, it really sets the mood of the game and adds so much life to it! On my first attempt I failed to save my partner and twins :(
Not sure what I can say except that this was super fun! Really liked the gliding.
I really like how you used the theme to create such an interesting combat mechanic. At first I was hunting down rats to kill them all, but the more I played the more I ignored them, and used them for gorgon bait. With the beasts, at first I had a lot of trouble with them, but it was really rewarding to slowly adapt to them and learn when to wait and meet their charge and when to close the distance yourself. As for the gorgon, I found her very difficult to deal with, even after multiple attempts! Because it takes a while to get to her, and because death can come so quickly, it made it much harder to find ways to beat her. When I finally beat her, it was only because I shut my eyes and hoped for the best until either her or I died. I suppose this felt a bit weak, compared to the very precise combat with the beasts.
Some polish and a lot more content could turn this into a really great game, but at the moment the graphics and audio let the rest of the game down a little bit. Again, fantastic use of theme, and great mood!
I manage to almost land the second plane, but it's tough! I really liked the setting and the portraits, especially how they rotate with the planes. Awesome work!
I had a blast (pun intended, sorry) with this game, it was really fun. The upgrades added a huge drive to keep going exploring and the game slowly opened up with the rover and other abilities. The rocket itself looked great, and the visual upgrades were a really nice touch too, but I wish the ground wasn't quite so blocky. I would love to see a polished version of this!
For some reason I am REALLY bad at this game, unless I'm enumerating something (days of the week, months, words beginning with different letters of the alphabet, etc) or adding 's' to the end of everything!
But I really like it. The inability to reuse words turns the game from a generic typing challenge into a much more interesting and challenging beast. I've seen one or two other games with words as weapons, but I think you handled it the best, mechanically.
I found being ambushed especially difficult, particularly because you would lose health quickly when they closed the gap and started pummeling you in the face. Sometimes I would type out a long word, realize I had already used it and have to backspace it away before I could type a new word, and this often meant my death. Being able to 'enter' used words to clear the typewriter would have made it easier, but I can understand if this is a decision you made to punish keyboard mashing.
It was also a pleasant surprise to try Ludum Dare related words, to see which ones were included. There were many more than I expected!
Stunning graphics! I wish I could give you a 6 for that! Great use of theme as well, and really responsive controls. I felt like the melee enemies could be more threatening, perhaps walking around or attacking at intervals.
A really fantastic game! Great use of theme, beautiful art, lovely sound effects and music, and a really nice multiplayer experience. Would like to see more level variety, perhaps even randomly generated levels, but obviously that goes beyond the scope of a jam game!
@FerraWare, @oxysoft: thank you!
@Evergreen Games: you can, it just takes a few attacks, depending on your attack damage. sometimes it's definitely worth it!
I've added a link to a gameplay video! If you're having trouble with strategy it shows off a relatively close attempt, starting with three health. You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA62z6ljSkA
@Franklin's Ghost, tuben999, mortus, chromebookbob, hexagore, sprawl, qkerguelen, meursault, boardtobits, mike.cullingham, commodoreKid, Pierrec, A Flat Miner Studios, Miltage, uheartbeast, WubAlliance, Bocodillo, GeorgeBroussard, Shaw, TijmenTio, blay09, Koneke, Realize2D, cbear_wallis, Otrora Games, 01101101, CrownCity: Thank you all so much for your supportive comments! It's so wonderful to hear so many kind words!! :)
@Modoc73, kikaz: Thanks. I wish I had had time to add better sound and music! That's always the way when you only have 48 hours, though.
@Crowbeak: All those sci-fi chess variants you see in shows and movies always confuse me, haha. I think I can see the similarities, though!
@Devark, Vaida: I hope the tutorial and the explanation on this page helped a bit with the controls, but I definitely agree that the controls are not super intuitive. Please do let me know if you think there's a way the controls could be handled better, for any future version I might make!
@HolyBlackCat: Yeah I think I should have added that in, it is a bit of a pain counting up to twenty dots! I made the skull icon go white once you hit twenty but I think you often want to know how far away from twenty you are, rather than whether or not you've reached twenty yet, and the icon going white doesn't help with that.
