Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Markavian
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Connect the worlds, rule the universe | jam | 353 | 3.27 | 3.20 | 42 | |||||||
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | A medieval story... in 10 seconds. | compo | 435 | 3.17 | 2.97 | 3.47 | 3.68 | 3.47 | 2.85 | 2.73 | 54 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Tamborine Man | compo | 184 | 3.59 | 3.24 | 3.33 | 3.39 | 3.91 | 2.72 | 3.24 | 3.43 | 55 | |
| 2012 | 25 | You are the Villain | Test Subject Gamma | compo | 254 | 3.19 | 2.46 | 3.54 | 3.85 | 3.59 | 1.71 | 3.00 | 2.79 | 48 | |
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Battle Arena Evolution! | compo | 280 | 3.14 | 2.82 | 2.86 | 3.18 | 3.25 | 3.11 | 3.50 | 2.79 | 51 | |
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Miniature Worlds | compo | 265 | 3.25 | 2.63 | 3.63 | 3.94 | 3.44 | 2.67 | 2.10 | 2.93 | 20 |
That was awesome, loads of fun. I like the title screen and the ending, and the gameplay was good once I'd figured out how to bounce on buildings and that the world was shrinking.
If I were to suggest an improvement: add 2-3 levels, with the first level being much smaller to get the idea of the world shrinking across faster .
Great work!
Thanks, good feedback. :) I didn't want to clutter the interface with too much information, but I guess I could have given the player a bit more direction at the start.
I had wanted to put villages and towns in, and give the player a bit of control (ala Sim City) about how they placed things, but none of that materialized in the time I had left. The worlds need a few indicators to give some feedback about the temperature changes, e.g. applying fire accelerates towards hotter climates and slows down (Climate friction), but none of this is communicated to the player. I think I spent too long working on the Biome/Simulation aspects and not enough on "fun"! (Lesson learnt for next time?)
Android version now available: http://mkv25.net/ludum/ld23/release/LD23-release-r7.apk
Thanks steamgirl. I think I'm going to continue working on the game after the competition, and hopefully make it into a much more complete game. I was planning little stat icons on the planets to indicate actual moisture and temperature, and little villages and towns in the planets for the humans. I guess keep an eye for an update!
Cheers for playing Fireblend. My house mate said the same thing about it feeling like a toy rather then a game, something to learn for next time :)
Struggled to get through the battle system, difficult to understand how some of the menus worked. Good layout for the battle system, but initially hard to understand.
Lots of fun, those daggers scare me! My poor feet! (STOMP)
Yeah, that was the idea! The tiles that are marked Head/Mouse/Legs/Torso etc. around the ring are what you evolve into. It's a bit of a lottery though. If I had more time I'd have preferred to have made a screen that gave the player the option what piece of them to evolve based on the totals of what they'd killed, then you could be a bit more strategic about progressing through the levels.
Zeh, wow. That's some deep thinking there. I'll do my post mortem later tonight once I've played through a few more entrants :) You're right, the game is really about assimilation, stealing parts of the enemies that you kill.
RE: combat - ashearer, turnip, TobiasNL, I think having a unique ability per creature rather then just a standard hit attack would have made the game much better. Its my first time making a combat style game, and I didn't know how to mix up the action, but that's definitely something I'll look into next time.
Thanks for the great feedback guys!
I got frustrated with the difficulty on the first level after 5 attempts, the up-down red fish block fish that get trapped in the holes. Love the art style and water feel. A HUD explaining how much food you need to evolve might have been helpful to let me know my progress.
Err, the movement on the hex grid is.. different. Even just being able to see the corner points would have helped. A graphic for starting positions... anything to indicate a map would have added a lot. Bot targets to attack, in single player mode or otherwise... so many basic things missing. I almost cry as I rate this...
I like the concept, but its difficult to keep up with the action with so much information. Its difficult to see at a glance what the creatures on each planet is up to. I think a more staged or turn based approach where you decide what actions to take up front would balance it better against the AI while the player learns the game. Maybe each planet could have had an action (Breed, Evolve, or Colonize) and the player could chose one of these actions each turn to advance.
I liked the premise, but the ever increasing size of the creatures in the waves of enemies made it really difficult. The sliders were a bit fiddly, and I wasn't sure what they were costing me.
BLARGH!
I found it difficult to locate items in the game to collect. I think some visual elements, such as tabs labeling the shortcuts for inventory, health, boat, and crafting would have helped. Think like boxes or squares that break apart when you search them littered around would have been helpful too in guiding the player into searching for things. I felt quite lost just going from screen to screen avoiding enemies. I like the premise, format, and sound, but it just needs some more visual detail in the world for the character to interact with.
