mr-a | Ludum Dare Explorer

Year	LD	Theme			Game	Division	Rank	Ov	Fu	In	Th	Gr	Hu	Mo	Co
2016	37	One room			Spatially Efficient Party	jam					3.93	2.87			26
2015	34	Two Button Controls / Growing			Desperate Vessel	jam	724	3.10	3.03	3.39	3.81		2.37	2.75	59

Year	MiniLD	Theme	Game
2016	69	Colonization	Itinerant Mind Colony
2016	68	Childhood Memories	A Nightly Drifting
2016	64	Nintendo 64	Shallotwings 97

Interstellar Cruise by Drauthius 2016-01-05T01:59:00

Quite engaging! It's kinda like the best parts of having an ant farm (well, speaking in theory, at least--I never had an ant farm with inhabitants, just a weird plastic shape with dirt inside). Glad to see you're working on post-Jam builds!

A few suggestions (maybe they've been addressed in new post-jam builds?):
- I'd like much stronger visual feedback on the state of needs (maybe scale or color-change based on severity)
- Some of Triple-town's features, particularly a swap-spot for an extra tile, or a random chance of getting a destruction tool, would go a long way in extending playability, I think.
- If you buy a specific connector piece, it seems like you should be able to return it, rather than sell it (sometimes I mis-measured).

Little Flower Big Sky by pinneh 2016-01-05T01:48:00

This is a curious mix.

I love the flower and character graphics--they do an amazing job on selling me on the whole riding-a-giant-rising-flower thing (especially with the motion of the flower relative to the camera)--but the generic Unity UI bits are so jarring and awkward that it took me a while before I noticed the eye-candy on show.

The mechanics are also pretty neat in the way they make you reconsider timing shots and cycle between states (though, like others, I definitely mistook the yellow-mode for a glitch at first); some additional feedback (particle effects, animation/visual announcement when you collect a powerup) would go a long way in making them feel meatier.

It'd be a nice touch if the character started walking back to the center if you stopped firing for a while.

Super 2 Button Growdown by ViKing Games 2016-01-05T01:22:00

Blast! That waggle-duck-thing in the second screenshot is a strong motivator for me to play, but there is no Mac build!

RollingFlames by BunchaSapsGames 2016-01-05T01:15:00

I'm a bit confused. All the links (Windows, OSX, and Linux) seem to be to the same file, and I'm not seeing an OSX build in there.

Cityblock by Ellian 2016-01-05T01:03:00

Alas! No Mac build. Would've liked to play this!

Jump! Shoot! Dive! by Wandermayer 2016-01-05T01:00:00

I enjoy the aesthetic, the absurdity, and the dive-kick-ness of the game design, but the gameplay/execution is a little too spare for my taste. I think I'd like less-floaty jump physics/animation (perhaps this could vary between characters?), or more precision in control (e.g. hold to jump higher and release jump to start rapidly decelerating, or allow ~10+ jumps as long as you have upward velocity, and dash down only if you're falling). Likewise, more visual feedback about your current state (e.g. whether you can fire, whether you will dive or jump) might improve initial playability & look nice to boot.

Continental Breakfast by Brightstar 2016-01-04T23:29:00

In approximately three minutes I have softly chuckled, thought a little bit, and witnessed a complete game. I am satisfied.

Button Pusher 1.0a by fannypack 2015-12-23T00:23:00

Getting Started:

1. Load blank image.
2. Press 'back' on your browser.
3. Read the instructions.
4. Follow the instructions.
5. Follow instructions.
4. Follow the instructions.
6. Sit down.
4. Decide if you have won.
?. Did you win?
7. View the images.
8. To restart, go back to 1 (or skip straight to 5).
9. Advanced players can breathe.

Major Tom by OberynMartell 2015-12-22T06:52:00

Gorgeous presentation -- it's a pleasure just watching the world in motion, passing through its day & night cycles!

Kinda wish this wasn't restricted by the two-button theme. Levels that didn't require the use of an additional satellite were super-easy (but relaxing, thanks to the visuals & sound), but by level 6, I found myself wishing for reverse thrusters to better dial in my speed.

All in all, great work! I think I'll keep this one on my hard drive for a while.

