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Moth

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoCo
201223Tiny WorldThe Pioneerjam603.483.442.742.653.483.552.572.9472

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by Moth

LD23 — Tiny World

Disregard All Humans by Fireblend 2012-04-25T22:09:00

This is a really sweet little and cohesive-feeling arcade title! The simple visual style is very cute and silly. I would agree with the comment someone posted about cities shouldn't fire at point blank range- this could be alleviated by telegraphing the shots, like making the cities flash a few times with enough time to escape before the shot goes off. I don't think getting hit easily detracts from the enjoyment of the game, since it's quite easy overall, but it does feel like you take a cheap shot! :p

I liked how subtle the growing size was- it took me a while to notice it! I think the difficulty also scales very nicely as the game goes along. All in all a very enjoyable little package! :) Great job on making the the audio, video and gameplay all click together so well- it's awesome you did it in 48 hours. I'll be interested in seeing what you make in the future!

My Kid Dropped The Planet by MadGnomeGamer 2012-04-26T00:06:00

This was really fun and funny! I think the reason why some people get virus messages is because it's a direct link to an EXE-- and I've seen some other games also get virus warnings because they're just uploaded as EXEs. I don't think it happens if you zip your game up first.

Anyway, I liked the concept of the game and how you could choose to have different objectives! Pacifistgames noted that you shouldn't really be able to set yourself as explicitly 'good' or 'evil', but I think the reason for this is deliberate and divorced from moral implications: rather than choosing morality, I would argue that it's more of choosing which objective you want to pursue.

If it was something you 'decided' as you went along rather than set as an objective for yourself, then it would be far too easy to game it and say "well, I'm destroying the planet" once you do a lot of damage to it, or "I'm saving it!" if you have an easy shot at the gate.

Anyway nice idea, good meat to the game itself (lots of levels!) and I liked the silly set pieces like the robots having coffee on the couch. That must be an awesome household.

If you take this idea further places after the compo, I would also like to see the ability to pan the camera- it's hard to figure out where shots should go your first time playing levels and it leads to a lot of mistakes and dead Whos if your first time through the game is all on 'good' mode :P

It's a tiny world by Endurion 2012-04-29T04:10:00

Really cool! Between the graphics and the music it reminded me of an old genesis/mega drive game or a DOS game. I'd love to see something like this with different levels where the goal is to get to a certain xp level! Or some other kind of use of this simple setup. It's really fun and fast paced and satisfying! Loved the cacodemon shout-out. The blood magic stuff was a pretty interesting concept.

Great presentation, feels nice and concise and complete over all. Really liked it!

Planet ZOOB by Pacifist Games 2012-04-29T04:20:00

This is a really cute game! The way the music synchronized to the gameplay was great. The characters and graphics are really cute, great style! I think this has a great concept and makes for a great arcadey game.

Great design and execution! I really enjoyed it, and top-notch presentation. The minimalistic aesthetics and the fact you explain everything without words is really nice and accessible.

Flea Circus by robbiehunt 2012-04-25T23:11:00

This is really funny and awesome! The mantis (or grasshopper) is totally Simon Cowell. I ended with around 15000 points and I'm a little guilty of button-mashing to produce enormous chains.

As a few others have said it'd be a lot easier to see what's going on if there was a bit more contrast between the background and the player. That said the presentation is very nice! The graphics are easy on the eyes, its palette is nice and rich and the music is fun and a really good mood-setter.

Really cute, amazing solo job you did in the 48 hours! :) I'd like to see more games from you, this one is really interesting and fun.

Block Bros by HeuGamer 2012-04-28T06:14:00

Very cute game! I enjoyed the rectangular aesthetic and the concept of a world that wraps around indefinitely. I think that's a very great employment of the theme!

I think the game became funnest when there were obstacles that necessitated skill and timing- getting an orb behind an enemy, or walking as a part of a large troupe of enemies. If you go further places with this looping world idea past the compo, I'd like to see more things like that added in- perhaps maybe enemies that go up and down from the world, like the Mario Thwomps. Maybe in the levels where you have to turn back around and head towards the start, the last trigger-orb can make enemies, perhaps sea monsters, appear to make your way back more dangerous.

I think it's very promising, and quite an inventive concept for such an early effort in your programming career!

Nix by rustybroomhandle 2012-04-28T06:33:00

That was a fun intro! I look forward to seeing this expounded upon.