I win, I win! Death to the purple bats and the bananas!
I was expecting, maybe, to evolve as I killed stuff. I like the different drops that you get, and that the monsters drop stuff before they die, so you can sort of harvest the banana for the <-> powerups.
I couldn't get this to run on Windows 7. Just silently fails to load.
Really great game, complete with a great atmosphere. Feels like its got nothing to do with Evolution tho. Good work all the same! Enjoyed it thoroughly.
Good effort, solid idea. The plasma bullets and explosions look gorgeous, shame about the lack of sound effects. Not sure what murdering the game of life says about evolution, but made me laugh :)
Pretty to play with. Killed off a few plants before I realised what the shears were doing.
Its really pretty looking game, I was almost shocked that you'd done 8 directional character movement, but I guess you paid the price by having such a short level.
I found the initial wave of ant things really difficult to beat. I think I'd reward the play with a health pack after a difficult encounter like that so early on. I was forced to replay the intro sequence, which was difficult to skip through.
Would be good to see you make more levels, its a neat concept for a game.
This looks amazing, but no play link! Please edit so we can give it a go, I'll bookmark you for tomorrow <3
Nice take on the tower defense theme. I found that the screen on the right covered up the building options. I found I quickly got swamped and lost my creatures. Might have made more sense if there were less options / parts that made up each creature. I could see you were going for detail to do with how the creatures were made up, but I'm not sure it quite paid off.
I can't get it to run on Windows 7, the program doesn't throw up any errors when I run the JAR file. I tried starting it with javaw from the command line with no success.
Very complete, like the art style and the fact I get to beat up beasties without being hurt myself. All I need is my shrooms... SHRROOOOMS. Would be cool to see an expanded game with powerups (speed boost, increased damage, shrooms?) and more levels. Felt a bit short, died only once, but still enjoyable.
Neat game! Pitty there's no sound, but I like the idea and presentation.
Solid game. Took me a while to get used to the interface. I kept selecting, and then left clicking on things, which would deselect again. A way to sell buildings would have been great, I put down flags to see what they did and ended up breaking the pathing for my rock collecting, which starved my resources. The rollovers for the builings, you could have put the building name in there as well. Would like to see the game with a slightly cleaner interface, and some level progression, maybe with new buildings and resources, and different types of ai (agressive, defensive), bottle necks... :) Great game tho!
I got it working on Windows 7 by running:
javaw -Djava.library.path=lib/windows/ -jar LD24Game.jar
from my command prompt.
Got it to load, but couldn't figure out what to do. Was sorta fun firing solar flares at my planets repeatedly, but didn't understand what to do past that.
I got a bit lost in the menus. I wonder if you could have done all of the buy/sell/breed/garden on one screen, and then it would have just been a case of moving through the turns. It would have been nice to see plants grow larger from seed over a couple of turns, and maybe have a click interface to see what the properties of plants were.
But... yeah, its a really neat idea for a game, just wasn't keen on the menus.
Love the graphics and puzzle. I felt a bit frustrated by the ever multiplying poggles. I think if you changed the breeding mechanic to a manual one of, say, dragging a poggle into another poggle to force them to breed, it'd make the game a bit simpler, and allow the player to plan better. Zapping was fun, but slow. Instead I preferred to go for mass extinctions using the terrain modifiers, they were really cool.
Was a bit of a challenge to get past the punching guy, and I felt a bit lost hunting for materials, but you put enough visual hints in to help me along. I liked the mechanic of crafting new items from your inventory, that was novel :)
Wonderful game, beautiful and fun. Love the combat, exploration, eating, avoiding, all fits together just perfect. Love the ending too :D
Good concept, but really difficult. I noticed the stuff to steal has random prices, but the timer it made it way too difficult. Really cuts the game play down to no fun at all. There wasn't much choice in what to steal, no real challenge, just blind pot luck.
The ending is a soft ending where you complete Project Gamma. If you reach $1,000,000 the money resets (lost on the stock market), but by that point you're usually earning too much. I didn't put limits on the building upgrades, so you can pump money into upgrading without restriction. (Ooops :)).
tl;dr needed balancing
I've uploaded hosted it on my website on behalf of AlexFili if anyone wants to play: http://mkv25.net/ludum/hosted/TUW/
That was loads of fun. I thought the powerup mechanics drained a bit quickly, but shunting ships and planes around was neat. I think with a bit of work on the graphics it'd be excellent.
Tidy game, but no strategy, just lots of clicking. Could have done with more evilness mechanics.
Couldn't get it to run, no errors, just a silent failure.
Strangely addictive... :]
Faster faster at the start!
