Mossieur Patate

A Halting Problem by Honey Pony 2022-09-05T15:40:42Z

I just want to second nyxkn’s opinion that *Twisting Curve* is way more difficult than the rest, at least from the beginning to here (since I am stuck there), because I thought the others were straightforward (and I had no trouble with left and right, contrary to Likirus), while I just cannot figure the solution here, even staring wide-eyedly at the screen. Or maybe is my brain bugging!

The lesson is probably that nested loops add a strong layer of difficulty.

Der Schließmuskel by OddballDave 2022-10-20T06:54:01Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. ah, German title; time to put that self-taught German learning (including Duolingo) to use! :) Checking *Schließmuskel* on a dictionary (I only knew *schließen* ‘close’ and *Muskel* ‘muscle’ independently): this means ‘sphincter’… O_o Now, what is this game all about?! XD 2. title screen: very nice artistic effect, with the blurring for the foreground character, and the (voluntarily) dissonant music 3. interface is super intuitive, with how the hand visually pinches; I like the extendable arm! 4. OH MY GOD, but this is HORRIBLE!! <:O The graphics (including animation) are really top-notch and really feel like some eerie animated shorts (the little ‘doll’ characters voodoo remind me of the voodoo dolls from a 3D animation film I saw recently, [*Sebastian’s Voodoo*](https://www.jshaw.co.uk/music?wix-vod-comp-id=comp-jbftqrtf)), but, is this GRUESOME… <:( The same is true for sounds. (I noticed several comments said the game was ‘weird’, but this pales before the sheer *horribleness*!) 5. I am not sure I understand the rules: I infer the player has to select the little guys that match some requirements and put them to the right, while putting the others to the left, but said requirements are not that clear; from the leftward poster, it seems like height/dimensions (or even proportions) is to be looked after, but some (horrible… I cannot get over it!) testing seems to always increment the counter. No wait, a tinier one did not increment; still, should there not be a penalty? 6. little nitpicky detail: passing the hand through the ‘pipe’ (let us call it this euphemistically way…) makes it appear inside of it (only the thumb, actually); I think the depth of the hand relative to the two parts should be either higher or lower 7. if proportions are really the criterion, then it is not so easy to inspect, as the little guys are hunched up. Or maybe you have to grab them to see better, and this is intended for difficulty! 8. only noticing now that the eyes follow the hand 9. the fact that all foreground elements wobble also adds life (shader, maybe?) (I know I was super happy with the rendering of my marine distorsion shader for — yet unfinished — *Breathe Heart*!) 10. struck by an idea: I think you should really put some warning that this is not for the faint-hearted (like me, to some extent)! I mean this seriously. (I wish we played to save the little guys, but alas… XD) 11. only noticed now the inverted "L" in "QUALITY CONTROL"; fitting with the twisted music. And so ironic with the quality control concept! X) 12. and suddenly think about the theme: fitting (thinking of it, you could see the context as a denouncing of slaughterhouses; this is not far-fetched. Also, ~~Asch conformity experiments~~ Milgram experiment comes to mind: here, the regularity can make you forget the nature what you are really doing) 13. agreed with ThaProfesional that 50 points is a bit heavy/large, but I may be biased because I have to test many games and try to be efficient ;) And there may be some bonuses doing things right in a row, or even points for putting the ‘misfitting’ characters to the left 14. another detail: the lower jaw keeps moving. The setting is really lively (how ironic!!) 15. end: aaaaaaah, NOW I get it: you get your performance (as a percentage) only at the end!! :o Also, third piece of music, apparently! (possibly a non-dissonant / harmonious version of the title screen one)

(1/2)

Der Schließmuskel by OddballDave 2022-10-20T06:54:11Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** artistically speaking, the game stands somewhere at the top of the heap (my literal programmer (programming!) art feels like nothing compared to this). As for gameplay, although the basic concept and interface makes itself quickly intuitively clear (which is no small thing), I tried all the while to see what the precise *criteria* could be, but am still unsure. (This may be me! Still, I would advise giving some more explanations on the page or/and comments, to better understand the game.) Anyway, there is apparently a total lack of punishment for not doing the ‘job’ correctly; maybe there is a bonus for a sequence of correct matches? Or maybe this is more of an implicitly (!) ‘narrative’ game, as an absurd fable. (A mix between the hideous reality of slaughterhouses and Milgram experiment?) **Pseudo-edit** (because I composed the conclusion before finishing): it turns out there *is* an estimation (and thus incentive), but only at the end! This means the problem lies in the lack of *feedback* while playing: I feel there should really be something that tells us whether the match was correct or not (for example, the eater could moan if given an improper little guy). And a smaller total amount would help making the player want to replay to try beating his score.

This was artistically impressive, and at the same time… horrible. :o Still, thank you for the vision; although you may have programmed my next nightmare!! XD

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@indigo There IS in-game music!

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@thaprofesional

> the score at the end only showed up for a split second

I think this is caused by quitting the screen with pressing any button (as for the title screen). Not sure though, but I voluntarily let it for a moment (wary because of said title screen!) to hear the music!

10 Seconds To Avoid Death by jk5000 2022-10-14T19:48:50Z

Hey there, we crossed paths in Brackeys 2022.2! ;) This is my first Ludum Dare ever, by the way. :)

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. just seeing the screen captures, the buttons remind me of the "8"-button from *The Stanley Parable* (except for colour! And effect) Ah, I see nullval thought the same, with the addition of the voicing aspect! And pietmichal; so, some inspiration there? 2. also from description: nice to have a restart feature 3. music and voice are great :) (spotted a possible mistake: "succeeds" for "succeed"?) This may be a feature of your games as you did in the previous one I tested; anyway, it gives personality! (I also recognize the echo) 4. linked to pkenney’s comment on Unreal Engine as ‘heavy’: the game is a bit laggy for me, which makes the button pressing harder! (by the way, about more lightweight engines/tools: I think the game would have been totally manageable in MonoGame, including details such as reflection, with shaders) 5. managed the first round on my second try now that I know what to expect; trying giving up now (rather than in an advanced stage X)) 6. I really like the musicality of the button pressing sound! Makes some kind of melody 7. missed a bit the beginning of the defeat line sometimes; is it different depending on level? 8. nice font on the game over screen (and for indications) 9. yet another run: already noticed the buttons were apparently randomly placed (which is a good idea); I think difficulty depends a bit on button placement, because this time, I get five of them already grouped together in a batch, and it makes getting them closely easier for me 10. it may seem a detail, but I like the intuitive Yes/No interface with square brackets 11. it may be because of playing with lag / low framerate, but I think the best technical strategy is to have the mouse make a dry correct move to ‘jump’ from button to button 12. reaching $950: same line as somewhere before, so is it infinite? :o 13. oh no, losing there because clicking on the red base (just below the half-sphere) was not accepted for a button, making me lose time for the two final ones! <:o Stopping there (after a few runs before) I think, but I wonder if something different is said when you quit at some later stage, or whether there is any final stage.

**Takeaway:** simple yet effective concept, although as some others, I think some variety over time would enhance it. Everything is very clear, especially given the audio indications, but even the interface is fine. Graphics are simple but also clear; I would suggest (but am unsure!) maybe adding some more (shader?) darkness to the room, which would have the double advantage of making the walls and floor seem less plain, and add an oppressive atmosphere. A somewhat significant technical difficulty for me was the FPS issue that made mouse movement more uneasy, while it is so critical!! Not saying it is your fault, though (I blame Unreal Engine :p). The game falls under the ‘clear everything under 10 s’ category, which there were apparently several (I have seen *10 seconds or less* and *HURTEC*), but the clicking spin (literally! XD) is a funny and original one.

Nice challenge, and still curious to know if there is an end to it!

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@cdunham The buttons are randomized for a new run; I feel like your idea of randomizing them for each stage would make the game even harder, while in its current state, you can rely a bit on memory/repetition while advancing, which can be interesting.

Careful Caverns by Josh6680 2022-10-16T05:14:17Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled; there is also the key rebinding as suggested. Just note that programming in a position-independent way is possible :) 2. no sound? I feel it would help knowing what happens, especially given the darkness! 3. display may be a bit small; fullscreen option or something may help. In particular, while playing, I give little to no attention to the counter because they are remote 4. oh, you can jump on rats 5. the torch concept is cleverly used (reminds me I used such a personal torch shader in several games; very useful! :)) 6. duplicating amoeba-like rats? X) 7. I think that while the rat duplication counter is useful, the light one is not so, because you visually see the light radius; I think you could do away with the light counter 8. the game feels SO HARD XD <- 10-second light for exploring in a platforming environment with huge pits and instant-death enemies really is much to take! 9. by the way, I notice the double use of the theme (light + rats) 10. weird, for once, a rat went falling… on me X) 11. many jumps are uneasy go-to-the-square-above-you ones… Probably on purpose, but this makes the game even harder 12. barrels are hard to see, although they are so important! Suggestion: highlight them in some way 13. small detail: just a small walking animation would have been nice, although this is not even necessary 14. reached the end! :D Which is a cutely arranged room. :) Is there something written on the hidden ceiling?? Also, why "end+"? Or is it "end" + sparkle? :) 15. Actually, only ONE section of the game was really hard to me (where you have to go leftwards from above), and I rather quickly overcame what came next

**Takeaway:** an interesting and challenging concept; some technical improvements would make the player’s life easier (higher resolution, more visible barrels, more even checkpoints — some are concentrated towards the end —, sounds…). I thought this would be hell to beat at some point, but it turned out the length was entirely reasonable! Nice platforming exploration with a twist. Maybe some other mechanic(s) or enemies would have added variety, but designing the world was already probably enough of a challenge for you given the short time span, so, not complaining.

Thanks for the potholing. :)

[Advice: just in case, since people do not always know, and I see you have both zero karma and an uneven voting ratio balance: since the "Smart" ordering is the default one and not everyone uses the "Classic" one, reviewing games will help you get more testers and feedback. :)]

Run Right by headchant 2022-10-16T15:58:05Z

Hello! :) I will test your game just a bit later, but I wanted to say I noticed you state Love2D is needed to play the game: although it is indeed lightweight to download (and use), maybe [creating executables](https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution) would help some people? Not sure, just wondering.

By the way, do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)

Run Right by headchant 2022-10-16T19:31:54Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

There seems to be a mistake in the description: "You can only move diagonally" -> rather **orthogonally**, I think, or **vertically and horizontally**. Or "You can only **not** move diagonally". X)

Wow, I do not know if a similar idea had already been used, but this feels new to me! :) The concept of a regular tile-based scrolling is a nice one to fit the theme, and orthogonal ‘teleporting’ feels original too for an action game. The mix between turn-based and real time is a nice one!

The mysterious tense music is fitting, and I do not think any important sound was missing! (By the way, I smell sfxr! Did I spot it rightly? ;)) The graphics are nice, with a nice smooth translation effect, and a well thought blinking red outline for the dangerous area, because it is intuitive (I understood at my 2nd or 3rd try how things worked, without any written explanations!). To nitpick a bit, I think some simple 2-image animation for the player character and enemies would have added more life and visually helped the player identify quicklier where the threats are, but this is a detail. I also think the enemies’ shots were not that visible, and maybe some way to highlight them would be good.

I won with 8 coins after just some trials, but really prioritising ammunition and health, actually: I wanted to go as far as possible. :) The duration for the route is entirely reasonable. And the coins are a good incentive to try getting better!

I guess some could complain about the lack of in-game explanations, but as I mentioned earlier, the game does a rather good job at explaining itself, which is a great feature. Just in case, I would still advise you to add a ‘How to play’ section and get a bit more explicit about enemy detection (I did not count the precise range, by the way!), coins to get, clicking, and the ‘danger zone’, so that if someone is really stuck, he have a reference to land on his feet.

A possible criticism could be that once you understook how movement and detection work, you are somewhat superpowerful (because of ‘teleportation’) compared to those static guards — even though they were often gathered together close enough so that some bundle would be challenging! Suggestion: maybe authorize at least some guards to rotate regularly, so that we have to be more careful, or can pass at certain times only?

Last note: the title is so straightforward! XD (pun not intended)

I really enjoyed this game, pleasantly surprised! :) (And I often use Love2D myself, by the way; I was also pleasantly surprised by another game, [*Turn Based Destiny*](https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-jam-2022/rate/1622361), which was also a Love2D ‘hidden’ gem.) Thanks for the submission!

MAGIC-281: Intro to Alchemy by ninjacreeper47 2022-10-15T15:15:32Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. may be silly, but the game’s cover reminds me of the first screen from the ‘ultimate’ video from *The Witness* 2. game page: either line break or full stop or brackets for "to skip this"; "experience ." -> "experience." 3. ‘people could argue with me whether this is even a “game”.’ -> A game is an optional challenge where you have to accomplish a task for no tangible reward in itself. This is a game :) 4. just looking at the ‘Qluix’s law’ capture, bad memories from thermodynamics nightmare come back XD (but better ones from electromagnetism :)) 5. … and the ‘Weird Water’ conjures up some fast algebra lecturers of advanced mathematics conferences (‘Hey, it’s all summed up in bullet points, so it must be understandable in less than 10 seconds!’ -> **reality** XD) 6. a thought: this game might be a grand demonstration of how non-practical pedagogy is terrible (as opposed to the general natural {discover -> solve -> learn} process) 7. trying a bit: I have a technical problem with the .ppsx: it only sometimes gets to the next screen after 10 seconds! ._. I suspect this is because of the focus changes when I toggle the notepad (since we should take notes!!)… I may switch to the MP4, then. Ah, disregard that: it goes so fast that I will actually NOT take notes! XD 8. course ended; just checking the number of pages: hey, 33! Did you know this was an esoteric number (especially prized of Freemasons)? Fitting for alchemy! 9. weirdly enough, the slideshow’s link leads me to a Google Drive page about updating the navigator (I use Firefox), while the itch.io page’s link leads me to the correct form. Probably related to PowerPoint 10. "If Kudu passing is used, how many Qx of Friendship would 4 people generate?" -> HAHAHA, this is SO reminiscent of thermodynamics!! XD (the only physics subject where I was completely at sea) Were you traumatized too by such analogous experience? X) By the way, I missed just the end of the slide explaining Kudu passing, and was thus at a loss for this part during the presentation/course 11. reaching page 2 of the test: wow, scenario-based questions! This is great, you really managed to mimick true tests. By the way, fun fact: I had the occasion to help designing higher-educations tests, especially one where I designed the whole problem with fictional context (I have always been fond of devising games at heart, even involuntarily!), it was a great experience :) (although I do not want to be involved with the noxious official ‘education’ system anymore, but I liked the students and… writing them lenghty feedback while tearing my hair out over what decimal part to assign, as I do here XD) 12. by the way, I realize the theme was doubly incorporated: as the slide duration, **and** as the (al)chemical reaction duration 13. "Robyn is planning to start a violent revolution against the government." -> haha! XD How about Molotov cocktail instead of Weird Water? 14. "Sarah and Jessica are on a date" -> First the crypto-Molotov sorcery Black Blocks, now this. XD Actually, from my short time in a (French) university (including behind the scenes), this is actually quite faithful to how some professors blatantly inject ideology (breaking all neutrality commitments) even in totally irrelevant courses (there was even a Thought Police unit that would make recommendations). For the record, the students **hated** this XD (I know because I chatted with them, they had a liking for me and my voluntary extra tutoring) 15. all right, many questions about computations, but if you missed some basic law, then… you are sorry. As I am X)

(1/2)

MAGIC-281: Intro to Alchemy by ninjacreeper47 2022-10-15T15:15:51Z

(continued: 2/2)

16\. I end up answering almost all questions randomly: I missed too much from the course (to be fair, I also had lunch between the course and the test, but I do not think this made much of a difference). A big problem for me is that I am the kind of person that needs careful comprehensive parsing of information (to an almost pathological point…) before really being satisfied, understanding and retaining it; reading each page in 10 seconds really made my understanding superficial, I merely got some facts at the beginning and the first law, and I suspect even this has to do with my reading it in the game page’s captures X)

17\. finished the test; wow, 10/18!! That is so much more than I expected! XD I know some tests give you penalties if you answer incorrectly, as an incentive not to try your luck

18\. my first error was precisely where you had to know the Kudu passing formula, which I barely missed (I needed one or two more seconds) because it was at the bottom of a page… ._. Suggestion: for such important information, let the formula for several pages (and real courses sometimes do this)

19\. no correction for bonus question? Nor points! (ah, I see you give the answer in the comments; but why not in the form?)

20\. side question: I wonder if ‘Qluix’ and ‘Kudu’ are some sort of references!

**Takeaway:** clearly original, and absolutely faithful as a spoof of real-life university courses and tests (at least, those I can relate to). I just think some in-slide repetitions for critically applied information (I am thinking of laws) could help while still being realistic, because the 10-second time limit is harsh. Agreed with oolimry that a voice would make it feel even more like the true thing; this would also be a great opportunity for more humour (speech mannerisms — ‘Mmmmmkay?’ —, joke-cracking teacher, digressing…). The whole alchemical background and test structure are a nice piece of work; I know this kind of spoof material exists, but yours went a further degree into internal coherence and ‘seriousness’. You are right this is experimental; I would even say this is midway between a video game and a tabletop game of sorts!

To build upon Lsy’s comment, the concept the game relies on should serve as a funny yet serious counterexample against standard accepted-wisdom towards mainstream pedagogy: ‘Hey, before playing this fairytale medieval RPG, you should definitely **learn** some alchemy! Have this course!!’. (Popping right when you thought you were about to get into the action. XD This would be a tremendous joke.) What a take on the theme; nice idea. :)

*Side note:* a funny overwhelming game that relied on instantaneous information intake rather than longer-term retention is [*RNGenie Corp*](https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-jam-2022/rate/1618553); I guess this is an easier formula for keeping the player’s interest. Longer term is interesing, but extremely punishing, in a sense!

MAGIC-281: Intro to Alchemy by ninjacreeper47 2022-10-15T15:20:09Z

@real-human-1000

> Why am I doing fictional studying instead of actual studying I should be doing.

As a personal incentive you could settle, the Pomodoro method (which I have been using since last year, with some software) could do the trick. I advise you to look into it. :)

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@lsy

> According to a friend of mine, gameplay and education can be viewed as the same thing.

This is so true that ‘gamification’ is a concept (and word) you can now encounter (especially in some online courses). And the catch is: since the best learning in video games is through *implicit tutorials (= practice)* rather than *long wordy otherworldly explanations*, then the whole standard pedagogy applied in (many?) education systems is **fundamentally flawed**. (At least, this is true in France, up to the point of caricature.)

I had seen a (French-speaking) video series (three videos, I think) by a Quebec psychologist that explained memory is essentially a *reconstructive* process: it is something that is able to build back the information from your mind (through neural networks), rather than merely accessing something somewhere (which would be mere *passive* retention). He went on to say that a study hinted that the phase where you learn the most (ie *retain* the best) is not reading course material, but *taking the test*. That’s right, the phase where you learn the most is when you actually **run into the ‘real’ thing**. (The study used three groups of pupils/students, that had different preparations before taking a test.) Because seeing the real difficulty makes an impression on your brain and forces it to *create* the right connections to solve problems.

Concretely, this means that teaching should put a gigantic emphasis on *exercises* and *practical sessions*, and very little on formal courses — although the foundations are always useful and students should have clear indications how to get to them quicker.

Artichoke Key by Joel Davis 2022-10-17T18:11:24Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "You play as a character whose vegetable head changes species every 10 seconds, […] and use your detachable pumpkin head to roll around and go on adventures. […] (The dog is a Durian)" -> all right, I am already laughing XD By the way, you apparently went for the ‘randomness’ interpretation of the theme (others did) 2. "is build" -> "is built" 3. graphics look super cute judging from the captures; and somehow, the peach-headed man has me thinking of *Little Big Adventure*, but this may well just be me 4. "not finished within the Jam timeframe" -> I just tested one (great) Extra game that also could not make it for a stricter deadline… Anyway, the most important thing is to get a game going as you wish and then show it! :) 5. even takes gamepad into account, nice! And many ‘synonymous’ buttons (for either movement or action), also thoughtful 6. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 7. no sound? 8. diagonal movement feels weird! Only a slight inclination 9. oh, detached the head by accident! Does the type of fruit have no incidence on the physics? By the way, sounds would really help clarifying the action! Respawning at some nearby pod. All right, clicking again makes you do that 10. nice varies scenery! This is charming 11. trying to fall out the map border: yes, you can X) Trying to teleport through the head trick: does work! Glad I found out about it before 12. collision bug near the blue and grey chequered floor: you can pass through a bit of the leftward yellow walls 13. I like the floating textual indication after interacting with a dog bowl; aesthetically fitting, and makes things clearer 14. "Kasprzak" -> hey, bad-mouthing the organisers behind their backs! ;) Got anything against Polish names? (… well, I surmise this is Polish) 15. North, near the large yellow wall: the darker grass relief is not always visible; I thinking adding *outlines* can be a good idea for the future 16. interacting with the durian dog: I get the character’s pun about the "noggin", now! XD **[spoiler]** I think letting the interaction detach the head gives away the solution a bit easily, I did not even have some thinking to do; although people may miss it otherwise, since it is not always easy to know what to do in such a prototype 17. high trees to the North-West: their to parts tend to get partially clipped by the camera; is this expected? 18. glad I found the sad character talking about 10-second rising water: means that the theme is incorporated in several ways 19. does our head type has any influence at all for the moment? If not, this means the theme is (for the time being, of course!) not really significant as to gameplay 20. "no time for punning" -> I want to stress I love the zany humour of the game XD 21. weird, meeting another character more South-East right after, he says the same things! :o A doppelganger? 22. stopping, hoping to have met everyone!

**Takeaway:** "pretty incomplete" indeed, so a bit hard to judge as to gameplay and concept; an adventure game is an ambitious project, especially for such a short game jam, so I am not surprised you were short on time! But please keep it up: the fruity universe is super funny (it is like the fruits from *Super Mario Sunshine* came to life!), dialogues already sound great, and the potential for the physics-based head rolling mechanic is surely great (the dog quest is already an example). I am more curious about how you could fit the 10-second changing head concept with the quests and all, as it seems complicated to achieve something using such a short time frame… Also, love the graphics, even though the NPCs are still often placeholders and some more outlining could help seeing the terrain when height is involved.

This was super charming and funny, I just wish it was more complete. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Unlucky Town by tanis 2022-10-13T10:23:20Z

(in a rush to test many; please do not mind the cursory reviewing style)

1. small misspellings "reall unlucky" -> "really unlucky"; "different type" -> "different types" (4x) 2. Ludum Dare embedded version: Emscripten stays in the ‘Preparing...’ phase! I get the following repeated error (and also several other ones) in the console (the French part is about page parameters preventing loading a resource); I am using Firefox: "`warning: browser could not fully decode audio /assets/data/sfx/earthquake.wav, trying slower base64 approach index.html:1:356 Content Security Policy: [French] blob:null/11c0a75a-64eb-4d05-b6fe-096a8fc24192 (« default-src »).`" 3. only on itch.io’s game page, weirdly: extra space before "House" in first bullet point from "Buildings" (yes, this feels like an observation from Rain Man X)) 4. Navigator version **does** work on itch.io; previous problem caused by Ludum Dare’s restrictions? (I also could not get my own game running that way, possibly for a similar reason, also getting a console error while loading.) 5. Very ironically, little guy’s controls are not layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), while this is more of an in-game joke and first Ludum Dare 51 game where I run into the classic QWERTY problem (which I commonly encountered in itch.io game jams). XD Just to let you know; this might be useful in case you reuse the code, as you say this is a placeholder. ;) 6. may well be a navigator-specific problem, as this happens for several people for several navigator games: keyboard gets unrecognized (except for my first run!), while the mouse (fortunately!) still works. And the game gets laggier with time (for both music and guy movement and animation), which I suspect is also a navigator issue. (The same happened to acdimalev, I see.) 7. also a navigator problem?: restarting the game seems to generate a new guy in addition to the previous one, so I suspect there will be as many copies as runs! X) 8. Classic sfxr coin sound? :) (I know I abused jsfxr for my own game!) 9. hard to anticipate what kind of building you should prioritise before knowing how disasters affect them, but maybe the game expects you to learn through some trial and error 10. use of the theme focuses on randomness; it looks like many (?) people took this route! Reminds me heavily of the ‘Roll of the dice’ theme 11. I like how the graphics vary depending on the buildings’ levels; reminds me of *Age of Empires* + *Civilization II/III*. 12. looks like I only seldom get upgrade cards, while they are so useful! (This may be the reason… :p) Nevertheless, I have trouble figuring out which building is to be selected by an upgrade card!! Is this totally random? Suggestion: allow the player to select which building will receive the upgrade. 13. Getting better how the disasters work (type-specific ones + harsh global one + random-sample one), I guess a good strategy is to diversify the building types, and not to have too many level-one buildings, saving building them for when you can apply an upgrade.

**Takeaway:** Graphics are to the point (I wish I had some pixel art skills too! I might try dabbling in it :)), and sounds too, although I think some more for selecting a card (and varying according to the card’s nature!) would have given even more life. By the way, I like the mysterious soothing music (how did you create it? :)). I think the use of the theme is fair but classic — and ironically feels like a mix between ‘Delay the inevitable’ and ‘Roll of the dice’. XD The concept is rather clever, this sounds like *SimCity 2000*’s disasters gone frantically mad. X) (By the way, the three building types are **exactly** those for the main coloured areas you can design in this latter game! Did you draw any inspiration from it?) I really feel giving some leeway about the upgrades would make the game more enjoyable, as opposed to have the player a bit too constrained by the randomness, although there is already some strategising involved.

A nice little pixel art experience which can definitely

Unlucky Town by tanis 2022-10-13T10:35:44Z

@jackaljk

> there doesn’t seem to be a reason to not play every single card that you can afford

Actually, it can make sense not to build a building if you think you will not be able to upgrade it right after, and also, you may have to select which type of building to get in order to have a varied enough sample to survive any situation.

Virus Attack by notime4games 2022-10-17T13:31:47Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. cute graphics! Especially the player character and the binary files 2. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. 3. the timer starts right away! :o I think letting it start only after the player begins to move would give him more time to process the level 4. wow, ability selection screen is also MUCH and very stressful to deal with under the timer constraint! Maybe pause the timer while in ability selection mode? 5. I wonder what "restore" does! 6. managed to beat level 1! (**spoiler:** upgrading only speed) 7. oh, but this is the only level! <:o 8. also, I think sounds would have been welcome (but hey, time struck, I guess ;)) 9. just a (random) thought: I am reminded that have a 3D game (from about 2000) called *Virus* where you navigate a ‘spaceship’ of sorts inside folders and must get rid of flying computer viruses

**Takeaway:** a nice cute prototype for what could become a real-time puzzle game! I just wonder whether letting the player have more time to think when selecting abilities would be better; or alternatively, in a fuller version, having a tutorial or some kind of explanations as to how abilities work would help know what to expect beforehand. The context and graphics match well (too bad for no sound!) and set the atmosphere, the roguelite aspect is clever; I will join the chorus and ask for more levels! ;)

Thanks for the charming prototype.

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

BOMBA LINE by lonewookie 2022-10-21T16:48:58Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "Story: You are a bomb that is trying to start a BOMBA LINE (a conga line of bombs)." -> the title and capture reminded me of *Bomberman*, now I am thinking of *Snake*; a mix between the two? Reading the rules: yes! (line growth + explosions) 2. capture: nice, context-related visual timer! :) (I did something similar XD) 3. ah, .p8 file: Pico-8? :) Noticed some other such games here recently! 4. by the way, love punny titles for games; no exception here ;) 5. walking bomb is cute, and I like the general retro aesthetic 6. oh, no sounds? :o Too bad!! (agreed with ruthiepee that audio cues are important) 7. difference with *Bomberman* is how the explosion area is a disc rather than a line 8. clear indication for invicibility 9. when near a bomb, is was visually identical to the bombs from the line! Suggestion: use a different visual for still bombs (such as colour, for example) (later: so, agreed with Roboolet) 10. 1st attempt: lost with 11 points; weird, the rules state "If your leader hits any of these obstacles or your leader explodes and your BOMBA LINE is empty, you lose.", but I walked on fire with a NON-empty line! 11. nice, high score feature! And nice screen by the way, with the border string :) 12. 2nd attempt: lost with 18 points, once again, with non-empty line 13. I like how the explosion is both an advantage (one bomb is removed) and detrimental (fire appears); a thought: this makes getting arbitrary high score possible! And actually, you could "cheat" by always staying at 1-2 bombs, I think; maybe need some counterbalancing mechanic? But do you really lose a bomb? Testing: no, lies!! :o ("and be replaced with the next bomb in the BOMBA LINE")

**Takeaway:** *Bomberman* plays *Snake* (or conversely?); this is the kind of clever twists that I like. :) Simple yet effective, with cute clear graphics (except for the similar still bombs). Sounds would add BOTH to readability and sensations. One gameplay thing that seems to be missing compared to what the page states is the removal of one bomb per explosion and collision, which is an interesting mechanic, although it would need to be balanced so that the player cannot artificially stay low on bombs (I would say staying around 2-3 makes it not too risky).

