Kubble by MemoryLeek 2015-12-19T23:24:00
Great game, the only nitpick I have is that waiting for all the actions to resolve during a turn took a little longer than it should have, so waiting after each key press got a little annoying.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → mattlevonian
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Survey | jam | 684 | 3.15 | 2.65 | 3.71 | 4.10 | 2.89 | ||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Tap Root | jam | 880 | 2.88 | 2.72 | 3.26 | 3.28 | 67 |
Great game, the only nitpick I have is that waiting for all the actions to resolve during a turn took a little longer than it should have, so waiting after each key press got a little annoying.
Once I figured out you could plant trees on top of other trees, it became a piece of cake. Really love the feeling of the beginning, though: confusion followed by a dawning realization and frantic panic to climb higher.
Damn, GREAT idea for two-button controls. The overall aesthetic was very weird and off-putting, but I guess that's what you were going for. Anyways, good job, wish it was longer.
Wow, I ended up playing this for WAY longer than I thought I would. Even though there is no objective or measure of success other than surviving, cruising around and building a giant death wing is frickin' *fun*!
I like how there are emergent, dynamic tradeoffs from the seemingly simple mechanics. For example, do I blast this ship and destroy its weaponry (thus leaving me without good salvage), or do I angle around and core-kill it in order to take its weapons?
I think there is a lot of good fruit to be bourne from expanding this out with and adding more mechanics.
I would have liked it, but it severely lacked any sort of feedback for your actions. When I was shooting enemy ships, i couldn't tell if i was damaging them. I found it hard to know immediately whether my speed was locked or not, and controlling the ship was just generally harder than it needed to be. These facts stopped it from being as enjoyable as it could have been.
As other people have commented, this is a REALLY cool idea, and quite a bit of fun! It feel polished in graphics and interface (I especially liked the little indicator/gizmo for showing which chunk is going to which space). However, there are a few nitpicks:
-The pods had way too much momentum, and I found myself getting frustrated when a pod just wouldn't do what I wanted it to in time and died as a result.
-Similarly, I think basic pathing would do wonders for this game. Having to navigate pods manually around corners, in combination with their slow acceleration, was extremely annoying.
-Audio could have been better used to cue when pods were close to death. The "new pod" sound could have been more noticeable.
-Some more visual cues about when a pod is connected and how close a pod is to death would have been cool. Think something like the redness in FTL to indicate no oxygen.
These are fairly minor things, though (besides the momentum/acceleration issue), and overall this game is just fantastic. Great work creating something truly fun and interesting.
Pretty damn well put-together. A fun little game.
Cool idea, but there's no win condition?
I really liked it, a good execution on the theme. Maybe this was intentional, but I found it hard to build a mental model of what pressing the grow key was going to do, or why long branches were dying off. Also, the objectives were way too easy. I felt like the core mechanic was solid, but you failed to build it fully into a game.
Too many mechanics that weren't explained (or there wasn't relevant information displayed to act on it). Also the tutorial didn't cover all aspects of the game, yet it still managed to seem overwhelming
Audio gets really loud in the water. Was not able to double click on the web build. Did not understand what to do.
Wow, the controls were tuned perfectly, everything felt great. As other people are saying, it took a while to figure out what to do (I think boiling it down to "get blue things while going up, get red things while going down" would have helped). I think the art assets all fit together really well, the high-res, abstract, sparse look is pulled off fantastically. It didn't really feel like it totally fit into the theme of the Jam, though.
When I got past the tutorial screen it said start node not set and then nothing happened. Your build may be broken.
This is probably the best game I've played from this jam so far. The execution on the theme is perfect, and the combat puzzles were very intelligently laid out. The only issues I had were the graphics and the control scheme (I got screwed by the weird controls a couple of times), but those are nitpicks. Very cool idea, very good execution on the idea.
Really interesting concept and pretty fun to play, if a bit punishing. However, I felt like the two-button control theme was just stuffed in there, and it ended up hampering the design. It would have been much more fun on a controller with an analog stick and a button. Also, the audio was really grating. Consider finding samples on the internet instead of synthesizing sounds. Just to nitpick (everything else was good besides what I mention), it could have benefited from a player healthbar.
A good start, the switching between two colors is a well-worn mechanic, but still an interesting one to work with. However, the game fails to take it beyond a rudimentary level.
Also, the game is very low contrast. Consider making the background the opposite color of the ball and floor.
I wish for more levels! Nice, well-polished execution of the old ball-in-a-rotating-maze game. Every player action felt great, it was visually organized, graphics and sound were crisp, etc.
Left arrow also worked as a control. Couldn't understand what to do, game lagged.
Difficulty curve is off the charts, level 3 is way too hard. There isn't enough introduction to mechanics in-game. The death sound and motion of the camera is very jarring, makes it extremely unfun to die. Spawn point mechanic is broken and is very easy to bug out the game with.
Looks beautiful, but it didn't seem to me like there was a win or lose state? Anyways, kind of fun as a physics toy.
Pretty good. My only issues were that it took a while to figure out the red/green target indicator meant edible/inedible, it was a little laggy, and the target indicator didn't pop up sometimes. It was fun to swim around though, and I got a little bit of an adrenaline rush when I had to dodge a ton of big fish. Maybe one way to expand on the play is to make it a little more sparse, but add better indicators of where big and small fish are, then having big fish chase you, and little fish evade you, turning it into a series of chases, rather than aimless wandering. Also, adding some distance fog to hide the fish popping in and out might be good.
To anyone having controller issues: the game should recognize almost any controller on the planet, try making sure it is plugged in and the computer recognizes it before starting the game.