Would have been good to have other ways to get bonus points other then killing goats. Liked the road mechanic and the changes in scenery.
I can't get past the Difficulty Select (123) screen, when I press a key it takes me off the title screen, but then won't progress past that point.
I became so stressed I exploded.
Goddamnrandomeventskillingoffmylastminions... was fun :D
Found it really hard to generate minions and balance the pillaging, but I think I worked out a strategy, so I guess that makes it challenging and balanced :D Felt like I was relying on the random encounters a bit much, but they made the game all the more fun.
That was genius, great game.
Managed to finish the 4th level only to have it restart the 4th level. Got a lucky drop on a wookie that allowed me to spam some walkers just as the Jedi arrived.
Ahh, looks good, got all the elements of a decent tower defence. Could have done with a "You win!" screen or something just to polish it off.
Maybe hes not a villain, maybe he's trying to rescue the Airship... by shooting up and hacking the control systems.
Totally legit error message?
Ahh... I get it, I played through a second time to confirm. Good work.
I liked the animations and techtree, I thought the concept was well developed. However, I found it hard to follow the progress of the threat as attackers moved between the locations. I think some balancing and work on graphics, perhaps using visual cues such as a crowd of soldiers rather then just numbers would help.
Good overall feel to the game, but didn't feel much challenge or purpose after 10 minutes of play.
Thanks for all the kind words guys!
Hint: Final level requires you to craft one of each of the items that starts on the back wall. Its a circular conversion sequence, and everything you need to complete the room is already in the room.
The final boss was very last minute, I needed something big and slightly disturbing based on the same art style as the main character, so I lopped his head off, enlarged it, and glued legs to his head. And then made him float.
If I remade this game, I think I'd make puzzle bosses a core feature of the game; "They're big, and scary, they're in the room where you can see them, and you can't get past them until you've solved the challenge."
I think I won :)
Cool use of multi-touch, got completely thrown out by the axis switch.
I don't even...
Solid controls, puzzles were tough but not impossible, and there were lots of tasty potatoes.
Surreal.
Found it pretty funny, the physics was really different from what I expected, like falling in Jelly.
Yargh.
Splat.
Cool concept and presentation. Found the control scheme really unresponsive, struggled on the purple levels to get line to turn at the right point.
Gorgeous game with a solid mechanic. I loved the playback leading to the reveal, felt really natural as part of the gameplay.
"It goes on and on.."
I think you mashed the theme. Fun little game. Sucks to be a penguin. Love the art style.
So, killing the blobs is actually really important, and once I'd figured that out... it was fun, for a time, but then it got really dull again because then I had to paint over the entire map.
Works on IE, couldn't get it to load in Chrome!
Loved how the levels popped in around you. Would have been good to see the first gem pop into the door after completing the first level.
00:02:05 kills, 42 kills. I got dizzy.
Really nice little game, enjoyed the resource gathering and attack mechanics.
Really excellent game, really inspirational to see ideas like this... soaking up colour from the environment... to walk through walls! Zip is awesome :D
Badass.
Really simple concept. Liked the mechanics and control system, the fact it was "open world" with the ability to travel between potatoes.
Excellent work crussel! 48%, I managed to keep the grannies locked away outside until I'd rennovated the east wing, but they spawned so frequently my guys couldn't handle the pain. Loved the concept, <3 DK. Felt a bit frustrated that the guys were standing around getting kills when there were jobs to do.
Very cool game, and concept. I was a bit frustrated at first with how difficult it was to single out the regrowing patterns, but once I got the weapon upgrades the game became much more satisfying. I found switching between layers a bit jarring, and thought that the screen could be a bit more zoomed in on the first levels, but overall fantastic.
Very nice, good challenging set of levels. Felt like the graphics improved as it went along. I Thought the initial colours were too plain bright but the details in the later levels looked much better by comparison.
That was beautiful.
Fantastic game, played it through the end. When I saw the opening title I knew it was going to be good. Found the last level very challenging, but completed it through trial and error.
Few UI points:
- Why have a keyboard controlled main menu when the game requires a mouse?
- The buttons for speed and restart work really well
- The tool icons aren't as clear, they could do with being bigger
Good work guys!
Controls are a bit slow, but the mechanics of fighting/hit back, and the princess following are good. Wasn't clear what range I had to be in to use the the call princess feature. Standard screen was really small.
I think I'm about to have a heart attack. That was way too close.