First of all I think the character modeling is very nice; I really like the main character and thought the animation for his arm extending and picking up the rock was really cool in particular. I think the concept of playing as a rover is really cool! It's a really fun cartoony design in its colorfulness and the fact it has an eye. It really reminds me like a character design from the glory days of 3rd person adventure games.

Do you think you might fill this out with voice acting, as the project goes on? If you are, I'm sure you may have plenty of ideas for voice actors already, but if you give me a ring I'd be happy to pitch in my voice for a character!

Saw your sharp site too; looks like you have a nice team and some promising stuff on the way, so it's in my favorites now :)

ONLY US by Datamosh 2012-04-28T12:51:00

Loved this a lot! The relationship between the characters was sweet. I never saw the big tentacle alien from the second screenshot there! Did that get cut?

It ended on an intriguing cliffhanger, I'd like to see what happens next! I'd agree that it was a bit grindy. I suppose the grind is a necessary bottleneck to keep the tension high, though.

I found myself worried about the companion back at the ship and making frequent return trips to emote at him (or her). I feared that perhaps if you neglected them there would be a bad ending in which you were left alone.

Really enjoyed it, I think it was a great experience over-all! Creepy background imagery too (the cave with the rock blocking it really confused me and piqued my interest).

In Delusion by crippledgames 2012-04-25T21:09:00

I think the people who think the walking speed is too slow missed the fact Shift makes you run :P Anyway I'm glad to see psychological takes on this LD's theme! I think you did a good job in creating a compelling experience here.

The unreliable narrator and really atmospheric ambient music are superb! It really tinged things with a Silent Hill-esque feel.

You say you're going to remake the game with longer scenario? That sounds great, I'll definitely keep track of it and play it again when the revised release is out!

Around the World in 80 Seconds (or less) by gormio 2012-05-11T09:57:00

Gorgeous audio! I'd love to see where you go with this or similar styles of game in the future! :) Nice graphics too.

Dimension Jumpers by Skye 2012-04-26T00:58:00

Haha oh man! At the beginning I was like "awww cute" then at level two that quickly changed to "uhhh". It surprised me pretty well, I didnt see the progression coming at all :P

Short but sweet! And the jellyfish is really cute. :)

Atomic Galaxy Factory by MrBarnslig 2012-05-10T23:08:00

I thought this was fun and really interesting! The whole setup is quite interesting and I liked the feel of balancing defenses with generators. I managed to win on my first try! I turtled a bit, building up an empty box of defenses then filling it with generators.

I thought this felt very nice and complete! If you ever added anything extra, I bet it would be pretty easy to design some fairly compelling online play :)

Tiny Island by Zathnic 2012-04-29T12:44:00

Really cute concept here! Adequate graphics to communicate the ideas present, I feel, and once the water was introduced as interacting with the blocks my interest was quite piqued. It felt to me like a bit of an intersection between Sokoban and The Adventures of Lolo!

A nice little puzzler!

Home is where the robots are. by greg20man 2012-04-29T03:43:00

Got to 33! :) Really silly, also "robot mating season" is amazing. I think it's a fun concept for an arcade-style game that could be really interesting if you fleshed it out more or explored a similar concept! I like that you are pushing them to the edges rather than just jumping on them or striking them with a weapon.

I like the graphic style and must say you have a pretty slick logo design at the start there :P

Singularity by Todd Luke 2012-04-26T02:54:00

Very complete! I enjoyed the narrative and the writing style although I didn't quite understand what exactly happened at the very ending... it was still awesome though.

Graphics, music and sound were good- I really appreciate the friction in the player's actions! Very pretty pixel art and design. The chunky aural feedback from shooting a monster, the satisfying way right click draws in a monster and then the camera shake- it's all very lovingly crafted and it shows. The lofi sound effects synergize very well with the crunchy gameplay. It's always a pleasure to see such energetic friction in a game!

Can't wait to see more from you! :)

Tiny Galaxy by devince 2012-04-28T10:12:00

Indeed a very arcade style game! I got 45 points. I was not killed by an enemy but rather a meteor that knocked out the block I was on :P

Really fun, I enjoyed it! I like how the planets that pop into existence have atmospheres. If you do continue it I'd like to see how it turns out! :)

Greed Wars by IgnatusZuk 2012-04-30T01:37:00

I would really love to see you decide to refine this further! It's absolutely amazing- I sat through several rounds, it really hooked me. I think multiplayer would definitely be a fantastic addition, I think people would really dig this game if it were released with it.