Great effective take on the theme, thank you for it.

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Missdemanor by alaah 2022-10-22T20:34:17Z

I came here to see after reading [this post](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/missdemanor/post-mortem-ish-rambling-missdemanor). :) So, testing, but trying to add some remarks that may be novel.

**Semi-on-the-fly remarks**

1. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard), AND arrow keys are enabled. (Some people sometimes get it right without even knowing, so, letting you know!) 2. The whole rain effect and dramatisation are great. The music layers feel right. (As a coincidence, I have in mind using this concept for a big project, with even ‘deeper’(!) implications. Also used it for bubble sounds in a submarine game, depending of your depth. :)) 3. Even though I had read your post last night, I still came with a fresh mind/outlook and thought at first that CONTACT with the candle was the trigger; I guess the outline is indeed not that clear, maybe because *the character sees the candle upon arrival*. I guess the terrain would have to be designed in such a way that you have to move vertically, so that you clearly get the difference; and I think putting the candle rightwards, out of reach (even better: behind a wall with a hole), would make it sure the players do not interpret the mechanic as contact-related. 4. The wall/ledge-grip mechanic was not obvious to me at first (although you are quickly forced to use it, which is a good thing); I guess just some visual cue (picturing a hand, for example) would help. 5. Bug: after beating first character, in the downward slope, tried the focus key because of the indication (although I guess this would kill me :p), then respawned before the encounter (with the additional music layer from the slope still here); then died touching the first character, BUT respawned ON the slope, as if a checkpoint had been activated only in between. And then, the girl is here (rightwards of the hole)! Taking her out; I realize I should have let her alone to see if this would cause a bug later, although I suspect not. (later: I see Honey Pony experienced the same bug) 6. Respawning: the girl is still here, letting her there, this time. 7. General thought: I think the current implementation of the theme, while clever, is a diverting of it toward ‘Every 10 **distance units**’. To have it properly match the theme, it would have been great to make TIME pass as you move — therefore in a *SUPERHOT* fashion, as already mentioned. 8. Room with three girls: I think you said it in your post, but action seems to get the upper hand over reflection (in particular, when the third girl coming from the right jumps to the upper-left ledge, she seems to get us instantly when falling, even before actually reaching us — or rather, she seems to be "teleported" to the ground). Making time only roll as you move would solve *both* problems of theme connection and having more cogent reflection. 9. By the way, the AI seems nice too, these opponents have an eerie life of themselves. 10. Died several times because you cannot apparently focus an opponent that is too far off in an outside screen. You can have them at some point without seeing them, so this would need to be clarified. 11. Rightwards: climbing this long staircase is surprisingly and unbearingly hard. XD Left Arrow would often not respond at some leap, which is enough to make you lose "time" and not be able to make it. Phew, finally made it, reaching zero somewhere at the transition, which the game somehow considered fair game. 12. Second leftward candle: weird, I was looking at it from the left, and it was not counted! 13. Only now do I realize the red outline gets more intense as time nears zero. I think the outline should merely systematically get maximal intensity (or better, blinker). 14. By the way, witty that checkpoints are also lifesavers. 15. Reaching a hole, but… nothing! Is this a bug? 16. I thought there were some voices out my window, but now, I realize this comes from the music layers! Some background voices?

(1/2)

Missdemanor by alaah 2022-10-22T20:34:29Z

(continued: 2/2)

17. **[spoiler]** That upward passage was somehow dirty. X) I found it quickly, but it feels almost like a secret; the fact that the previous passage was long tends to entice the player not to come back, BUT actually, since it is *easier* to come back (because it is a *downward* slope from left to right), it would be entirely reasonable to think coming here was a bad idea, and leave! I think either preventing the player from coming back, or having a *downward* slope to come here (which would also solve the climbing difficulty issue!), would help as an implicit indication. 18. Dark-haired enemy stuck gripped at a ledge! Bug? Easy shot. 19. Weird, at respawning, when getting to the next screen, I get a (dark-haired) enemy coming, this time! The game did not seem random before. Fleeing to the right (these stepping sounds gets me goosebumps!). Coming back; the enemy actually keeps making small left-right movements at the bottom of the candle screen, so the AI may sometimes run into bugs. 20. Enemy once again stuck at ledge, so I believe this is the bug that prevents her from coming. 21. The brown-haired girl for the precision platforming section is yet another example of action taking the upper hand; very hard to manage the first time around unless you knew about it. Actually, even knowing, I get into hard trouble because focusing her at the right time. Trying to take her down down (sic!); then stuck, because the passage is too long without a "recharge"… 22. Possible navigator problem (because happened with other games): no sound after coming back to the computer after a while (even fiddling with the volume bar), so, starting again. X) 23. For the first encounter, I now wonder if her not gripping the ledge is a bug… (Jumping continuously.) (later: video: normal, but I still find this weird!) 24. Tried outrunning her to see: funny bug, after my dying because of contact, she continues running to the right, but in a moonwalk. XD 25. I also think the S indication (and others) could stay there, instead of being shown only the first time. 26. New bug: respawning at the lower-left candle from the second encounter, the brown-haired is just here, still, and I can touch her without dying. 27. The big staircase is in fact easier if you hold the left movement key, but the player is tempted not to, since this costs time. 28. FINALLY managed the platform passage! **[spoiler]** My method: nailed the second enemy from the middle platform. Somewhat tricky for timing. 29. Mirror + hole: I fear one of them is an ending and the other one not; I would like to test both. Chose one: this is an ending. XD So, checking video. (later: I see Ratrat44 also wanted to know… Wish someone would have told!) 30. **[spoiler]** Interesting, in the video, taking out the penultimate foe by going below; feels very action-oriented and risky. But you tackled the larger problem of multi-solution puzzles in the post. 31. **[spoiler]** Not showing what happens if you fall… I guess this gets you back to somewhere before? (later: too long??) 32. **[spoiler]** I cannot believe busybody me did not think of it! XD The kind of thing you do in *The Talos Principle* (which I also tend to favour over *Portal 2*, even though they are a bit different in nature, with the latter more oriented towards dynamics). I felt the pain collecting all those stars. (later: but… how do you make the jump?? I wonder if this is related to first girl not gripping as a bug for some version or system)

**Takeaway:** not sure why you seemed so disappointed in your post, this is a great prototype that just needs some enhancements! (The biggest one being switching from real-time action to movement-based time, in my opinion.) And audio is incredible too. Frankly, you should not care about people missing out out of carelessness, just be aware of the genuine qualities (good or bad) of the present state of the game. Mindful people certainly are. (I may not be representative of the masses, but once again, truth does not equal social proof.)

Missdemanor by alaah 2022-10-22T20:34:36Z

(continued: 2/2)

17. **[spoiler]** That upward passage was somehow dirty. X) I found it quickly, but it feels almost like a secret; the fact that the previous passage was long tends to entice the player not to come back, BUT actually, since it is *easier* to come back (because it is a *downward* slope from left to right), it would be entirely reasonable to think coming here was a bad idea, and leave! I think either preventing the player from coming back, or having a *downward* slope to come here (which would also solve the climbing difficulty issue!), would help as an implicit indication. 18. Dark-haired enemy stuck gripped at a ledge! Bug? Easy shot. 19. Weird, at respawning, when getting to the next screen, I get a (dark-haired) enemy coming, this time! The game did not seem random before. Fleeing to the right (these stepping sounds gets me goosebumps!). Coming back; the enemy actually keeps making small left-right movements at the bottom of the candle screen, so the AI may sometimes run into bugs. 20. Enemy once again stuck at ledge, so I believe this is the bug that prevents her from coming. 21. The brown-haired girl for the precision platforming section is yet another example of action taking the upper hand; very hard to manage the first time around unless you knew about it. Actually, even knowing, I get into hard trouble because focusing her at the right time. Trying to take her down down (sic!); then stuck, because the passage is too long without a "recharge"… 22. Possible navigator problem (because happened with other games): no sound after coming back to the computer after a while (even fiddling with the volume bar), so, starting again. X) 23. For the first encounter, I now wonder if her not gripping the ledge is a bug… (Jumping continuously.) (later: video: normal, but I still find this weird!) 24. Tried outrunning her to see: funny bug, after my dying because of contact, she continues running to the right, but in a moonwalk. XD 25. I also think the S indication (and others) could stay there, instead of being shown only the first time. 26. New bug: respawning at the lower-left candle from the second encounter, the brown-haired is just here, still, and I can touch her without dying. 27. The big staircase is in fact easier if you hold the left movement key, but the player is tempted not to, since this costs time. 28. FINALLY managed the platform passage! **[spoiler]** My method: nailed the second enemy from the middle platform. Somewhat tricky for timing. 29. Mirror + hole: I fear one of them is an ending and the other one not; I would like to test both. Chose one: this is an ending. XD So, checking video. (later: I see Ratrat44 also wanted to know… Wish someone would have told!) 30. **[spoiler]** Interesting, in the video, taking out the penultimate foe by going below; feels very action-oriented and risky. But you tackled the larger problem of multi-solution puzzles in the post. 31. **[spoiler]** Not showing what happens if you fall… I guess this gets you back to somewhere before? (later: too long??) 32. **[spoiler]** I cannot believe busybody me did not think of it! XD The kind of thing you do in *The Talos Principle* (which I also tend to favour over *Portal 2*, even though they are a bit different in nature, with the latter more oriented towards dynamics). I felt the pain collecting all those stars. (later: but… how do you make the jump?? I wonder if this is related to first girl not gripping as a bug for some version or system)

**Takeaway:** not sure why you seemed so disappointed in your post, this is a great prototype that just needs some enhancements! (The biggest one being switching from real-time action to movement-based time, in my opinion.) And audio is incredible too. Frankly, you should not care about people missing out out of carelessness, just be aware of the genuine qualities (good or bad) of the present state of the game. Mindful people certainly are. (I may not be representative of the masses, but once again, truth does not equal social proof.)

Dreaming Bot by Genpaku 2022-10-20T10:20:05Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing the navigator version]

0. I know this is a detail, but cute splash screen and smily hooded boy :) 1. some English mistakes (nothing preventing me from understanding, just telling for potential later improvement ;)) 2. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 3. the robot is cute! The blocky building/walls is less aesthetic, but is functional 4. what to do precisely in the environment is not that obvious at first sight; I took the object and sold it, which is apparently exactly what needs to be done. I understand you may not have had time for more guidance. And it may be just me X) Actually, the names on the various units make it clear what they are, I was just wondering at first where to go and how things worked (even wondering if there were other thing to the South); I guess this is already quite clear! But maybe just a sentence or arrow or highlighting outline pinpointing the object and the selling point would be nice for the very first sell 5. I like the robot’s ‘analysing light’ :) His sounds and animations are rather cute too, although some sounds for the dispenser and the selling point would have been a nice addition. Also, the music may get a bit repetitive, but it soft (and sweetly toyish :)), so, this is fine :) 6. haha, the "paint job" is squarely an OBJECT to earn! XD The straightforwardness is funny 7. just tested out the three types of batteries: all seem to replenish the energy bar! What is the difference? Oh wait, no, testing again, they do not replenish as much energy, my bad! 8. the way to play the game seems rather straightforward: ram those objects to sell them (shuttling back and forth in a straight line, as you can take the object from the side!), sometimes get some energy, and go buy the dream job at 50 9. I realize the red walls are transparent! Are they some sort of laser/virtual walls? 10. the 4-battery seems like a good energy-cost compromise 11. positioning the robot correctly to take things can be a little cumbersome (I almost blundered once for the 4-battery, missing it several times in a row and exiting at 0 seconds left displayed! XD) 12. noticed now that the robot’s head even lowers or rises depending on holding an object or not; some love really went into giving life to the robot :) 13. I think the game becomes repetitive fast; some variation or other mechanic would keep interest. The 10-second mechanic has potential, but here, the interaction with the player is not that intense (you just have to be careful, and otherwise, I guess you keep waiting for 10 seconds — as a side note, the first version of my game as a semi-similar problem with the 10-second wait XD) 14. also, the 50 target is a bit high given the repetitiveness (as a coincidence, I tested *Der Schließmuskel* right before, and it also had this problem of setting a rather high bar of 50) 15. the interface is clear and nice, especially the colour-changing energy bar (which I realize has the shape of a battery; I am sometimes slow on the uptake XD) and colour-changing countdown

(1/2)

Dreaming Bot by Genpaku 2022-10-20T10:20:16Z

(continued: 2/2)

16. almost lost towards the end by getting too confident with my routine!! :O 17. just moving a bit made a nice light reflection shine from the held object into the camera; nice 18. made it! Oh, the robot switches appearance, nice! Too bad this is not useful; suggestion: allow some intermediate upgrades for the robot at some prices! 19. checking to the South: oh, there WAS something!! :o fire test + water test; does nothing, nevertheless? Ah, seeing the comments, should, so, maybe not in final form! Putting an object: OH, dissolved object is now worth 6 coins!! :O XD I should have followed my first intuition and explored the South at the beginning, I lost time out of it; blundered big time! And fire is worth 10!! So, this means the game is way less repetitive and long than I thought; but it looks like there is a simple so-called ‘dominant strategy’ that makes winning even more straightforward: only sell ‘baked’ products, sometimes recharge

**Takeaway:** I like the cute robot and his poetic dreamy backstory, and several little details in animations (robot, water, fire); it just feels like something is missing to make gameplay complete and more challenging. In particular, having various types of batteries revealed not so useful here. Also, while the theme-related mechanic could get interesting, it would surely need something more, such as having an interest in staying in the other side (I think a good general game design principle is to mix both advantages and drawbacks to several situations, so that the player must figure out how to deal with a non-obvious challenge in the environment). UI was also helpful and clear (I especially liked the dynamic colours, and transparency for names), and sounds and music were sweet.

A cute prototypy robotic challenge that has potential that could become fuller; thank you for it. :)

House Hitman by adjo 2022-10-20T17:00:20Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. just like FoggyDude, the mere sight of the capture/cover and title made me think of *Hotline Miami*! 1. "Built with Lua and LÖVE." -> hey, coincidence, I use Love2D too, and just tested another such game! (*Buy the Dog*) :) 2. "The goal of the game is to simply clear the house of any enemies within a 10 second time limit." -> seen some such games already (*10 seconds or less*, *HURTEC*, and *10 Seconds To Avoid Death*); it is thus a classic concept, BUT generally effective! 3. small misspelling on page: "Linix" -> "Linux" 4. by the way, you can also create a Mac executable, see the [documentation](https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution#Creating_a_macOS_Application)! I did, and a tester confirmed it worked, although he had to enable execution rights :) 5. this is totally *Hotline Miami*! But without sounds; I agree with FoggyDude this is a pity! Still, seems well made, including the door physics and detection with doors; and well done for the procedural generation :) 6. I notice there are only three lives; I wonder if you could do away with them. Or, (classic) suggestion: enable a level-skipping key, to make playtesting easier 7. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 8. the big difference with *Hotline Miami* = TIME is of the essence, while NO one-shot death; agreed with Zerbu this makes the game more puzzly than the other 9. lost at level 4 for a split second… :o Apparently, there will be more enemies as levels increase, and I wonder if the 10-second time limit will always be manageable! I guess the game might become impossible, depending on the formulae. EXCEPT if you put a maximal level; is there one? A general thought: for games that use it, such a 10-second time limit constrains level design in a peculiar manner! 10. oh, the game has been jerky for some time, now! :o Made me not move and lose time, up to the point I just lost a life in level 4! Some memory leak?? 11. doors can really get in the way for moving, and I notice their colour is too close to that of the brown sections of the floor: makes them barely discernible! 12. lost at level 5… I feel depending on the level’s architecture, things may get very tricky from here (I already had some trouble with level 4). So, stopping here, hoping not miss out on some variety!

**Takeaway:** nice theme-related twist on *Hotline Miami*! With simple controls and to-the-point clearly presented in-game elements and UI. Too bad for the sound, it would really add greatly to your game — do add some!! (People sometimes understimate the power of auditive cues.) Some more variety in enemies would also keep interest, and have the other advantage of allowing you not to always increase the number of enemies, but change them, which could make levels still workable under ten seconds. The three-live sword of Damocles is an unforgiving arcadey one, but why not! :) I foresee keyboard-and-mouse frustration coming out of it. XD

Nice efficient take, and also programmatically interesting! It feels like a promising prototype than needs extending: please help yourself. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Tumbles of Hanoi by luthwyhn 2022-10-19T15:04:40Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. "Made in about 2 hours" + "I’m also only managing to get 4h for it" -> beat me to it, I thought the 10 hours (and not seconds :p) I used because of ginormous brainstorming was amongst the tightest, but not even close X) 1. judging from the description: the basic idea seems great to me! BUT the game will be just like classic Towers of Hanoi once all layers have fallen; so, I think it would be good to find a way to keep some twist going on after (not saying I know what!) 2. The embedded game **does work** for me (I use Firefox). :) 3. ah, Pico-8! :) Never used it, but I know it, and often use Lua (with Love2D). 3. the control menu of Pico-8 shows the (animated) keys, but is there no way to rebind them? I have an AZERTY, would have liked to replace Z with W; nothing serious with this game, but still, curious ;) 4. no sound (except for when launching Pico-8!), but I totally understand you were so short on time 5. ah, took me some seconds to understand the selecting-grabbing interface once the first piece was there! Not obvious at first, but then, nice 6. only now do I realize that the POSITION (and colour) of the countdown indicates where the next piece will fall! 7. lost… This is hard depending on your luck, I think! You could think of trying not to put all your eggs (or layers) in one basket (or pillar) 8. 2nd run: by keeping two reasonable perfect-order heaps, I managed to get all 8 layers! :) I may have been a bit lucky too, yet, this seemed like a workable strategy 9. some larger layers can cover each other’s sides visually when aligned (maybe reducing the layers or simply disaligning the pillars could do the trick). One big drawback is that this makes it hard sometimes to know which layer is which size; revealed uneasy, especially… in the last phase X) 10. apparently, you cannot cancel a selection without going back to where the selected layer is; maybe put the second button to that use! 11. I realize that the two arrows for the selection are inverted only now (having put the first two layers to the right) X) Means it was felt intuitively :) 12. beat the game!! Phew, the sometimes partially covering layers made me blunder a bit sometimes (other than that, I know the algorithmic logic for solving the standard problem, and went at it intuitively) Rightwards!

**Takeaway:** a nice twist that needs to be completed! I also liked that the layers were multicoloured (the simple graphics are still aesthetically cute, so, nice efficient work!), and the selection arrow interface. On the ergonomic side, finding a way to have layers not overlap and adding sounds would make the game even clearer.

Thanks for the puzzle! Maybe now, you can use the time you did not have to expand your idea even more? :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time (and power!! XD); it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

The Kraken Stone by Vegevan 2022-10-19T18:03:49Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "it’s den" -> "its den" (by the way, French me notices the spaces before "!" and "?"; are you too, by any chance? Also noticing one of your games is called *Supplice* :))s 2. I like the game’s thumbnail, especially how the Kraken is there sitting on his throne XD And he reminds me of some boss from *Equinox*, I would say! 3. capture: wow, the sea water looks gorgeous! 4. judging by the defeat capture, some occasional mistakes (such as "There a" -> "There are" or "both triggers" -> "both trigger") 5. glad to see someone use GitLab instead of Microsoft-owned GitHub! :) with good old master branch, down with preposterous PC Police ;) 6. **LINK PROBLEM:** the current download links (https://itch.io/game/edit/1728695#published) give a 404 itch.io page!! Searched the game’s title on itch.io and found it (you can still correct the information): https://esilvert.itch.io/the-kraken-stone 7. by the way, you can get the upper Ludum Dare banner on itch.io by adding a Ludum Dare link on the ‘Metadata’ tab for the game’s information 8. in game; ah, nice soothing mysterious music! 9. wow, fast hit by that giant tentacle! And already lost half of my health, while game has just begun! :o 10. movement is quite slow 11. getting hit again; lost! :o Giving ‘Day of the Tentacle’ a whole new meaning, there!! 10-second respite makes things hard, apparently 12. 2nd run, applying the safety hint (… which I had read on the game page, but still managed not to follow the first time around :p): all right, I get it, safe if not travelling. 13. giant swimming Kraken is impressive! 14. "Island Name" -> is this a forgotten placeholder or a meta-joke? XD 15. I get the economy system: resources + upgrades. Reminds me of [*Radioactive Rocket Fuel*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/radioactive-rocket-fuel), by the way (although without selling) 16. in some (Eastward) dialogue: "Dude" -> I wonder what era this takes place; I thought some earlier century, but I may have gotten the wrong idea 17. evading the Kraken is rather straightforward: just click at the right moment! Will things get more complicated? 18. noticed now that islands darken once ‘used’, so I guess interactions are one-shot 19. "Google" now, so definitely in the present. The past would have immersed me more, but this may be an entirely personel whim 20. applying second upgrade: I like how the look of the boat changes with each upgrade. And travel gets pleasantly faster, now 21. the UI is very clear, by the way, including dynamic panels for resource gathering 22. I realize the deactivation of islands means you have to remember the clues and their locations! It could be nice to be able to hear them again, except if this is an intended difficulty 23. oh, moved after the 10-second timer, but got hit! :o Does collision with the tentacle still count? 24. I realize the pointy thing may rather be a pointing arm than the bow! XD Hero has extendable arms 25. I like getting the islands’ dialogues, it sounds like unveiling this world’s mystery 26. 3rd upgrage; since upgrading the boat repairs it as I already noticed, I think it should be mentioned on the button 27. I suddenly realize the concept of navigating while avoiding a Kraken reminds me heavily of [*A kraken Surprise*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1679061) 28. found the den! **[spoiler]** one clue I remembered correctly was enough; another one (‘leap of faith’) just tended to confirm 29. get the "Non-secret Ending". **[spoiler]** Hahaha, what a twist! XD Love the humour; at the same time, this is so sad! I sensed I would get the standard ending if I did not explore more 30. now trying to get the secret ending, but I hope this will not take too much time! Some way to save or skip so that you do not have to reroll everything once you have won once could be nice (later: discard this, you made it nice for the player! :))

(1/2)

The Kraken Stone by Vegevan 2022-10-19T18:03:59Z

(continued: 2/2)

31. I realize we are first on some flotsam; ah, this is why one island was speaking of a bunch of wood! I thought it was referring to resources. Oh, notice we have 1 wood! XD Nice semi-joke 32. notice now misspelling "denm" on the Kraken’s den, by the way; I know this is not serious for a game jam game (easy thing to correct), but watch out for important elements ;) 33. YAY, good intuition, managed the secret ending! :D **[spoiler]** I was wondering if I had some more exploring to do or if mere logic was enough, so I tried the shorter solution :) I am just worried some people might find the secret ending sooner; I had thought of going this route in my previous run and almost did, but went for upgrades just out of cautiousness. I would suggest to put this island farther, but this would make looking for the secret ending after the regular one a bit tedious… Maybe add some specific action to perform, that only someone that has achieved the regular ending can know!

**Takeaway:** the exploration and progressive enhancement of the boat made me want to progress and uncover what lied behind the surface (so to speak!)! The music and water made it charming, as well as the ominous giant undersea figure. On the downside, gameplay-wise, I think the game lacked 1) some mechanic to make travelling less straightforward (merely clicking at the right time was enough, especially as you upgrade your boat) 2) a more interesting way of interacting with the islands, as merely mindlessly getting resources and upgrading whenever possible was enough for me to succeed. On the other hand, the dialogue/narration and ‘riddles’/clues were a very good adventure-styled addition — there could have been more indirect clues so that the resolution could have been less straightforward, in which case, letting the player read back the dialogue would have helped (and possibly a map then?). I loved the atmosphere and some of the humour was welcome, especially the Shyamalanesque twist. Graphics (including that arm-stretching guy! XD) and sounds were nice too!

Thanks for the sea adventure, and the laugh (?) at the regular ending. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

---

@budark

Seeing the [personal games page](https://ldjam.com/users/vegevan/games), this is not the first game. ;)

Milkman by themorfeus 2022-10-16T06:40:35Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. animated capture (+ "telekinetic powers" as confirmation): this looks like powers from *The Matrix* XD (and your pseudonym is "themorfeus": fitting) 2. "red, green and blue" -> hidden reference to "Zelda"? ;) Or simply nerdy RGB choice? (I once asked the same about *Gem Drilla Incorporated*, and [it turned out](https://itch.io/post/6157780) the latter was the real reason) 3. still captures: the graphic style for the characters (colours + shape + face) looks surreal and funny 4. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 5. 2nd "shot": I think I got two neighbouring customers with the same needs in one shot! X) 6. What?! toggled some windows just to take some notes, and coming back, tells me I won, even though I really only served two milk cartons! XD 7. Ctrl toggles running mode, apparently 8. exploring! :) Can you fall? Yes XD And there is even a falling animation!! Reused from earlier game? 9. the silliness is strong with this one XD 10. and what is the "ALL MILKX" farther stand for? 11. where do these guys even leave anyway?! To the exterior pit of doom? X) 12. the games is a bit low on FPS, as is customary with many Unreal Engine games (and this is not only me, so I suspect it is really often resource-heavy and people seldom manage to optimise), which can be a problem to target milk cartons, but it is still playable quite enough 13. actually, the game seems rather easy! I have no problem serving everyone. And where is the stealing? :o What I saw was the repulsive effect when I sent an incorrect carton to several neighbouring customers, which was a funny ping pong move 14. funny music, by the way; matches the overall tone XD 15. looking for the disappeared customers: oh, apparently, they vanished (still wonder if they fell like lemmings!), and their milk cartons are still there!! What a waste The mystery of the missing cartons. Were these people abducted by UFOs?

**Takeaway:** ‘silly’ is the word that comes to my mind: definitely shining in the humour category. XD The telekinesis mechanic (and its sound) is great (I still have to play *Control*, by the way…), but I feel like gameplay lacks something, some challenging element (although I may have missed how stealing works… Please tell me if it eluded me). I also think the 10-second-before-new-customer take is classic (for instance, [*Dead End Job*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/dead-end-job) went for a similar route), yet fair. This feels like an early prototype of a crazier version of *Control* that could go somewhere, but missing just a little something to feel complete!

Thanks for the zany entry. X)

Buy the Dog by pixlark 2022-10-20T16:03:51Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. somehow, the quest for the dog and the simple cute style make me think of [*You´re not alone*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1681234) (which was somewhat simple, yet charming) 2. contrary to the other anonymous comment, I do not mind ‘programmer art’ (I am very concept-oriented); plus, I think yours is cute enough 3. hey, a fellow Love2D user! :) 4. console opens; I guess this is a remainder from the debugging process! 5. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard). By the way, I know **exactly** how to program position-wise in Love2D: use [`love.keyboard.isScancodeDown`](https://love2d.org/wiki/love.keyboard.isScancodeDown) rather than `love.keyboard.isDown` 6. interface is clear, including dynamic bar for coins 7. I think some visual indication towards the resources (and/or mouse) when you are near them to show you can collect them would help (I knew thanks to the page) 8. I like that small jolty movement when chopping up wood! XD 9. collecting resources feels like a clicker game!! Still oddly (shamefully?) satisfying, but I think sounds would help; by the way, sounds (!) like there are no sounds at all? 10. collecting from the mountain apparently requires you to be towards the forest-mountain frontier, which is not obvious. Oh no, it does not! You have to click really close to the character! (previous suggestion on indicators could help) 11. running always seems more useful than walking; if so, maybe make it the default speed? 12. objects’ utility seems clear! (for example, just got the pickaxe and behaves as expected for stone) Suggestion: add a visual for each tool? Even an unanimated one. And use the image as an icon (upper right). (but maybe not in the character’s hand, since there can be several at once; or, suggestion: give him a belt and display them hung there!) 13. the frantic resource collection and mining tool upgrading remind me of [*Far.*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/far), although without the travel (or rather, shorter ones!) X) I guess you could infer how each additional object impacts resource collection and gauge the optimal plan for fast resource collection… (which would be complicated) BUT you would need to know how much resources the bridge will take!! Wait, does it say? YES! Oh, not much, actually! 14. reaching the town: oh, the scenery instantly reminds me of one screen from Atari 2600’s *E.T.*! XD (never played it, but seen a bit) 15. wow, why is the dog so costly?! :o XD This is somehow super funny, as a spoof of absurd arbitrary objectives in some video games ;) 16. actually, the gold generating process feels a bit the same way! 17. decided on a strategy: favour wood in order to get bowls, because water is closer to selling point (you can gather some right into town). Blue gold it is! 18. I feel like this makes the 10-second generation moot; I know you can double it, but is it really worth it? Wait, since this would be exponential, maybe! At one point, I will be able to merely upgrade gold through… gold! (speculating as an annuitant) The power of mathematics (and geometric sequences) will earn me that longed-yearned dog 19. by the way, why is the income-doubling person some kind of baker or chef? Is this once again a spoof on arbitrariness? 20. that’s it, actually could suddently get several gold upgrades in a row just before the final one (even though only one or none could have been enough), and get filthy rich! Laughing all the way to the ~~bank~~ dog :D (I realize with the capture that I am actually a *millionaire* in coins); final statistics: 20 income upgrades, 17 axes, 13 pickaxes, 48 bowls Who wants to be a millionaire AND a dog owner? I do, I do!!