Cheers! Glad you liked it :)
My bad writing, sorry about that DaleP :)
@Omar_q8 - not heard of that game before, but sounds interesting. I'm happy with how the game turned out, I think I'd be happy making a longer version where the player had longer to make their decisions and there was more to play for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game)
@avh4 - agreed lack of feedback is a flaw. Two ideas I had was to have icons that flash up showing + or - Land/Gold/Followers, or to have a popup at the end of each turn explaining the result. Because I was short on time I went for the minimum-complete path and dumped all the story at the end. That means you have to make all your options before you find out what actually happened, which is a big disconnect. Cheers for the comments :)
@Crowbeak, oh cool, cheers for the review. Was fun watching you play, thanks! :)
Things I liked:
- Open world exploration, sense of being in a forest
- Killing stuff in clouds of bloody mist
- The directional graphics and attack animations
Things I didn't like;
- Only one kind of enemy, no real strategy except stop and swing
- Picking the wrong direction at the start is really punishing
- No end screen when you find the glowy bit at the end of the road ???
Things I think would make the game better:
- Random / scripted encountered in the forest, e.g. a fire, a trap encounter, crouched monsters/thieves that attack when discovered, weapon changes (axe, spear, bow?)
- Different trees, that change subtle to show different parts of the map
- Different end points, which may not be the road, but give the play a story to tell, e.g. a grave yard, a raider camp, a ravvine, etc.
Good on the basics, nice music too. Was inspired enough to write a whole bunch of ideas about it :)
Scored 87, didn't play for long. Got all the basics, wasn't blown out of the sky by the idea though.
Best game ever. I was laughing as as soon as Rainbow block started speaking 'cause I knew what she was about to say.
The only bit I didn't get was coolness, gonna go max that out now.
Nice artwork and opening, but frustrating long opening sequence and akward pauses between screens making me wonder what I was supposed to do.
Wasn't feeling the gameplay so much.
18105, found the game really easy, not a huge challenge to play. Liked the graphical effects and sounds.
Funny, but really difficult. 10 shots, slow to move, trying to juggle between mouse and keyboard.
Found it very hard to dodge and shoot, couldn't really find a decent tactic apart from brute forcing the enemies (run at them in a straight line) to kill them as quickly as possible and try and tank up on health. Noticed my weapon switching, didn't understand that.
Baka Emily! Why'd you have to go crazy. I preferred you when you were tsundere :'(
Had to extract res.zip into /res/ folder in the same directory to get it to load the levels correctly.
Finished all 19 levels! Was a good challenge to the end, and the upgrades all helped in one way or another. Liked the animation of the laser and the planet exploding.
I like the presentation, graphics and controls, but the actual game play is a bit dull. Some sort of counter to show how many buildings/cows are left to harvest would have be good. Some other mechanic, such as dropping buildings on turrets to destroy them would have been welcome. Nice work overall though! Lots of potential there, extra levels, opponents, etc.
Trippy. I like it. Permanent space bar.
Heeelp I'm trapped in a room and a monster is throwing toys at me from above. Savvee me someone!
How much sticks/leaves do you need to make nets? I managed to make one, I think, and catch two fish... lots of clicking.
I couldn't get past the control tower. I was really enjoying the story, and really liked the mechanics of the game. Having the freedom to enter and exit buildings is a really nice part of the game. The dark sections were, random, to say the least, but interesting. I wasn't quite sure on the point of them though.
I am dead. Liked the bounce mechanic, was able to harvest lots of zombies by hovering in my bullet. Felt like 10 secs was a long time to be doing nothing while I waited for the zombies to catch up and eat me, I think that took away from the fun.
Excellent game, great use of the theme to make a really interesting mechanic. Played out really well.
After 6 or 7 tries, I died suddenly without reason, I'd just restocked the fire, I'd been and talked to the radio 4 times, and I had just gone from 10-9 seconds on my freeze meter, what killed me? Felt frustratingly slow moving around, I guess that's natural in the cold, but made the game feel sluggish. Great art and concept.
I gave up at level 13. I found it a real struggle to jump and press up and shift at the same time. On a previous level it took me quite a while to figure out I could press up to move through things.
Frustratingly difficult. Could only make it to the 4th layer without typing a key. Am too slow to process the numbers fast enough. There was a noticeable delay for me reading the [1] numbers before I could react. I found [2] keys the easiest, and strategised tha multiples of three were the fastest to solve, e.g. [9 = mash 3 3 3] Ended up learning lots of short key combos to solve 2's, but still got caught out with a brain freeze every so often. Good overall, well presented, but fiendishly hard for me.
OH GOD, BUT I'M NOT THE DOCTOR, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HALF THESE DISEASES ARE, OH NO ANOTHER ONE DIED. GET ME A COFFEE.
I err, had no clue what I was doing. I mashed keys and won. If I did nothing, I lost. Is this a life lesson?
