Certain Defeat by L 2013-08-27T20:49:00
The comments are almost as funny as the game. Well done?
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Mclogenog
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Stars Beneath the Sea | compo | 10 | |||||||||||
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Ten Second Samurai | jam | 137 | 3.46 | 3.63 | 3.20 | 3.30 | 3.68 | 3.36 | 2.42 | 3.50 | 71 | ||
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | The Cycle | jam | 272 | 1.78 | 1.56 | 1.61 | 2.28 | 3.00 | 2.44 | 2.07 | 2.13 | 41 |
Mclogenog leaves an average of 23.7 feedback comments each event.
The comments are almost as funny as the game. Well done?
Very silly :)
The minigame collection idea also fits the theme perfectly. Well done!
I've tried giving this a go twice, but I'm too confused by the controls and the interface. Maybe it would be clearer if the wide variety of block and attack types were introduced more gradually, so that it started out more like rock paper scissors, and then became as complex as its current form over time? The predictive gameplay seems like an interesting idea with a lot of potential, turning something reflexive into a pure strategy game and lowering the required skill for entry, but right now it's just too confusing.
I love the way the music is tied into the level design, and the level design into the theme. The controls are a little frustrating for as challenging as some of the platforming got, though.
Neat and simple. It looks like the screen takes a second or two to clear between "room" though. It would also help if the graphic style was a little more consistent; I like the scan lines vibrant colors, but they don't fit with the art style for the boxes and time potions.
This is a fun use of the theme. I made it to level 20 and had some fun with it. There's not much temptation for me to try again, though, and I'm not sure why that is. It may be because bouncing off the balls and sometimes getting stuck in a series of bounces caused a lot of stress (in a kind of good way), but also some frustration.
Neat and surprisingly challenging. The walk option didn't really feel necessary though, and I think the running could be a little faster.
Fast, silly, and great at making me feel incompetent at simple tasks! It's like Cart Life, Cave Man edition :)
The graphics are really cute. One time the game froze on the "new item" screen and had to restart, though.
This is really impressive work for only a weekend! It's also interesting that shooting costs money (I was thinking about doing something similar for one of my projects), but right now the ratio between money for killing enemies and money lost for shooting seems a little off. Then again, I might just be bad at shooting accurately :P
Not bad for your first entry :)
I like the Super Crate Box feel to it. Defending the hole at the bottom instead of seeking crates discourages some riskier behavior though. Sitting in a corner shooting ended up the safest strategy, but also the least interesting.
It's a very pretty game, but I found there just wasn't enough time to actually explore, and certainly not enough time to solve several of the puzzles in a row in 10 seconds. Re-solving the same puzzles each time also didn't help. It would be really interesting to play if there wasn't a time limit, though.
Very cute! I was expecting it to be just a platformer where winding the clock was just a way of checkpointing, but the way moving platforms worked was very cool.
It's an interesting, reflective look at game jams, deadlines, and the creative process in general, but most of the humor didn't work for me.
There's a great sense of speed to it, once you get going. I wish it lasted longer. I think it would also player better (easier, at least) if the left and right arrows controlled strafing instead of turning.
Nice take on the plants versus zombies style tower defense. It's pretty easy right now, though. If there was some resource limit, or if there were enemies capable of easily destroying turrets, it would help a lot.
The game and graphics are cute. I found it really confusing to control the dad, though; It's hard to tell if I'm moving when there's no consistent reference point. It would also be nice if I could skip the intro.
The amount of content here is really impressive. I was going to suggest easier and faster combat (more like zelda) but then I started running into shops and started leveling up. It's a pretty clever game!
"Party failed" *drops vase*
Well done :)
Simple graphics and mechanics, but the result feels really good. The rewind surprised me in a good way the first time. It's maybe a little too easy to go off the screen (too much thrust?), and the projectiles could benefit from a little more clarity. A more significant problem is that there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to fly around, rather than sitting in the center, or in a close orbit, and just shooting a ton.
Still, I had a good bit of fun with it :)
This is fast and fun, but the controls feel a bit too slippery for the kind of precision the levels require. I also don't really think the text is necessary. Something about being repeatedly told I'm stupid for dying didn't help me enjoy the game.
Nice and simple. And is that a cuica in the music? My high score was 75000, and I don't think I could score much higher. It might be more interesting if there were time bonus pickups.
Clever design. I think you succeeded with the "10 Move Checkmate" feeling. I wish there was a broader gradient of progress than success or failure, though. I barely managed to beat one of the puzzles, and there was no way for me to know if I was really close to the solution, or not at all. This uncertainty leads to brute forcing solutions, which isn't fun. But this is a problem that's much easier to identify than it is to solve; "checkmate in 10" has it too.