Beautiful pixel work, great music and superb execution of soundly designed game mechanics. I love the necessity of map awareness- it is also quite scary when someone beats you to building factories and you are pretty much required to divert your resources into rushing your own factory because of it. It's great when you turn an enemy's advance around when they manage to snowball a bit in the beginning.

Bipolar by Skulls 2012-04-25T12:20:00

I like the psychological twist on the "tiny world" theme; I was hoping to see such interpretations! I think although the game is very tough and simple there are some neat things that one can infer from the imagery- thinking about him killing security guards and instead imagining it crazy like how he does on his hallucinogenic sprees is quite creepy! And yeah, I agree that the idea of doors being gone on the drugs (symbolizing that he finds a way to circumvent barriers in a different state of mind) was interesting.

But of course I am being so analytical and that just ruins it! I really enjoy the brevity and how understated the whole thing is.

The music is strange and very atmospheric. I liked the little "Fuck." quip he had when he got a downer. :P

Laser Coin Planets by mortehu 2012-04-29T11:18:00

Really nice graphical effects! At first I thought the luminosity telegraphing your health was questionable but as I learned how easy it was to keep up (just grabbing coins) I appreciated it as a neat concept. The sound effects felt appropriate and quite spacey in how they were a bit dampened and drowned out.

I managed to beat it! I really like the tech on display here and think you did a great job.

My Little Dungeon by thegreystudios 2012-04-29T11:57:00

Beautiful music and great graphics- perhaps the best music I have heard between the entire 23rd Ludum Dare compo/jam. The presentation instantly gripped me from the start (the intro was great). Really great and complete game if a tad slow.

I was amused by the classic game reference at the end!

Your Little Tale by LFleck 2012-04-25T12:32:00

I think this was a cute little thing! At first I was confused but I really like how the audience is put off by the same thing over and over again, and seeing how changing up the order of set pieces you use will entertain them and stuff. I really like the concept and would love to see this fleshed out further!

The graphics and music are cute. I like the interpretation of "tiny world" being theatre too, nice :)

Your Little Tale by LFleck 2012-04-25T12:33:00

Also LOL I see Garen in that third screenshot! :P

muniverse by namuol 2012-04-29T11:07:00

An amazing little title with some nice stylization in the art department. It blows my mind you threw together something so ambitious so quickly! Really has the makings of a classic space game I think, good job! Also, the instructions on the side were a good idea and helped a lot.

Survivor by character 2012-04-28T07:25:00

I thought this was neat! Excellent graphical style, nice Gameboy-esque palette. It reminded me a bit of Jaws on the NES! The sharks are very brutal.

So you say you cut three quarters of the features- does that mean you might flesh this out with some more stuff? I'd be interested to see the kind of things were cut, if you do come back to it! :)

Tiny World of Bees by tripleVisionGames 2012-04-29T04:26:00

Cute! :) I like the graphics and the different levels of scaling between them. Ended with 39 bees. I think it's a really nice little package, therapeutic and fun to interact with. I'd be excited to see some skill involved in the gameplay that can help or hinder your production of bees.

I will be keeping an eye on this for the later version! :)

Predicament by orangepascal 2012-04-28T11:29:00

Gorgeous pixel art on the environment! A fun single room puzzle game- I like where it goes with the theme.

I thought the item combinations the solution takes and I guess not much can be said without spoilers! I found the ending pretty funny and to be an interesting solution to the whole conflict :P It's fun!

SlimeABug by schattenkind.net 2012-04-25T09:23:00

This is a really cool game! I love its concept. I really dig the way different forms interact!

Kumiho by Christina Antoinette Neofotistou 2012-05-10T23:27:00

Great atmosphere, fantastic graphics and music- it's real standout presentation for sure! I love the smoggy, washed out palette and everything feels quite chunky and satisfying.

I have to say I really love the blink mechanic- I have never seen anything like it in a bullet hell (which doesn't say much since I don't play a ton of them) and I think it adds a lot to the gameplay. I managed not to die until the third wave, but I could beat the whole thing after a few tries!

I also love the petal animation on the title screen, I thought that was a nice touch. Really amazing production in the tight time limit.