@Yakka, Kerdelos: I knew that would bother some people but I really thought it improved how the player approaches combat, and makes it so that, unless you're really, really careful, your health is slowly trickling down as you make your way down the tower. I liked how that feels, thematically, even while it can be grating to be losing health. Thank you for the comment! :D
@foreverisbetter: Thanks! Of the 48 hours I must have spent nearly 40 hours working on this. I was ridiculously ambitious and I only barely, barely finished it all in time.
@DragonXVI: Yeah I tried not to accidentally copy Necrodancer, which I adore. The green shirts definitely have a Skeleton vibe to them though.
@Unept, Mathieu Muller: If I work on it any more the first thing I'll do is throw all the sound effects in a dumpster!
@BtheDestroyer: Glad to hear it was a false alarm!
@SaintHeiser: Once again I made the game way harder than intended! Stomping on enemies and killing archers is pretty much my go-to plan, which is almost the same as your own.
@Solifuge: Thank you very much for the detailed comment! :)
@01010111: Yeah I wish I had better sound effect skills, and that I could have dedicated more time to them. I definitely recognize them as a big weak spot!
@Mike Mezhenin: It was nice to have an idea for something other than a platformer this time, it's always more fun trying something new.
@Draknek: I mention earlier in this comment that I figured the fighting would feel off, but it ended up seeming necessary for balancing purposes. I think I will work more on the game, and I'll try playing around with the player's health, enemy health and enemy attack damage and see if there's a way to make it work so that if you kill (or perhaps overkill) an enemy you don't suffer any retaliatory damage, but in the timeframe I had no other way to balance the game. As for the sound effects, I agree that they're vague and pretty average overall but my hope was that the visuals would convey enough of what was happening. Thank you for mentioning both of those points though, it definitely reaffirms for me that if I work on the game any more those should be two of the things I look into first.
Simply stunning. So much beautiful art, and a story that incorporates the theme really well. Honestly there's nothing I can think of that could improve this experience, except to wish it were longer! Thank you!!
Absolutely beautiful, of course, with a nice amount of depth due to the Titan's slow attacks! Great work!
Wow, this is fantastic! Definitely one of my favourite games from LD33. It was a lot of fun exploring the map, and the bosses were a very pleasant surprise. I found the hurt-blocks a bit confusing, since you can touch them from the side but not the top. Maybe there's a way to make this visually more obvious?
Absolutely fantastic music, and a lot of fun!
A really lovely blend of snake and blocks-slide-until-they-hit-a-wall! Very fun! The style is really crisp, though maybe the special blocks could use different symbols to help differentiate them. I also found the sound effects a little repetitive and would have loved to see the pitch altered or a pool of sound effects used for movement, but this is a minor complaint!
An amazing experience! Absolutely lovely use of theme.
At first I felt like the controls were just there to be a limitation, but once I got to the puzzles that utilize your movement the game really became an interesting and challenging experience. I adore the graphics!!
Gorgeous homage to Another World with a nice variety of challenges and a challenging but rewarding difficulty! There is a heck of a lot of polish in this game and it was a joy to play!
@mokesmoe: that one was a real nightmare to design, but it's my favourite puzzle level too
@Crowbeak: haha, I'm glad you noticed!
thanks for the comments everyone!
@mklee: I've never made a bullet hell type of game before so it was a learning experience. I sort of like that you have to find a safe spot to get your stake back but I can definitely see how it would be frustrating!
@snowyowl: now I'm thinking about whether it would have been good to remind the player about the level skip feature once they die a certain number of times on a level. maybe for next time! thanks for letting me know what kind of weird effects you got, and glad to hear the alternate version fixed things. :)
@holyblackcat: whoops! thanks for the heads up, I think I know what's causing that (hint: hacky programming) and how to fix it. I'll address your question below.
@dunin: the two puzzle levels where you have two stakes are both really tricky, good luck!
@flobster: yeah someone mentioned the snail-shell game from LD23. hopefully the way you have control over each of the edges and the way the bosses use the window shape makes it different enough!
@danman9914: I set a program to take a time-lapse of the weekend, so if it worked out well I'll put that up, should be fun to watch!
@bradleypollard, quaternary, holyblackcat: quaternary is spot on, the fake window makes it a lot easier to see and grab pins, and runs a lot smoother for some people. unfortunately the real window is almost unplayable on some computers, which is why there's a second build of the game (which removes the real window mode from the main game)! another reason I have both versions in the game is because I wanted the game itself to shapeshift between using a real and fake window.
so many comments!! thank you all for playing the game, and for letting me know what you thought, it means a lot to me!
