FoonLudum Dare ExplorerUsers → michaelb

michaelb

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMo
201738A Small WorldThe Blocklingscompo3.003.002.252.752.754.502.504.33

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by michaelb

LD38 — A Small World

It's a Small World by GFM 2017-05-07T05:54:01Z

I adored it! Felt like truly a (tiny) slice of what could be the first few moments of a memorable little introspective game. Cohesive, and draws you in.

Also, nice to see another GNU/Linux nerd in the Compo! (I watched part of your timelapse.. i need to try to make something like that next time..!) BTW, you might suggest to run the provided Linux binaries like this:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=".:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" ./its_a_small_world

World Fighter by LeviDSmith 2017-05-07T06:37:19Z

Pretty silly and literal interpretation of the concept! The animations were pretty funny.

Really cool timelapse, also.

Fighting off the enemies became something of a chore, could probably use more variation of moves, and the ability to block. (But of course its impossible to fit everything in, in only 48 hrs!)

A Small World by niborious 2017-05-07T04:47:40Z

Cool, interesting graphics engine style. I especially liked the way the world morphed after each level, that actually surprised me. Could see this evolving into a little survival shooter with morphing terrain...!

Conqueror by Jack D. Taylor 2017-05-07T05:10:39Z

Cool! I've actually thought a lot about how to make an epic TBS or 4x game on a true sphere (e.g. as opposed to toroidal maps a la Civ). I found the game logic and game state quickly becomes complicated when dealing with adjacent sectors. It's a tough thing to write, but looks like this is a nice start :)

SGFactory by iossif 2017-05-07T05:15:20Z

Interesting concept. Does the different types of terrain actually do anything? At first I thought I was supposed to match terrain, but that wasn't necessary. I managed to beat it once and got the snow globe victory screen, so that was nice.

The Blocklings by michaelb 2017-05-07T23:11:23Z

@rinberd @stevenjmiller @gfm Thanks for playing! Yeah there are quite a few UI issues... I simply ran out of time. I was planning on the spawn-point indicator, and a rotatable camera (45 deg around, along with top-down), but by the end I was scrambling to even make the game completable before the deadline. 48 hrs and all that! Next time I'll remember to try to get UI solid first before adding extra content.

@MHGameWork - Thanks for the positive feedback! I agree the art styles are a bit inconsistent. The block textures are actually hand-drawn too using the same brush (MyPaint), but with how it is on the screen it isn't very obvious.

Tiny Empire by Matthew Roelle 2017-05-07T06:22:30Z

I really liked the art style and the interface was great. Responsive and effective, in general what I could play of it felt really solid. I'm a fan of minimalist space RTS games like the Galcon series, Creeper Wars, etc which this totally reminded me of.

Sadly, I couldn't figure out however how to get to other planets! I built my econ structures, upgraded my shipyard, built a bunch of settlement ships, scouts, drones etc... and tried clicking on "deploy all", which caused their icons to appear over the menu, but they never flew off or gave me an option of choosing a planet or anything like that. Shame, since I kinda wanted to conquer some planets. All in all great start and would honestly love to play a fleshed out version!

Talkies by Bernhard 2017-05-18T22:17:40Z

Adorable game. Loved the cohesive graphics and idea, and that it had a tutorial (although the text overflowed the box for me). I would have loved to see more limitations (limited number of swaps) or mechanics to make it challenging (since, other than lakes, I could just switch everyone to be next to each other, once I spotted who was who). Unlike other reviewers I felt the memory / spot-the-difference thing was actually the entire point, it seemed like a "where's waldo" type of game, making it very suitable to become a great game for kids.

(BTW, Ubuntu GNU/Linux 17.04, the 64 bit one ran fine here.)

Puny Planets by ray-caster 2017-05-07T04:36:08Z

I really liked the concept! As you said a great basic concept of maintaining an equilibrium. Reus had a little of that, but not nearly as much. Would love to see an entire food chain + ecosystem, which gets growingly complicated and delicate, and that has to be balanced...

Also the graphics are clever, just rotating the sprites around the center point to make it look like a little planet. Simple but effective!

I downloaded and played the Linux binary, and ran fine. Only glitch I noticed is the text seems to be a little messed up (stray pixels, like the sprite is blitted with an offset).

As you said it could use a bit more content to be more fun, although as basic as it is now, I did actually play 3 times to see if I could keep it going longer... the core concept is definitely a good one, you should finish it! :)