Worlds in Cards by summaky 2012-04-29T12:29:00

On the contrary to your belief I did feel that the graphics were nicely executed and the old gameboy colors were really cool! I like where you went with the theme and I really enjoy it as a highly open ended puzzler- it's great whenever a player has ample leeway to produce their own solutions.

I felt that level 4 was a lot tougher than level 5! But that's not really a complaint or anything, just an observation :P Fun game, I think you have a really nice package here! I could see it as a neat and full fledged smartphone game with about four or five times the levels.

Nook by PoV 2012-04-28T10:41:00

Really great presentation! The controls did feel a bit floaty but the 60fps version is much quicker and smoother (I did first play it to completion in the jam version though). The way it controls combined with the graphics and music actually make me harken back to Donkey Kong Country, a bit. Adorable character design.

As KevinWorkman said I'd like to see some size-changing puzzles across multiple levels. I think this looks like the engine test to an excellent game!

The music was a bit short of a loop though I must admit. It's not that the composition was bad (I can tell the musician has talent!), but there was not much change to it so it felt a bit repetitive as you went through the very large level.

Sound effects are nice and chunky, and it clearly feels like some real care went into the controls over-all, I think. It does feel like the beginning to a nice little smartphone or web-game!

Pastor Mundi by Geti 2012-04-28T08:15:00

There may not be much here but it's gorgeous! I noted that spacebar lets you make a little hop, and I used that to fully explore all of the architecture and get up next to the front of the house.

I am in love with the lo-fi 3d- the terrain and the warm pastel palette. It is very artful. The skull cave particularly looks cool, and the character animation for dying is quite great in its nice level of detail.

I can't wait to see more! (I assume you will continue working on it based on the description?)

Super Orbit Worlds by Jhelle 2012-04-29T10:55:00

Very concise and tidy! A simple game with a nice concept and execution. The presentation is nice and it all feels very complete and well thought out. I could almost imagine it in an arcade cabinet! :)

Tiny girl by Fenyx 2012-04-28T08:00:00

A nice little danmaku game for 48 hours! Very quick and frenetic. Some of the camera motions were quite jarring! I am really bad at these kinds of games so I had to retry a few times :P

The pattern for the flower boss was pretty cool! I had a tough time avoiding all the shots (I don't think I focused enough on figuring out the hitbox). I like that the game has a nice menu system, I feel that helps to make the presentation nice and tidy.

I thought the ending was pretty funny- not because of the actual content of it, but rather because I wasn't expecting a development like that to happen at all! It seemed like such a stark change in mood :P

ANT SURF HERO: THE SURFENING by JigxorAndy 2012-04-28T11:44:00

I really love this game! Great graphics and sound, nice frictive gameplay and really silly and infectious sense of humor. There's a lot to admire here! And the concept of ant surfing is pretty awesome and I like the detail of there being another giant (red, nice touch) ant he dukes it out with.

Amazing effort, especially since you did all the assets yourself! Really nice synergy between the music, visuals and gameplay- chunky, clear and satisfying. Reminds me of classics like Contra and Metal Slug. The level of care that went into this is obvious and highly commendable!

Save Me by chinchang 2012-04-29T10:59:00

Very slick! I like the whole idea of hopping between planets and I felt the mounting difficulty was nicely balanced. I also noticed that you can kind of angle/distory the vector of your return from switching transition if you hold left or right- it's a lot of fun to grab the lives this way, and it's also really fun to use it to go back and forth mid-jump to evade the enemy fire.

Presentation was nice and audio was sufficient. Arcade-y and fun!

Moon Base by morganquirk 2012-04-26T01:15:00

Love how the gravity works! Great puzzle-platformer, reminds me quite a bit of Portal in mood and design. The aesthetics are great, the music is nice and complementary.

I think the way you integrated gravity into the theme is superb! Cute little ending animation too. I like the pacing of the final 'level' in contrast to the lava room before it. Good job!

Conquest of the Cyber-Ovine by Nanolotl 2012-04-28T08:50:00

I thought this was a really fun little title! I did over-grind a bit and wound up level 27 by the time I beat it; although I at least managed to escape any deaths, mostly due to luckily being able to switch over to the jar of life and spam a few of them.

I really think the ways the items all interacted in world 3 brought it to a nice apex! Their variety of use was also very cool- I like how the ball bane and freeze offered two different kinds of control in combat contexts. It was great getting a doodad with low cooldown, and once the ball bane leveled up it was really useful for just swatting enemies out of the way when you didn't need to level up, or were in danger.