Fiendish. A lot of those rooms are impossible to get out of. I think my best chain was 5. The East-West even number spear rooms were my biggest problem.
@naufr4g0 @klianc09 There is a bug where when you restart sometimes it says "You took the gold" but it doesn't slow you down.
Solid game concept. Crashed on me after I bought all the clothes and ran out of time. It gave me +500 and then died, and I had used the Theme Park suit twice to get $610 by the end. Great work overall, really enjoyed it.
That was pretty amazing as a game, I really struggled on the final level, but only because the additional skill of moving and controlling the orb at the same time overwhelmed me. Maybe a slower moving wall level earlier on to introduce that mechanic might have helper prepare me, but overall a really fun and well polished game.
Most of the first day was spent figuring rules and mechanics, and making art assets. If you look at the web preview you can see what I was going for in a PC version of the game.
Check out the rulebook, and download the printables. If you have a rainy afternoon maybe print them out and have a play. I'll be working on the PC version in my spare time since I'm quite keen to get the engine up and running.
Hey yodamaster, I'd be interested in that. I might want to touch up the graphics before I went to print, but I'd be interested in pricing, etc. Send me an email [email protected]!
@A333, definitely going to finish the PC version. Been working on it all this evening.
Still lots to do, as is the case when you spend an entire day writing a rule book...
Update -- I'm way beyond the 72 hours now, having spent most evenings this week working on it, but the web preview is playable to the point where you can destroy units and capture bases. The only feature missing from the rule book now is portals.
Very pretty with good view controls, but the merge mechanic was really hard to grasp, especially because of the biome element. I couldn't figure out a use for the ice biome. In the end I stacked up orange cylinders across the world for a score of 74.
Really cool concept, felt the interface was a bit unresponsive at times, but rewarding in the end.
The only thing I don't get, is why separate mouse buttons for aiming and firing? I found it easier just to hold both left and right mouse down to fire because it was too confusing. Nice movement and interplanetary mechanics, I liked the surface details.
Gorgeous pixel graphics
I really struggled with the interface, I couldn't tell if my way point was loading or emptying resources, and I kept accidentally adding waypoints. Seemed like a nice idea but really difficult to play.
good bye... am I a mass murdered now?
Really neat game, you've done well with keeping the user interface simple, and had enough game concepts to keep it interesting. I unlocked all the planets, bought a new faster ship, and reached 35,000 creds before deciding to stop playing.
Minor improvements:
- Stars in the background
- Cash / kching animation when selling and buying goods at a planet
If you wanted to continue working on the game, I'd make the following recommendations-
Making the game bigger:
- Repeating route orders, for routes that earn a slim profit and need to be run regularly
- Fuel costs for journeys, to slim the profits again
- Keep the current planets close for early game, but then add a zoomable map and planets much further away that cost much more fuel and require more expensive ships
The game play would be in building a network of trading ships to help achieve the 1 million profit margin. If you've played OpenTTD and understand that what makes that game fun is building routes and tweaking them to earn profit. I think your game has the same potential.
If you really wanted to blow your imagination away:
- Upgradable ship engines to be more fuel efficient
- Sponsor planets to generate new profitable industries
- Pirate areas of space where you might get attacked without suitable protection
- Escort ships or weapons to protect your fleets
- Ship repair ship to send out to damaged vessels
Any way, really enjoyed your entry. Hope you had fun making it :)
Fun little arcade game. How do I get paid if there's no credits at the end of game? Why would anyone take up this job?
I crashed my car! Fun on three screens, didn't seem to get any harder as the game went on. Cool build.
Awesome game, found the first mission a little tough, but after I got the hang of the mechanics it was very enjoyable. "Congratulations, commander!" Would be great to have a better UI, right mouse clicking and shift-right clicking is really fiddly, wasn't always sure if I was making or breaking connections, or where I was sending units. Final mission stumped me until my 4th attempt.
Last level: because of the way you'd balanced the AI, linking the middle two planets and defending against the reds with L2 ships was the priority. While purple started expanding north, I broke the link between their worlds, and used the extra fighters from that to claim the right side of the map, reinforcing the middle... then it was a slow game of holding off the reds until I could connect all the worlds and make super ships... I think I had a crazy chain of like 8 planets or something.
Well, you made a good game, still playing it :D - my only complaint now is a lack of restart/reset after losing or winning a game. I'd be interested to see if it works on a larger scrolling map as well so you can have bigger battles.
I really struggled with matching the sounds, felt like I didn't have enough control over the starting pitch. I didn't understand the pattern matching or naming at all based on your advice. I didn't get a sense of purpose either.