(1/2)

Buy the Dog by pixlark 2022-10-20T16:04:00Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** simple concept, yet somewhat addictive, and not taking too long in the end! The naive cute programmer art was fine by me, although I still wonder about the baker/chef. XD Nevertheless, some more life could add to it (animation or ‘movement’, sounds). The ‘mining’ mechanic also needs to get a bit clearer, because at first, you do not know when it is triggered/activated, and you have to click so close! The pithy mysterious and somewhat absurd context — right from the title, and even the stacking of objects, and arbitrary magical ‘goose that lays golden eggs’ coin mechanic — dragged a laugh from me, especially the throning dog that costs the earth. And how becoming a lazy annuitant is totally an (end game) option. XD The game could become more challenging through a well thought-out economy and intermediate quests, but the process was already fine, and after all, building the bridge and getting the resources already act as such quests. I just wish the theme-related mechanic had something more challenging to it, instead of being a granted passive bonus.

Thanks, simple game indeed, but I still had a good time. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

PS: I see you did not opt out from the ‘Audio’ criterion, so, did I miss some sound? :o I do not think I heard any.

It's all in a day by ruthiepee 2022-10-18T19:32:06Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing navigator version]

0. description: concept is interesting, BUT I am afraid 10 seconds will be super fast… We shall see 1. music and art seem top notch 2. on the field: yes, it *does* go fast! :o XD 3. is ‘Do nothing’ really useful or not? Seems to only increase hunger! 4. this seems super hard!! :o $1,000, really?! I am fighting to merely keep alive not dying out of hunger and lack of sleep! XD 5. as Mcnuttys (and you ;)), I think animations matching the actions would have been great to better understand, especially seeing how the buildings match the various activites 6. checking what happens when reaching zero for some bar: yes, you DO die! Out of exhaustion here, and the text mentions pizza, so does it really change depending on the player’s choices? (I DID often choose pizza X) By the way, I just realize the gigantic coincidence with having played [*Pizza Ninja*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/pizza-ninja) right before!) 7. no key to restart? 8. tried a run to see what happens when filling the education bar, but now dying out of hunger before XD Oh, a "Restart" button! I may have missed it for the exhaustion defeat :S Oh, but it does not work! Ah, weirdly, only detects the mouse for a brief moment, sometimes; this may be a navigator issue. (does not work either in windowed mode nor fullscreen) (later: happened to Tatu Heinämäki too) (later: checking, no button for exhaustion defeat) 9. tried education again, closer, but failed; this is HARD! 10. **[spoiler]** third attempt at education: only choosing this activity right from the start: oh, I did not notive work level 2; unlocked by this! And then, everything gets easier! Working my way up to more than a grand even before there are three days left! I feel like this is almost a puzzle game where the solution to the riddle is ‘First go to school, kids!’; sounds like a cheesy punchline XD 11. how do the lotto and suit options unlock?? 12. Won! I like the irony of the end, I get the same vibe as in [*10 Seconds To Avoid Death*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/10-seconds-to-avoid-death). X) 13. agreed with Rein (and you again!) on possibly keeping previous activity ongoing 14. testing ‘Health’ defeat: same as ‘Energy’, apparently (message + missing button!)

**Takeaway:** a rather abstract (because of time reasons :p) but cute time management game, that makes me think of a real-time version of *Gods Will Be Watching*. At first overwhelming, but when getting the hang of it, way simpler if you get the trick! The take on the theme is interesting story-wise, but only now do I realize that it is not so useful mechanically, since days only serve as a global countdown, not as anything else except resetting your current action (unless I am mistaken!). Despite its sobriety, the game had me immersed in the context; also liked the funny (yet tragic!) ending messages for losing (and winning…). Too bad for the missing sounds, but music and ambient sounds already do quite a lot! (By the way, are the crowd sounds made from samples, or personal?)

I had a charming time solving the quasi-riddle, thank you! :)

---

@arachnid56

> I don’t know if it’s possible to beat this game

See the spoiler above. ;)

---

@kosmosael

> a game about the lives of most of us :)

Glad not to be a big city slave, then. XD Closer to what Tatu Heinämäki describes, but with ‘Do work and activities you love’ instead of ‘Do nothing’. ;)

Radioactive Rocket Fuel by JonathanG 2022-10-18T15:17:04Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "an unstable radioactive isotope that decays every 10 seconds" -> story-wise, this is clever :) 2. "I didn’t have time to write more than 8 bars of music, so I left it out otherwise it would be too repetitive." -> when in doubt, you can let the player decide. (I should have done so for difficulty, but hey, Captain Hindsight XD) 3. I like that there is a double control mode (economy management + flight) 4. launch sound! :) Oh, but no thruster sound then? <:o I think it would have been a good idea (you could argue there is no sound in space…) 5. already dead XD 6. as others said, the parallax layers of stars are a beautiful simple effect; great to add to immersion through simple techniques :) Also like that the ship lands oriented according to land site (I had a similar way of dealing with discs in a (still buggy) game called *Clock Work*) 7. going far: nothing, only isotopes too late XD I am unlucky today! 8. the ship’s inertia is quite something, made me miss a vital isotope (… and explode once again). I wonder if reducing it would be a good idea, since we have to be fast, but then again, maybe this is part of the intended difficulty 9. at last another planet (Astarongolia Alpha)! Maybe some more elements in space could help us have a clue where to go? Or maybe the isotopes, but this might make things too obvious. (later: thanks to the map tip, I see this *is* the case!) 10. I like how the planet’s trivia also incorporates the theme 11. I get the economy system: different prices for different planets 12. **[spoiler]** glad I found this planet first for the super useful map hint! Now navigating holding the secret key. Nothing upwards, dying again XD Cosmic karma is against me! 13. (in Exspinnia) I feel like figuring out the comparative resource prices will be a mess! X) This is a game where taking notes could help. By the way, found four planets (counting the very first launch site one); how many are there? 14. found a fifth one; how punishing it is to miss an isotope, if you do not go in a straight line, some routes get you killed! 15. hey, you do NOT lose money, apparently! (only resources) 16. Reached Sendikar. I wish there was an automatic pilot feature as in *Outer Wilds* XD 17. the way the ‘Chat’ features makes you discover the world is really great :) (and I thought the same about saying ‘north’ earlier in my comment, using ‘upwards’ XD) 18. LIES!! Followed the indication, died out of nothingness and lost 1 blue unit <:o (I guess the engine has to be upgraded??) 19. the bottom-right isotope lead was also a trap of sorts… XD By the way, not losing resources every time, apparently 20. economy: simply find myself shuttling back and forth between two planets; I think this means the system may be overcomplicated (and there is a so-called ‘dominant strategy’). Glad about this, because it would have been too tedious otherwise XD **[spoiler]** Astarongolia Alpha - Sendikar: only blue 21. bug: because I missed the last isotope right before Sendikar, the ship exploded RIGHT when landing, so I still get the menu! Launching then displays the explosion animation, but the game still runs, phew X) 22. $1,020! So I can take my upgrade; BUT I should spare a bit first: can you get locked if you mismanage your money?? 23. upgrading engine(s): oh, does it on clicking instead of giving the choice! I think it would be better to know, especially for subsequent upgrades (will it still be a thousand dollars, or more?) 24. there seems to be a speed-reducing field around The Mysterious Vadarius (made me explode some times) 25. oh, the end! :o By the way, trying, I realize you cannot upgrade the engine twice, and that you can upgrade anywhere (instead of coming back to the home planet — as I did X)). I still wonder whether I found all planets (I found around six?) 26. hahaha, I like the final joke of still having priced resources there! XD

(1/2)

Radioactive Rocket Fuel by JonathanG 2022-10-18T15:17:16Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** the game feels like its own little coherent universe, with several aspects (piloting, exploration, trade, dialogue), while the theme is cleverly incorporated; this is somewhat impressive! There are other space games with resource management (such as *No Man’s Sky*), but it still has its personality. I see two main drawbacks: 1) although this can be made on purpose, is this ship HARD to navigate with such inertia!! I could barely enjoy the nicely manoeuvrable upgraded-engine version, since it allows you to reach the end! 2) The complexity of the system’s economy suffers from letting the player have a ‘dominant strategy’ of very profitable simple straightfoward 2-planet 1-resource trade, for little risk involved (although I did still die during the journey on some occasions XD). And had it not been that way, it would have been complicated, almost requiring you to take down notes on each planet, and painstakingly find a route between several planets for indirect financial speculation.

Thanks for the immersive space odyssey. :)

**Afterthought:** I guess you cannot get stuck because you can only upgrade once, and there may be some security so that you always have at least one unit of some resource (which should be sufficient to trade your way to the top?).

PS: I saw you have 19.875 votes(!), here is the precious 20-sesame. ;)

PPS: the planets are really beautiful. They are in contrast with the isotopes that look a bit arcadey, but why not. :) I also wonder if there are secrets and let the game running. X)

LetterLockr by timeshapers 2022-10-18T11:58:22Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. concept sounds interesting! (although conjuring up out-of-context vocabulary is not my strong point, and I am not a native English speaker, so, fear is here XD) 2. capture: funny how the right side of the interface looks like a face :) The whole screen seems to have a pure, sober, clear style (and I like the chain visual) 3. first run: lost with 27 (but lost some time at the end trying to see how imaginary words were dealt with :p). I guess this is abysmal, since you are supposed to reach 100 4. not sure I get how the right hand interface/displayers works! I think some in-game text, or even a little explanation on the game page(s), would help. Apparently, I think this is the number of correct words times a multiplier; weirdly, the multiplier starts at 0, and indeed, my first word earns me no points! 5. ah, defeat if you have a word written and the locked letter becomes an incoherent one? Testing: yes! Maybe tell it on the game pages? [a bit later: actually no, the reason must have been zero confirmed words] 6. what? This time, ended a round with no word written, and it still counted as defeat! I am not sure I understand why. Ah, I may get it: you lose if you have found zero word for a round! I originally thought there was some maximal number of rounds. I think this should also be made clear in the explanations! 7. by the way, I like the time sounds; I think sounds for writing and deleting letters could be added! 8. just a small detail, although this is not really the game’s fault: if you switch to another application, the game pauses, which can be used to cheat X) But I do not! 9. small possible extension, although this may be complicated given the short 10-second time span, but floating the idea: sometimes, you can come up by chance with unknown words, in which case the game could present a definition, as does [*Claustrowordia*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/claustrowordia) 10. I think I understand the evolution of the multiplier better: it depends on your number of words for this round: 1 makes decrement by 1, 2 keeps it stable, and 3 makes it increment. Not sure above 11. lost at 83! So, I did not get to see the two-letter lock; maybe make it happen sooner? I feel like 100 points is not that easy to reach (although once again, I am not a native English speaker)

**Takeaway:** simple yet efficient word game, with a sober yet neat presentation. The take on the theme is interesting enough; I would say just some more indications (about the end conditions and the multiplier) would help, and just a bit more sounds. Apart from that, it feels like a complete fine-working game. :)

Thanks for refreshing my English, and putting my weak point to the test. X)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Ever Shifting by PhilStrahl 2022-10-20T21:53:24Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. the concept reminds me a bit of the shapeshifters from [*The Curious Night of Jacob Price*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1680855) 2. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard) 3. hovering over the briefcase turns the hand into an eye, but clicking does nothing! :o 4. gulping sound? XD 5. Anteroom Hallway W: the ninja reference is a bit lost on me; *Ninja Gaiden*?? Something else?? 6. took me a few seconds to notice the "GameBoy Camera," (sic) text! I think the font is a bit too small 7. this is SO HARD to navigate XD Quickly got semi-lost! I have a bad sense of practical orientation, though 8. upon reading the *Myst* inspiration, I was thinking of *The Witness*, and those that have gone through the "true" ending may be reminded of it by the videos here, especially when picking up objects ;) 9. not always obvious to know whether you can move forward or not 10. currently in the process of robbing every Game-Boy-related thing on the premises… (I have dabbled in Game Boy development since recently, so I need some material for physical testing :p) 11. I also still do not get what is changing! Maybe the architecture? In which case, HELP XD 12. oh, it looks like this is the effect! :S What?! Trapped in the small box room! Then suddenly exiting, and the pieces are used!! Did I double-click unintentionally, or is this automatic?? 13. briefcase/chest: went back once, thought I locked myself, could look again by turning… Weird! 14. once everything taken: stuck in briefcase scene?! (after some moments of reading several comments to check if someone else had been stuck) Can suddenly go back, phew!! I did not expect to have trouble with movement in a static images game! XD 15. all right, escaped the flat of ~~doom~~ confusion and Game Boy! The cursor still changes to "door" when moving it to the right during the video, by the way 16. the final line on "35 minutes before the deadline" makes me think of what I was doing at that time :) (Adding the "targets", I think; checking my notes: yes, I did do that towards the end instead of earlier XD)

**Takeaway:** an interesting twist on *Mist*-y games, although as you note yourself, 10-second changes in the "rooms" connections is way too much to take/process! Ironically, it somehow guided me towards the end without having to really think about it. X) Even without this, it would have already been somewhat complicated to navigate, because turning (and walking) is instantaneous instead of smooth (which would have gone a long way to help knowing one’s whereabout, but I totally understand this would have been hard to set up; or maybe just using a lazy morphing technique??). Not that many games with voice-over, too! (*10 Seconds To Avoid Death* comes to mind; did I encounter another? Maybe not.) And even less with filmed sequences! (Although scandalmongers will say this is the lazy man’s way of avoiding programming. ;)))

Thanks for the visit! :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Stand-Off by fusionnist 2022-10-17T11:40:31Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. "sauce" + "meat (windows)" -> see what you did there ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (although I am a vegetarian) 2. taking a look at said "sauce": oh, I see you used MonoGame! :) So, you should be able to produce Linux and Mac versions 3. I see the itch.io game page does not show the top Ludum Dare 51 banner; I figured how to do, in case you are interested: in the ‘Metadata’ tab for the game, using the leftward ‘External links’ tab, you can add a ‘Ludum Dare’-type link to the LD game page 4. nice interactive tutorial! :D 5. great sounds, music, and animation for the personal hand-drawn graphics; it feels peculiar and reactive, and humourous (I love the quirkiness, including cowfrog XD and anachronisms) 6. I like the concept, BUT I am not sure I understood some important things; 1) do you need to only shoot those that target you? And how is the others’ shooting resolved, especially when mutual? 2) is using the watch necessary, or merely an optional indicator? 7. by the way, I think putting some indication on the watch to know what the reference point is would help, like a small wider dash, for example (I did something along these lines (!) on the stopwatch of a later version of my own game ;p) 8. while I won my first run by only shooting those targetting me, I lost the second one right from the first round, and I won the third by not targetting anyone since nobody targetted me and they all seemed to be busy gunning each other down. I am still not sure I completely understood how the algorithm works, though. Also winning 4th run without acting! I feel like I should take a look at the code. Winning 5th run only shooting those that target me, so this definitely looks like an efficient (yet not always winning, see run 2) strategy 9. in game folders: haha, "narco"! XD So, that is why he was so sleepy! Also: why "steve"? ;) And "default": looks like a placeholder guy, but he could have been there! Oh, you actually drew the various positions of the handle; I thought this was tackled by programmed rotation! Aaaah, seeing the message for being the last man standing, I think I got it: you can view killing everyone else as a bonus objective, and surviving as the standard basic objective.

**Takeaway:** cool ‘epistemic’ concept (‘I know what you want to do next’) with simple intuitive controls, and great funny personal visuals and sounds. I just think the resolution of a round could be made even clearer (to know who shot whom). As an extension suggestion, making the characters switch their decisions dynamically according to whom you are aiming at after a brief moment could make things tricky and interesting as fast-paced reasoning! (While in the current version of the game, you have enough time to know what everyone is going to do.) And great connection to the theme, too.

Thank you, stranger; this Ludum Dare is big enough for the two of us. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

10 seconds or less by DrunkardWolf 2022-10-13T20:07:54Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. ‘Controls’ section on LD game page: I think adding some line breaks would help! (display is fine on the itch.io page) 2. on itch.io game page: "THEM" -> "THEME"; also, on both, "UFOs" -> "UFO’s" 3. menu is super nice, with level selection and translation/tweening effect 4. first level: controls are layout-independent (instead of QWERTY), great! :) (I have an AZERTY keyboard) 5. super effective concept, and I love that you put the time indicator as an in-game element (the watch)! Playability feels great 6. trying to fall: infinite fall? X) 7. first level: managed to get EXACTLY the developer time! I see this as an implicit tutorial/indication **[spoiler]** that crouching makes you go faster ;) 8. ah, wall jump on vertical floating walls; reminds me of another game jam game, [*Time Loop*](https://itch.io/jam/mini-jam-113-final-boss/rate/1672907) 9. the small brick texture can get a bit ‘dizzying’ for the eyes, since the player moves fast! 10. (level with 3 distant enemies) I easily get enemies from afar in one shot! Is there some splash damage at work, or at least, generous collisions? Or: there seems to be some automatic aiming! 11. (level with 2 enemies) ah, tricky backwards hidden enemy! X) Nice :) 12. series of three closely aligned enemies: I wonder if this is really a good choice, as they are way easier to get. Aaaah, maybe there is a shortcut, and then, you have to take them down with a well aligned shot? :) 13. by the way, showing the level number during the level could be useful to know/remember where you are in the flow ;) 14. sometimes, when fast performing fast alternating wall jumps between two walls, I get some kind of a (useful!) teleporting glitch from one to the other 15. only realizing now (level with 2 enemies and big slope) that you can slide on a wall **without** jumping… X) I may have been biased by previously mentioned game 16. PHEW, managed level 8 in 9.95 s! XD By the way, I think only in the level with the three aligned aliens was the developer time significantly lower than mine, so I definitely suspect there was a shortcut there, but there does not seem to be many (or any?) in the other levels up to here 17. level 9: interesting to see the top side of the saucer, right behind the start 18. I feel like level 9’s ‘trick’ is too straightforward! (I have 4.40 s trying it without training, and developer time is 2.35 s, so this must be it) This is a pity, seeing how the rest of the level is designed as a whole little nice track… (making me think of *Unirally*, somehow) 19. thanks to @100th-coin’s video (taking a glimpse), I notice misspelling "detatch" -> "detach"

**Takeaway:** clear pure challenging concept with time trial as an effective interest enhancer. Fast restart is a perfect option for such a game, as in *Super Meat Boy* — although I think the fading should be even quicker. Speaking of which, the game makes me think of it, except the collectibles become enemies and you are forced to get them. If I had to super nitpick, I would say that this is more of ‘Under 10 seconds’ than ‘Every 10 seconds’, but I feel like this would be mean. ;) Although this may be how the game is more original: by straying just a tiny bit away from the theme. I like the blobby aliens, the saucer, the sounds (although some stepping sound would have been welcome!), use of the orange colour as a guide; I would have just used a more spaced out brick texture.

Promising game! :) I could see it extended in a variety of directions, including disabling automatic aiming in some ‘hard mode’.

Gold Collex Hex Defense by Solrun 2022-10-14T12:25:32Z

(in a rush to test many, please do not mind the cursory review)

1. big coincidence, I discovered and dabbled in Bevy earlier this year; still in the process of learning it! (on hold) The demonstration games seemed laggy, but I wonder if this is a hardware-related issue 2. there is a desktop version on itch.io; you should add a link from the Ludum Dare page, to highlight it :) 3. judging by the game descriptions (both pages) and LePoulet’s capture, there is quite some text to swallow to get the rules! Which is understandable, when you want to make things clear, but it is less hard for the player when you manage to get an in-game tutorial (and the best tutorials are implicit ones!). Still, great that you can read it back with the press of a key :) 4. X: layout-independent! :) 5. ‘gold pile’ concept to store gold reminds me of *Dungeon Keeper* :) And the red demon’s face has me thinking of its Bile Demons! 6. gold following mouse = original and funny clever concept! (already spotted in description) 7. the red squares are apparently ‘enemies’, or at least ‘mining targets’; this was not obvious! 8. boss appears: but why? After some time? 9. no sound? 10. reading the indications took me more time than to play in practice! 11. sometimes, moving the mouse too quickly too far makes the coins lose focus; is this on purpose, so that we have to be careful? 12. on victory: first missed the "You Win" button! Is "Continue" for just playing around with the coins? 13. about 20 FPS towards the end; actually, FPS dropped from about the appearance of the red squares. Watching a bit more: the **massive** amount of coins make it drop to 17 FPS. Yet, the very beginning was smooth, so I think Bevy may work smoothly on my hardware, things just get nasty at some point when there are too many elements 14. having some threat would enhance the tension and interest of the game! For example, once the boss has appeared, let him damage the towers in some way 15. I realize that apart from testing X at my first run (and thus getting stuck at the very beginning XD), I **never** used G (and X anymore)! :o Does making gold piles have any interest for the player? Because otherwise, you can just keep the coins floating around the mouse, apparently 16. launching again just to try a bit the gold pile mechanic. Ah yes, and also destroying a tower 17. I forgot to say I think the wall/brick towers look cute, with their roundness :) 18. just understood now: coherently with the indications, coins are *only mined*, and thus, the red squares are actually *thiefs*! (rather than minables) And so, the gold piles enable you to protect gold from them. (not needed in my ‘true’ run) And you need to avoid them with the mouse -> dexterity aspect

**Takeaway:** an original concept! :) It feels prototypical in that there is no sound and only the very core mechanics, but I like how you managed to combine both mouse dexterity with management (in some ‘tower defence’-oriented way). The fact that the map appears progressively is also charming and makes me think (in addition to the boss’s appearance) of fog of war, which could perhaps be used in an extension of the game. Some conflicting mechanic(s) would add to the challenge, as winning for the moment is rather easy (I built the towers as just neihbouring enough, so I did not even realize the squares were a danger in the first place! Glad I tried the game again to test the gold piles!!). I like the tiles and towers’ graphics; the squares could be made into something which makes more sense in the context (say, little red winged flying demons, in a Firebrand fashion! :)), and the boss is charming programmer art (fine with me!). :) Sounds would definitely add life *and* help getting the action. As for the theme, I think having regular generation/mining is classic and that it is not much of a twist — contrary to the mouse-following idea, which is a great one. :)

In my eyes, a charming prototype that could definitely go somewhere. :) Keep on experimenting with Bevy on it; two birds with one stone!

Gold Collex Hex Defense by Solrun 2022-10-14T12:53:05Z

By the way, quick advice just in case, as people are sometimes not aware of it and ‘karma’ here is 0 (maybe you already know, since this is not your first game here, but I would rather not take the chance): reviewing other games will help you get testers and feedback. Because of the new system (which date I do not know…), your game was among the first ones in ‘Classic’ ordering, but not in the ‘Smart’ one, which is the default. :/ **Edit:** actually, it was in Smart that I found it, my bad!! But the advice still holds. ;)

Also wanted to say that seeing the thumbnail/cover again, I noticed a fireball! Was this the intended image for the squares? Or maybe an attack for the boss? :)

Find Ten Seconds by dhim 2022-10-03T23:31:51Z

##### Semi-on-the-fly remarks:

From the description: this is some witty punny way of incorporating the theme through a double meaning!

> the idea was to have […] that also created by AI as well as the sound Design. […] If I can I’ll make a Fully AI-assisted game for ld52

Beware! This is authorized for the Jam and Extra formats, but **not** for the Compo format, as stated [here](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51). ‘Please submit games built with AI art generators as Jam or Extra games, not Compo’

There has been quite an argument about the subject, because using advanced AI techniques (especially for graphics) can be seen as borrowing material instead of creating it by oneself. The current decision is that it makes sense for Jam (and Extra), but not Compo.

> All colors should be different across all color blindness that I could check. […] However, it doesn’t make it colorblind-friendly

Haha, I had the exact same colourblindless problem! XD I did not have time to implement my simple solution (ie showing one number per colour), but I think I will do it for accessibility reasons.

1. In the Ludum Dare embedded version, the instructions page is written in black over dark, which makes me select so I can read; maybe is it due to my system? Ah, the other navigator one is black on white! (I should have tried this one before reading the first. X))

1. (I am using Firefox, by the way.) The Ludum Dare embedded version is not working properly for me: clicking on the link to start does nothing. Looking at the console, it looks like the game is not loaded properly: I get multiple ‘Content Security Policy’ errors saying that the page parameters prevented some resource from loading, and also that reference ‘p5’ is undefined. So, using the other version from now on! (Those embedded and navigator versions are often a mess to make properly work, I have had my share of trouble, as you have seen…)

1. The concept seems original to me! Although I am far from knowing enough such board games to compare. This one looks like a game Rain Man would enjoy. ;) Somehow, it reminds me of Bingo. I know it is different, but looking for figures to cross is a commonality.

1. The music is only *sometimes* dissonant, with an impression of two desynchronised drums, but other than that, I feel that it really gives you the one-second rhythm countdown beat well. Although it can somewhat get unnerving, but this may be cause by my lacking sleep (my head even hurts a little!), so, semi-discard that.

1. As to playability, agreed with shimmerscale for having the comparison information more visible; I think another solution that would fit your technical limitation (ie transparent background trick) would be to have it displayed super big at the left-hand side of the screen, since there is nothing there. :) Actually, testing the board in minimal size (5×5), I see the indications get bigger and already more noticeable, so this might really work.

1. Visually, it looks very neat and even professional; I especially enjoy the set of colours, very harmonious yet sober.

1. On gameplay: I think a big parameter that influences how one plays the game is **perfectionism**. For example, I am so fussy that I tend to only look for exact pairs or at least the same symbols, and it does cost me something to reluctantly go for a half-baked ‘pairing’. I agree with SimplePotential that this is played intuitively; I was afraid the game would be complicated because of the length of the initial instructions page, but this is a classic symptom of having to convey a lot without enough time to teach things in game (implicit tutorials can take time to conceive, and it seems it would be uneasy here seeing the abstract nature of the game).

(1/2)

Find Ten Seconds by dhim 2022-10-03T23:32:20Z

(continued: 2/2)

8\. Indeed great to have options for size and easy mode; I feel one thing that could give more punch would be an option regarding the frequency of card disappearance, but this would violate the theme, except if you only retain one of your two interpretations of it… **Suggestion:** either by option or as time goes by, **increase the number of cards** that get knocked down every ten seconds! I am sure this easy trick would inject more tension. :)

9\. I am very curious as to what these Easter eggs are… I tried clicking some words from the instructions text and got a sound, so I thought that was it, but it was merely the sound of my clicking on tiles that were hidden behind the splash screen. Silly me. I am not sure what is meant by ‘in the matching’. Looking at the code: all right, silly me once again, it meant funny or unusual properties/characteristics. X) (And there are six rather than five? Except if the shape-related one is not a proper Easter egg.)

**Takeaway:** very neat yet sober presentation for a witty twist on the theme; there could be some more tension, but this would be very easy to add by merely tweaking some parameters, so this is really not that serious a criticism.

Thank you for the game. :) (And my first proper test here — including for Ludum Dare ever —, because I wanted to get out a proper post-deadline version of my game first before churning out reviews, but since you saved my navigator version’s life, I thought that emoji cookie was not enough.)