A lot of fun!

Tiny World Cardgame by SusanTheCat 2012-04-29T12:15:00

A really well-made card game! I didn't know something this level of complexity could be so easily made in Ren'Py. You did a great job of not only designing and coding a game in the allotted 48 hours but also keeping an admirable production all around- the art of the character types is really adorable and the music is all pretty great. I love how it randomly flicks between the pieces of soundtrack.

You also seem to have a talent for music! I really enjoyed the folky feel of all of it and it really complimented the game's green aesthetic.

It was a lot of fun and satisfying to sabotage the other player!

Short Life in a Box by tequibo 2012-04-28T09:45:00

I must agree with Chinchang and say that this environment was quite eerie! The absolute tranquility of it, save for the player's own foot-steps, made it feel like I was being set up for the world's most effective jump scare ever (if you cashed in on this you would make something way more jarring than even the mythical '"maze game").

The nice chunky graphics were cool and I loved the projectile's particle effect. Does strafe-jumping help you go further? Because I strafe-jumped off of a few blocks before I got the double jump and jetpack and made some fairly gnarly jumps that I felt I could only pull off with strafe-jumping.

Anyway it's really cool, love it! I'd also agree with the sentiment that it would be very cool to see this extended into a longer experience!

LittlePlanetBigRocket by daredevildave 2012-04-28T10:55:00

A slick little game! I like the mechanic of viewing three sides of a cube, although I would also like to be able to see the solids on the two adjacent unseen sectors for those moments when you can't tell if there's a solid keeping you from going over there.

The graphics pop pretty nicely and the faces on the red dudes are pretty humorous. I understand the game's control is deliberate, but I still must say it was a bit tricky maneuvering around them due the collision boxes of everything are quite large and the perspective does make judging whether or not you're out of an enemy's trajectory a bit difficult.

I think the cutscenes and concept are really nice as well!

The Tiny World of Fiorella by strega 2012-04-25T10:01:00

This one has a standout style, great job! This has a lot of potential and I'll love to see where it continues to go. When it's filled out with more content and it's refined even more I bet people will go crazy over it.

Excellent presentation! The art and music would be great even for a non-Jam game; Rose's visual style is sweet and infectious (the main character is so cute!) and Hal and Johan did some nice mixing for the soundtrack; I'd say the instruments are easily on par with the Zelda synth music from, say, Wind Waker. I love how you can tell it's kind of making a nod towards Zelda's style of music in its melody! Or at least, that's how it seemed to me. Maybe I'm too impressionable.

I noticed the rooms were randomly generated without many stand-out structures or formations- I'm sure as you add more stuff to spice it up it will get more and more intriguing with ease. :) One thing that made Binding of Isaac's rooms great was the organic feel to them (every single room in that game is hand-made)- when you see patterns and stuff in a room layout, you get more of the feeling you're in a meticulously crafted world. Centered, symmetrical and checkerboard pattern layouts for room elements (even if still mostly randomized) would give it a bit of that hand-crafted feel! It would also harken back a bit to the interesting room design of Zelda 1.

I'd also add in that it's a bit of a cheap shot when an enemy spawns on you when you enter a room. I don't think it makes the game less fun (it's easy enough to regain health)- but it's always best that the player has a chance to avoid everything. I'm sure you already have plans to fix this, but just thought I'd note anyway.

I also think that it would be great if attack speed were upgradeable, or if the current attack were modified to fire off more swiftly when you hit the key. It feels a bit swooshy and I think you might find it an improvement if the feedback was a bit faster- if perhaps the slash was immidiate with a short cooldown afterwards.

I'll definitely be watching how this game progresses, and I would really like to see more of it! :)

Lodestar by runsintowalls 2012-04-26T12:00:00

This looks really cool, but when I open it up I don't hear any music- do I need to wait a while for it to load? I can run around and fall just fine, and when that happens I do hear the loud noise that briefly fades in before going to silence.

Any idea what the problem might be? I'd really love to play it!

Quaternion Nightmare by Dry Tree 2012-04-29T12:53:00

This was neat to see! Excellent exhibition of tech for sure- great job with this. The sound effect the enemies made was surprisingly creepy! The space parallax was pretty nice as well.

Excellent work putting this together in just 48 hours!