@matiasbontempo: I've added a timelapse video of (most of) the 48 hours, so you can get a rough idea for where I spent my time. towards the end it gets very, very frenetic.
@deltaF1: there actually is some background music, but it's REALLY quiet, and it's only there so that the game isn't absolutely silent when the player stops moving. if you include the 5 "filler" levels, there are 30 levels altogether!
@swinestudios: it's definitely the hardest puzzle! here's a gif of the solution if you're curious: http://i.imgur.com/ekTyD56.gif
@politewhale: no pattern at all, I swear. ;)
@omlette.du.fromage: I'm glad to hear it was still playable on a retina display!
@been: the glitches are a sort of happy accident. I like to think the game is straining at the seams.
@headmade: I know! I was scared of that happening to people, which is part of the reason the game starts to use a "fake" window for the trickier bits.
@oxysoft: I tried to make each level use something new, but yeah there are a couple which ended up feeling a bit like "X, but harder" which maybe could have been scrapped. there were two awful levels I took out before I released the game because they were pretty bad!
@alexrose: thank you for the detailed feedback, as always! regarding the twitch platforming levels, I wanted a mix between slow, puzzle levels and fast, frantic levels, since I wanted the game to have a little bit for everyone. and then the bosses let me explore ways the window could shapeshift that were out of the player's control, which led to some fun situations like sliding along the wall as it zipped across the room, or having to rush through a level before you get crushed. you're right in that the twitch platforming, by itself, isn't anything new, but I guess I don't mind that!
@miziziziz: a walkthrough is a great idea! I'll try to record one soon.
@mukult: I love seeing what similar ideas people have, so thank you for sharing! and wow, the window aspect of your game is really similar, hope you get a chance to finish off the game if that's something you want to do.
@mitya1234: sorry to hear that. if you play the "more fake window" version and endure the first two levels, the game should become a lot more playable. you can also press P twice to skip the first two levels, if they're too unplayable.
@malvern: thanks for the feedback! I don't mind using WASD but I know it's not for everyone. it's actually possible to play with a gamepad and mouse, but I don't know whether or not that's even worse. I would have loved to make it playable with a controller but there are problems with the cursor going offscreen and being hard to find (since the window moves around) that were too difficult to solve.
@codeartisticninja: I wish I could have made it clearer, maybe with some in game animations to show off the mechanic. I tried to make up for that by describing it in the controls, the how to play and showing it in the screenshots, though that's still easy to miss!
@snowtato: if you don't want to kill vampires at all, that's perfectly fine! you can hang around and chill with Oediv for as long as you like, and he's totally cool with that.
@tacospice: I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not but I wanted to have a few "breather" rooms before or after particularly difficult sections. the game actually has music, but I stupidly set it so ridiculously low that a lot of people can't hear it! :)
@weepingrupee: I sometimes finish experimental games outside of game jams, but they're still usually quite small projects. you can find them at https://managore.itch.io if you're interested, almost all of them are donationware! unfortunately I'm not employed in the industry, as much as I would like to be.
It makes me so happy to see a twin stick shooter with permanent upgrades! I love becoming an absolute powerhouse and mowing down hundreds and thousands of shapes. I also really liked that the enemies spawn both in large groups, as well as spread out singletons, since it meant I couldn't run circles around the group and keep them contained. It would have been nice if the view area was larger, or if the player remained more centered, so that the player didn't need to lead to camera as much.
In both of my runs I ended up dying to a line, sadly, but with a score of roughly 350,000 and then 450,000.
So, to start with, the art is obviously exceptional. I think the nudity is done tastefully (even if it isn't strictly necessary). I'm also a huge fan of interpreting the theme in multiple ways (the clients shapeshifting, the lathe literally shapeshifting, and even the choice of which way you shape the client). Like others have already said, having to use the pottery disk each time became a bit repetitive, perhaps it would have been nice if each pattern only had to be done once, or if it produced more than one copy at a time, but I know that wouldn't make as much sense as the way it was done in the game. Other than that, I'm blown away by how much of a unique, standout game this is.
A really wonderful blend of genres! I had a LOT of fun with this!