Despite that (or perhaps because of that), I feel pretty good about beating it!
Heh, this is pretty amusing. Even one second of lag is really hard. Plop it next to surgeon simulator in the "why am I so bad at simple tasks!" genre.
Nice and straightforward design. It's a little confusing that some of the levels are more complex than they need to be, though, or that there were more obvious and more direct solutions to the puzzles. I like that resources stick around between lives, but there was at least one level where it was possible to get stuck permanently, and reloading the web page just put me back where I'd left off.
Also, this might be a matter of personal taste, but the text didn't really seem necessary. It's pretty easy for the player to figure out on their own.
This is pretty simple and fun, and there are a lot of interesting ways you could keep exploring the idea post-jam (if you wanted to). For your first(?) ludum dare game, this is a good start!
For your first Ludum Dare, this is pretty good! Since the game seems to be about exploration and perception, managing a limited resource doesn't really seem necessary. Also the traps were maybe a little too hard to see. I can understand blindly stumbling into them while you don't have a match lit, but when you do, it seems a little frustrating. Then again, if the matches were unlimited, I might not feel as much pressure to explore the mazes quickly (and without caution).
More visual landmarks would also help to make the maze navigation a little more interesting. It's pretty easy to go in circles (especially if you're walking in the dark), and just a few different detail tiles would help with that. For 48 hours, it makes sense though, but it may be worth considering if you plan on continuing this post-jam.
This is great! It took me 40 probes to beat it (I wasn't very efficient), and I almost gave up after the first teleporter, but I'm glad I didn't. There's a lot of personality to the audiovisuals, and the gameplay does a lot to build on this strange sense of loneliness but also teamwork. Just trying to minimize fuel loss before inevitable "sleep" is a very sad and beautiful experience. And that ending! Well done!
Simple, but not bad. I like that the story changes based on what buildings you shoot, but as the other comments mentioned, some more gameplay depth would be nice. Even something simple like requiring the player to hold down on a target for a second could lead to more thoughtful gameplay.
Also, in the future it might be good to set screen progression to a different key than the mouse (or to a specific button). I kept accidentally clicking through the final screens.
Fun and simple, and also trippy. The "stop-time" action confused me a little, since the friends seemed to keep moving, just in a circular way. Still, it was cute and very weird :)
There's some good humor in this one. Switching to the old man while jumping across rooftops was a funny surprise. The music in the old man's world helped a lot with the humor.
It's a clever little game, but the controls right now feel a bit touchy on pc. I felt like I had a little more control with arrow keys, but still some more "stickiness" to the balls would help. It's also a design that I think lends itself more to an infinite mode than "ten second" mode, but maybe if I was better at it I'd argue differently :P
This is some clever design. Some balancing might help though, since the shield guy's role was way more valuable (at least the way I played) than the the others' roles. It's also kind of frustrating to mess up one part of a plan and have to restart; if I could infinitely retry each guy, you'd still have the puzzle game without as much demand for skill.
This could be really interesting if you kept at it, post jam.
This is really eerie. The alien feeling of the monsters, and their deep pulsing sound, is particularly nice. After find the first orb I started to lose interest though. It was hard to tell where I had been before, and where I should go. A few more visual landmarks might be enough to address that, but there are other, more direct, solutions too.
This is a great use of really simple mechanics. At first I was leaving the box too fast to notice the text telling me not to, and I was confused by my shameless cheating. But then I figured it out and had a lot of fun with it :)
This is simple but clever, and I had some fun with it. I especially like the way the music builds as I fumble around horribly. The way the wires move around is also some of the coolest "tech" I've seen in the jam so far! :)
It definitely looks like you overscoped this one. Even creating one dungeon, or even one room of a dungeon, would be more than enough for 48 hours of work. For your first Ludum Dare, this isn't bad though. Producing enough content can be a big hurdle, and it looks like you covered that. For future jams though, maybe try aiming for more of a vertical slice of gameplay :)
It's kind of fun seeing a game adaptation like this. The game itself is really simple, but the way you represent the different plagues, especially darkness, is clever.
Straight forward, but nice! Some of the levels seemed way more complicated than they needed to be, though. Specifically, there were were levels with a lot of stuff I ended up ignoring. One level I just jumped down a ledge to the exit, ignoring all of the lasers and reverse volumes entirely. It also would have been fun to see the way gravity shifts and bouncing interact.
I like the feeling of it, but right now it's really hard to tell when I'm being hit (and when I'm hitting). It seems that sometimes the enemies disappear when I hit them, but other times they don't (or I'm missing). Clarifying depth and distance relative to your position would really help. Maybe make the enemies darker the farther they are away? I'm not sure. Because that feedback isn't clear, I can't really make an informed decision on how to improve my strategy.