Updated with a patch that hopefully helps provide more feedback about what's going on.
Does not provide keyboard support completely yet.
Way too punishing. There wasn't enough feedback, IMO, about the status of your station. The visuals were too crowded and it was hard to quickly understand what type a tile was. Maybe some indicators of where you are being attacked, better feedback about what your tiles are doing (exactly how many resources the miners are getting, how much repair the repair tiles are doing, the status of the shields, etc).
That being said, I enjoyed it and found the concept refreshing.
Starts out a little slow, but once it picks up it turns into a fun little experience! The graphics are really nice, the visual style is cohesive and well-executed.
You adhered to the theme too strongly. Removing the ability to move left was a questionable decision, especially since your jumps are somewhat tight. Also it's a little annoying that I don't have a shot charge meter and have to time my jumps to be at the same time as my shots. Also, a level forces me to jump without seeing where I will land, which is generally a poor design decision. Otherwise, great go at a platformer, really good job teaching the mechanics.
Really fun! Good execution on the two button controls theme.
Seemed more like a tech demo than a full-fledged game
It was really annoying to wait for the input repeat to get fast rotation. Have it instantly rotate whenever you hold down one of the keys. Besides that, I really liked the idea of playing with relative velocity and angular velocity. Pretty fun if you can look past the input issues.
Felt pretty well polished, but it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe a little more depth in the mechanics would have gone a long way.
The juice was on-point: the particles, the feeling of landing a blow, the background and other visuals. All good. However, getting hit felt kind of crappy, and the enemies were very boring (I generally try to avoid making "direct seek" enemy behaviors in my games, because it is the least interesting type).
You should take out just a little bit of time to focus on usability. While there are strong concepts present in this game, any user enjoyment is quashed by the way the controls fight against the player, and the lack of feedback.
Consider each decision: where am I positioning the camera? Why did I pick this jump height? Why did I pick this jump acceleration? Why did I pick this forward speed?
Additionally, make sure at least one or two non-devs play your game. Take feedback completely seriously, as they probably represent more than 50% of the user experiences on this site. If they are confused, add tutorialization. If they are frustrated unnecessarily, consider making it easier to alleviate the problems they were having.
You'll probably find there are 3 or 4 major pain points. Take 30 minutes to fix them.
I've added a functioning embedded web version! Thanks to everyone who has played so far! <3
Damn, that's a fun game. The aesthetic and intentionally frictional controls reminds me of DUSKERS. I had a great time playing. I think my only gripe is that Q/E for speed was *too* frictional. It slowed me down, but it was also very frustrating. Having it tied to something unusual but more up/down like Y/H would have been better for the overall experience IMO.
Also, a different cover image that matches the game's aesthetic would serve you a lot better!
Great game with fantastic level of polish. I felt like the lack of a clear end condition (either failure or success) or a penalization for having cars pile up made the gameplay feel a bit hollow. The full keyboard utilization was really fun, loved the framing of playing as an eldritch tentacle monster, etc. Just needs some sort of reward/penalty for doing well/doing poorly.
Great to see an entry with two separate modes/phases. Great job with the number of mutations/variations on the Arkanoid phase mechanics. Made it very enjoyable to play all the way through.
Great idea for a mechanic. I feel that the game suffered from the UX and readability. Reworking the input method and the way information is displayed to the player would help the signal delay and split-attention traffic control mechanic shine a lot better. Personally I think that ditching the first-person conceit and going towards a more static interface, making the displays larger on the player's screen, allowing keyboard/gamepad input, and doing a pass to make the asteroids easier to parse visually would help. It would also help to surface the signal delay amount more visibly on the HUD, and perhaps even show on the main view where the selected ship is.
Agree with other commenters: I initially thought "high" was good! A little feedback there would improve the usability :)
This is a great little bow on a mechanic. Lots of polish with the little sprite icons/text, simulated cables, and the audio all fits together well. It would have been great to see more happen with the mechanic rather than just what feels like largely a reflex/speed test. E.g. group calls. Or a limited numbers of cables, but longer patience timers. Or different types of customers. But I applaud you for polishing up the core mechanic!
This was a very good entry! Fun gameplay, loads of polish. Full, effective tutorial. Innovative mechanic. My only complaints are that there isn't more! I want a full game! Different enemies, more mechanical complexity in the beatmatching, etc.
Overall, loads of fun to play, great job!
I had fun, even if I wasn't 100% sure what was going on. The threat mechanic and lure mechanic was hard to understand. Still not sure what stability is and how to spend it. But the moment-to-moment of chasing an invisible enemy was genuinely fun despite that!
You guys definitely dialed in on an aesthetic perfectly. I like the power transfer mechanic, although it would be nice if it went beyond "dump into hacking to hack, then dump back into camera/walking". Still, the time pressure of that supported the horror element, as did the janky interface for walk/look and the limited FOV. I feel that the main detractor from the game was the lack of signposting the objectives. Something like a minimap would have gone a long way, or some other form of visual indicator the player can work with to see where to go. As it stands there was no information to help me decide how to navigate the maze-like level, and that made the level feel far too large.
The aesthetic is simple but effective. The mechanic is well-executed. The last level was a bit of a skill check after the tutorial sequence. Another really hard level after that would have been great. The secondary collectible objectives are a nice touch, and the UX and theming on the level menu is solid.
I did struggle a bit with the diagonal movement tied to orthogonal arrow keys, and the color mixing with the fullscreen color filter for each phase/signal made some of the colors a bit muddy.
Overall a solid entry!
Unclear to me how to get the orbs that spawn off the track - I jumped off with the right momentum to grab it, but then I just fell into the void and it wasn't counted.