HALL OF GAMES by spudboy 2022-10-16T09:49:44Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. mistake: two times the same link ("Microsoft Windows https://spudboy.itch.io/hall-of-games") 2. controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard) 3. varied graphic style, which is great; including that for the alignment game, which looks somewhat like (Color) Game Boy, and 4. funny fitting music 5. bug for balloon the first time: aim does not move 6. second attempt: once again, the first occurrence of the balloon does not let me move 7. oh, randomised shapes for the shape-matching game! Procedurally generated? :) 8. theme: should be ‘Every 10 seconds’, but the game seems to speed up! Or am I wrong in some way? 9. ironically, lost (with 21) at the platform challenge, which I thought may be the easiest, because I banged the character’s head XD 10. 3rd attempt, out of curiosity 11. ah, this time, the balloon challenge does work! :) 12. alignment game: oh, I realize you can switch *several times*!! I thought you had to find the right move in one time (which I did before)! XD 13. I think the most difficult challenge may be the shape-matching one; or the alignment one if you are unlucky, since it depends on the configuration 14. lost with 44 at my third attempt! (alignment game; there was quite a lot of blue at the bottom, but I took too much time to react X))

**Takeway:** very effective game, with nice ‘naive’ hand-drawn presentation (the numbered doors suddenly make me think of Bowser’s castle from *Super Mario World*! X)) and other graphic styles, as well as engaging funny audio, especially the music. I am a bit uneasy with how to assess the originality of the game, since it is an unabashed clone of *WarioWare* as you state yourself. I think there is still some in the minigames themselves, especially the alignment and shape-matching ones (although you would have to know all minigames from the *WarioWare* series to tell, which I do not, far from it…). I am wondering whether the theme is really obeyed or not, seeing the acceleration!! :o Which is an essential part of keeping interest by raising difficulty… Still, funny, and the score is a good incentive. I wonder whether you could have crammed more in, so as to add more variety; I think using more **randomisation** would have helped, as can be seen in the shape-matching game.

Thanks for the funny challenge and enjoyable music. :)

PS: forgot to say that each minigame really had its own carefully crafted setting and context, not only graphic style. This helps for the amosphere.

18 Souls by MaiMai 2022-10-17T16:46:13Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

[testing the navigator version]

1. the context (through description and captures) seems immersive and funny; by the way, the giant ‘boss’ Grim Reaper at his desk on the cover reminds me of Thanatos from [*Necrow Co.*](https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-9/rate/1208403) 2. "Didn’t have enough time over the jam weekend to finish the game so I decided to turn this into an EXTRA" -> Oh! :o I wonder if you can have several entries, if they are in a different format… (I was myself considering partaking in Jam instead of Compo to enhance the game, but stuck to the challenge, while pinpointing separate updated versions) 3. "Statistically, there are 18 deaths every 10 seconds. But that’s not coincidental, no! That’s a mandated quota for Soul Reapers." -> I was thinking of *Grim Fandango* right from seeing the cover, and I get an even bigger such vibe X) 4. I like how the objective is a *precise* amount, as opposed to a minimum; this is not so often the case 5. are the cats an allusion to the nine lives concept (or rather a joke about cute kittens)? By the way, this would mean you only need two cats! ;) [later: explained in game; all right, reference to nine lives, but I get the logic, a cat can have lost some lives before; this is clever] 6. launching the game; wow, great dramatisation-introduction!! Haha, and great humour (the volunteer bit) (including the contrast with the groovy music) 7. and already great sound effects for the interface 8. Controls are layout-independent, great! :) (I have an AZERTY keyboard) AND arrow keys are enabled. 9. my God, this is insanely hard!! :o I just lost at the first round for my first four runs!! 10. managed to beat one round; then overflowed?! Oh, I get it: I had completely forgotten one cat is **not** necessarily worth only one life! X) So, I must have been super unlucky the first four times around, stumbling upon low-life (!! XD) cats! 11. I think I reaped a zero-life cat; is this a bug, or did I see wrongly? A bit later: oh my, I am a complete imbecile… I totally forgot you had to properly **collect the souls by moving onto them** XD 12. first real legitimate non-idiotic run: lasted 6 rounds 13. I was wondering where the strikes were shown: only now do I realize these are the white cards at the upper borders of the screen… I thought it had something to do with the lower-right counter, but now, I think this is the total cumulated amount of reaped souls. Suggestion: add some name or icon for this (and other?) counter 14. ah, looks like you can sometimes collect a soul by touching it with the scythe! Expected collision? 15. 7 rounds, this time 16. just checking the borders of the scenery/arena: I see, fence posts; nice! :) By the way, I realize everything is cleverly lively through 3D *movement* rather than (complex) animation. Great job

**Takeaway:** efficient clever concept, loads of humour, efficient cute graphics (including through movement and luminescence), absolutely fitting sounds (maybe a ‘meow’ could also be used? ;)) and music, clear-cut explanations (although I managed to play as if I had not read them XD Once again, maybe an in-game tutorial rather than written explanations would help, but I understand this is not easily set up in general), simple yet original main mechanic and objective, fine interface (although some counters could be made just a bit clearer, I think): frankly, this is a great self-contained piece. If I really wanted to ~~be mean~~ nitpick, I would ask for even more originality in how the 10-second cycle/theme is handled, but, great job.

Honoured to be the first one to comment and cast a vote for this little gem. :) Thank you for it!

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Nighttime by greymouth 2022-10-17T07:15:49Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

[using a desktop version, as recommended]

1. "I’d love to continue this and build it into something where you can capture photos of more complex astrological events (i.e. planets, comets, nebulas)" -> reminds me of [*BigBangSurfer*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/bigbangsurfer)! 2. the interface is super clear and controls very intuitive 3. interesting original concept; it still reminds me of games such as safari *Afrika* (where you take photographs of wild animals) 4. nice, even a ‘stash’ feature! (reminds me of Git XD Had to use `git stash` once this time, actually) 5. photographing some comets: weird, there seems to be some latency, because the picture I am shown is from some seconds in the *past*! (I get the previous rightward comets instead of the newer leftward) 6. also like the smooth interface for accessing items from the stash :) 7. after stashing four photographs, trying to export; oh, the default filename ‘cool_photo’ gets rejected as ‘Invalid filename!’! :o Ah, got it: this is the default text for an *empty* field! XD Maybe replace it with ‘Type name of your cool photo here’? 8. how do you get rid of a photo from the stash? ‘Discard’ seems to let it in! 9. the "Done!" panel can stay even once the photograph panel has been closed 10. suggestion: showing the number of the current displayed photograph (for example, "3 / 4") 11. do the comets always go by pairs? Some randomisation could add variety 12. weird, sometimes, panning the camera, I get for a very brief instant something displayed as if getting through me 13. agreed with Luka Roli that sounds would be nice, to get the sweet contemplative nightly atmosphere (music as suggested by Cameron Borthwick could be an option, but this is debatable as no music could fit the real sensation; maybe make it… an option ;)) 14. the comets sometimes seem to disappear, although this may be intended, since they burst into the atmosphere at some speed (thus, I am wondering if this is really a bug as Cameron Borthwick thought)

**Takeaway:** still a prototype in my view (and since you intend to extend it, this is coherent!), but the concept is interesting and soothing; to add more to the game side, I guess some system that awards you points depending on the quality of your photographs could be considered. (*Afrika* or even the figurine quest from *The Wind Waker* work similarly.) I am not sure about the theme, like Luka Roli, but I suspect comets show up every ten seconds, although I did not count (and it seemed shorter?). (**Edit:** I would say the comets’ lifespan seems to be around 10 seconds, so I guess this is it!) A bit hard to judge the graphics, although the night ambience (with fitting darkness and variously contrasted stars) and interface (including font) are already well made. I particulary enjoy how clear and smooth the interface is, everything already feels intuitive, which is a good sign!

Thank you for the soft night. :) Here are three out of my four pictures (the first one was cometless)!

Up… … left… … and down. Feels like Johnny from 'The Wind Waker'!

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

PS: too bad you are forced (I think?) not to opt-out from ‘Audio’ in Compo format, it just does not make sense here when there is none! X) Unless I missed something (in which case, please tell me).

Frantic Belt by wheybags 2022-10-19T12:46:29Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "Place factories and conveyor belts to automate crafting" -> never played *Factorio*, but I believe this is very reminiscent! 2. on capture, "TARGET" and "NEXT": useful indications that remind me of *Tetris* 3. seeing the icon for ld51.exe -> ah, MonoGame! 4. no sound? :o 5. mmm, I got the controls from the game page (and they are simple and well thought, in my opinion), but the way the game is played is not obvious to me 6. 2nd time: got it thanks to checking capture again! I really think some indication for **input orientation** (such as subtle arrows) would help (later: I mean more obvious subtle arrows, if that makes any sense X) See below!) 7. I like how the products/items/target and structures are very intuitive! Understood all even before using them (which tells a lot!), EXCEPT for structure 3 (the circle): what is it? 8. figured the three first rounds and managed a perfect score, I think; then, it became taxing to destroy everything and rebuild it (speed took over reflection, to sum it up), so… I somewhat gave up in a red-blue-green mess of a meta-factory! X) 9. A thought: achieving a perfect score means you are able to have the beginning of the next system working during the last 10 seconds of the previous round 10. my semi-lazy attempt still led me to 301 (considering this is a first run, the previous one was the ‘dumbfounded’ experience one XD). I guess already knowing the next stages (provided they are not randomised, but even then, the possible target items are in finite number!) can help you get a perfect score, and apparently, some people were already close to it (or even succeeded?). Lazying my way to the mean.

**Takeaway:** I already knew there are such factory/procedural building games out there; this one already feels like its own self well-made coherent system. Both the controls and the internal concepts (items + operations) all feel super intuitive at first sight (once again, except structure 3, at least for me :p), which is a little feat! Still, some indication in HOW the factories are operated would help the first time (to get where the input side is, either visually or explicitly; I know there are already little arrows on the factories, but I did not notice! Maybe have them MOVE, I think!). Showing what item comes next is a great feature! It still let speed rather than reflection get the upper hand towards (or even exactly at!) the middle of the game, where you need to catenate several operations, which can be overwhelming, but since the game is about scoring and producing quantity, I guess the speed route rather than puzzle route is more logical. Also, too bad there is no sound to give life to the madness of this abstract factory!

A very coherent and pithy take at the theme through assembly-line work, thank you. :)

Dodge48 by thesnide 2022-10-19T15:29:42Z

I may try, but my style of reviewing means taking down notes and thinking a lot alone in concentration (nerdy me *could* play with other people, contrary to some of you Dark Side Nerds up here ;))), and I am currently prioritising games low on votes. I may come back later, quite possibly after the voting ends, but I find your comment on thinking a lot and only typing less through short sessions very relevant; there is indeed an important *relaxation* effect when you stop going crazy against a problem/bug and let your brain process some underlying solving. How many times did I solve (hour-?)long bugs in a matter of minutes or seconds when I merely came back to it fresh! X) Some congratulations here for your short time performance.

---

@foggydude

> Love the vibes that PICO-8 games have

In the same spirit, since I have started dabbling in Game Boy development currently since a few weeks ago, I was thinking it might be a good idea to submit a Game Boy game to some future edition (maybe some people already did?). :) Game Boy ROMs can even work as a navigator version!

I also wonder if there are some TIC-80 games here in Ludum Dare 51.

PS: just found that some hours later by sheer coincidence (noticing the thumbnail) that yes, there is at least one Game Boy ROM! :D * https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/its-a-sliding-puzzle

Traffic Flow by Rewzu 2022-10-16T15:20:21Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. I like how the controls are straightforward 2. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. 3. no sound? I think some traffic sound (ambient…) would have been a nice touch! 4. oh, I hear a sound! Missile? Yes! Oh my, lost with zero! XD 5. 2nd attempt: oh, randomised truck colour! 6. ah, collision sounds! 7. got one car in between two building collisions, this time X) Nice, the missile made the truck go on a roof! And then, another missile still comes! X) Ah, this was apparently a coincidence, as no other is then launched 8. 3rd attempt; oh, red space for forbidden zone, nice 9. Am I bad at this game? XD Only one car again; although I think the rather low FPS do not help, I have trouble maneuvering that truck 10. oh, nice detail: the cars stop before the (wrecked) truck! Creating a gridlock XD 11. preventing truck rotation without moving makes things more realistic and harder! Interesting. (by the way, like how the front of the truck is a battering ram XD) 12. cars also stop before wrecked cars; nice. I wonder if you can play bowling by throwing a car against another one 13. blocks for buildings fits perfectly. The game really manages to have a fine, simple, and clear aesthetic that is right for the concept, while reminding me of building blocks construction games/kits 14. the low FPS is *really* a big problem for me… 15. some strategy involved in how you have to take cover against the missiles; clever use of the theme, because it makes the game switch between hunting and ducking phases 16. OH!!! **IMPORTANT NOTICE:** if the game runs slowly, either **zoom out** or put **fullscreen** if you are too zoomed in. I thought I was in fullscreen, but I was not, and had in fact an oversized player running, which I noticed thanks to a score indication being eaten by the top. (I remember the creator of [*03*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1666625) issued a similar warning, and rightly so, since many people ran into trouble!) 17. oh, missiles can take down buildings!! Nice! (I did not know since all previous ones met my face XD) Or did I see wrongly?? 18. since missiles come from above, you even have to get protection late, because otherwise, they just avoid buildings! Clever too 19. I wonder if those collision (and explosion) sounds come from sfxr ;) 20. even though I am faring better now that my FPS problem is solved, the game still feels hard XD 21. oh, the grass makes you even slower than the pavement (do I learn right before getting another missile) 22. while in game over: ah, funnily, cars sometimes bump into one another. Wow, they also sometimes manage to cross 23. I wonder if missiles can hit cars… 24. this is pretty much *GTA*, but without all the boring stuff ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 25. found an effective strategy: drive in circles around a block as long as cars circulate; then, switch blocks, ramming through gridlocks 26. blundered at 56,900 points, which is the end, my friend

**Takeaway:** thanks for the kind of proposals I am fond of: a collection of simple mechanics that join together to yield effective and intuitively understandable gameplay! The only shortcomings I could see are a lack of some audio (general ambient traffic sounds come to mind, or even better, sounds related to the real traffic — since you already programmed it! — such as horns, turning indicators and breaks — for the record, this is how it went in the *Gridlock* subgame from *The Time Warp of Dr. Brain*; even mouth-made if you cannot make it otherwise ;)) and maybe a lack of variety in the longer term, although the score works as an incentive, while wrecks of cars change how other cars behave and cause useful gridlocks for higher bowling-styled scoring. I love the attention to detail in the management of regular traffic! :) This feels like *SimCity* gone wrong/*GTA*. X) (I could imagine mad truck driver (or missiles?) being a *SimCity* ‘disaster’.) Nice use of the theme for an uneven *Destruction Derby*.

10 Seconds of Math by Jare 2022-10-21T17:54:17Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing the navigator version]

1. The game is pretty straightforward! It does work, as some mental callisthenics. 2. while playing, thought up an algorithm (maybe did I see it somewhere already?) for fast calculation and left-to-right typing (because the tricky thing is that you cannot type the digits from right to left!): for (digit) position going from left to right: check the two current digits, compute their sum S, check the two FOLLOWING digits, and add one (thus, S+1) if these latter add to at least 10. I used it sometimes, but still got overwhelmed over time. XD Although I guess training could surely help! Overwhelmed… 3. I like how the sharp signs act as a "loading" bar 4. presentation is simple yet clear, both visually and for sounds; I still think a sound for TYPING would have added to the fun! PROTIP to everyone: put a sound for the most often repeated player-enabled mechanic(s) for your games! 5. the piling up / stacking of questions is also great. And overwhelming XD

**Takeaway:** hard to say more than the other comments. Straightforward, almost a dynamic quizz! Looks like someone just devised a new cheap and dirty online SAT. ;))

Thanks for the challenge.

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Pizza Ninja by Ratrat44 2022-10-18T16:48:37Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing the desktop version because of the audio warning]

0. concept is quite funny; pizza-delivering Max Payne 1. wanting to take a look: why "690 MB" for the source code while "27 MB" for executable? :o 2. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. Nevertheless, this IS a problem for me, because combination arrows + Space + mouse :( (later: still manageable! But not that practical: left little finger on Space!!) 3. great in-game simple written tutorial! :) And clear simple graphics, yet rather cute 4. funny music 5. funny ‘death’ animation, too, falling (later: not always falling? But taking pizza! Is this some kind of pizza hara kiri? XD) 6. I like how the character’s look follows the throwing direction, and the arrows, too; all of this helps clarity 7. serving is actually like shooting dead in many games! Super funny; a non-violent take at action games XD 8. bug? ‘served’ the second guy right at 0; the player character then may not have fallen, but not sure. Oh, got it, now: the triangle over the head is a sign of pizza ordering! Maybe say it in the tutorial? 9. another time: served the very first bloke against the glass, and he still could walk with his pizza; is this expected? 10. now understanding/noticing that the second arrow is not for which direction the character is facing, but where the target client is X) 11. controls get some time to master! But getting used to it :) 12. WHAT?! Thought I’d calm down that fierce dog by offering a slice of pizza, didn’t go as planned (I ended up as the slice!) XD 13. sometimes, slow mode stops, and things go faster than normal! :o Is this expected? A counterbalance not to abuse the power, maybe? 14. that dog is not only fierce, he is also an acrobat!! XD This is hilarious! 15. invisible wall?! 16. taking a closer look at details: even the arm for throwing slices is animated, nice 17. the invisible wall seems impassable 18. next time: oh, had not noticed the dog portrait! XD Aaaah, nor the arrow pointing LEFTWARDS… X) Silly me 19. will the dog pursue me everywhere? He does not; suggestion: make the dog able to jumb and climb, so that he become some kind of *Resident Evil 2*’s Mister X! 20. Made it!! Nice final dramatisation with the multi-slice XD 21. can still play; let’s meet the dog again! Question: what happens if you ~~take down~~ serve some client BEFORE he becomes the target?? 22. didn’t notice the cowboy hat for dog man! 23. HAHAHA, involuntarily threw on the dog’s behind, while he was waiting at the foot of the rightward building!! XD Enraged him, and brought my can-you-still-die test to a close: YES 24. did the R key work all along? Yes. Oh, I get the animation better, it IS a hara kiri! XD (pizza kiri? )

**Takeaway:** Spider-Man meets Max Payne. This makes for original gameplay; the theme connection is a bit more classic (taking down targets in under 10 seconds; *10 seconds or less*, *HURTEC*, and *10 Seconds To Avoid Death* ask for clearing out of all targets, so this is a bit different, but related), although still good. The game also really shines in HUMOUR: my God, this was **hilarious**! XD I loved everything about it! The crazy context, the details. I wished things got even crazier with Super Dog, and I think the situations for serving the clients could have become more varied and interesting (such as having clients in a remote location where you have to throw, or you have to go to an attic…), but this is already great given the time limit. Visuals and sounds are responsive, and this is helpful, since controlling the character takes some period of adaption, but then, things get smooth. Maybe just the time slowing sometimes interrupted for no reason, but this may be my clunky AZERTY controls…

Thanks for the laugh. :) Someone give this dog a pizza!

PS: second game in a row at 19.875 ratings when I arrive! This ‘Danger’ ordering really does work. X)

Box Pushing Training Sessions: 10 Seconds Intervals by exofrenon 2022-10-24T16:31:34Z

Just managed to devote some time to further testing! :)

Agreed with Papabirb that this is the perfect kind of game for sounds (but then again, a lot of games actually benefit from sounds — do not pass on it, people!).

I particularly enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the game, which is to figure out a way to always being able to escape and have enough room (since punching takes so much time). The fact that you can get a combination of two boxes pushed by punching when there are exactly two in front of you is also a feature that makes you think about the layout of the boxes (the same is true for being able to push only one alone).

About the score: I initially thought you had to only survive as long as possible (just like Roroto Sic would have wished), and only once given my 23 score (which was higher than my previous 10 achieved when I survived longer) realized it must have been the number of broken boxes all along. Echoes of *Crash Bandicoot*! ;) Still, I was also intuitively more attracted to the ‘survival’ aspect, because this is where the substance of the puzzle is, at first sight.

The Ken-like aspect of the hero and the punch-and-destroy to score, and even the colours of the scenery up to some point (both water and ground), have me heavily thinking of *Street Figther II Turbo* (probably true of other versions?) when you have to destroy objects in bonus sequences, especially the one with a car. :)

**Takeaway:** a very nice grid presentation for a game that already manages to mix both action and puzzle, with simple harmonious mechanics and randomisation (the falling boxes). I like games that manage to reach coherent gameplay by joining together some simple mechanics as a foundation, and I think this one does it. :) No suggestions, since sound is most probably on your mind, and your ‘plan’ (as quoted below) looks great to me.

> the plan is to have more stages, each with a unique mechanic (in this one, it is the stage getting smaller), power ups, enemies,

This sounds great, I hope you will achieve as you intend! :)

PS: forgot to say that at first, I did not well understand the *written* advice about punching two boxes and pushing one box — I thought this meant the number of *occurrences*, which was incoherent about my having pushed several boxes —, and since shreemp had the same problem, this means the tutorial will have to make itself clearer than this sentence; I guess showing the mechanics on screen will do the trick. :)

Seance by chaitae 2022-10-17T15:41:19Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

[testing the navigator version]

0. preliminary advice: do not hesitate to add a cover to better identify your game, even a simple screen capture :) 1. oh, no sound? Too bad, it would have been great in such a context! 2. just let things go on the first time to observe; told me I lost after three lines, but after some more time during game over screen, told me I won! 3. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. 4. Had not realized the white element was a ghost! XD (I used cartoony ghosts in my game too, I should have known better! I guess this is because of the profile angle) 5. funny concept! X) :) I wonder how the random teleportation of objects is justified 6. the graphics (including fortune teller’s animations), lines, and shudderings really make for a great atmosphere (and once again, with sounds or/and music, this would have been even greater) 7. I wonder if adding some timer indication would be a good idea or not. Just musing 8. the game seems rather easy, without some mechanic (except maybe the teleport?) to hinder us from going straight to the current designated object; and seeing what happened before (ie the victory during game over), I suspect we just have to hold on for enough time. Yes, victory does occur after some time! 9. by the way, I wonder what the portrait exactly is (apparently some dog, but is this some specific reference, or totally random?)

**Takeaway:** even though I understand from the pithy description on the itch.io game page that you ran into some trouble (short on time, perhaps? It happens to more people than you may think ;D), I think you still did a great job for the setting and atmosphere! This is a great idea. Gameplay-wise, something feels missing… Some counterbalance to hinder the player from easily completing the tasks. And of course, what a waste for the sounds!! Please do add some to a later version! :D This could be the early sketch of an engaging game.

Thank you for the spiritualism seance.

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

SquareMan by Flying Dog Fish 2022-10-15T16:39:30Z

Haha, funnily enough, several people (including myself) made a *Pac-Man*-themed game! I spotted at least four, possibly six.

And by the way, funny coincidence, I remember I saw you said you did not like the theme at all; glad you managed to come up with a game anyway! :)

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. "collect coin" -> "collect coins" 2. "Your state changes every 10 seconds (obviously)." -> it could be a *fraction* of those ten seconds ;) (it happened to me!) 3. "they are purple and you are red or […] they are cyan and you are green" -> I wonder if merely swopping the colours (ie purple/red vs. red/purple) would have been more intuitive; probably not so important thanks to the shape difference. Probably discard that! 4. nice music! Reminds me of another one whose title eludes me (**Edit:** sudden remembrance: *Popcorn*!) 5. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 6. speedl: feels like *Pac-Man* on ice skates!! I think this adds a *dexterity* aspect to the concept 7. hitting (eating? X)) sounds are cute! :3 (both of them) 8. I wonder what the enemy AI/behaviour is; apparently, selecting a random direction when hitting a wall? In which case, they never take intermediate turns, and never go in the serpentine sideway corridors from level 1. Which gives a simple strategy: go for cover in a safe place, then go out when you are strong 9. you can chain-eat enemies by going to the spawning spot ;) 10. I like the symmetrical effect of the evolution of the time bar, and alternating colours (which match those of the player) 11. (during level 2, for the record) oh, music gets ancient Egyptian! 12. level 3 provides another example of the previous strategy: once you have cleared the enemy from the rightward rectangle-shaped zone, you can safely go for cover inside it. Which is a game-breaking strategy / ‘dominant strategy’, except if time mattered for score 13. oh, the enemies’ inability to turn midway results in having them *stuck* in the centre zone (still in level 3)! :o This means that once an enemy is cleared, he will never cause trouble in the outskirts of the level capture_ennemis_bloqués.png Cornered! 14. beat the level in such a (shameful… :S) way

**Takeaway:** a little twist on *Pac-Man*, using the same objective but a different mechanic for the Power Pellet system and fast-paced movement; I think the three things that make the game easier that its famous ancestor are 1) the enemies cannot turn midway (and changing this would go **miles** to make the game more challenging), 2) the enemies do not follow you (BUT this is entirely reasonable seeing the high speed!! Do keep it this way! XD), and 3) the regular cycle makes ‘strong’ phases both predictable and infinite. Graphics are simple but clear and effective, music is grand, sounds are cute (and funny)… but lack a dot-eating one, while this is the main activity! I think one would enhance feeling. So, my main criticism is that the game would need to deal with the enemies’ turning ability to really get challenging, and as a secondary suggestion, maybe some other mechanic/twist would have helped the game both depart more from *Pac-Man* and get the cycle more interesting to deal with. Other than that, the game is neat and feels; perhaps using a square and diamonds feels a bit prototypical, but hey, I like prototypes and experimental vibes. :)

Thanks for the classic arcade take!

The Other Side by Dafan 2022-10-17T09:09:45Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. "Use WASD to move around, use Q and E to switch weapons, aim with our mouse, and move your turret with your mouse." -> both the controls and concept of independent aiming turret remind of [*HURTEC*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/hurtec)! 2. simple hand-drawn homemade graphics including for the button, I like the spirit :) 3. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled; still, since you also use Q and E as in *HURTEC*, this may get complicated for me! :s Yet, it does XD 4. the action gets quickly on! I think giving the player some pause at the beginning to figure out what is happening would help 5. funny music XD But what the heck is happening?! 6. funny and effective weapon sounds, I like them 7. got it: the game alternates between an on-the-field action phase and a ‘tower defence’ buying phase 8. I like how the health bars have the same crosshatched drawing style as the buttons :) I also like the grey-coloured style 9. weird, buying more towers still only displays one? Is it more like upgrading the only tower, actually? 10. the fact that the player character can leave the screen makes is sometimes hard to get the action; there even seems to be some kind of bug where the character will keep moving in some direction, so I have a hard time keeping him on the screen! Apparently, this bug happens to me every time upon the second on-the-field phase 11. the rifle seems not to shoot! (contrary to all other weapons) Is this a bug? 12. getting a sense of when we collide with / get hit by the enemies is somewhat hard; I think some other indication (in addition to the nice health bar) would help, including a sound (and perhaps a visual cue) 13. the ‘tower defence’ phase seems to lack a bit of strategy: if I am not mistaken (but I may be…), mashing the buying button is pretty much the optimal strategy 14. I often die at the second on-the-field phase (actually, I think I only survived it during my 2nd run XD) 15. managed to survive for several rounds, but the fact (bug?) that the player character is put somewhere outside the screen each round makes things very difficult! :o @krynxx I think this happens even without moving at all: I tested staying still, and the translation was still triggered at some point 16. I noticed earlier that the building/castle seemed to move a bit, but am unsure as to what happens. Suddenly realize: this was caused by my clicks on the button, you can actually drag and drop it! 17. tried putting the castle to the right, it was quickly destroyed at the next round. Not sure how we are supposed to use this feature 18. am I attacked by my own tower?! Wait, you can actually shoot the tower (which would make sense since its health bar turns red), and also the castle (is this friendly fire?)… There seems to be some ‘contrarian’ mechanic, that would match the title, but I am still unsure how the game really works; maybe a counterbalance/counterincentive to buying too many towers, which would respond to my previous remark. Destroying the castle from the start: yes, lost, so, feels like friendly fire X)

**Takeaway:** the concept of alternating between live action and ‘tower defence’ with (if I understood correctly!!) the catch that your own towers become enemies sounds original to me, and a good idea, but as CodeRaurus said, I think the game lacks some clarity in what happens. Also, I advise you to fix the positioning bug, it does massively hinder the player! Agreed with CodeRaurus on graphics and feedback, although just a little something when elements get hit is missing in my view.

Thank you, especially for the concept and hand-drawn looks. :)

PS: I realize you opted out of ‘Audio’, but I think the music/jingle and sound effects were nice. :)

What are you doing with your life? by Nezteb 2022-10-21T10:05:42Z

I get the following error for the embedded version.

>**Uh oh!** > >If you're seeing this error, it means I can't find your index.html file. > >This usually means you created your .zip file by zipping the entire folder, and index.html is somewhere like MyGame/index.html. If you recreate your .zip with index.html file in the root, this error should go away. > >See the embedding guide for more details. ludumdare.com/resources/guides/embedding/ > >**404 Not Found**

Far. by Honey Pony 2022-10-04T15:40:16Z

##### Semi-on-the-fly remarks:

1. Introduction screen, (soothing) music and background all feel very atmospheric.

2. The presentation of the written tutorial as an in-game manual is once again a sweet immersive idea; nevertheless, this is the classic problem of having to fit loads of information at once, which can be much of an intake for the player. Having a tutorial, either explicit or even better, implicit (and intuitive), is generally better, but this is easier said than done.