Like I said though, the feeling is good. Kinda like tempest crossed with fotonica :)
Nice. This kind of feels like the hacking minigame in Deus Ex HR. The error margins are a little slim, though; it gets difficult in the "click fast" way, rather than "what's the best strategy." I'm also still not really sure what the quantum computers did differently.
This is nice and simple. The main thing that I think you could improve is the way the information is conveyed to the player. For example, it's not immediately clear when I'm taking damage (without watching the health meter way up in the left). I also didn't notice much effect from a lot of the pickups, because they seemed to be pretty mild modifiers. If all of the changes were more discrete, things would be a little clearer.
Congrats on your first game!
I'm not sure the level needs to be quite so big, and I think you could start with more elements in in the level, so that restarting didn't feel like going all of the way back. I also like the way the different pieces interact, especially the repulsors. (It would be lovely to have baddies chasing you and have them bounce off to their deaths.)
Scored 5020! This is nice. I agree with some of the other comments that it feels too slow, and a little too crowded, though. Mainly, I think it would help if the pits weren't in the corners (so that I can kite the baddies), and if some of the enemies didn't take so many hits (or if the weapons were all more powerful). Right now, two zombies and a wizard is really tough because the amount of safe space is reduced to almost nothing. It would also be nice if the weapons weren't repeats of what you just had.
I like the way you tease the different abilities before they're unlocked. There seems to be a bug with the boot though. If you die before the next checkpoint, the boot is gone, and the jump height returns to its default. The clock upgrade has a similar bug if you die. (I died a lot.) There's also a bug if you hit return again after unlocking other movement.
On a more positive note, there's a really great sense of atmosphere here.
So much of this game is just amazingly beautiful. The resource limit on interacting with the second world just felt kind of frustrating though. The exciting part of the game was figuring things out; trying to then execute that plan wasn't as fun, especially when it required multiple attempts. It seems like the experience would only be improved if there was no resource element, but then it wouldn't really fit the 10 second theme.
I also love that you can jump straight up walls :)
I couldn't get it to run (I'm using windows 7). Also, the web build looks like it's just a dropbox file?
This is a really great use of the theme! The game's also pretty clever. The main fault right now is that a lot of unpredictability and randomness can be created with miniscule changes, and as a consequence I started brute-forcing puzzles. The momentum and movement also were a little confusing (i.e. my mental prediction and sense of what I should be able to do often conflicted with what the pathing said I actually could do.) Introducing the different mechanics a little more slowly, and giving the player sandbox opportunities—because the mechanic is pretty fun on its own—to play around might help this. In any case, I hope you keep working on it after the jam, because there are good ideas here!
Not bad for your first game! The enemy pathing is especially nice. After collecting a few time crystals though, I could see where it was going, and lost a lot of my interest. I still finished, but it wouldn't hurt to increase the speed over time, or add more enemies (starting with fewer) to maintain interest.
I didn't experience a crash, like other people mentioned, but that may be because I stopped it once the frame rate bogged down. If you plan on working on it more for either the jam or beyond, some crosshairs would help, and maybe some faster movement speed.
Fun! It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and I lost a few lives to get there, but I enjoyed it once I knew what to do. I also really enjoyed the simple art style; the background color changes helped a lot for the sense of direction. For future versions, I wish I wasn't required to die to pick up new traits, swapping from existing traits would have been better. As is, I was required to backtrack a lot of simple obstacles to reach the required final states. Anyway, great job!
I'm not sure how well I understood the game.(There was a lot of text for what seemed to be essentially auto-aimed tower defense. I wound up strumming the 1-4 keys without much thought while clicking between worlds based on what was approaching, and this worked really well (too well?). The cube aesthetic is great, especially when the world is assembling, but it's a little low contrast and dark. For future versions I hope the explanations will be more transparent and the mechanics would provide more complexity.
Impressive amount of asset work for 48 hours! I wish there was more gameplay or interactivity to it though. Even some really simple implied narrative could do it. I also don't see the connection to the evolution theme, but it seems like a good foundation for building something.
A fun little game! The control of multiple characters reminds me of passagebalt, but more forgiving. There might be something to explore in the way a sine wave forms from offset jumping groups. And it wouldn't be too difficult to throw in slightly random variation to speed and jump height and select mutations in favor of longer survival rates; then it'd be evolution-y. Some cat-relevant artwork (rooftops and fences?) and hoards of meow sounds, and this would be amazing.