Propolis by sampyxis 2012-04-26T10:34:00

Really cute game- the backgrounds are vibrant with great stylization and the music is pleasantly mood-setting in a manner that nicely complements the small, simple scale of an insect's life. The story is intriguing and I always love a game with nice exploration aspects!

I'll play any updated, subsequent versions for sure! :) Really cute sprite and graphic work, good presentation, fun little package.

Bottled Worlds by Patacorow 2012-05-11T05:44:00

Pretty fluid gameplay. It has some cheap feeling falling deaths- there's no real way to tell when you'll be falling into lava or whether a pit is bottomless and fatal. It's not the existence of the traps themselves, but rather the fact there's no telegraphing ahead of time to alert you of their existence. (My game had some balance issue in the first jam version too- hard to crunch and finish a product in that much time, let alone excessively polish, I know.) A little hazard indicator for pits, and removal of possible blind drops into lava would be really nice, I think.

For some next-version advice, I notice that the background kind of lags behind the hero and the camera jitters sometimes mid-jump. You can fix this by doing the process that affixes the background's X and Y to the player's position right AFTER his or her movements have been calculated (begin step?), as well as set the view's X and Y positions to align with the player then.

I don't think I have a problem with the sound effects on their own, but it is quite jarring to hear the overlapping noises of the charging enemies at the same time- it becomes loud with a few of them going. This could be alleviated if you ensure no more than one instance of the sound is going at once.

It was nice when the bouncy things were introduced; I felt that they added a nice dynamic to the gameplay. With a character who has a narrow repertoire of abilities like this blobby thing- or Jumper, for instance- I observe that the most successful mix-ups come from capitalizing on environmental mechanics like this, and experimenting with their possible synergy.

Did you ask Pixel or Brother Android for permission when utilizing their music? Although it's freely available that doesn't actually imply anything about its usage license. Although if he has granted you permission to use his tracks or has posted that they were open for usage, disregard me.

I'd echo the sentiment of the charging enemies in particular needing a bit too much to kill. When an enemy doesn't change its strategy often enough, or when it becomes more damaged, I feel that giving it an excessive amount of HP oftentimes feels redundant- with the charger enemies in particular, it doesn't seem like it proves much about the player to be able to hit them enough to destroy them. The only thing necessary is just to wait until their invincibility animation is over with and hit them again.

Any projectile enemies are a bit better in this regard- their HP is more significant in that situation, because then the player is tasked with deciding to try and burst them down in a short period of time or instead attack and retreat.

Ran fine on my comp but I do notice a lot of people with slowdown woes. Perhaps if you deactivate any unused instances (do you already?) outside of the large box that follows the view, things would work faster.

Anyway I like it and I think it's promising, thus the detailed comment! It's crazy that you finagled with GM's horrible room editor to make so many levels in such a short amount of time, haha. Nice job! :)

Rocket Boat by RHY3756547 2012-04-30T00:05:00

This is a lot of fun! It looks amazingly professional and the music is superb. The level of presentation for 48 hours is incredible and very easily at a professional level.

I like how frenetic it is, it seems to me like the start of a fun smartphone game! If I made a suggestion for tweaking the controls, perhaps combinations of keys would make you start moving towards one of the 8 cardinal directions- holding straight down could make you go towards the south pole, be it clockwise or counter-clockwise. Up+left could make you move towards northwest, etc. I think WASD movement (and equivelents for azerty keyboards) would also make the game a bit easier to control. This is all just some advice if you plan to expand it in the future, of course- I think it is a marvelous game as it stands already!

Great effort and great result!

Kid's Wars by iFred_QC 2012-04-29T11:34:00

Very fun game! I really enjoy linear strategy titles. I think there was challenge in this beyond simply spamming units- when I tried to build to match an adequate counter-attack against the enemies' forces was when I turned their push around then kept it going all the way back to their base and won.

I think it's a lot of fun and would be a really good game with a few more units and multiplayer! Perhaps there could also be more than just land and sky as far as the avenues of motion go? Well in any case, I think this was a lot of fun and had great polish and I'd like to see it expanded!

Godly by Diventurer 2012-04-26T00:52:00

This was interesting! :) I like the concept of open ended god-games. Do you plan to expand it? It could be quite interesting with a bit mroe stuff!