3. By the way, I notice that distance still decreases while reading said manual, which is nice here.

4. The whole idea of having to decide which aspect of the ship to enhance (speed / engine, charge / solar panels) in order to reach the destination faster reminds me of the spatial victory from *Civilization II*. (I think this was the same in *Civilization III*? Sudden doubt.)

5. Swinging wrench for resources: an equivalent for *Minecraft*’s versatile pickaxe? ;)

6. Finished reading the manual: quite a mouthful! Of course, you can get back to reading it depending on what you want further information about, but this is still much to take.

7. I was afraid when I read ‘WASD’ that the controls would not be layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), but they are. :)

8. Checking the upgrade station: wow, that is many resources combinations, for the costs! :o I anticipate that this and the presence of six types of resources will make things complicated.

9. By the way, I love the whole in-game interface, this is once again very immersive, and intuitive.

10. Gathering resources: a thought occurs to me: is there any defeat condition? I may have missed something, but it looks like there is not. Judging by the introduction, I thought there would be some time limit / countdown, but I do not see any. I think this would have added challenge; although the game apparently goes for somewhat long-term investment from the player, so it would be super frustrating to lose. I think some compromise between more challenge and shorter game-solving may have been a nice mix, but this all depends on the kind of time is aimed at. Alternatively and more reasonably, some kind of setback (instead of crudely losing) could fulfil this challenge role.

11. Wow, you can even visit the solar panels! I like the whole ship design, it is massive. By the way, the nice fading link when you go out in space (a nice visual addition!) disappears when you go towards the sides and back of the ship; is this expected? (I forgot to say how cute the main character is. :))

12. I may also have got this wrong, but where does the 10-second effect from the introduction show up? I would expect the distance to increase every ten seconds. Oh, wait, it does! X) I think maybe just a tiny visual effect would help realize this, such as having the distance counter get red and bigger for a split second. Also, mechanically/game-wise speaking, since the initial speed is 1 light year per second, this is equivalent to staying still, and more generally, to have a ‘real’ speed of ‘face speed’ - 1 ly/s. So, correct me if I am wrong, but this means that the theme is incorporated essentially *narratively*, but not really as a game mechanic, since what happens is reducible to merely having some speed (to increase). (Except if you get a 10-ly increase that makes you arrive in two distance updates instead of one, if one wants to get ultra rigorous about it.)

13. Visiting a first planet; ah, I see, the types of resources on the ground are different from those you find in outer space. By the way, I have not played *No Man’s Sky*, but I have seen a bit from it, and this may be reminiscent of it. (Including reaching the ‘centre of the universe’, I believe?)

14. Showing the ‘UPGRADE!’ buttons only when usable is a good idea, it simplifies a bit having to check what amount is right or not. The same for reddish numbers when a quantity is lacking.

(1/3)

Far. by Honey Pony 2022-10-04T15:40:37Z

(continued: 2/3)

15\. It looks like the battery is charging quite fast even at level 1, and so, the solar panels upgrade is relatively useless. (Unless I am again missing something.)

16\. The fact that there is (apparently) one type of resource on planets 1 and 2 (and I imagine 3) makes it more simple that I had imagined to care for resource collection. (Discard this, it does depend on each journey!)

17\. My strategy is simply to upgrade the wrench a bit (long-term investment to increase return on investment / resource collection speed), upgrade the battery whenever I can to reach all resources (and this is finished by level 3), and then have a mix of increasing the wrench and engine. Although I guess the optimal strategy would be to compute rather precisely an estimate of how to achieve the least time by increasing solely the wrench and then at some point only the engine? (Or you have to take into account the distance travelled while onboard, which makes things more complicated… Although I guess the previous speed stages are almost negligible compared to final speed, as the speed upgrades seem more or less exponential, so I think my strategy holds: only final speed is really worth something! **Suggestion:** change the environment, such as resources, depending on distance already travelled, so that there is an incentive not to delay upgrading the engine.)

18\. There might be a bug on the ‘Navigation’ screen, with the planets’ visuals; for example, once I unlocked planet 3, checking the screen also shows a green planet 1 instead of a white one. I think a similar phenomenon already happened after unlocking planet 2. (A bit after: I realize the planets are random, which is coherent with the fact that the ship is moving… Silly me, sorry!) (Later: thinking about it, isn’t it weird that the suggested planets stay the same for one boarding session, since the ship is travelling? I guess the most logical outcome would be to show one only once having clicked ‘FLY!’. I know, this is super nitpicking. X) Thinking about it, there is also the constant speed for the stars outside the ship. But I like the current poetry of the scenery!)

19\. Ah, two types of resources on planet 3 instead of one; and it looks like this makes planet 2 moot! Checking the manual once more, I notice it says that planet 3 is better than 2, which is true, but it also says that 2 is better than 1, while they have totally different incomparable resources, I think. NO, the planets are random, discard my previous sentences! Nevertheless, this means that planets 1 and 2 are moot and that the best strategy is to always select planet 3. Except if the coloured visual indicates which type of resources is dominant, in which case, depending on the player’s current needs, it may be a good idea to take this into account. No, apparently, the type of resource is independent on the colour/terrain. Later: apparently, the advantage of planet 1 (and possibly 2) is that the probability of getting rock may be higher. Or, if you are lucky, you have more of the only resource that you need more of.

20\. Silly small detail: the sixth resource (that you get by breaking the small red spheres) reminds me of the atom item from *Earthworm Jim*. (And you also have some space scenery in this latter game, by the way!)

21\. Personal experience: leaves are almost useless (and I end up having a lot), while wood is the scarcest while useful (and this is in accordance with rolferm’s experience). (Star dust may also be somewhat useless? And meteorites come as a close second for the scarce-and-useful category.) If the game intends at getting the player realize deforestation, then, well played. ;) Although we are encouraged to take part in it… Mixed signals, there!

22\. Tried to upgrade the solar panels, as this is now inexpensive to me: there is even a maximum level for them, so this is straightforward. And actually, the battery still takes some noticeable time to charge!

(2/3)

Far. by Honey Pony 2022-10-04T15:40:57Z

(continued: 3/3)

23\. Finally getting a tree-only planet!! (For planet 3.) First time this happens (and more than welcome), and my run is already really advanced.

24\. Final levels for engine and wrench: 19 and 17. Although 18 for engine would have been sufficient.

25\. Reached the centre!! Wow, once again, poetic scenery. Hey, what happens if you go way further? I do not want to risk a crashing bug at this point of the game! XD Going to the core… Nothing happens?? Is this normal? Letting the game run, I do not want to miss something!!

**Takeaway:** an immersive and sweet 2D take at spatial exploration with resource gathering and management, which once again reminds me of both *Minecraft* and (legitimately?) *No Man’s Sky*. My main criticism would be the lack of challenge/tension: the game would feel really complete and more engaging with some danger/risk element to put the player to the test! (Do add one if you can. :)) My secondary criticism would be that I wish the theme had a real impact on gameplay; it could be a good idea to solve both aspects at the same time: for example, every ten seconds, the fact that the ‘center of the universe’ draws away could have some dire consequences on the environment (planets and/or ship). Also as a minor note, some resource balancing could help, and also making the solar panels more useful (in some way), but this is mainly parameter tweaking business. ;)

Thanks for the space journey. :) (But this was a long one, and I am already such a slow reviewer while this is the second game I test and I still have not had the time to take care of my own v1.1; I wish there was a lifespan filter so I can alternate and check more games. XD)

PS: are you allowed to tweak the parameters so that the current playable version gets reasonably shorter? This would seem fair to me (parameter tweaking does not feel like ‘adding features’), and help more testers reach the end.

PPS: I forgot to say that some resource icons may be a little bit hard to distinguish, at least when starting the game; I then got used to them, so, nothing serious.

Far. by Honey Pony 2022-10-05T10:22:26Z

@honey-pony Thanks for your answer!

> I thought I could technically tie in the Ludum Dare theme with a little bit of writing. But I certainly was not trying to meaningfully incorporate the theme.

This is evil, speaking as someone that legitimately only really brainstorm once the theme is out and lost a massive amount of time because of it. ;))

I totally forgot to put up my final screen capture!

**WARNING: SPOILER (apparently, Markdown does not allow you to make something wrap-unwrap…)**

The flowery core!

Following Footsteps by NiKaDra 2022-10-21T13:56:34Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. I see you gave the itch.io page as the link for the source code, but I only see the ZIP for the executable there (without code in it)! Did you forget to put the file, or put the wrong link? You can still correct this ;) 2. start: I thought this was a profile 2D game and was trying to jump X) Silly me 3. very immersive and frightening music! Well done; the ghostly screaming effect is great too. And I like the graphics for the man. And also the lamp’s tiny halo! And the greater "floaty" halo :) 4. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. 5. the footsteps sound, while fitting in itself, feels a bit off; maybe the feet’s animation would have to be sped up a bit to match it? 6. the concept reminds me of some games, such as [*Holeworm*](https://itch.io/jam/mini-jam-112-chrono/rate/1653683); so, some people already thought about it (even the evil clones from *Super Mario Galaxy* fit this!), but I still like it :) 7. I like the pithy "rune" indication! :) Although I managed to figure out the concept before through the title and capture. So, great job quickly conveying what is happening! Still, I think triggering the phenomenon only ONCE you have SEEN the rune would be better (and make this open a portal to the "dungeon", for example), as I was losing before even really starting to play. 8. feels like a mix between an exploration/adventure game, speed game, and puzzle game! Great 9. trying to walk intelligently, but this is not that easy with the limited visibility in the darkness (I used myself such a torchlight mechanic in several games, it is useful) 10. suddenly thinking about the theme: I guess you get a "ghost" every ten seconds 11. reached 2nd zone! 12. haha, got the key at my first attempt, then explored the two dead-ends: hilarious runes by Captain Obvious XD 13. would have liked a pause feature (to take notes!) by the way, but this is a detail 14. oh great, varied runes, with riddles! :D Path puzzle: I think the first rune displaying the solution was not necessary, but I guess this is better to make sure some players do not get stuck for not getting what is happening. Managed the puzzle on my first time, got caught RIGHT after XD The game is stressful!! 15. glad the start of each zone acts as a checkpoint! :) The length of the areas feels reasonable, up to now 16. 3rd zone: WOW, synchronizing seems hard, because you have to gauge how your pasts behave taking into account precise ten-second intervals! :o All the while being able to escape the dead-ends… 17. managed it at my real (= non-dying XD) 2nd attempt; waiting a bit was enough. You managed to design clever yet manageable time puzzles, well done 18. 4th zone: merely rushing to the end was enough; was the idea to have decoy doors? I think it should have been made a little more labyrinthy if this is the case 19. 5th zone: wow, straightfoward, yet makes you think again! By the way, makes me realize the ticks; useful, yet not unnerving, these ticks sound entirely natural, as if fitting the music’s beat :) 20. managed 5th zone by being super slow; not sure if there was another way, but I think you could have placed way less switches — unless my slow solution was suboptimal and a bit dumb X) 21. 6th zone: again!! :o Oh, bug? The door opens right away! Coming back to look a bit: now I get it for here and 5th zone: there is a DELAY so that switches stay activated for some time XD Very good idea, I wish I had noticed earlier… 22. 7th zone (somewhat "skipping" 6th zone, although I got the general idea :p) 23. I like how the candles float when in UI :) 24. weird, could reach the end without exploring! Retracing my steps to explore more; decoy puzzle (North-East)? 25. and decoy dead-end to the North-West. This is great, BUT I think some way of challenging the player so that he cannot reach the end too easily should be found, in the architecture of the level

(1/2)

Following Footsteps by NiKaDra 2022-10-21T13:56:45Z

(continued: 2/2)

26. also, the darkened doors are not always that visible; maybe lighten them a bit? 27. reached 8th zone. Oh, zoom out and additional music layer! :) Is this the end? OH NO, while taking notes, error message (about texture), music gets launched several times, several such error messages, and the game finally crashes (and closes my Sublime Text)!! <:o I feel like I am going to have to do all the levels once again to come back here… :S Entering SPEEDRUNNING mode, because I want to see the end 28. launching again: weird, no fullscreen this time 29. ah, in 3rd zone again, I get that there was little to no delay for the buttons there, which is why I missed it in 5th! Maybe differentiate the buttons (through colour, for example)? 30. 4th zone again: there was a key upwards! Did not need it the first time: bug? 31. a series of keys, actually! So, I think the fact that the end door is already openable is a bug. Glad to see I missed the concept of this level! 32. it IS hard XD Had the last key when caught, I think; now getting to the end :p 33. 5th zone: the delay is about 5 seconds, so I can go about two times faster 34. it still takes long X) But less! 35. by the way, I love the distortion effect on the red ghosts. Great for immersion too 36. reached the final room!! **[spoiler]** the alarm clock reminds me of my (yet to be debugged and finished) *Clock Work: Wake-Up Call* ;) 37. the zooming out is great dramatisation, too 38. what to do? Caught; now, I understand the bug: in the final zone, there is apparently no resetting of the ghost generation, which makes you then quickly followed by a lot of them; so, I have to hurry! 39. **[spoiler]** after several tries, figured those squares were not pillars (I wrongly thought so because of the architecture!), but regular switches! 40. WON!! :D The final lap! (F-Zero X voice)") 41. and this gives a final crash! :o Although I get to see the (simple) ending screen. :) Also, the ticking poetically continues at least a little bit! Is this intended? :) Bug report: >___________________________________________ >############################################################################################ >ERROR in >action number 1 >of Alarm Event for alarm 0 >for object oGame: > >Unable to find any instance for object index '13' name 'oPlayer' >at gml_Object_oGame_Alarm_0 >############################################################################################ >gml_Object_oGame_Alarm_0 (line -1)

**Takeaway:** wow, what an experience! Already seen this concept, but it was put to good use here, especially as the ten seconds are important in relation to the switches. The pithy visual in-game rune tutorials were absolutely great, there were various puzzle types and mechanics, and a respectable amount of levels (8, if I counted correctly), often not so short (not taking the two buggy already opened final doors into account :p). The game was often rather challenging, starting upon the very first level! Small criticisms would include that some things were a bit hard to see (doors, keys, difference between switch types) and some levels could be revamped (especially, level 7 with the straight way to the candles, and level 5 with less switches; maybe also level 6, but I "cheated" :p). The sounds, music, darkness, and even zooming-outs from the last level made the whole experience immersive and tense! (I jumped at least once when caught by a ghost.)

This was a GREAT game (gem!), I am rather impressed you put so much into so little time! :) I cannot believe so few people have seen it (only two votes at the time of my writing), please DO test some other games so that yours get more feedback and rated!!

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Zombie Street by badoomtch 2022-10-13T21:01:38Z

@steffo I run into the very same problem (under Firefox); actually, checking the navigator console, I see the following, which I also got for other games (including trying to embed mine here X)).

> WEBGL_debug_renderer_info is deprecated in Firefox and will be removed. Please use RENDERER. WEBGL.loader.js:1:9894 > > Uncaught DOMException: The operation is insecure.

Also, opening the [itch.io link](https://badoomtch.itch.io/zombie-street) gives me a 404 error! And I see no trace of the game on [badoomtch’s page](https://badoomtch.itch.io/).

I will try a desktop version; @steffo, cannot you try one? If you are using Linux, Wine should run the Windows version, for example (I just saw someone — Ale — say he did so for [another game](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/10-seconds-or-less)).

PS: it does work on desktop! :)

Zombie Street by badoomtch 2022-10-14T06:30:18Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. judging by the description, you went by the classic *randomness* interpretation of the theme 2. title screen: I like the city scenery! As for the music: I have mixed feelings, because there is a sweetness, but the *tones* are a bit aggressive, more so than classic Game Boy. Did you use a tracker by any chance? If so, it should be easy to switch some of the samples to softer waves. :) Still, the music volume setting is then a welcome one! Yes, sounds good when lower :) 3. characters feel like Lego! Cute :) 4. haha, mouth-made firing sound? (with randomised pitch) I like the handcraftiness 5. I love how the character and bazooka (coherent) rotations are different 6. the settings panel can serve as a pause mode, which is good, but maybe adding a proper pause button (next to it, for example) would be useful 7. the random changes seem to have very little impact on what happens to me; the zombies are easy to take down. I guess parameters should be balanced. Later: **discard that**, I realize things get *progressively harder*, which is good! Maybe you should just make it happen a bit faster? Later: actually, no, there *is* a mix of advantages and drawbacks as I thought; I think some way of ensuring that things get progressively harder would be good: for example, some global parameter metric/weighting that should evolve. This is close to Jeremia’s idea, although I think you cannot overdecrease some of the player’s parameters; Diego Escalante’s suggestion is even closer; and Rialgar’s too; KokkakNiphon’s is also an interesting addition 8. if you have maximal supply of ammo and a supply penalty, you then have more than maximal ammo (10/9, for example) 9. you can still get the shooting sound and rotation while in settings menu ;) Oh, actually, this allows you to ‘order’ shots (and cheat)!! And also, forced to shoot to open it 10. although I enjoy the music, I think some more dire vibe would have better matched the zombie invasion/panic! This one is still right for the title screen 11. I really like that shooting works like artillery instead of straight lines :) 12. "BULLET FORCE DECREASED BY 200": nice, physical change! 13. getting hit on purpose (because this still had to happen! X)): oh, not that much damage, and with moderate rate! But you apparently cannot heal, which may make up for it 14. for the record: reaching 280 points; stopping there, letting myself lose. Hey, since zombies align themselves colliding, are we hit only by the closest ones? Also: restarting resets at least the music volume (but not in the interface). And zombies keep spawning during the game over screen, making it a giant line that moves from time to time as a snake! One zombie guy even ended up on top of it XD Ravenous zombie snake.

**Takeaway:** lots of nice things (cuteness, physics, {movement + firing + hitting} details, scenery, sounds…), but the biggest thing that could use tinkering is how difficulty is managed, as others said (and there were good suggestions, see above), and secondly, get some more variety. I also thought the theme connection and game concept are classic, although fair and working. Oh yes, maybe add a nice hitting sound, for sensations. :)

Thanks for the game, you can enhance it to make the most of its potential!

Dead End Job by Codeman1010 2022-10-12T15:55:42Z

As a coincidence, I took a look at Ludum Dare 50’s *Claustrowordia* on 06/10/2022’s night and noticed [your comment](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/claustrowordia) from the previous day, which brought me to this place. :)

##### Semi-on-the-fly remarks:

1. Judging by the description, the concept seems extremely close to that of ‘time management’ shop ‘casual games’ (such as the *Emily* series), including the thought bubbles from the banner. Did you draw any inspiration from it? :) I wonder if you injected some originality into it.

2. Tutorial/Explanation text at the beginning; nice to have given some context! Nevertheless, as to guidance per se, it is often a lot for a player to take; it may not always be easy, but if you get the chance, conveying the mechanics progressively (either explicitly or implicitly) helps. Also, small detail: the sight / small white dot is displayed in front of the text panel.

3. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) AND arrow keys are enabled.

4. I like how the manual is *inside* the game, at the beginning! The very same happened in [*Far.*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/far), the previous game I tested, amusingly. :)

5. You can even see the scenery outside through the window; this, other details and the music all add to the immersion. (And you can even switch the radio off!)

6. Haha, classic 2D ‘billboard’ effect for the shelf products! Although I notice a very tiny ‘bug’: since they are always facing the player (as expected), their shadows vary instead of staying fixed. I guess you used real 3D panes. (Side story: I did the same thing for a MonoGame 3D labyrinth as a test for 3D with 2D sprites. Although I have no shadows there. ;))

7. Starting game properly speaking; checking out is intuitive enough, although I was wondering first if you had to go behind the counter, and yes you do — which is legitimate. ;)

8. I think it is hard to tell what customers are looking for in general and what is depleted, because the subjective 3D view only allows you to have a small partial viewpoint of the global situation, as opposed to a global 2D top view (as in the time management games I mentioned earlier). Suggestion: have some UI element that shows the amount for each type and the current customers’ needs! This would not make the (great) interactive indications moot, as you would still need to go and see which precise shelves need to be taken care of. Or even better if you want everything to be ‘in game’: have some screen(s) displaying this, either near the counter or as a portable device. :)

9. Shift ends; I get an F! :o I checked out every customer that came, but only four are satisfied according to the balance sheet… I really had trouble getting a sense of whether shortages had a big impact or not, despite my upgrading various shelving!

10. In the end, this is somewhat **different** from the time management games I was thinking of, as you do not need to act according to each client (by following a recipe or providing him some specific product/service), but act on the global *supply*.

11. Second run (!! pun not intended XD): testing Left Shift: I realize you can run! Not said in the manual; I guess this stems for some classic control scheme you used. ;) No crouching, though!

12. The unhappy thought bubbles do help getting where products are missing, actually! But I still think some more indications would help.

13. Some delivery points seem not to change visually depending on their supplies, which would help. (I am thinking of the drink machine and the toilet).

(1/2)

Dead End Job by Codeman1010 2022-10-12T15:55:51Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** I really like the immersion (the subjective view helps a lot) into a seller’s shoes, and the intuitive indications and interactions. The downside of this is that getting what is happening globally is harder, and that some global indicators would have helped. I think the connection to the theme is reasonable although not that central to the mechanics, since having a regular flow of customers is customary (! pun unintended) in such management games. I still liked how you did *not* copy-paste the ‘standard’ time management games mentioned above! As for graphics, I like having good old 2D sprites in a 3D environment, and showing the scenery outside. I think sounds were nice, although some more may have also helped getting more of the action (I am thinking of some grunting in addition to the unhappy thought bubbles!); the radio is really a great addition for the atmosphere, including the soothing music and chatter voice.

Thanks for the immersive experience!

Dead End Job by Codeman1010 2022-10-12T15:59:05Z

@pennycook It may depend on the navigator, but for me, the game could take focus again by clicking on it. (I use Firefox.)

@la-bread Actually, Left Shift does seem to make you run! ;)

HURTEC by Trexxak 2022-10-14T16:05:24Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. wow, sweet music! What did you use? :) 2. went for the ‘time limit’ interpretation of the theme (which at least [*10 seconds or less*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/10-seconds-or-less) also did, including clearing out levels) 3. timer goes on during level 1 explanations (but not for level 2, weirdly) 4. Oh no… Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard). And this is **not** the kind of game where my fingers enjoy this. :o XD I was wondering upon reading the description 5. "wololo" -> nice keeping alive the *Age of Empires* references ;) 6. progressive interactive tutorial: great!! 7. showing 0 and 1 instead of Left and Right is nerd-oriented ;) 8. concept is interesting (pretty much QTEs on steroids), but currently, in practice, looks like furiously bashing the keyboard without even getting a chance to move! Suggestion: remove movement altogether? 9. WHAT?! I do not get how I am supposed to win the first level that has enemy ‘mechs’ in it: the binary sequences are way too long!! <:o (right after) Ah, made it with a gigantic superpowered shot! 10. next level: that homing shot looks like billiards! XD 11. last level: using the same technique, made it in just a matter of seconds! Actually, a single superpowered shot wipes out the screen, and this seems to be the optimal (very simple!!) strategy. So, beat the game super rapidly, I was expecting hell because of QWERTY movement controls (which I did not need at all in the end!) and two levels before, but this turned out fine! By the way, the timer went up to 11 shortly after I won; expected? The end, my friend. 12. agreed with fabula_rasa (and you ;)) that the main character could stand out some more 13. while writing the conclusion, testing clicking on the upper-right square: oh, this *is* a button! XD It was not obvious to me

**Takeaway:** the (original) concept **does** have potential, but I think the 10-second time limit plays against it by making everything like a frenzied semi-blind QTE experience. Suggestion: instead of making whole levels as 10 seconds, just ask for some *action* or *group of actions* to be performed each under 10 seconds successively! This would also allow more movement (for example, some sequences could be based on movement, or some 10-second sequence groups could be triggered only at some points), which I really did not use. Superpowering one’s shots is pleasant (as is movement with its sounds and two independent body halves, which I tried more… after the end XD), the background is nice too, the characters and story setting (cleverly developed through the tutorial!) are nice, and I love the soothing music (well done!). And progressive tutorials are a scarce yet great feature: good job once again. So, to recap my main criticism, I would say the game could become even more engaging and challenging by incorporating the theme just *a bit* differently, this is really the only big shortcoming I see.

Do not hesitate to enhance the game, there is definitely something! :) Thanks, and once again, especially for the music, I could let it play for the rest of the day. XD

PS:

> I didn’t intend the missile to be interpreted as a cotton ball, but I like the idea a lot :D

This is *Yoshi’s Island* all over again. With mechs. X)

1,2,3... 10 soleil ! by FullSaphir 2022-10-21T16:19:58Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. French title (I did too!) -> French, by any chance? ;) (I am) (by the way, I also realized one could compare an aspect of game to "1, 2, 3, Soleil !" / "Red Light, Green Light" and I mentioned it on the page) 1. "Well… Not really what I would call a great game" -> do not bash yourself ;) It is fine not to have had enough time to realize the full thing; you can still do so after :) 2. "However, I didn’t create the sounds myself. The source of the sounds I used are in the zip file." -> I thought you had to per the [rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules); an exception is sampling, and you can use a sound generator… Since you did opt out from ‘Audio’ and told about it quite earenestly, this is in good faith, so no worries for me, but just saying to warn about the greater restrictions in Compo format. 3. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). And weirdly enough, for arrows, only Up and Down work. 4. wow, that escalated fast! Already dead XD 5. I think this is the first Unreal Engine game I see with (voluntary) aliasing! Nice retro effect 6. I love how the "walls" get inside/outside the ground :) 7. I think I survived once by staying a bit further behind a protective wall! Is it a bug, and we should only stay in the red areas (as one other time), or not and shadows are sometimes fair game (I tried once and failed)? (later: seen Lex’s comment, this is not clear (!)) (later: seen your answer! bug) 8. noticed those pellets to the right! Tricky, and clever (by the way, pellets are another coincidence between our games ^^) 9. beat the game! Difficulty was reasonable in the end; at first, I had not noticed the small "upper" red area, but it made things way more workable. I guess you could set a hard mode with one (or two??) less such area 10. the Great Red Light of Doom is beautiful by the way (and the accompanying shadows) 11. and the increasing Great Sound of Doom is so tense! While the sound right after conjures up images of desert or empty stellar space… Well done for creating such an atmosphere with so little!! 12. final thought: the geometric aliased "walls" have me thinking of *Starwing* / *Star Fox* :) 13. (post-final thought :p) agreed with zoglu that additional levels would bring the game to another level (I swear the pun was unintended! XD)

**Takeaway:** a tense, original, and effective simple intuitive game! It is easy to see how it could be extended, with more levels — and possibly more mechanics, but I think merely clever design can already achieve quite a puzzly effect; I already found myself wondering what route could be a solution here. Graphics are simple yet readable (this is the most important to me!), sounds are both simple (too bad you did not make them! :p) and incredibly well used. Using "1, 2, 3, Soleil !" for the theme was a great idea (as CaptainDreamcast stated of [*Stand-Off*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/stand-off): it makes you go "Of course!").

Thanks for a great effective take on the theme, just a bit short; since you say you may fix the bug, maybe you will also extend it? :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Meteor Rain - LD51 by Frabather 2022-10-13T15:12:58Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. @gonzalol Agreed on programmer art; as a programmer, I am willing to give extra points for it. :3 I wish there were a ‘Programmer art’ category/criterion! 2. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard). 3. orienting the hero towards the firing direction would help knowing the mouse is placed rightly 4. orienting zombies according to movement would also help 5. A hitting sound (when you get a zombie) would give more sensations, I advise you to add one! :) 6. Jumping upgrade starts at -1 (a negative number): is this normal? Or random maybe (one gave me $2 instead of $1). 7. Opening the shop pauses the game, which is nice; I think having a pause key would be nice, although this is a detail. 8. Weird, some of the zombies I took down did not yield money! Is this normal? 9. The background is really beautiful! This also causes some kind of mismatch between its style and the programmer art, but I am totally fine with it. :) 10. I tried saving some blocks to ward off any nasty unavoidable meteorites, but I got caught by surprise; losing in one hit is somewhat punishing!! :s Maybe too much so, since you have to hold for 10 whole minutes? 11. I think jumping is not so useful: even with the basic bow, you can take out all zombies, and avoiding meteorites is more a matter of horizontal movement and block using. Also, jumping may feel a bit too ‘floaty’. This only comes down to mere parameter tweaking to make the zombies grow more dangerous over time. :) 12. I like the music, by the way! :) Sounds may be a bit low, but once again, mere parameter tweaking. 13. Funny how meteorites also wipe out the zombies. X) 14. Apparently, the shop choices are randomly displayed. This makes you close and then reopen until you get what you are interested in. Also, control suggestion: assign the same key for opening and closing the shop. 15. Ah, right-clicking while in shop triggered the bow sound. 16. Got the pistol! No sound? Ah, yields more money? 17. I realize there is a confusion in the shop: the price should be in *dollars*, not in *coins* (which serve for blocks) 18. I noticed coins may appear near the borders where the zombies pop, which makes them dangerous to pick up; although it looks like zombies are prevented from popping then? If so, nice attention! 19. bug: after picking up a coin far to the right, I could only shoot rightwards!! Then made me lose, while I was saving already more than $40 for the $75 rifle target! <:o 20. I like the attention to detail in both the arrows and meteorites’ trails 21. the optimal strategy seems to only buy coin probability increase (and possibly a bit of speed), as the only real threat is meteorites (see above); except if the pistol give you more money (unsure, looks like not) 22. haha, arrows can deviate meteorites? X) 23. 10 minutes may be too long given the one-shot losing; trying to get the rifle for testing, but keep on losing because of meteorite shower at some point! (I was at more than $60) 24. did not try increasing firing rate because I want to get that rifle… 25. Lost again… <:( Stopping for now, although I am curious about the rifle and ending! If you could tell or show more, please do. :) Writing down this game in my list of games to finish!!