You always come up with fantastic puzzle games, I don't know how! Well done again! :D
Oh wow, I'm always so impressed by how beautiful you manage to make each of your games, and this is no exception! The controls were so responsive, and the knockback added a really interesting element to the combat which really brought it to life. Trying to high score this game would be a lot of fun, though I wish I were better at it! :)
Well that was unexpected! I feel like I should have known. :)
I'm amazed how good you made the simple graphics look. The cube's animations feel terrific! Near the end of the game I tried for far longer than I care to admit to push the loose electric panel over the square bump, so I could use it to press down one button while I stood on the other. Eventually I worked out what I was meant to do but I was sad that it didn't involve my unnecessarily complicated approach! Great game overall.
A really beautiful take on the theme! It's lovely playing games as relaxing as this.
Easily one of my favourite games. I love the combination of platforming and click-a-thon, even though it seems I'm pretty terrible at skin care and dental! All the little details make this game very fun and very satisfying. Thank you for making it!
The first I played, I got stuck (without the "you are stuck" message) on one of the early levels and had to restart, but the second attempt went much better! Really cool idea for character movement, I'm surprised how much you have to think careful about what route you can take.
This is definitely one of my favourite uses of theme, if not my favourite. I love the challenges and mechanics that emerged from combining the level shifting with the lasers, especially towards the last few levels. I wish the level shifting returned to its default state a little slower, as I had quite a bit of trouble keeping the level at a certain state of displacement, but really that's just personal preference. I also found it a bit tricky to tell when I was pulling the level too far apart. I know the visuals gradually change but at times it was hard to know how much more leeway I had. Overall I think this is a great game, thank you for making it!
I love this game, and I can't wait to see the post-compo version you end up with!
This is just incredible! I love how animated the world is, and together with the consistent style it makes the game look so good. The variety of shapes and level structure was also fantastic! It seemed like there were a few times when the character failed to jump while running downhill, but with the approach you took with the landscape that can hardly be helped, and it didn't really detract from the experience.
This was great! I love being able to choose how much or how little to read, and the scraps of paper and signs did a wonderful job of building up the world and the lore. The other butterflies and the flowers were great ways to add more content to the endgame, too! And then of course the graphics were gorgeous, and held everything together really well. Thanks for the game!
Well this was absolutely amazing.
This was a really great game, with a massive amount of content and enemy types! Congratulations! I agree with most of the other comments so I'll try to cover things that other people haven't said yet. The sound effect when you shoot is PERFECT, and makes shooting feel really, really good. The big, chunky bullets you fire are great, too. The cursor was a bit hard to see sometimes, especially when the background was also green or when lots of stuff was on screen at once. Like others have said, turning into a gun looked great but didn't feel powerful enough. I would have liked if you pierced through enemies until you hit a wall, so you could attack multiple enemies at once if you lined it up well. Landing face to face with a massive enemy as your transformation ends meant it was a very risky attack!
Fantastic graphics! I love the shader you came up with, and am really happy to see that you wrote a tutorial covering how you crafted it. And then you designed levels to bring out the best in the shader, too!
This is such a beautiful effect, and it's fantastic seeing fun metroidvanias made for Ludum Dare! I'm glad to see the post-compo build fixes the load times, too!
I really like the style and the "level" transitions which the style makes possible. I tried to work out how to get the secret ending but I have no idea!
@jcmonkey: sorry to hear that! I tried to limit the tricky wall jumping to purely optional areas, so whatever section you're trying to do is probably skippable
@mokesmoe: thanks for spotting the bug, I'll add a ceiling in that room!
This is incredible! I cannot believe how much I like the graphics, and the way that each sailor has a certain position on the tiny ship is fantastic. It felt like a real-time eyemaze-like game as I slowly worked out the best order to do things in.
Amen to that.
I love everything about this game! A push/pull mechanic I haven't seen before, well designed levels, great use of theme, incredible and stylish visuals, lovely and appropriate audio and overall a fantastic game. Awesome work!!
Absolutely stunning!! I was already in love with the game when it was just the beautiful little apartment, so when it expanded I was very pleasantly surprised. It took me a little while to realize how the typing worked, mostly that I had to begin by pressing backspace, but once I worked that the rest of the game was smooth sailing.
Oh and the final puzzle was great!
Always love seeing low resolution 3-colour games, and this is no exception! The claw machines and flipping tiles to make this feel like a little shifting toybox is so, SO nice. Even with the shadow under the player I found it a little hard to judge distance when jumping north/south, but I slowly got used to it after a few attempts.