I liked to see the 'god watching over world' take on the theme this time around. The idea of turning generators into an investment is really neat- I was unlucky enough that Eaters kept seeming to spawn on mine, so I could never quite get one that made a profit against their cost :P

Anyway, still cool and interesting! Good job!

Celia by Finn Stokes 2012-04-28T12:02:00

Real artful visuals and I feel the music was unintrusive and did a nice job of complementing them. The tea level's background was a bit creepy!

I was at first confused by the looping forest level, but once I figured it out I got the pattern down and beat it pretty quickly. It was fun and I think it's based around a pretty solid mechanic that I feel meets a satisfying extent of use by the time the experience is over.

Good job!

Amoebae by scgrn 2012-05-13T22:39:00

Got 79 noms!

Beautiful graphics and effects, and I really like the super crunchy atmospheric soundtrack. I like how the lumps of the amoeba grow in exaggerated squash/stretch motion when you go around quickly, nice touch!

Really simple and fun arcadey title here, great presentation :)

The Underground Court by caranha 2012-04-28T09:27:00

Pretty silly and fun! It reminded me a bit of the old game Sim-Ant. The queen was pretty cute and the cat noise was fairly hilarious. They're really fast! On several occasions I got the cake but then on my way back through the safe route, a cat got me as soon as I exited the other end of the tunnel.

I amazingly managed to get through the clustered area full of cats once by dumb luck. I hope in future versions the cats will give you a little more reaction time since it's really brutal in that you can farm food to get the food count above 100 and then get killed by a cat you weren't expecting :P A larger viewport could also help with this. I like the effort that you put into the graphics and sound.

It was pretty hilarious when a cat would get excited and chase you but immediately go to sleep a split second later :P

I'll be interested to see expanded versions of this!

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-25T11:13:00

@jeroenimooo thank you a lot! I'm very glad someone could enjoy my little oddity. :)

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-25T23:23:00

Thank you very much to everyone who enjoyed it! I'm glad you took the time to check it out.

@robbiehunt: thank you very much! :) It really means a lot that you enjoyed the visual style that much. I'm always a bit worried about pursuing a retro look because it is just done so much with indie games.

@MadGnomeGamer: That's really strange! :( Could you tell me what DLL it says is missing so I could try looking it over? Do keep in mind you need to extract the RAR into a folder before you can play it; otherwise the game won't be able to use the included DLLs. The reason why I think this is the case is because all DLLs I make use of are included in that RAR and if the source were run in the same way, I'm almost positive the same error would occur.

I'll also note that at this juncture I have opted not to include source not because of being protective of it or anything, but just because I am a very bad coder and what's in here is very slap-dash (especially since I was pressed for time), so wouldn't want anyone learning poor code etiquette or design from it. On that note, if anyone's interested enough I would be more than happy to explain how I go about programming anything included- it's all very simple and absolutely anyone could do it (and probably better than how I did). :)

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-28T06:43:00

@MadGnomeGamer: Thank you very much for your input and for sticking it out past the initial DLL problem! :)

A bit of insurance against missteps- extra lives- are planned as one of the things you will be able to spend points on later. I'm also trying to shy away from jumps being difficult, and in the post jam version I've just released I make some of the (unintentionally) hard jumps from the first build much easier.

@rustybroomhandle: Thank you very much, that really flatters me! :) As you can tell, I was quite heavily inspired by the Speccy. I can't help but just love that aesthetic- two color sprites, I feel, can communicate very powerful character between their silhouette and single color. And I would like to make something with some simulated color bleed sometime :P

Diventurer: Thank you very much! I just uploaded a post-jam that addresses the inability to restart after dying. Unfortunately, that was supposed to be in at first, but then at the last moment I noticed the sound DLL was freaking out- I later discovered this was because I didn't stop playing a song before I had the game play the title screen song again. Anyway I fixed that and the end-screen restart is back in now, thankfully :P

Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to play and enjoyed it! It means a lot to me.

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-29T03:19:00

Thank you everyone! I'm really glad that so many people seem to dig the presentation :) As far as music goes this was actually the first time I made an entire OST for a game myself!

@SusanTheCat: I'm really sorry about that! :( As I said several comments ago and at the newest update to the write-up, the quick restart after death was taken out of the initial version due to a bug in the code; I had about 5 minutes left to package and upload so I simply opted to take it out altogether so I could get it submitted in time. It has been fixed in the newly added post-jam version.