(1/2)

Meteor Rain - LD51 by Frabather 2022-10-13T15:13:10Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** concept can totally work, *but* in my opinion, a balancing overhaul (zombie hazards — which would make weapons and jumping more relevant —, meteorite hazards **or** lowering total time **or** having life points **or** making blocks sturdier and/or longer) is what the game would immensely benefit from. I enjoyed the graphics, but am biased towards programmer art. ;) Sounds are nice too, but some more would help feeling the action. Likewise, some more animation/orientation would help the player. I like how the concept focuses on the *regularity* implied by the theme; the mechanics are classic but go well together (action + shop is a nice combination!). I was already feeling some fun, and I am sure balancing would add a lot of variety, especially allowing the player to get the weapons quicker. :)

Thanks for the game! Although you did make my life hard with the one-hit-kills-you + 10-minute survival combo, as I am a quite comprehensive reviewer. XD

(By the way, I found your game as second in the Classic ordering; my understanding is that the default Smart ordering/filter helps you more if you review and reward comments, in case you are interested in more feedback for your game, notwithstanding having already reached the voting quorum.)

PS: just took a look at the source code out of curiosity, and saw this in ShopLogic.cs which I think is funny. ;)

default: Debug.Log("Expect... the unexpected...");

Meteor Rain - LD51 by Frabather 2022-10-13T15:51:13Z

@real-human-1000

> It seemed like I couldn’t jump on top of platforms I had built

Funnily enough, I also thought this was their use at the beginning! But then I realized you should rather be *below* them than on *top*, because they are much more of a protection against meteors (think of *Worms Armageddon*!) than against zombies. ;)

Pac-Mouse Survival by Thoastbot 2022-10-12T22:34:18Z

Hey there, fellow *Pac-Man*-themed game creator. ;))

##### Semi-on-the-fly remarks:

1. Small misspelling: ‘the labyrinth you life in’ -> ‘live’ 2. The big explanation picture reminds me of what I did in several previous games. :) The optimal target is that a player can understand the game while playing it through a progressive introduction of mechanics, but this can get hard to set up in such a short time. I think yours does a clear job! Also, I already like the simple effective hand-drawn style, including the implicit ‘colour code’. 3. Some misspellings in said picture: ‘THROU’ -> ‘THROUGH’, ‘Enemys’ -> ‘Enemies’ (four times modulo letter case), ‘labyrith’ -> ‘labyrinth’. And I would have written ‘you’ and possibly ‘damage’ instead of colloquial ‘u’ (two times) and ‘dmg’, but then again, I am such a fussy guy. X) 4. ‘The project is made in Javascript, no librarys. I always see Ludum Dare as a coding challenge, so i try to stay as basic as possible’ -> I like the spirit! :) I also see things this way; I used a low-level framework, but do you mean you did not even use any framework at all? (For the record, I saw [someone announce](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/$301360/ludum-dare-hard-mode) that he would try building his own C engine during the event. Kudos to people that take it this far, although this seems insanely hard to me. XD) 5. ‘tried to use some own recorded sounds and tweak them to sound fitting!’ -> Did you use Audacity, or other software? I am interested in expanding my (almost non-existing) audio skills. :) 6. ‘(Download is untouched - online version is updated)’ -> Is it for archiving purposes? You can still upload several versions and clearly indicate which is which. (I numbered my own versions, and specified when they were ‘out of the competition’.) 7. The stated concept on the picture reminds me of the randomness interpretation of the ‘dice roll’ theme, by the way. So, I feel it does give an equal part to *randomness* in addition to regularity (ironically!). 8. Still on the explanation picture: I realize that while the colours for ghost and rage match between cheese and mouse, it is not the same for normal mode; which is logical as these are the normal colours. It may not be a problem for gameplay, just noticing. :) And I also love that the edible enemies are made out of cheese! XD 9. In game: the visual indication of the ten seconds using transparent stripes is clever and practical. 10. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) A nice enhancement would be to display the right keys on the explanation screen to match the layout (and I guess there is some JavaScript way of dealing with this I/O issue) — although I suspect the image is ‘hard-drawn’, which is fine by me. ;) 11. I like the dynamic red exclamation mark above the mouse as an indicator for danger. (Later: ah, this is not when an enemy is near, but when you get to one heart! Which makes more sense as for usefulness.) 12. Wow, things are going fast! :o I noticed in the expa 13. Noticing now on the explanation picture that rage mouse has an angry look and ghostly mouse has no pupils. Nice attention to details! 14. The game over screen asks you to reload to relaunch the game; which is fine, but I think putting a keyboard key would have been just a little more practical. My guess is that you may have had a time problem to properly deal with cleaning memory or this kind of things, so, no problem, better safe than sorry! ;) 15. My second run goes way better! I had trouble the first time around because I was having trouble figuring out how things went and parsing the screen, but now, this is clear. 16. I like the three music pieces; I think I love even more the two special ones (ghost and rage). How did you make the music, by the way? :) 17. The whole game is cute, actually, both visually and ear-wise. Maybe just adding a small animation for moving (even using symmetry for the mouse would do the trick!) and getting hit would have been ni

Pac-Mouse Survival by Thoastbot 2022-10-12T22:34:37Z

(continued: 2/2)

18\. The sounds are funny; I would only say that maybe the cheese-eating sound is less evocative: it may be me, but I think it is less clearly interpretable than the one when eating the ghost cheese, for example. Ironically, this may be the most often heard sound in the game. I suppose this is some variation on ‘nom nom nom’, but something is just *a bit* amiss. Listening later to the WAV file to get it: I think I know! It is just a tad too *fast*, and makes it sound like a wobbling spring to my ears. (Once again: this may be me. XD) This is really nothing serious, just nitpicking for precision’s sake.

19\. Although this is the online version (from ld51.kimrubendavid.com), the mouse still gets stuck when moving diagonally towards walls, despite what the game page says! :o Trying the downloadable version (the ZIP file) to compare if the two are inverted: stuck too. Maybe you need to update the file for the online version, then?

20\. Changing the whole labyrinth so regularly is disorienting — which is the goal, I guess! I wonder if only changing a part of it could be interesting too, for example, only the mouse’s neighbourhood. While still changing bonuses (and enemies?) elsewhere, so that you still get enough? I do not know, this may be a silly idea. X)

21\. A more general note: I like the allusions to *Pac-Man*, but the game and context could get even more reminiscent of it, actually! Which is not a criticism. :) Nevertheless, *in case you want it to be*, I think a key element is how the basic collectibles (here, some other kind of merely scoring cheese) are arranged along *all* paths of the labyrinth (as opposed to only specific places) (and you may *have* to get them all to pass a level, although this could me more complicated given how the labyrinth morphs). On the other hand, the rage transformation does remind me of the Power Pellets (with the enemies turning into (blue? XD) cheese, like the ghosts turn blue). And the (blue) ghost transformation is quite a turnaround. X)

22\. Further rambling: giving the enemies more advanced AI as in *Pac-Man* could be interesting, but it may get more difficult to manage here given the regular random transformation of the labyrinth. I wonder if something would be workable!

23\. Final note: I tend to think that *in general*, games work better when they give a sense of purpose to the player; survival can be an interesting mode or general constraint (after all, there are so-called ‘survival games’!), but having to perform some main task would help give more interest, in my opinion. Actually, my previous suggestion on mimicking *Pac-Man*’s ‘Pac-Dots’ could be a solution (yes, I discovered [this name](https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/Pac-Dot) writing this review), although you may (and should!) want to come up with another original target of yours. :)

24\. Real final note: taking a look at folder showroom: hey, in show2.png, another setting is shown for a labyrinth, with different colours, and I feel like I can better appreciate the texture (than in the grass)! Which is a nice one. :)

**Takeaway:** a sweet mousy context semi-take on *Pac-Man* (the (literally!) cheesy enemies made me laugh), with its own little twists. I enjoyed the cuteness, and the random generation. My criticism would be that I would have wished for a stronger objective. The randomness interpretation of the theme may be somewhat common (I have to confirm this, but it is my impression), but it was used more originally with the labyrinth generation idea. Also, technically impressive to have gone only through JavaScript (beware navigator-related problems, though!! X) It happens for more games than you would think).

Thanks for the sweet moment. :)

PS: I forgot to talk about the mouse’s appearance when you have both ghost and rage powers simultaneously; I would be good to have some visual indication: for example, a blinker between ghost and rage. I was also not sure whether both music tracks were then played at the same time or not; no easy solution for music.

Call me. Maybe? by Martinek 2022-10-21T22:15:56Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. long in-game description! But seems clear. "dissconnect" -> "disconnect"; "collumns" -> "columns" 2. not going to say much more than the others since already quite some comments, EXCEPT that as JMad guessed, I feel that retaining the connection order is entirely part of the challenge! You have to use your memory (my own game is partly a memory game, after all XD), and at my second attempt (which was the real one), I managed to get the hang of it! :) Just blundered a bit, and had some playability/clicking issues that cost me precious split seconds (lost within a hair’s breadth!!). I think I stood my ground for between 4 and 5 minutes, but if I got back to it for a 3rd attempt or 4th attempt (and I will in the future, I think!! Just not now because of the lifesaving testing rush! XD), I definitely think I would make it! Stopping because I have a limited time for each game before the voting deadline. (But I wonder what the end is like!)

**Takeaway:** I think the game works very well, has a great (contextual) take on the theme, and manages to get challenging while staying simple, which possibly a signature of good games! Really forces you to use your short-term memory. Apart from the (little!) playability issue others have raised, I just think 10 minutes is a bit too much, especially if everything stays even (sorry if I missed some variety; maybe the randomisation parameters change during the course?). Also, nice "realistic" graphics, sounds, and clear interface.

A great effective take, thank you! :)

PS: out of curiosity, how did you make the music? :) (And the sounds? Some mouth, or not? ^^)

PPS: forgot to say I love punny titles; I was served. XD

The Useless Clock Machine by ch4b13r 2022-10-16T17:35:58Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. "To escape the meanings of the universe has created" -> is a word missing? 2. the first download link (‘The_Useless_Clock_Machine.zip - 26834103 bytes’) is apparently the same as the second (Mac) one, seeing "MACOSX" and ".app" inside the ZIP, and the fact that the sizes are exactly equal 3. the appearance of the title screen is beautiful and classy! :) Much care, there 4. nice, in-game links! Informative; I also took at the link from the game page: I knew of Marvin Minsky, but am unsure about his specific machine. Looks like a little creature getting emerging from his shell :) 5. the colourful graphics are to the point and do their job, really managed to play intuitively fast enough, although this is a speed game 6. managed to win by 3-0 on my first attempt! I think the player is at an advantage because the mouse can move through the screen, while the handles have to circle around 7. victory screen: nicely presented, I like the sober black and white (which is in contrast with previous colours!) 8. trying to lose to see what happens :) 9. ah, clicking does not necessarily trigger both handles to toggle direction! I wonder how they work precisely… 10. lost (on purpose): all right, you can quickly restart, which is reasonable :)

**Takeaway:** this is a short and simple yet clearly presented game; in particular, the timer is clever (because it is big and located near the action, while not bothersome). I also like the originality of resorting to such a machine concept! I think some sounds could have been welcome, machinery/clockwork ones, for example. :) The graphics have a nice style. I think the connection to the theme could have been stronger, as the time duration is merely used as that of the rounds, instead of a more ‘twisty’ idea. Also, a ‘criticism’ would be that it is so short, but I guess this is intended; it looks like a proof of concept. Big suggestion: have several different ‘useless machines’, which you have to beat each in one (or several?) 10-second challenge each! This would connect the game even more to the theme while adding variety and more lifespan.

Nice little informative experience (I did not know Marthe Troly-Curtin by the way, I think; some more research on the table for me XD), it is great that you explained the inspiration for your thought process! :)

PS: I forgot to say I think the cover/thumbnail is cute! :)

Once Upon A Tiny Time by Mandytoh 2022-10-14T22:20:07Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

[testing the original version and then probably the fixed one]

1. ‘Oh, did I mention those attackers are humans ? And you play as an orc.’ -> I get a *Dungeon Keeper* vibe :) 2. I already expected the game to be super beautiful given the screen captures and size of the team with multiple artists, but I am still impressed by the attention to detail, such as passage of time right in the title screen! 3. this may be an Unreal Engine thing (optimation problem?), but as with many other UE games, I get rather low FPS 4. narrator voice: hahaha, as a Frenchman myself, I totally recognize the heavy French accent I heard more than once! ;) Not being mean, but this there is definitely a gigantic contrast between the quality level of the graphics (this looks professional to my eyes, or comparable) and the prototypical ‘programmer art’ voice ;) *(Les gars, les anglophones vont avoir du mal à piger la voix ! XD)* 5. but seeing the totally comfortable jocular narration, I now wonder if letting the accent is on purpose! XD Extra points for unabashed humour and silliness. (Yes, repeating "grown" and the "next attack" joke all seem to confirm this! HAHAHA, and ‘baguette, vin rouge’!! XD) 6. I get a super hard time getting the action and what to do!! Because we are thrown into the field, not knowing where things are, and 10-second phases makes everything extremely fast; I think a great idea would be including a **slower** tutorial phase, before the 10-second madness begins 7. mixing tower defence and first-person shooting is a great idea! 8. wow, ragdoll physics? Shot a guard at point blank range, and he funnily became ‘auto-entwined’! X) (did not have the time to grasp a capture before disappearance…) 9. the voice starting to blather: also like in *Dungeon Keeper*! Anyway, this may be the funniest game I saw up to this point (even though I did not see many, out of slowness). :) 10. villagers even get bloodied when we shoot others near them! Really **crazy** amount of details 11. suddenly died without noticing why; 2nd run: better following the tutorial! 12. had not noticed the looks of the sweet house! ‘WELCOME’ + flower + bone is funny, and the shape and colours remind me of *Banjo-Kazooie* XD Also notice the ‘hand-drawn’ sketch of a corpse! 13. lost again; by the way, should it not be an orc’s head rather than a human’s head, in the game over screen? ;) 14. the low FPS really makes the game almost unplayable for me… :s BUT: I still get that our weapon is super powerful 15. I wonder if 10-second cycles is really workable to a human player not using a script XD I think the mechanic should maybe be changed in some way so that cycles are workable 16. sometimes, villagers seem to stop for no reason 17. the corpse containers have apparently no fill indication? Would be useful. 18. Switching to the fixed version! (which I am afraid will be too hard; I liked invincible house XD) Ah, so pleased to read ‘French 'AZERTY' keyboard’! :D Nevertheless, PROTIP: you can program keys independently from the layout, so that no key rebinding be necessary. Simple and adaptable: I definitely advise looking into it! 19. hearing/reading the puns once again: I realize some of them will be wasted on non-French speakers ("Dentamerr", "Casinorc", "Lhorque"…) X) 20. Important suggestion: the phase of the day should be made even clearer than what the upper indication currently achieves; you could have its name written in a big font somewhere in a corner of the screen, for example, and a horn play at each new phase 21. Oh my God, my fears were materialized: house destroyed on the very first day! :o ("Olala" XD) You know… I think you should have let the ‘invincible house’ bug in place XD 22. "Change die screen with reason" -> I missed the difference! What is it?

(1/2)

Once Upon A Tiny Time by Mandytoh 2022-10-14T22:20:31Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** the positive: insane graphics, delightful (French) humour and zaniness, nice concept of mixing ‘tower defence’ with first-person shooting (and day cycles). The trouble (and I will go into more detail, as this is helpful!): 1. readability: 1. phases need to be more highlighted (see above) 2. the richness of the environment plays against parsing where important things are and where the action is! Suggestion: add an indicator (for example, a highlighting outline for places, giant arrow(s)… possibly switching the colour of the one that matches the current phase of the day) 3. tutorial: wait before the player accomplishes each task before proceeding to the next one, so he can have the time to understand 4. since we have a subjective view, it is really hard to get where the action is, especially when you have to deal with multiple threats at a time; maybe add a **minimap**? 5. as I said before, the state of the fertiliser machines should be at least as clearly signalled as that of the turrets 2. difficulty: 1. evolution should be steeper, as opposed to getting brutal treatment right from the beginning (as per "someone"’s advice); do note, nevertheless, that taking care of readability should already decrease a bit difficulty ;) 2. I think the 10-second cycle is super harsh (but points for absolutely matching the theme, by the way! XD); you could keep it, but in each phase of the day, have multiple 10-second cycles. For example, for vegetable growing, have multiple 10-second harvests. (For the record, the initial version of my game has the exact reversed problem of 10 seconds being too long. XD And I had considered squeezing in my two daytime and nightime phases into a single 10-second day phase, which I ended up doing in a later version.) 3. I could not really playtest how efficient the turrets were, given the crazy mess the action was. XD But it seemed like the player’s gun is super efficient, while the turrets did little in comparison; this may be caused by their having depleted ammo, but still, do check their parameters! (damage, firing rate, ammo depletion rate, and even how their enemy-selection AI is working) 3. technical (although this may go under the "difficulty" column): now, this may depend on hardware, but I have also read other people have Unreal Engine games run slowly; since the game displays many elements at the same time (scenery + villagers — with physics!!), you want to check **optimisation**. Which may well be super tricky to do, I do not know, I am not an Unreal Engine user (I am quite a low-level-oriented ~~guy~~ nerd — and also dislike some attitudes and connections of Epic, but this is another story), **but** even though I could shoot at enemies reasonably, I really had a hard time performing more punctual actions involving E-key interaction, because you need precise positioning and camera orientation.

Well, that was a mouthful, sorry about that! XD But I was really pleasantly surprised by the humour, concept, and even graphical details and want the game to succeed at its job, and it is not really far from it, although from a player’s perspective, I guess an inattentive person will get bewildered. X) Definitely earned some heartily laughs from me, this is an interesting game. :)

Addendum: playing just a bit more to check some sounds and if I can get further, I saw some more puns and jokes I missed at the beginning, took down the first wave essentially by myself, realized you could really use a sound for when the villagers get hit, saw that the turrets **are** way too slow and inefficient, and… got my house destroyed in my back, at the second wave. X)

Once Upon A Tiny Time by Mandytoh 2022-10-14T22:20:47Z

@fabula-rasa

> WASD didn’t work for movement, so I had to walk with arrows. Which would be fine, if you would not have to use a mouse for anything - but you do. To effectively and comfortably use arrow keys for movement, mouse for looking and shooting, and interaction keys - I’d need a third hand laughing

Now, you know what AZERTY me feels like when playing QWERTY layout-dependent games. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) This game might be a revenge from the French against evil QWERTY-centred designers! Take that!! XD

Barely Something Barely Somewhere Every Ten Seconds by shreemp 2022-10-30T13:12:04Z

**Semi-on-the-fly remarks**

1. Wow, this is way too hectic to comprehend at a first glance! :o XD 2. As said on the game page: controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) AND arrow keys are enabled. Apparently, the controls for the mystery/second phase (dark forest) is through clicking? It was not obvious to me at first sight. (Actually, BOTH keyboard + mouse, for all three phases!) 3. How does health work? I notice the other characters have hearts, but it is not obvious knowing if they are enemies or allies, or neutral. 4. Not sure what the ‘idol’ is supposed to look like. 5. Haha, the spoof of anime with the schoolgirl uniforms is great, and I love the bubbly music! Especially the contrast of having it right after the gloomy forest. XD 6. Weird: brought a key (which I had in my hands thanks to having the anime panel before; the transformations are useful! XD) to the upper door in the ‘survival’ phase, but pressing Space, it got thrown, and everything massively slowed down! And then, the other two phases are fine, but the survival phase is always slow. Relaunching the game. 7. Since the page says that new builds are on the itch.io page, and the latter says it was updated 5 days ago, taking a look at this one! 8. Again the slow-down in the first phase! And then: I still cannot manage to use to key for the door. ._. 9. I now understand that the zombies from the forest phase are those that died in the survival phase. XD Oh, and maybe the heartbroken anime ones too? 10. Died (against three simultaneous zombies!). 11. 10 seconds really is too short to get through the dialogue in the anime phase! :o I had less of this impression in the game *You vs. the clock featuring the narrator*, and I think this is because this latter game solely focuses on this aspect. Here, you have to go through all the other two phases, and then walk to talk to someone (even possibly grabbing an object first).

**Takeaway:** the idea looks original and comical, but I think there needs to be some way to convey more clarity to the player, and also some pause, despite the 10-second constraint! There must be a clever way, such as having several 10-second ‘inner’ cycles inside each phase. Still, I love how everything changes, including in surprising although logical ways (dead -> zombie). Not too sure I understood the whole gameplay (third phase: apart from bringing a present/object, does talking through a complete sequence achieve the talking objective? Ah, maybe you give a heart back!), but I am sure you could manage to get all of this clearer.

Thanks for the hecticness!

PS: I have played just a bit more because I tend not to like not finishing games. :p And I better understood some things: the survival phase is the one that is dangerous to companions (and I cannot validate keys, but they can, weirdly), the zombie phase is the one dangerous to you but where you can score points (and what I thought were brown branches are idols, and you paint the floor by throwing the bucket), and the anime phase is the one where you heal others by offering presents, possibly the prom/panel proposition, and talking rightly to them. I reached 4/10, and wonder what happens when you win (which is hard, since the circular saws just keep on killing the others! XD); pretty please? :3 Glad I understood the game better!

Double-sided princess by AL43868 2022-10-20T13:47:18Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. small remark: since I know the jōyō kanji, I recognize "五分" as "five minutes" in the beginning of the description; I was not expecting some languages here, but this is welcome for skill honing :) (I played a German-titled game a little earlier, and mine is French-titled!) 1. "Music from https://www.zapsplat.com" -> oh, but is music not supposed to be original in Compo? Ah, or maybe you used *sampling* as per the [rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules), then 2. "red can attack, and Q fires fireballs. Blue do not attack, Q sprint." -> asymmetric "balance" is a good general idea :) 3. **IMPORTANT:** the navigator version does not work for me under Firefox (the progress bar stays empty); switching navigator: now, does work. The console error for Firefox was this (already happened with other games): > WEBGL_debug_renderer_info is deprecated in Firefox and will be removed. Please use RENDERER. ld51.loader.js:1:11062 > Uncaught DOMException: The operation is insecure."" 4. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) AND arrow keys are enabled. (And so, the action key for me is "A".) 5. nice to have a pause feature! 6. cute characters and graphics 7. apart from the music, there is a lack of sounds, which would have helped to better get the action 8. infinite or cyclic terrain? (a bit later: no, there is a border) 9. finding that the shooting direction is weird: aaaah, you actually aim with the MOUSE!! I think you should make this clear; advice: add it on the game page! 10. ~~I realize the pentagrams may generate supplies of ENEMIES! Maybe clarify this on the page, as "supplies" can make people (including me! XD And @tomssuli) believe they are beneficial! (I thought about it and went "Wait a minute, pentagrams are classic noxious satanist esoterism!", then realized we have no limited resources either)~~ (later: there IS health, so maybe that, in fact?? Yes) 11. agreed with Trabasura that some more control (such as clicking to shoot) would have been pleasant 12. oh no, died by going up from the bottom corner, because I could not see far enough to anticipate! <:o Suggestion: make the camera move (smoothly) towards where the player is moving, to help (this is a classic type of camera; not sure of the name. See second animated capture from [this section](https://github.com/a327ex/STALKER-X#follow-lerp-and-lead)) 13. 5 minutes and instant death/loss make things rather hard! :o I get this is intended, but still, somewhat frustrating (just a bit later: actually, there is health, but death seems to come by quickly) 14. I think more variety would be nice. Also, the sprint feels only moderately useful (while the fireballs are more); I let the enemies get at a reasonable distance while not outrunning them, to stay safe. (later: exception: when running along the borders while enemies spawned at nearly the same horizontal level) 15. switching to fullscreen: I did not see health and time before of downward scrolling! By the way, the font (either yellow or red) is nice 16. nice lighting, near the blue "statues" and pentagrams 17. apparently, the enemies’ directions is updated every few seconds (probably for optimisation/performance purposes!) Gives a little cartoony double take effect ;) 18. ah, see a heart on a pentagram! First time I think; what length is the generation interval?? May take long! Later: the heart has disappeared, so, limited lifespan? (by the way, still not hit; 1 min 20 s left) 19. at 1 min 17 s left: as Tomssuli, I experience lag now; also, agreed with his suggestion to destroy more enemies 20. noooo, died at 8 seconds left!! <:o Too many enemies forced me to depart from the upper border, and the lag made things too hard to navigate… :( I am stopping here; so, question: what happens at the end? :)

(1/2)

Double-sided princess by AL43868 2022-10-20T13:47:26Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** the two-form hero with different abilities is a nice idea; I just feel some more mechanics and possibly controls would help getting more variety. Some balancing could help (too many enemies at the end (with lag!), pentagram hearts too few and far between), and sounds would give more life. I found the graphics cute, especially the characters (and some nice lighting). The implicit dark context is always well conveyed and makes you want to save this little princess’s skin (although I could not!).

Thanks for the hectic running session. XD Did my virtual exercise for today (in addition to the real one; keep healthy, ~~nerds~~ folks)!

[Advice: just in case, since people do not always know, and I see you have both zero karma and an uneven voting ratio balance: since the "Smart" ordering is the default one and not everyone uses the "Classic" one, reviewing games will help you get more testers and feedback. :)]

Lag Simulator by poopgames 2022-10-21T12:21:05Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing the navigator version]

1. concept looks original and funny XD 2. there is a "Llagism.wav" file up for download; mistake? (sound file) 3. wow, music is soothing and majestic! I like it :) 4. itch.io page says 120 FPS is necessary, but I have around 60 FPS… 5. controls are layout-independent, great! (I have an AZERTY keyboard) BUT sideway movement is weird (diagonal??) with those keys; arrow keys are enabled anyway and do work, thankfully. (later: wait, maybe the arrows also give me diagonal sideway movement…) 6. jumps are super low for me! I see the same happened to Triangle Point and Henrik Ganard 7. Nice sounds, nevertheless 8. gets to 250 FPS… after (quick) game over! X) Which is weird, because animation slows down 9. kind of low UFOs going after me! By the way, I love the graphical style (flowing cubic enemis, atom-like player entity, wavy circled laser-generating columns). Maybe the scenery could have used just subtler texturing or lighting (shaders can do wonders quickly!), but this would be nitpicking 10. (@triangle-point) seeing the upper counter, I get that the 10 seconds are the laser generation period 11. FINALLY managed to jump over a laser!! But this is SO hard to see! Although I get the impression that SOME jumps are higher. Also, the description says there is double jumping, but I seem to only jump once 12. holes in the lasers to help you pass, sometimes; nice 13. I am not sure about the lag concept here!! Why this at all, actually? It makes the game hardly playable for some people (including me, apparently! XD), while you DID implement proper gameplay! :o Is this a master troll attempt? ;) Points for humour, and I will still judge the game for what I guess it has to offer 14. now trying the desktop version, as it may get playable! (despite your warning) 15. no, it does not XD 16. suggestion: to better see how high the player is jumping, add a **shadow** beneath 17. oh, just caught that the "enemies" destroy parts of the lasers when ploughing into these; so, some strategy involved 18. I like how the "UFOs" appear jumping out from the ground :) Some nice details there

**Takeaway:** the visual aesthetic is charming, retro sounds are nice, and the music is great; gameplay seems simple but challenging enough (especially with the bumps from the enemies!), but the weird move of restricting jump according to FPS sounds to me like master trolling. XD If you really want it, then maybe put two modes, one with the restriction and one without?