This is a stunning entry! The way the cards shuffle between you and the opponents is incredibly original and adds a lot of strategy while keeping all the information right in front of you and super simple, and I think that can often be very difficult to do in a turn based strategy game. I wanted to use a hex grid for my game as well, but getting the tile based movement and everything else working properly took such a long time I had to give up and stick to a square grid, but you've not only used a hex grid, you've added card based movement and moving AIs!
The visuals, the audio and the story are all top notch as well, of course, but I think everyone else has said that already!
A fantastic game as usual, rubna! The amount of screen space dedicated to the ocean makes the island look all the more cramped and tiny, which I really like. The wet sand effect is super cool, obviously. There were enough elements in the game that the solution wasn't immediately obvious, and the different components were fun to interact and play around with.
The ending was a little upsetting, but it was wonderfully done and gives the game some nice closure so I didn't really mind.
Great work overall!
@superpokeunicorn that is definitely a bug, I'll push a fix for it soon. thanks for letting me know!
@benjamin thanks for the detailed comment! I agree with you on pretty much everything (I tried to remove dead ends but quite a few still managed to sneak in there) and I'd like to try and add in some of these features in the future
@carlospidox I'm going to keep working on it, and one of the first things I plan to add is some (hopefully nice) audio
@juicy-vegetable thanks for the feedback and the kind words! I've increased the movement speed when tapping movement keys in the updated version and I think it feels a lot better already. as for shooting from a distance of two tiles, you can do that already. coins keep travelling in a straight line until they hit a red, a wall or a shopkeeper. I'm going to try and see if there's a way to improve the UI, I have a few ideas for that!
@le-slo you're absolutely right about movement being too slow! and if I keep working on it I hope to incorporate the instructions and controls into the game itself so people can't miss it. as for going down floors, I hope that the enemies constantly spawning makes levels more and more dangerous to stay in, but it might need more tweaking
@jharler I appreciate the feedback. the dungeon generation was tough to get working, but it was really satisfying in the end, hope yours was too!
@fazz I'm always happy to hear people's ideas, but you're right, I have a long list of improvements and additions I'm excited to try out eventually. I'm going to put it on itch shortly, though I can't seem to get the html5 version working so it might remain download only
@joemanaco thanks!
@seconddimension glad you liked it, I'm hoping to keep working on it and making it more and more strategic
@barret hopefully you won't have to imagine the coin sounds for too much longer! thanks for the kind words
@petitpois, @adam-elaoud , @fahim-faysal thank you!
@yazara I fixed the dungeon generation in the updated build so that dead ends should be impossible, I realized how much it sucks to end up stuck in that position. going to look into improving the UI in a more fully fleshed out version of the game
@japes thanks! I think I'm going to crack open jfxr soon
@neowedge @mateusboga @drauthius @nandon @black-potion @pixel-boy @maskinmask thanks for all the lovely words! :)
@avavt you're right about it not being as intuitive, and that's something I'm going to focus on in future updates. for now I have to hope people read through the block of text first, but I know that sucks when there's a game to play! as for gems, they're meant to serve as your score. I thought floor level might not be a good measure of success because that encourages people to jump down as soon as they found the staircase, and I didn't want that. thanks for all the feedback!
@josefnpat thanks! the pink number above your coins is your max coins (you can hold tab to see what that number, and all the other numbers, represent)
@damantisshrimp sorry to hear that. did you try shooting (shift + arrow keys) your coins at the shopkeepers?
@n-o-games I was thinking about hazards, but sadly I didn't have the time to try adding them in. if I keep working on the game they'll be the first thing I experiment with!
@stevenjmiller thanks, and congrats on getting 30! I didn't mention it anywhere in the instructions but you can press escape to finish a run and return to the title screen
oh my goodness, thank you everyone for your ratings and comments! I really appreciate all the feedback, compliments, complaints and suggestions
when I made the game I was annoyed that it was so easy to accidentally trap yourself and lose the run, but I didn't have time to fix it and hoped people weren't too badly affected by it. based on all the comments I've made an updated version with some bug fixes and, most importantly, with some extra code so that levels containing ways to trap the player are no longer generated
@ssstormy that's very fair! I might experiment with some extra elements if I have time, though I'm worried I won't be able to incorporate them very well in proc gen levels
@tobiasw thank you for the kind words! I remember playing and really enjoying snakeformer all those years ago :)
@fazz thanks! it turns out there was a mistake in the proc gen which was making a lot more weaving passages than I intended. fixing it has made the average level a lot better (and a lot harder!)