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-29T10:49:00

@Evil Cult: Thank you for your time! As I have addressed in the comments and the writeup I have uploaded a post jam version that addresses the restart issue.

The one life thing is mostly due to its roguelike influence, but I do plan to have saving available in spite of that- it's one of the features of the coming versions.

Again thank you for checking it out!

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-29T12:17:00

summaky: Thanks for playing! Right, that does seem to be a recurrent complaint! :P The post-jam does fix that. I had every intention of leaving a restart option in but a last minute rush to submit made me cut it due to a bug.

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-04-30T00:48:00

Thank you a lot Rhy! :)

namuol: First of all I am flattered you took the time to go through the trouble and give this a run with Wine! I am also really happy that you found replayability in the title and that you like the soundtrack and graphics.

Second of all- wow, I'm actually really surprised to hear it worked so well! I don't actually have any access to Linux myself for testing purposes (although I know it wouldn't be hard to slap ubuntu into my computer) and it's really cool that it seems to work well on Wine! I always figured that Game Maker games must work either horribly or not at all if emulated- although I guess that shows what I know about the state of emulation.

There are indeed sound effects in the original game; the reason why music works is because I used an external DLL for playing back the OGG music, and then the built in (directsound I believe) Game Maker functions for sound. However, now I see that if I make the normal sound effects also use the DLL, I should have good Linux compatibility through Wine. Thanks so much, it's awesome to know this!

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-05-11T00:11:00

@MrBarnslig: Thank you a lot! It makes me giddy that you actually compare the music to Megaman :D I agree with you entirely on the criticism of the included stuff being too standard. I had higher hopes for what would be included in the jam release- I had hoped to throw together at least 3 more enemies with more interesting ability sets and AI, a couple more boss styles and more room layouts, but I guess I worked a lot slower than I anticipated. That'll all come in polished post-jam releases though!

Thanks a lot guys! Very flattered, Christina! :) MrPhil, I'm sorry to hear that it was a bit difficult. You weren't missing much by not completing it, since the ending screen for both game over and victory is quite similar. I had not particularly intended for the game to be excessively hard- again I blame the time limit :P There were some really punishing/ridiculous jumps in the first build that I have since removed, and bats won't be able to rush their speed stat anymore nor overlap your hitbox where it's hard to fight back. If you follow its later releases I hope you'll favor the difficulty a bit more!

The Pioneer by Moth 2012-05-13T22:44:00

Pacifist Games, Thanks a ton! :) scgrn, wow; I think that's one of the most flattering compliments I have ever gotten on one of my projects! I'm really glad that you like it so much!

Tiny Robot Island by Blanky 2012-05-11T12:11:00

I really like the framework you have here! Sort of a neat little Pokemon thing. Will you work on it beyond the competition? I'd be interested to see more :)

One bug I did note is that since my screen is tinier than the recommended size, a lot of the flavor text in combat overlapped. A little adjustment based on screen size would be nice, then the stuff would be more legible.

Stranded by The Evil Cult 2012-04-28T11:15:00

Great effort in the graphics and sound! Really nice little Zelda-style framework. I think an extended version with at least a couple more levels would be superb- an outside segment on the mountain and another dungeon inside the volcano itself? :) I do think there are makings of a really fun larger game here in any case.

Loved the fog of war in the dungeon, I thought that was super cool. Zelda reflexes forced me to break every single jar for reasons I am not entirely sure of.

Great effort and I think it all comes together in a nice and complete-feeling package.

Rockland by Jeroenimoo0 2012-04-25T11:30:00

This was funny! I really like the bizarre concept. The reserved pacing of the introductory text I felt was quite artful, and also highly amusing once it was contrasted with the main character being a stout little naked dude! :P

It's a fun turret defensey style game! I liked learning about balancing out shots and reloading earlier to ensure I had a full clip when I needed it! I will say that I think the inability to shoot while reloading adds a good bit of strategy to it. I don't know hardly any java at all so unfortunately I can't give you any code advice, but I will say that I like the way you have the art assets moving around at the title sequence :) Nice frictional motion there!

For critique I would just point out the player gets 'stuck' a little bit when you're on the bottom of the island while it floats up- moving the player at the same time would probably fix this I think! It's nothing that decreases the fun of the game though, of course, as it's quite trivial. :)

The game over all is quite humorous and stylized in both its presentation (textually and visually) and in its gameplay. I'll be checking out your ludum dare stuff to come for sure! :)