Great atmosphere and art! At times (such as the large fans) I confused background and foreground elements and couldn't figure out why I kept dying. That might be mostly me, but I think more to distinguish the layers would help. I didn't have any issues with collecting the upgrades in the wrong order, but I see how that could have happened. In future versions, the level design could be a little more gradual and consistent. (e.g. introducing players to a pit of death, and then expecting them to jump down a bottomless pit seems like weak level design.) Also, for some reason the game slowed down to half speed after I'd used the blaster for a bit. Still, it's a neat art style with some solid mechanics, and you'd do well to keep working on it. Great work for the available time!
The game looks great, and plays nicely too. I wish there was a little acceleration and momentum or a floaty feel to the player, though. It would do a lot to the sense of being under water. Slightly bigger collision on the pickups would have been nice too; I found the required precision a little frustrating with the current movement. The inability to shake off the squids was also a little frustrating. As a whole though (and in 48 hours) this is great work!
Great art style and design idea. It took me a while to get used to the controls, since I was expecting some momentum in the air. I kept trying to correct my jumps and instead fell short, but that's my failing more than the game's. The procedural design is strong early on, but toward three generations it starts placing obstacles in inconsistently unforgiving ways. A little fine tuning (and some way of letting players know how far they've gone) and this could be really neat!
I like the idea of evolution simulation games, and I get a kick out of stuff like Conway's Game of Life. The ideas here are neat, but it's a little difficult to read the results of the different stats. For example, I don't know if the hypothetical religion starts at a single nation and then spreads (and if so, which does it start at?), or starts at all nations. The percentage breakdown helps, but is still a little confusing. Being able to define multiple religions, or nation-wide philosophies, and see how they compete would be really neat. It would also be interesting to modify more properties of religion e.g. consequences for apostasy, effects on class structure, severity of internal rules, extent of role in government, etc. All of that's outside the scope of 48 hours though.
I guess what I'm saying is that this is cool and has a lot of potential if you mean to keep working on it! Also, your game reminds me of a Richard Dawkins essay "Viruses of the Mind," worth checking out.
Took me a few tries to beat it. My winning strategy wasn't very interesting and only required canons, but I suspect that's mainly my fault for being unfamiliar with this type of game. That said, it's some really impressive work. If you keep developing it, and make it distinct from plants vs. zombies, this could be really neat!
I played through three worlds and really enjoyed it! The controls feel great, and the procedural design was pretty good about giving me challenging wall jumps. I wish it was more difficult though. There weren't a lot of guards even late in a level, and I never died. I also wish it would've been a little closer to the theme, but I still had a lot of fun with it.
Great art and smooth controls. It took me a while to find the first edible character, and played like a stealth game while I was looking, which I liked. I also enjoyed that there were always bigger enemies to avoid, speaking to the condition of these little creatures but also to the condition of human society. I might be reading too much into it, considering how silly that ending is, but it's a neat game all the same.
Fantastic graphics and mood. The little worms seemed a little arbitrary and unavoidable, since I ended up clicking everything I could find, but that almost makes them worse for the anticipation. This spooky point and click format could work really well for a longer experience.
Terra Tam made me smile several times. I'm not sure how much variety there is, or how much my input mattered in the outcome, but I still enjoyed it. The artwork also feels great, especially its texture.
I like the idea, and the execution was mostly good. After about ten minutes, however, the grinding repetition it took to see that final area was annoying. The final area was good, but it was hard to equal the expectations built during the grind before it. Just a little more variety or some stronger pacing and this would be really cool.
I really like this idea of the world gradually becoming more difficult and complex. I also like the world design, backtracking through re-skinned areas and sometimes able to explore them more fully. I wish the changes had been more gradual though.
The most frustrating part was the collision. The player was easily hit by enemies, but the range of the attack was so small that attacking without being hit was rare for me. This was especially frustrating in the castle where some platforms were so small the enemies were unavoidable.
Altogether, I had fun and felt challenged.
LD29 — Beneath the Surface (2)
The Sea Has No Claim by dukope 2014-04-29T17:45:00
Like other folks said here, it took me a while to figure out what the buoy does, but once I got it, it was fun and challenging, and it scales nicely when attempting to rescue multiple wrecks. A little more polish and a little more clarity at the start and this could be a really great game.
Delve by conormn 2014-04-28T14:36:00
Lovely graphics and neat idea. Even using a mouse, the "touch" mechanics feel very good. I wish it was more complicated though, or I had more reason to stay and play on each screen. Just wiggling the mouse around tended to "solve" each screen for me, so maybe if I had to actually click to push I would have to be more conscious of things? I'm not sure, but it could go in interesting directions if you keep working on it!