Thanks for the charming poetic… trolling piece. XD

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

You vs. the clock featuring the narrator by ljg 2022-10-21T21:00:01Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. page: the concept looks super original and interesting! 2. music is cute, and so is the scenery 3. agreed with pvg that a timer or something to that effect would help 4. "Do you want to play again?" -> "No" -> music stops XD 5. dialogue after! And realize the "O<" XD 6. "No" again: really nothing? XD (at 9 points) 7. I think some sounds could have been welcome, even though imagination and variety in music already achieve a great deal; maybe just sounds for the duck, since he is not part of the fictions! :) And possibly a simple sound ("Mmmm…", in 3D *Zelda* fashion) identifying a line from the narrator, and another one for the player 8. HAHAHA, randomly chose being both boy and girl, and was served with premature death! XD Hope the Thought Police does not chase after you for Political Incorrectness ;)) (it should have been "a magical rainbow guides you to a gold-laden cauldron and you rule the world, have 9,001 points") 9. I tend to read slowly because I enjoy getting details, but even rushing the next time, it is difficult to get far in the story!! What is the maximum score? 10. actually, getting better at navigating my way through the narration tree, remembering what happens and using words and shape of sentences as quick hints! 11. 18 points **[spoiler]** through the priest turned-soldier route, and dying along the way 12. I think I explored about the whole tree! :) Just sad the duck does not show up even more. **[spoiler]** actually, many routes are quite short; I think the priest + soldier combination is the longest one 13. no wait, I had forgotten the duke route! 14. the game should really be titled *You vs. the clock vs. the duck featuring the narrator* XD 15. just a bit tedious to have to go through the "duck suppressing" lines several times; maybe some dialogue option to skip it could be useful!

**Takeaway:** one of the funniest games amongst those I saw (the two others that come to mind are *Once Upon A Tiny Time* and *Pizza Ninja*, and maybe *Milkman*). Very original concept! I guess it could be extended by having a succession of 10-second "levels", each of which asks you to build up a story that will lead you to the next one, possibly awarding you more points for longer stories. And various endings!

Very nice take, it got my imagination working. :) Thanks!

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

---

@stoickekis It is written on the game page: you "die" every ten seconds.

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-03T10:14:23Z

@dhim Thank you a lot for trying out! I really hope this is not caused by my file… ._. I wonder if the spaces in the filename could cause problems; do you have any working .app files that have spaces in their names, by any chance?

(And working very soon back on the navigator version!)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-03T16:45:03Z

@dhim [The (smaller resolution-wise) navigator version works on itch.io!](https://mossieur-patate.itch.io/maudits-fantomes) :slight_smile: Although not here directly.

Stay tuned for version v1.1! Which will be out of the Compo for fairness reasons, but could be ready for the Jam deadline; I could have worked on it since last night and this morning, but I prioritised taking a look at other people’s reactions, and getting the navigator version working. I really could have made it for the Compo by being a bit faster, or by having the concept settled a bit sooner! And I could have made it shortly after the deadline, but I am sportsmanly. ;)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-03T19:03:25Z

@dhim Thank you for warning me: I have just tried, and it looks like this is worse than that: it freezes **every single time you press Return to try again**!!! <:o

I might know why: the Love2D function for stopping sounds (love.audio.stop) may cause a fatal error for navigator versions; it had happened to me when testing love.js with another game. Checking the navigator console, there is indeed an error. I will try solving this and get back to you, thanks a lot!!

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-03T19:45:48Z

@dhim There, I think it is fixed! :smiley:

(I hope I will not have to stack any more comments about these issues… Hey, it is a bit like a dynamic devlog!)

PS: I want to stress how your bug report was super useful to quickly solve this big issue. Have my thankfulness, and a cookie! :cookie:

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-05T18:07:54Z

Good news: I have made a colourblind version! I will upload it soon; this is merely for accessibility reasons, so I do not think this counts as a game feature. (And I still have to make v1.1 make its way, but took too much rest… I shall give you a heads-up when this happens! Hopefully soon enough, but since I am trying to alternate with reviewing other games and I am so **slow** a reviewer, I am not announcing any date. :sweat_smile: My good friend Pomodoro might save my life once again, it just did wonders for the colourblind version.)

Surprised with the amount of reviewers, thanks for anyone passing by! Responding now. And thanking everyone here right now for the useful feedback and encouragement.

---

@dhim

> The day cycle is fun while you are focusing on one guys the others move and you lose track of them (challenge=fun)

The very same thing happened to me while playtesting, and I thought I was not focused enough. X) This may vary on people, but I am glad this phenomenon occurred for someone else too!

> the night cycle is long and slow : the fantômes don’t move around that much and there is not much to do.

Agreed; the worst thing is, I had thought about it, and wondered whether I should rather reduce the share of the night in the whole cycle. On the other hand, I was afraid this might make the game too difficult (because you would have too little time to check the colours); it ended up being too easy. X)

> I pressed enter accidentally in the middle of a level to the same level, I was sad too lose my sacrifice

Maybe some other key would be better, then… I was unsure which one to choose, sorry about this mishap! ._.

> losing will also restart you to the same level

This is on purpose! Sending the player back to the very beginning is literally an arcade game trick used to have you put more coins in the machine; I am no sadist. ;)

---

@hotaloca

> So I appreciated this strategical element as a player who has very bad memory and have difficulty focus on multiple things smile

Great; a conscious point I had in mine when thinking up the concept was that the two phases needed to have an advantage and a drawback each. The catch was that you either observe or grab/release, but not both at the same time.

> Graphics was clean and with simplicity helped me to understand what needs to be done.

I went all geometric (funny anecdote: the only non-programmed image is the game icon! Which is rarely seen because of fullscreen mode, although I realize you can see it at least by toggling applications on the desktop version), I’m glad my literal programmer art (!) was not repellent to you. I also aimed the game at being clear/straightforward, since I was unsure about getting the time to make progressive ‘tutorially’ levels (and indeed, this is saved for the next version), and I have figured out for some time now that having long instructions, or even explicit instructions at all, is often a taxing intake for the player.

> Audio matched the game style, although the night alarm was a bit annoying to listen for too long.

I also went all retro, with the cheeky arcade context as a lifesaving excuse for me. :p I was worried the looping sound could be annoying, so I put the volume quite low, and hoped the alternation between day and night would make none of the two too much; amusingly, I thought the day sound was more bothering, since it has more of a thumping quality! I find the classic ‘ghost’ somewhat soothing, but maybe this is my nerdy side speaking. XD I could add an option for disabling/lowering some sounds. Noting this down!

> I think the night cycle was too long - it could have been 25% night, 75% day.

As I answered above to dhim, I felt about the same way during development, but was unsure on which side of ‘too easy’ or ‘too difficult’ the coin would end up falling. I was worried about it, and rightly so. X) As I said on the game ‘form’, playtesting was really minimal; and towards the end, I was in such a rush that I made quick broad (non-)decisions.

(1/4)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-05T18:08:07Z

> I think level 1 was OK difficulty, but by level 5 it got a bit too easy.

Having tested a bit since then, I agree. You know, ironically, the parameters for the levels are only dictated by a one-line formula each, so I could tweak it to get something more reasonable; talk about the flap of the programmer’s butterfly causing a tornado in Player Land! X)

There were even more cycles before I corrected that as a last-minute fix! I wish I could change the formulae right now, but I am unsure if this would count as legitimate or not. I might put up a slightly corrected alternative version for those that want to try out something more balanced. Please tell me, people, whether parameter-tweaking counts as legitimate or not for fixing the game jam version. (I had the same question about Honey Pony’s [*Far.*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/far) game, which can take around an hour to beat! XD Devoured my time!)

---

@mantou

> But it’s weird that Press Up is going to Upper-Right and press Down is going to Lower-Left.

I think one-point perspective is better here, because a top view would align Pac-Man with the ghosts right below him, preventing you from seeing them (and I also would have had more trouble getting my point across that the setting is similar to a claw crane). As for isometric 3D, I have seen people sometimes complain that it is not intuitive/natural to know which direction left-up-right-down will lead them. (More on the appearance of the grid in my answer to Antti Haavikko further below!)

I must confess I also tend to love pseudo-3D, so I indulged in it, but with a good rationale for it. X)

---

@slimefriend

> I can’t quite figure out how to play :/ […] Maybe more detailed instructions on the site would help?

Blast, I had thought about it, and then did not do it!! :S My bad, there is now a ‘How to play’ section which I hope is clear enough . :) (Instead of the elliptical tiny story-oriented blurb of the beginning; I should have known, already made the same mistake in a previous game jam!!)

---

> how many levels are there btw

The levels are generated procedurally through some parameters, so there is *theoretically* an infinite number. Nevertheless, as I have written in the presentation, there should be a fatal bug in level 49 (an infinite loop, because the game will not be able to find enough space to generate all the required ghosts).

This randomised mode is intended to be played for some levels, but there is no upward goal; although I like games that do set one… For the record, I intended on having pre-designed levels (with stacking ghosts, so you have to deal with layers of ghosts!), possibly in addition to a random mode, but I ran short on time, and this is saved for v1.1!

---

@thoastbot

> You catched my eye because, like yours, my entry is also pacman themed :D

Funny coincidence, I caught a glimpse earlier today of another *Pac-Man*-themed game! Which is called [*Fruits Frenzy*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/fruits-frenzy). I may check both yours and this one (although I shall try favouring the coolness/karma orderings). :)

> had a few problems with the controls,

If you are referring to the four directions, I was worried about this. More on this in my answer to Antti Haavikko! If you are referring to some ‘meta-controls’ (such as Return both for going to the next level *and* restarting), they may not be ideal, but I was really in too much of a rush to come up with something clever without risking to break something. (If anyone has a smart suggestion about this point, I am all ears!)

---

@antti-haavikko

Thank you very much for trying out the Mac version; now, I know my Mac versions (for **all** previous Love2D games) should work! :D About time!

(2/4)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-05T18:08:19Z

> I stopped playing at level 14. It really doesn’t get any harder

As others have noticed, the game falls a bit on the easier side; I thought about making it harder, but then, I was afraid that people would get stuck, and I was also a bit biased by how some game jam testers tend not to give that much time to games and stop when things get too hard.

> and gets quite repetitive fast.

In addition to the ‘overlinearness’ of the parameter formulae, my full idea was to have designed levels which introduce you to the game (first, you get only one colour, then two, then more), and have **layers** of ghosts, so that you have to make some fast digging to get the right colour from the bottom. I also thought of having bonuses, such as the classic cherries© (possibly for score?), or for example invincibility, so that you can take out some daylight ghosts. Or combo bonuses if you get a one-coloured series of ghosts, getting you one more cycle, for example.

I see the current state of the game as a prototype that can demonstrate some potential, but it is certainly unfinished and unbalanced.

> The huge wait times don’t really help either. You always have enough lives to just do two at a time and that is very easy to do. Sometimes you can even push for three or four if lucky.

Also agreed; as said in previous answers, I was thinking of having a shorter night. I also balanced the cycle parameter to be near half of the number of required ghosts, but this ends up only getting levels playable, not have a nice steeper difficulty curve (I should really have changed this formula… :().

> The theme take here kinda fights against the actual game design, it would play much better if there was no night phase really and it changed when you first pick something up.

This is an interesting suggestion for a variation on the game (possibly another mode?)! :) Still, I think the night **is** workable with the theme: the trick would be to consider the whole night-day cycle as being ten seconds, and you can put a 2- or 3-second share for the night in it. This is my plan, but I think I will integrate your idea (with due credit!), if this is fine. :)

> Pretty much hated the control scheme how the vertical movements moved diagonally too. It really screwed with my head. The grid isn’t really isometric looking enough for that to make sense.

Ah, I was wondering if this would be troublesome… XD Sorry about it; story time: I intended to have properly displayed pseudo-3D tiles, so I wanted to use the ‘shear’ factor (a fancy geometric transform), but it ended up messing with the coordinates. I also thought about drawing a tile quickly, but it somehow did not cope well, and it was unsatisfying not to have everything generated. Not having much time, I thought I would solve this later; as the ring of the bell came closer, I wondered whether to let this aside, and I wondered whether having these face-looking (rounded) rectangles could make the game feel even more retro, so… I lazily and shamefully kept them. Which, seeing what happened to you and some others (including a bit for myself XD), was a bad conclusion. (Thinking about it, I could have sacrificed the rounded edges and drawn isosceles trapezium using the polygon-drawing function, but… I wanted my fancy rounded edges. XD I know, this is overly silly!)

By the way, the coordinate system for displaying here is one-point perspective / cavalier perspective rather than isometric. ;) See my answer to ManTou as to why. (By the way, there are other fancy names for this projection. And I remember hearing from a recording of Timothy Cain from GDC 2012 that the projection for *Fallout* has quite a fancy name too. X))

(3/4)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-05T18:08:28Z

> The ghosts looked nice and dynamic enough with their quirky eye animations.

Thanks! This is one of the first early graphical elements I was alluding to; I put some love into this, with smooth eye movement, and rotating eyes when in ‘still’ direction. :) Anecdote: when the claw gets a ghost, I had his direction get set to ‘still’ just out of precaution; only when testing did it luckily dawn on me that this caused the falling ghosts (when you have one while the night comes back) to have twirly eyes, which I thought was super cool. X)

> I don’t think this was the best possible way to display the lives though…

I was worried this was not explicit enough, but I was also worried about having too much explicit text instead of a more intuitive display. I was wondering if the Power Pellet would be clear enough… Then I thought the player would figure it out by himself; this comes down to my not having the time to any tutorial or full-blown in-game indications.

> Good job, neat take on a classic! 👍

Wow, I am happy you still think it is worthy! :) Your comment was both the longest *and* the most critical — I must say I agree with your criticisms… I felt somewhat the same way!

Just as a reminder to everyone: please bear in mind the 48-hour time limit, and the fact that my brainstorming took a **massive** share of it. To be more specific: I started with some graphical themed-elements because I thought of *Pac-Man* very early, but I had the full concept in… early afternoon (about 13:30) of the last day! XD So, if you dismiss the brainstorming phase, this is really more of a **10-hour-made game** than a proper 48-hour one. I tend to invest much time in having a worthy idea, and if I feel it is not, I will get back to the metaphorical blackboard.

(4/4)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-05T21:21:39Z

@dhim Thanks for the suggestions; actually, I have a debugging option that allows you to skip levels! I did not activate it here, because the levels are generated instead of pre-designed, but I had hesitated… Maybe I will. Once again, I wonder if I can in the game jam version, as this is merely about letting a part of the code do its job and just add a written indication about the key.

I really wonder what is legitimate and what is not, since the [rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules) are somewhat interpretable.

> Certain **Bug Fixes** are allowed. You **can’t** add new features, but if something broke or didn’t work correctly as you were finishing up, you can fix this after the deadline. You are asked to **highlight the changes you make** in your submission (a short change log). You probably wont get a 2nd chance with some players, but at least it wont be a problem for future players.

I guess I will put as a complement an intermediate version with better parameters and level-skipping, notifying people which is which; the problem is, I can only have one navigator version at a time (except if I use another platform, but this would make things complicated…), so some people will not be able to try it.

I know tweaking parameters would greatly enhance the game, and those are super fast adjustments. I am just worried some testers may overlook how easy this would be to tackle. ._.

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-06T21:58:39Z

@antti-haavikko

> I didn’t try to be overly critical.

The only occurrence of *overly* in my comment referred to my own silliness, no worries. ;)

> I just give feedback that I’d find useful myself. So pretty much where to improve.

I also thought this was your intent seeing your conclusion! And it was useful; I also provide constructive criticisms when I review games.

> Of course compliments are nice too but not that helpful really.

They may be less helpful, *but* not always: it is good to know what clicked. For example, it was not obvious anyone really noticed the ghosty eyes that much, so I feel putting this level of detail was worth it. :) (I had also planned on having their lower ‘fringes’ have a sideway cyclic translation movement, but left this in store.)

So, when I list things I observed about a game in my (cringingly long) comments/reviews, I talk about both the positive and the negative, and how I perceived it. I agree that enhancement suggestions tend to be more useful, but pinpointing what is right helps identifying current strong points, and gives some confidence. You may not realize this and I may be guilty of it too sometimes, but listing mainly negative points can lead some people to believe their work was shoddy and have quite a let-down. (This did not happen here! XD Although I did think at first you really had an awful time with the game, so I felt sorry.)

> And yeah with proper visual representation the diagonal movement would have made more sense surely.

By the way, version 1.0.2 is just out and solves this! (Without round edges… I swear I will have them back in!) It still needs playtesting to adjust the difficulty curve, but this one is definitely more challenging. (And I only made minimal additions, so that it looks fairly like ‘true first version done right’ if I had spent just some more time on it on that cursed night. Wait, this is not *Castlevania II*. XD)

> Kinda looks like a coin though so having the mouth slit would help it come across even clearer.

Oh, actually, it is *not* a Pac-Man, but a Power Pellet! I wanted to make both the one from the timer and the icon blink, but this was also cancelled for v1.0.

> Just having what is left would have been better. Ie. instead of 3/8, it would show 5.

You may be right, pithier information is often a good sign for player cues’ efficiency! ~~Stealing~~ Noting this down.

> Or even better yet, just repeat the graphic 5 times so 😶😶😶😶😶.

I had thought of it, but since I intended the parameters to get potentially big, I figured this might cause overflowing problems, or even simply be somewhat complicated to parse (for the player) when the number is high. Although it turns it would be workable in the current version. No, wait, a quick calculation leads me to twenty cycles (for level 48) even with the lesser numbers of current v1.0.2, so it is already somewhat big… Or is it, since Link can entertain twenty displayed hearts?

It may be reasonable in the current version, but risky if the game is extended into having potentially super long super challenging levels in some mode. Or the pellets could get gathered into groups of twenty or tens or something, and then the units properly displayed, as in a numeration system! Having the idea as I write, thank you for triggering the beneficial reaction. :)

Thank you a lot for the feedback! I am still wondering whether I should get v1.1 once and for all and then really get to the testing, or alternate between the two… I may pass by (although I intend on favouring coolness orderings and possibly helping out some ‘deserted’ games). :)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-11T23:30:34Z

@dhim @hotaloca @chillertyp @mantou @slimefriend @haotian-chen @thoastbot @antti-haavikko @eugenik @tanis

**HEADS-UP:**

Version 1.1 is out! :smiley: It is still not the absolute final version, but in my view, I consider it as the unofficial Jam-format version (although with more debugging, granted, but the game would have been playable even with shadow and collision bugs; after all, even 1.0.2 has the collision bugs!).

You can now stack ghosts (3D!) and encounter variously sized grids, nicer scenery and sounds, get the nasty claw-crane feeling of having trouble to get a deep ghost, and run into harsher/steeper difficulty (or so I hope!). And enjoy helpful features such as highlighting of ghost under scope, real-time shadows, twilight blinking… or difficult-life-making features, such as no-cheating-in-pause-mode. X)

Give priority to games that have not been tested, but if you want to take a look at a version that is closer to what I had in mind and does more justice to the concept, help yourself. :)

--- @tanis Thank you for the test! I do not know if you noticed, but when you played (or at least, when you commented), version 1.0.2 was out, and it does sort both problems out. (Several commenters also noticed these shortcomings.) And both problems are really silly can-be-solved-in-some-minutes matters, by just changing a few parameters. What was I thinking putting a 2 instead of a 3 for the ghost-per-cycle ratio and everything linear?! ._. I advise you to try v1.0.2, it should already feel way more reasonable! It is almost a legitimate Compo version, I was wondering if such last-minute parameter tweaking was fair game or not, and it tortured me not to replace the previous one(s) with this. I am still wondering how Ludum Dare and folks around here stand on this issue! As a tester, I am inclined not to chastise a shortly-made game for parameters unbalance and even consider fixing it all right, but I guess this is not consensual. :/

I am looking forward to version 1.2 which could start looking like a varied game with several problem-solving types depending on the subgame (some reasoning for predesigned-level mode, sheer speed for Panic mode…). :slight_smile: I have a lot of testing to do now (I mean, other games around here!! X)), but I may alternate and slowly build v1.2 so that it happens shortly enough (I do not promise it!). Version 1.1 already does the very heavy, heavy lifting; a careless player may not see it, but if you compare and scrutinise v1.0.2 and v1.1, you should notice the big leap. (The shadow system was somewhat **evil** to properly settle, but I made it! :laughing:) Gameplay is already subtly richer.

> considering the lack of time you had

I tend to invest heavily on having a proper original and promising concept. If I find it quickly (and it did happen sometimes), great; if I do not… oh my. :smile: Well, this happens: a 2 instead of a 3 and square cavalier tiles. XD

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-12T13:22:05Z

@tanis About ‘what [I] achieved’: I forgot to say that I reused some utility code from my own personal ‘codebase’, especially for UI. But the core of the game was really fresh. :)

---

@honey-pony

Hey, thank you for passing by and the interesting detailed comparative review! :) I am glad I published an update in time, I thought it was somewhat important, especially to highlight what could be solved as opposed to being an intrinsic concept-related problem. (I mentally did the same for your game, imagining the length was something like a tenth. ;))

> Perhaps the first thing I noticed in the compo game was the somewhat unintuitive movement.

This goes miles to show how **implicit** cues are paramount in video games. And how a silly rushed design overlook (‘Hey, I cannot make rounded perspective tiles, so I will keep those square rounded ones!’) can be detrimental.

> I do think learning that movement pattern is kind of an interesting learning curve! […] it has something to do with video game players being wired to think of parallel lines as the directions along which they move…

A thought that crossed my mind was that it could be possible to get voluntarily fuzzy/uncommon and varying movement controls, either here in some special mode or in another game, as a concept. Such as following curved trajectories.

> But it was a good time. I suppose the easy difficulty of the compo version made trying this possible.

Glad you found enjoyment in the (semi-broken?) first draft! :) You decided to use a relaxed way of playing which matched it, but a good design objective is not to let a player have a so-called ‘dominant strategy’; here, the dominant strategy is clearly to single out two ghosts (which is workable memory-wise), and then collect them.

> Either way, this is I think why I tended not to go for orange ghosts… they would require more visual focus on the player character in order to drop them off.

Very interesting! Actually, I had thought of having all receivers in the corners originally, but since I rushed programming and placing them, I lazily added two special row and column to the grid, instead of also having proper 0-ones, or even simply putting the receivers in the original corners. X) I think I will change the orange receiver’s position.

> pink or blue or orange hot spots… those colors all tended to blend together into one mass of duller color

Super interesting, as I think this did not happen to me! (And I wonder how colourblind people feel about it, since they also perceive contrast…) It may depend on people, because I thought orange was also garish. For the record, I took the original *Pac-Man*’s colours as a homage, using the following picture (and straight colour picker tool :p).

Ghostly ancestors.

(1/2)

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-12T13:22:18Z

(continued: 2/2)

> I can’t recall trying to describe this particular mode of interaction before. […] it gets me to “mentally picture” things in a way that is, I guess, kind of like a “memory” card game but also meaningfully different and novel.

I am super happy, because originality of concept is my absolute primary target. :) (And it has to work as a game, too, of course. XD) I spent about a day and a half coming up with the right idea, which is insane considering the two-day time limit. (Three quarters - one quarter is a nice coincidence with that game’s new day and night, by the way!)

> It is almost like the game you wrote runs not only on my computer but in my brain…

I had given some thought previously about what a game is, and I came to the conclusion that a game is not so much an external object as **the internal cognitive process the player experiences**. It is a good sign this happened to you. :)

> The only weird thing […]

I was also wondering about this! I think this is still a bit of a penalty, as you lose some time for repositioning to anticipate the next day phase. Nevertheless, I had thought of another harsher penalty, which would be to prevent or hinder the player from seeing the colours for a brief moment (for example, a close-up version of the ghost you held is flashed through the screen, or colour gets blurred).

> it feels really polished graphically.

Ah, am I glad this turns out so well to you! :) This may be the first time I get a positive reaction for my ‘programmer art’. XD Actually, I tend to separate graphical enhancement between *functional* ones and merely *decorative* ones; those I set up are almost exclusively functional (except maybe for the glass panes; and yet, even they have useful layer lines). I have realized for some time that concentrating on visual functionality can lead to fortunate enjoyable graphics: ‘just show as much as needed and not more’ seems to be a nice recipe to get a good result in reasonable time. I was myself surprised at how nice the shadows felt for the looks of the ghosts, it gives them more 3D perspective / less flatness!

Thank you very much for your review, your feedback on the new version is useful and will be put to use in the near future. :) And happy if you had a good time — debugging those shadows was hellish for me at some point, though ultimately not in vain. XD

Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts by Mossieur Patate 2022-10-12T17:46:48Z

@tanis

> Of course I did the same.

[Some people](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/$301360/ludum-dare-hard-mode) are more hardcore. ;) Respect to them, by the way.

> tweaking a few parameters after the compo deadline would still be something sensible to allow. But I guess the main issue is that somebody could abuse that and it would not be fair.

I thought about letting people use their best judgments, which is why I have been transparent about which version is what, and what I thought I was able to create depending on the two deadlines. The only unfortunate thing is that I do not have a simple way to get several navigator versions running at the same time… Hopefully, all desktop files should be enough for all systems (the macOS one should run using Antti Haavikko’s tip, and getting Love2D — which is lightweight, really! — to have the .love file run on Linux should work too), and the navigator ZIP files are also available.

> I will try out the new versions and let you know then!

Do not feel forced to, as there are a lot of games awaiting testers. ;) But if you do: version 1.0.2 is pretty much ‘parameter-tweaking done-right Compo version’, while version 1.1 is ‘hard(er)-mode although-without-predesigned-levels-nor-Panic-mode-but-I-could-have {ambitious Compo} / Jam version’. I am motivated to extend the game, I am rather happy with how it turned out. :)

I think I will test your game too! Although I already have written down several to check, and have the Classic/Smart filters to use, and am… so slow. XD

The Cursed Tart by Ilari 2022-10-21T20:13:29Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. "SDL2" -> yay, low-level! :) 1. the story on the page feels like a whole tale, this is great! :) Like reading the good old manual out of the box (I always read the manual!) 2. hey, we chose the very same keys! :) (I was wondering if Enter/Return to restart was weird, apparently not so!) 3. I also like the good old README.txt :) 4. 1.0.1 does not work?! Following @delpod’s advice: 1.0 works, phew! 5. like the purple blinkering and purple cloud 6. wow, so THIS is the 3D effect comments were referring to! :D This is great, I am not aware if some other game used this (amusingly, an idea of mine for a big project involves a play on perspective, especially fiddling with the 3D-2D relationship) 7. descending ladder, bone-throwing skeleton, slingshot: someone likes his *Legend of Zelda* ;) Oh, and these are the "bombs"! Same remark 8. a health bar or anything (hearts? :p) would help 9. three-skeleton room: just trying to rush to the door, to see: the death "animation" straight to the tomb is funny! 10. the tile-based movement makes it hard to avoid the bones! 11. not always clear when doors are open; is the image any different? 12. underwater room with water: a key! This is so much *Zelda* XD 13. crabs: the enemies are definitely more challenging than those of *Zelda*, at least the later episodes (maybe not from the first one?… I played a bit the second one, and not the first, although seen some parts of it) 14. no limit on number of simultaneous "bombs"? That hen is more powerful than *Super Metroid*’s Samus! ;) 15. underground room with many skeletons after Eastward room with crabs: as I had already noticed once, there is apparently a bug: when destroying a skeleton, it can destroy another one too, somewhere else in the room 16. two keys! Now going North. General thought: human form more efficient against skeletons, hen form more efficient against crabs 17. ah, you can collide with the skeletons with no damage! Interesting difference; the two types of enemies from *SquareHunter* are analogous (long distance vs. close contact) 18. even more northern room: OH MY GOD. This is over the top! XD 19. actually, totally manageable, BUT the very first crab is underhand X) 20. Potion! Weird, cannot take it as a hen? After all, logical, cannot open it. XD Beat the game!

**Takeaway:** this is a great theme-related concept, and you really managed to settle a full *Zelda*-esque dungeon! As you say, several things would need some enhancement (I am thinking health indication, door status indication — I see I agree with "someone"! —, and sounds), but not that much. The two forms each have their strengths and weaknesses (just like the two enemy types!). For the future, apart from combat, you could imagine clever ways to use the mechanic even more (including different NPC dialogue?), and design places so that merely waiting is not an option or a risky one (alaah rightly pointed this out); for example, have ground that turns to lava if you stay for too long on it, this kind of things. The other mechanics are way more classic (*Zelda*!), but the "classic game + a twist" formula is a fair one, and it does work here. :) Also, very glad you developed a full (humourous) story, I was really immersed once I started playing, and it made the potion make all the more sense!

This is a great prototype, you could clearly extend it! :) Thank you.