@drachmor sort of... the level gets generated and then, if there's a good spot for the button to go, it spawns it there. if there isn't, it just keeps generating a new level and trying again. and yeah I hated that you could start a level, press a single key, and be doomed immediately
@tayl1r that's a good point, and something I'll definitely play around with in the future
@chaseplays thank you! yeah I wanted to encourage a seasoned player to want to go as fast as possible even on the first levels where there's plenty of time, so I'm glad you mentioned that!
@verrazano, @bean I'm hoping to write up a detailed explanation eventually but for now I've made a [visualizer](https://i.imgur.com/Db9kvrZ.gif) to show how the algorithm works. the numbers at the end are the number of steps required to get to each square in the level
@grentacular hahah, you're very welcome!
@bitdecay a little bit, but not for a while. I wrote similar (but still very different) algorithms to make the levels in [mr moneybag](https://managore.itch.io/mr-moneybag) and in [death of a lich](https://managore.itch.io/death-of-a-lich)
@samlecreator that's very kind of you to say! thank you
@mika-la-grand it's short for "difficulty" but I should have called it "speed" or something else instead. as the difficulty increases, the amount of time you have for each level decreases, so you have to react faster and faster the longer you stay alive. I'm going to rename it "spd"
@torn that's very fair, I wish I could have done more with the theme and music
@ryannielson yeah that's always the downside of proc gen, most of the levels will never be as good as hand crafted ones, but I like the idea that you could play this for a long time without ever seeing the same level twice (though you'll see the same tricks and patterns a lot). I didn't make this clear at all in the game but the difficulty ramp is just in the time you get for each level getting shorter and shorter. I wasn't brave enough to make the proc gen itself incorporate difficulty!
@adamcyounis I'm glad you mentioned the animation skipping! I knew it would have really bothered me (and everyone else) if you had to wait for animations to end or risk your inputs getting ignored. you're absolutely right about trapping yourself, too. I've fixed it in the updated version. I'd underestimated just how frustrating that would be
@alchemic I'll check your LD44 game out, it's cool to see what other people do with the mechanic. here's a [visualizer](https://i.imgur.com/Db9kvrZ.gif) I made of the level generation, I'll write more about it soon, hopefully
@lazzydev72 your game looks great! I'll try it out soon
@theothersamp those are all great points, thank you! I've since fixed the getting stuck problem, and I'm going to write something about the proc gen soon but for now here's a [gif](https://i.imgur.com/Db9kvrZ.gif) of roughly how it works
@youniversal leaderboards would be cool, but probably too much work for what might stay a fairly small game. 55 is an amazing score, by the way!
@blinry making the player more distinct is something I'm definitely going to look into. and wondering whether the levels were hand made or not is such a compliment to me! :)
@arden whether or not I add a puzzle mode, it would be cool to tell the player when they beat the level as efficiently as possible! the level generator does already know the minimum number of moves required.
@thecrancher that's a really good idea!
@glaciereclipse thank you for the very kind words :)
@aurel300 I think you're right about the flashing, if I make any future versions I might dial it back a bit
@blubberquark yeah, sorry about the lack of theme. it started off with you collecting fuel but it just didn't look any good so I abandoned that theme but really liked the gameplay I had. anyway, your "Solve, then Generate" approach is really cool, but I generated mine using the "Generate and Solve" approach. I started by carving out the level, then checking if there was a good place for the button to go (plus a few other checks). if there wasn't a good spot for the button, I'd generate a new level and check again. thanks for linking your article, by the way, it was a good read!
@room606 1. I'll think about it, but I think the game's a lot more fun with arrow keys than it would be with swipe input or on-screen buttons. 2. I'll write more about this later, but to get a rough idea it works like [this](https://i.imgur.com/Db9kvrZ.gif), where it makes a level and then finds a good spot for the button to go (any spot with a "7" or higher). if there's no such spot it generates a new level. this way it's always solvable. 3. yes, definitely! hopefully sooner rather than later, too
Absolutely amazing concept and execution! Thank you for making this.