Toilet Run by IngeniousPhoenix 2022-10-19T20:53:35Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. 9 levels, nice! 1. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled. 2. super original concept! Reminds me somewhat of *Super Mario 64*’s "Tiny Huge Island" 3. like how that little guy waddles as a walking animation (later: is this because of toilet urge? X)) Also, cute burger scenery! 4. the hero seems slower when bigger; surely to keep the same ‘real-world’ speed 5. beat level 1 (which makes me think level design for such a game can quickly get complicated!!), but wonder if something in holes or traps/dangers; trying: dangers XD By the way, nice to have particles at disappearance! And retro sounds are nice 6. what did you use for the music, by the way? 7. no key to come back to the menu? 8. trying again level 2 since I did not see what the levers/switches did: all right, doors/blocks X) Nice tutorial progression! 9. level 3; now entering *Super Meat Boy* mode? X) 10. the zooming out makes the scenery get flickery; I guess this could be hard to fix, I noticed this phenomenon in a previous game I made. And nothing serious; except that spikes get already trickier to see 11. level 4: trampoline! This is now *Super Mario World*! XD Seriously, great job at introducing varied mechanics; if this rhythm keeps up through the nine levels, then you really filled the game with rich content! 12. even the higher jump if button press on trampoline is as in *Super Mario World*; nevertheless, trampolines may be a little buggy? 13. small bug: if jumping when dying, the particles and camera go way up 14. level 4: wow, the pacing is exactly according to the design of the level, to manage the first challenge (= 2 trampolines + spikes)! Feels very precise 15. bug at the beginning of level 4: staying still, the character passes through terrain when growing 16. suddenly realize the animation is different at normal size! No waddling, but feet moving. So, waddling is here to convey the weight notion intuitively; good effect 17. made it through level 4, and things were already getting tricky!! (first fast passage in tiny mode + jump in giant mode) 18. level 5: (yet another mechanic!) the first laser flickers once! Unintended, or dirty trap? X) 19. once having grown once, further laser "pods" get hard to see; I think the game could benefit from some highlighting of elements when the character gets bigger — except if you intended it as part of the difficulty 20. level 5 is almost a puzzle!! I realize the game is pretty much a ‘puzzle platforming’! This is great :) 21. NO, died at the last trampoline, he would not jump high enough! <:o Trampolines *are* indeed somewhat weirdly behaving when you are jumping 22. NO, stuck on the last corridor because of growth spurt!! :o The game is so unforgiving! 23. sent back to menu, but how? I was noting down X) Oh, I think I understand: this was the winning sound, so, growing while stuck in the corridor still made the character touch the toilet! Is this expected, or some kind of bug/exploit? 24. level 6: moving platform; this is really a one-to-one correspondence between levels and mechanics. Great job 25. wow, level 6 felt SO MUCH simpler than level 5 (and even 4)!! Beat it at my second attempt (and only because I jumped in the rightward pit while tiny during my first one, thinking this was needed to proceed XD) 26. level 7: ah, no new mechanic for the first time (but a combination of previous ones); succeeded at my second attempt too (because I stupidly missed the very last jump X)) 27. level 8: combination once again; gotten by a laser once grown once: I get a feeling the laser mechanic is one of the eviller ones! This may be because of activation rhythm, interspacing, and lower visibility (of the "pods") 28. yet, still beat this one (8) in two attempts! 29. and beat the final level (9) at my first attempt!

(1/2)

Toilet Run by IngeniousPhoenix 2022-10-19T20:53:48Z

(continued: 2/2)

**Takeaway:** Super Meat Boy goes to Tiny Huge Island. Quite some various mechanics, of which lasers may be both the most original and challenging one. The concept is crazy and brilliant, opening up great level design possibilities, of which the game gives a sample here. The game is also both cute and funny, with a simple context (rushing to the toilet!); I am just not sure what explains the growing (but… does it really need any explaining? :)), although at first, I thought this was caused by his not going to the toilet (and I think this is a great silly explanation! Please do steal it if this is not the reason). XD The latter half of the game felt easier; in contrast, the beginning was a progressive introduction, whose apex were first tricky level 4, and then **EVIL** level 5 (I am willing to bet some people did pass on this one!! I did not, but felt the pain). A great take on the theme.

Thanks for your game, this was really something! :) I personally value originality as the most worthy; I was served right!

[Do not forget to review, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :) I see you have zero karma but have rated many games! :o This would definitely help you cross the 20 threshold.]

Cat-Livery!(Cat Delivery) by M1chael_dev 2022-10-30T10:21:42Z

**Semi-on-the-fly remarks**

[testing the embedded version, which does work for me, under Firefox]

1. Controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) AND arrow keys are enabled. 2. Graphics and sounds are cute. 3. Won level 1; it was not obvious to me at first there would be another level! I think a great addition would be to show the objective (number of orders to be served). 4. For the first two levels: serving the house with the lesser countdown is a strategy that enables you not to lose/cancel any order; this is straightforward. 5. Level 3 (with four houses): even if trying to wait for the countdown of a house to get as small as possible before serving it (to gain as much time a possible), it does not seem possible to avoid losing one order, possibly one at every ‘round’! :o 6. Beat the game! 7. Playing again to see what happens when losing: oh, did not notice the stepping sounds in the action! Nice attention to detail. (Losing: gets you back to beginning of the level; I wonder if losing at a higher level sends you back to level 1 or not!) 8. Suggestion: maybe also show a countdown for the burger shop? I was also under the impression that burgers were ready in less than 10 seconds! Maybe some delta time missing, or is it just me?

**Takeaway:** a neat little prototype, with a simple core concept, that could benefit from adding more variety (such as different order types, for example; exofrenon’s suggestion is also interesting) so that the player has more strategising on his hands. For the time being, winning the game is simple, and you cannot avoid losses on the third level, but still win if you do the rest correctly. The take on the theme is classic, although you do feel the regularity and importance of time through the various countdowns. Side note: I also wonder why a cat! But hey, cuteness all the way — even though I would have thought flowers to be cuter than burgers, then. ;)

Thank you for the sweet moment!

---

@lincolnsalles There is music playing for me in game! So maybe there was a problem.

A Song of Red and Blue (and Green) by Squarefox 2022-10-17T12:41:41Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

0. I like how there is some backstory by matching each ball/colour to an ‘element’ 1. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard) 2. funny sounds when hit! I was not expecting this (more of a fire-extinguished-by-water sound), but this one is somewhat cute 3. not obvious to know what the front direction is before moving! I think some indicator (say, a transparent arrow when standing still) would help 4. there does not seem to be other sounds than the losing one, but adding some could add more life (bounces, collecting a mana ball…) 5. I wonder what the behaviour for the water ball is! Just random bounces? 6. (stupidly!) lost after several mana balls; oh, but no written indication of the score? :o I think it would be nice to have the score written, and possibly a high score feature as an incentive to do better 7. the concept as an objective reminds me of what happens in *Snakes*, where apples spawn regularly 8. by the way, the balls look really nice (thanks to the homemade ‘raytracing shaders’); the subtle lighting (and shadows) of the scene are also nice 9. downloading the source just to check how the game was made: ah, apparently, C++ without any engine or even framework? If so, well done for making it from scratch, I always like seeing people taking things to low-level :) Oh wait, Irrlicht is used; I am not familiar at all with it, but I still believe it is mainly used for lighting and that everything else stays at a low level, so game logic must still be so 10. playing again to check whether the enemy accelerates and how much (thanks to denvil’s comment), since I did not notice the first time around: yes, it does! Aaarg, lost at 10 points (kept the score in my head, this time)

**Takeaway:** as stated on the page, a simple game, but which already feels like a finished coherent base for more! A lot of care for the graphics, apparently. I think criticisms/suggestions would go along two axes: 1) some more user-friendly lively cues could be added (ball orientation + score + sounds); 2) longer-term game interest could be enchanced by adding more variety (denvil’s suggestions could be a route; another idea I have is that every 10 seconds, the collectible balls are reset and you have several types of them, including some that act as penalties and others as bonuses). Maybe you could also develop the backstory some more (magic/wizardry seems to be suitable to the whole ‘elemental’ take!). As for the theme, I think the interpretation is classic, but fair (having ‘wilder’ happen would have made the regularity more apparent, see suggestion above).

Thanks for the simple game… and for the shaders! :) I think I will take a look at their code. ;)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

Herocide by GCRexx 2022-10-21T22:56:32Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. on game pages and title screen: I know this is not serious for a game jam, but still, misspellings to take care of if you continue developing the game ;) 2. small buttons to the left of "Level X": clickable, yet do nothing? (later: oh, checkboxes! But they should not react to the mouse) 3. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled (later: hard for me to use arrows + Left Shift + mouse!) 4. died when respawning! :o Lack of laser resetting? 5. I thought we were safe inside the building, but we are not! Not obvious 6. the triple jumping special ability uses Space rather than Shift; although this is intuitive, but the explanations said Shift for all special abilities 7. hearing the laser sound even in character selection: I definitely think the laser still works instead of being reset! 8. what are the turning beige things we collect? Checkpoints?? 9. in level 2: respawn to an isolated yellow warehouse!! Can only progress with triple jump? 10. the laser feels superpowered, maybe too large and focused too close to the heroes!! :o I keep dying! Except for the first shot, which seems non-lethal for a few seconds 11. weird, the end of level 2 was actually at the end of the line! So, why bother take the sideway checkpoint?? 12. level 3: new music, nice 13. often buying fast guy, to escape the deadly laser 14. reached high in level 3 but could not make it… now level 4 15. level 4: don’t get how to proceed after the void! :o Even triple jump is not enough 16. skipping to level 5 17. had to take some moments to find I had to go down! indications about where to go would help 18. camera keeps on turning down, makes my life so hard!! 19. "cheated": fell down to blue platforms! X) 20. beat level 5, using only fast guy!

**Takeaway:** main mechanic too punishing, and levels need to help knowing where to go. On the bright side, big "sky-y" levels that I wanted to explore (but only fast guy could survive!).

PS: OH NO, I cannot vote?! <:o It is less than the deadline by a few minutes! Sorry… This would not have granted you the 20 threshold anyway, but still. :/

PPS: now that I have more time: I agree with EroAxe, especially that the concept could get somewhere; in particular, you would need very specific level design so that each power is needed at some point (not necessarily in each level, but globally at least). Making everything more understandable and playable will go a long way to help see how the concept plays out! :)

The Peter Principle by Thomas Peterson 2022-10-21T21:43:44Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. page: I knew the Peter Principle and just love how the advice leads to that XD 1. cute explanation page; and very clear! I like how you put the images in a yes/no fashion, around a clear small list. I had put some explanation pages for former games, and was always afraid it would be too much for the player, as implicit tutorials are best, but here, I feel this is already clear 2. oh, sprites in a 3D environment! Cute 3. ah, super small room! Actually, this is great for dense action: no getting lost! :) I imagined this would be a large company with many rooms, but you made a smart choice 4. varied tasks, great! By the way: including mathematical additions; this is exactly what *10 Seconds of Math* (which I tested a bit earlier) was asking! XD 5. I also like how reacting to others is implicitly a critique of self-interested fawning X) 6. (retro) sounds are a great cue here! And the interface is very intuitive (matching the explanation screen) 7. just a bit overwhelmed the first time (which may be normal), did not get the time to check the target; lost after a few rounds: nice funny sound again; bwahaha, "official reason" (about Ph.D.)! XD Are there several reasons? 8. second run: there is just the bar as I had seen! I thought I had missed something, but no. :) 9. wow, even a logic question! :) Very varied 10. lost a rank higher: different firing reason! May depend on rank, as I suspected first, or random? And things get hard quickly, in my opinion, about the 4th or 5th round! 11. lost again (clicked right out of the icon at the last instant XD); same reason as the first time, but for higher rank, so, sounds random 12. caught a glimpse earlier, really become aware of it now: "Señor Contributer" XD (why not "Contributor"?) 13. missed fourth letter from the board, came back to it: had retained my first three clicks, nice! 14. hahaha, love how the coworker’s line on Mercury is to be interpreted as good! XD I got the vibe intuitively 15. really funny how I end up waiting before completing a task, really makes you feel the interpretation of the Peter Principle XD 16. oh, actually won!! I thought this would go infinitely! And love that gangsta CEO style XD According to the Peter Principle, the CEO is now an incompetent ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Lazying my way to the top like an actual boss.

**Takeaway:** while the tasks themselves are simple, their variety and pace felt GREAT! They were also both simple AND tricky (except maybe for the board letters, although this does engage your dexterity by going for the mouse). Feels like good brain training! The game is also keen on the eye, has great sounds as cues and little funny music (how did you make it, by the way?); it is short, but just enough so it does not get overly challenging, which is fine for a game jam. The cheeky context of the Peter Principle is also great, and the pace gave life to that small office! A semi-criticism could be that the game may be tricky to extend into a bigger thing while still abiding by the ten-second constraint, but after all, why not, there may well be a clever way.

Thanks for the concise yet entertaining game, this certainly was a good one. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

---

@madeofst See above: there *is* an end to it! :) After a few attempts, I also thought this would get tricky, but it turns out there were not that many rounds; I did not count, but I think less than ten.

DECAPHASE by Grif_in 2022-10-18T21:22:43Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

[testing a desktop version because of {performance + audio} warning]

1. "Collaboratively made by @Grif-in & Surreal." -> you can have all authors displayed below the title (I think each one needs an account; unsure) 2. ah, I see on itch.io that Bevy was used! :) (dabble in it, still learning, out of curiosity) 3. soothing music! 4. already lost (level 13) XD I am too much of a slow perfectionist for ‘tower defence’ games, at least the first time around! Although I took some time at the beginning to note down something. By the way, I like how the enemies wander around after defeat :) 5. tried blocking the way (surrounding the base): forbidden to the lower left! Is there some path-searching algorithm at work to prevent it? Losing right after, at level 29 (**Edit:** looking once more at the laser capture, I notice there is a complete path for the enemies, which tends to confirm the player is not allowed to barricade!) 6. increased sound volume; ah, is the wave sound mouth-made? :) Some other sounds may be absent, such as enemies colliding with the base, which I think would have been useful 7. the speed changing feature is a nice one! :) Yet simple to make, but you had to think about it 8. spotted a bug: if you pause during a laser shot, its firing sound holds 9. by the way, the game does not lag on my hardware! :) (some Bevy demonstration games do, so I was afraid this many-entity 3D game would) 10. trying an all-laser run, without upgrading: stops ‘working’ at some point! Reached level 27. Ah, I like how the towers seem broken upon defeat! :) Ah, or is it merely their normal image, seeing a new one in a new run? 11. possible bug: sometimes, the lasers seem to target somewhere off the grid for an instant (some spawning enemy??) 12. question: what was used to create the music? :) 13. tried an all-laser run, with upgrading: almost like Trouv, ran into trouble at level 58, and lost at level 59! X) Although I stupidly forgot about reusing my previous idea of a slowering serpentine layout…

Great comment by @trouv by the way, happy to see people put some thought and words into the games and work out here. :) (I had the same question about the enemies’ paths, and the same pleasantly surprised reaction to their wandering. XD And the same noticing of Bevy!)

Since much was already said that I agree with, I will just complete with a bit more, on the criticism side (so, do not take offence at the unbalance! ;)).

**Takeaway:** a very well presented ‘tower defence’ game; I especially like the purity of having a genuine square grid where you place towers, as if playing some chess game. The downsides I see are the lack of originality, and the too classic evolution mechanic as the connection to the theme (a twist could have solved both issues at once! Now, I may be mistaken, but I do not see one presently). Also, small readability point: while the panel has the right information, that is a bit much information to take, at least at first; I think an idea to help parse the right panel quicker would be to associate a colour with each of the three turrets, both for buying and upgrading. (It seems natural to use their real colours, so blue for blaster, purple for wave, and green for laser.) As for the mood, I wonder if some backstory/context could add immersion, but this is up for debate; mystery is sometimes nice. ;) I am not necessarily a fan of ‘tower defence’ games (although I am versatile and could play about any type of game, really! X)), but I can see the qualities of this one.

Pandora’s Box [WebGL/Win/Touch] by AJ Studio 2022-10-20T17:48:18Z

I just want to say that I came looking here because of your comment praising [a game without files](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/deadly-tag). Seeing the statistics, I think you somehow took advantage of the system.

I do not want to be mean or anything, but seriously, do not engage in this; the system here is made so that if you leave interesting feedback, rate, and reward other feedback/comments reasonably, you will get a fair share of reviews. For example, I had the surprise to see I got many first reviewers for my game after writing only two big reviews. (And I have no idea where my game is at now, too busy testing as much as I can to help. XD)

What would be nice would be to come back to the games you commented on, play them if you did not, and write constructive criticism. Do to others as you would like to be done unto you, this is the age-old Golden Rule! Also, I have not tested your game, but I think the anonymous comment, which may seem harsh, is well-meaning; and this is what *real* karma gets you (as opposed to virtual Ludum Dare karma). ;) Be nice to other people here! Wishing you godspeed. :)

Quantum Caves by DevLope 2022-10-19T10:10:09Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. "the walls are shifting around you when you look away!" -> reminds me of *Outer Wilds*! 2. "Wave Function Collapse algorithm" -> I think I am unaware of it, I shall look it up! :) Thanks for the information (afterthought: wait, maybe I recall the name… Checking: oh, yes, know a *bit* about it!) 3. "Arrow keys" -> so, no QWERTY trouble for my AZERTY this time! :) (if happens rather often not to have layout-independence) 4. concept looks interesting! 5. cute pixel art graphics, and quite detailed, including vegetation (creepers…)! This is great, given this is procedurally generated 6. nice sounds and thruster visuals for the ship, this makes playability clear! 7. nice "electromagnetic" field effect on the hazard tiles! :) 8. I see some hazard DISCS; what are they for? I could touch one without losing, but another one did make me lose (at my spawning place, every time in a row before I moved X)) 9. this is HARD! And unforgiving 10. the alarm sound is funny, sounds like one of those things you press with your hand to make a pseudo-horn sound XD 11. what is the goal, by the way? Picking up all energy balls, or merely surviving as long as possible? 12. weird, still had fuel, but could not go up anymore! (aside from a ridiculous millimeter) 13. happened to me once more; is this expected? As in, you need not to use the upward thruster too much in between energy balls? 14. "plenty of energy" -> I wish for a more precise indication! XD "Is the situation dangerous, computer?" "You’re fine, dude." 15. by the way, it does run fin on my hardware (while some Unreal Engine games do not :p) 16. I think I have not made better than 3 up to now. A high score feature to keep track could be nice! Oh, I realize you keep your score when touching hazard and respawning, so position reset is not losing! 17. I like how you can continue exploring after losing 18. this is SO HARD. I think I am not careful enough nor use the hazard disappearance mechanic enough 19. reached 4 20. showing where the energy balls are in advance amongst the ‘fog of ~~war~~ hazard’ is a nice and welcome help given the overall difficulty! 21. found four energy balls gathered together! A bit later: and this was my final run, with a score of 20 (twenty), which is way more than all previous runs! :D Getting better at it, clearly :) 22. I am not sure of how the 10-second theme fits in exactly, because it sounded more like you have only 10 seconds ONCE fuel gets depleted enough, rather than 10 seconds after getting a ball; or does it? Testing once more: oh yes, it IS 10 seconds after a ball! I think the counter should say it! And so, that actually makes it 20 seconds rather than 10! ;)

**Takeaway:** an interesting procedural mechanic in nice procedural detailed scenery; the game is challenging! It feels like a prototype that could become super interesting with some other mechanic or additional objective(s). I could not say what for the moment, a little something… Other than that, funny sounds and cute graphics! I still wonder about the upward movement sometimes getting ‘out of order’, but this may be intentional as a restraining mechanic. As for theme incorporation, it sounds classic but fair; the originality lies in the quantum part. :)

I tend to like programming/algorithmic experiments, and this one falls under this category, thank you for the originality! :)

Watch Your Step by red-stake 2022-10-14T08:55:49Z

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. great (vectorial?) simple yet effective and careful graphics (I am thinking of the rotations); reminds me of some from *Starwing* / *Star Fox* 2. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard). 3. great punchy music! 4. oh, no sound for shooting and hitting; too bad, I think this would have added to sensations! It is often a good idea to prioritise main mechanics’ sounds 5. the game does a good job at explaining itself, especially for the 10-second principle; by the way, this line-breaking reminds me of *Tetris* X) 6. I find myself holding the left mouse button; this may be an iconoclastic idea, but I think constant autofire could have been enabled! Since I literally **never** stop shooting 7. hey, Space makes you jump (and you even have double jump)! Not stated in the controls, I think! 8. it looks like letting the game over screen makes the game become laggy; memory usage because of more enemies’ spawning? 9. wow, that camera shake is crazy! And maybe a bit too much, considering this is a bonus XD 10. found a trick: when there is a gallery below, you can go undercover 11. OH NO, you lose if you go a bit out of the screen at the bottom! <:o Lost this way at 73.0 s using my trick! 12. is there an end to the game, or is it infinite? 13. I am realizing something: except for the jaggedness of the floor, the 10-second transformation/lowering does not seem to really have any other influence, as this is equivalent to staying in the same place 14. the bouncing of the bonuses is funny 15. found another trick: staying in a corner. This is safer 16. still lost (at a respectable (?) 100.5 s) because the ground suddenly crumbled under me and had me go out through the bottom… <:o I guess the strategy should be complemented with jumping when the countdown reaches 0, out of precaution

**Takeaway:** bonus points for fun, there is clearly something here! The music and sounds are great, but this is such a shame that there is no sound for firing and hitting, as this is the main activity! :o Also liked the simple yet detailed graphics, such as the rotation of the player or bonuses. Having the floor get jagged and possibly throw you to your doom is an interesting idea; as for the theme, the player really feels the regularity. If I were to be nitpicky, I would say that the 10-second transformation interpretation is one of the common ones, but I still think the game’s is fair.

Fun and challenging time, thank you! :) (And still curious about whether there is an ending or not… Pretty please?)

PS: one last nitpicky point: just *a little bit* more variety would have made the game get even more long-run interest. And also, having the time as an incentive to do better next time is a good idea.

Watch Your Step by red-stake 2022-10-14T09:23:10Z

@red-stake

> Hopefully someone can clarify?

The rules for music are not that clear cut; there is a short passage on it in the ‘Derivative Works Explained’ section from the [rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules). In particular, *sampling* is authorized. I also saw recently that CGmusic had been used by [*Total Party Kill*](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/total-party-kill) from Ludum Dare 43, so I guess there is a tolerance for some degree of music generation.

The [new rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51) forbidding AI-generated content for Compo this edition (‘Please submit games built with AI art generators as Jam or Extra games, not Compo’) target *graphics* more than music, because of the recent advances in image generation technology.

My two cents: I would say that you have to be ‘reasonable’ about the level of generation you used. (In my case, I used jsfxr for sounds, but this is explicitly authorized and even encouraged by the rules!) This is a problem for reviewers when they do not know the tools, such as me, since I do not know SOUNDRAW. X) (I am in a phase of exploring music tools, actually!) So, just be fair game and in doubt, explain a bit as you did in your comment, possibly pinpointing the information on the page/form, and let people use their best judgements. ;)

A Precious Path by ToineF 2022-10-19T09:20:49Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. I love the mosaic title :) (oh, and did not notice the dot on the "i" was a cat’s head!) 2. and the title screen music is beautiful and sweet! Well done 3. controls are layout-independent, great (I have an AZERTY keyboard). :) AND arrow keys are enabled 4. dialogue-introduction is a very nice touch for immersion; and the cat is over-cute 5. falling (I was wondering if there was something down there): funny reversal animation. By the way, notice the flailing tail in still animation 6. a simple 2-image walking animation for the guards would have been nice (but I guess too short on time). Nice touch to have a turning animation! 7. WOW, hard to hit without getting hurt! :o the fact that the guard does not stop is the reason. So, better ~~stab~~ scratch in the back. And our reach compensates a bit. Also, nice to have the "recoil" effect when we are hit 8. I like the dungeon visuals, including torch light effect 9. second level: still not sure what the 10-second counter does! Ah, gem duplication? 10. agreed with the first six comments (!) that the cat is a bit too slippery! 11. since we have apparently all of our time, I think some pressure should have been added so that merely waiting does not make the 10-second mechanic apparently somewhat moot. Oh, discard that, getting the grey ball, I see this is one such penalty that forces you to go fast, great! :) 12. end of 2nd level: carefully placed blue gem near the end, level design seems meticulous 13. 3rd level. Like those guiding arrows, nice touch! 14. yellow triangle (Triforce? XD) power: nice, temporariness! The powers seems varied 15. white gem again; I like how the powers are to be understood by experimenting, they make themselves clear! :) 16. and for the blue gem amongst the three jumping blobs: I also like that you can CHOOSE what gems to take or not. It opens up various ways of playing 17. 2nd try at level 3: did not notice that the lasor power makes you jump lower! Nice balancing 18. part with grey and black gems: I wonder if you can get locked… Or do some gems reappear? 19. level 4; beat it on first try, this one is simpler! (I suspect time struck ;)) 20. I like the outside! :) The end. Oh no, Space passes the final screen! <:o I hope there was nothing more? It was apparently the same music as the title screen, but do tell me if I am mistaken 21. side question: what did you use to make the game? :)

**Takeaway:** a cute platform game with interesting balanced powers, including detrimental ones or semi-detrimental ones! I wonder if you could just remove the attack mechanic altogether, it seems the game was still perfectly manageable without it (except maybe if you stumble upon an enemy while having the grey ‘weighty’ power). Some less slipperiness would also help, but apart from that, the gem self-generating mechanic was interesting and has potential, and the levels already offered several possibilities depending on the player, and some challenge.

Thanks for the catty obstacle race. ;)

[Do not forget to review, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :) I see you have zero karma but have rated many games! :o This would definitely help you cross the 20 threshold.]

Frenzy Rampage Survivor by Michael Long 2022-10-18T07:15:32Z

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. the concept reminds me of the classic game *Rampage* 2. and the ‘Select an upgrade!’ capture reminds me of [*Cake War*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1681259) 3. the page says the embedded game would not work, but still trying: it does! (I use Firefox) Although I get some errors in the navigator console, including the classic ‘Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: The operation is insecure.’ 4. the shooting does not stop after losing, things event get heavy for memory! X) 5. "Theme: Every 10 seconds Designed that you level up roughly every 10 seconds" -> I think this is a somewhat loose interpretation of the theme, because that means the period is actually dependent on the player! 6. "Made by Matthew Fyfe @NykolaR Michael Long Gui de Souza Rocha! Joshua Rugama Wyatt Will Zac Huber" -> you can add the names so that they get displayed below the title (although I think people need to have an account here?…) :) 8. (itch.io page) haha, love the drawn title, especially ‘monster’ *R*! And burnt *Y*; I guess this is more likely Japanese than Chinese behind (yes,　怪獣 *kaijuu* ‘monster’) 9. "in a two-day sprint" -> oh, too bad you could not submit to "Jam" format, then! 10. testing the Ludum Dare embedded version 11. WHAT?! **[spoiler]** while nothing happened musically when I merely tried to see if the game worked, this time ironically, I get a Rick Roll!! XD Anyway, I love *Never Gonna Give You Up* (and *Together Forever*, and *Take Me to Your Heart*), then, so be it. BUT an option to disable it would have been nice XD 12. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 13. what are the controls for using the earned abilities? (a bit later: everything is automatic, actually? But not sure I saw the horizontal kick) 14. I read that civilians provided energy, but I have trouble seeing them. (a bit later: all right, the groups running away from destroyed buildings) 15. going through a massive military crowd: it turns out I now get upgrades WAY faster than every ten seconds: even at one-second intervals, sometimes! 16. this is satisfyingly straightforward XD Really reminds me of *Cake War*, except you are already superpowered right from the beginning, if you just move through everything to get enough health back 17. since the same upgrades are sometimes offered, I wonder it this means there is a *level* system for each; if so, it would be nice to display the levels (as in *Cake War*, once again!), otherwise, to remove the moot upgrades 18. ‘Lazor’ (the meme is strong with this one XD): powerful! I thing orienting the image according to direction would be a nice detail 19. oh, planes and helicopters! Foresaw because of the ability about attacking upwards 20. What?! Towards 230 seconds, the creature suddenly turns into a large static coin, the music stops, and the action goes into slow mode! :o Is this the end? Or a bug?? 21. enemies self-destruct! Caused by my powers? 22. (still watching) missile batteries. Taking a capture, in case the coin thing is a bug! Coined. 23. self-destruction has stopped; maybe this was caused by switching phase (the text above)? I do not know. And the missile batteries are gone. 24. stopping here!

**Takeaway:** brutal almost mindless rampage! You just have to be a bit careful to replenish your health. Automatic ‘weaponry’ makes things even more straightforward (and thinking of it… this was also the case in *Cake War* XD). I like the visual style, especially for the (Homer-Simpson-yellow) military; the whole game looks like a comic strip. Many varied military units, too. My main criticisms would be that some way of keeping some tension on the player would be nice, and also, that the connection to the theme is loose (as I could experience in my own run!). As for concept, I like the mix between *Rampage* and ability-earning shoot ’em up.

Thanks for the action outlet! XD (By the way, what a cover!)