Playing With Fire by sonelliot 2015-12-22T05:14:00

Impressive! The concept seems like it would be too ambitious for a game jam, but you've executed it well. The two powers are well-considered, and the rules click after a few tries. The levels are nicely varied, too.

The fireball does seem a little overpowered compared to the other power, but the game feels too sandbox-y for that to be a bother. Wish there were more things to burn (abandoned houses, trash piles, deadwood, oil spills) and more levels, though. What are the odds of you continuing work on a post-LD version?

Arc by ChuiGum 2015-12-22T02:03:00

Brilliant!

My highest so far is 11.

Wishlist:
- instant restart (or at least less than .25s on death screen)
- 3 speed/difficulty choices, with current difficulty at medium.

Definitely consider selling this for mobile devices.

Cyclopi by akirassasin 2015-12-22T01:39:00

Wish there were a mac version; this looks impressive.

Empyreal Roving by barkergames 2015-12-22T01:29:00

Hah, and I thought my entry was on the hard side. Playing this is like volunteering to get hit by an asteroid. Did chuckle about having to successfully land on a pad to restart, though.

You Make It To The Mansion... by Esjaji 2015-12-22T00:56:00

Oof. That maid seems to be on amphetamines on Mac. Tried downloading the "guard update" build, but it won't run -- seems to be corrupted. (Tried downloading it twice, just in case, but no change. It seems to be ~2x the filesize of the original, too.) Maybe I'll circle back later, as I'd only be comfortable rating the humor category so far.

Blood Cleaner by Tanton-XHX 2015-12-22T00:34:00

Neat little experiment! I like the rotation mechanic, but I wish that the bullets and the player's hitbox were smaller (it seems kind of inconsistent, so maybe the issue is really that some other hitboxes are larger than I'd expect?) and that there were more inertia to the player's movement. Kinda wish the game moved forward a little faster and were zoomed out further, too, but these may just be a matter of personal preference.

Cheers!

Cultivate by kmakai 2015-12-22T00:19:00

Very engaging.

Giving binary choices between brief text options works remarkably well to keep the text from getting overwhelming, as reading-heavy games go, and and the instant-feedback from social situations (and the stat-effect consequences) keeps the interactions feeling meaningful. Breaking things up with timed "mini-games" was a great idea, too.

It's always impressive when games can pack substantial experiences into tiny timeframes. Hats off, sir.

Money Tree by vogon101 2015-12-21T23:54:00

Neat!

It's intimidating, over-busy, frustrating, and hard to look away. A remarkable similarity to real life.

Really wish you could view graphs of individual stocks to see their trend. Would be nice if the buttons had hover states, too.

Guardian by TheMeorch 2015-12-21T23:29:00

Excellent mood!

I stumbled over the controls initially (the presence of the rotation controls made things a little more confusing too), but eventually got a feel for it.

Conceptually, I like the puzzles, but keep bouncing off the hands-busy-with-baby ones. I'm sure having all these LD games to play is making me less patient than usual, but said puzzles do feel like they could be tightened up a bit. The inability to attack could also be made a little more explicit -- perhaps just by greying out the attack icons -- as I kinda expected him to be able to just redistribute the baby (into one hand/arm-crook, onto the ground, into a bundle, etc) while attacking. I think the slowness (though it works very well for the mood) is also off-putting, patience-wise.

I'm kinda hooked by the minimalist narrative, subtle, world-building and elements of sacrifice, though. Looking forward to checking out the post-jam version after voting's over.

growing darkness by rijnswand 2015-12-21T22:58:00

As others have noted, the mood here is good. I quite like the clay-mation-y quality of the main character's walk cycle.

A few technical issues cropped up for me:
- The audio entirely stopped for me after a minute or two.
- The mouse icon seemed to show up sometimes when I was a little too far to interact.
- The mouse icon seemed to appear without a particular button specified (just the white mouse body was visible) when close to wood piles fairly often. Right-clicking on the wood still worked in these cases.

yaschiki by nuprahtor 2015-12-21T22:40:00

I don't have Windows, but I like what I see.

Alas!

Grow a Beard! by martin-denizet 2015-12-21T22:37:00

Winning energy!

Sometimes things are baffling, but that is part of the amusement. Figured out all of the mini-games by the second try, which is good.

Steak-eating is hard with just a trackpad.

Subtitles/text would be helpful. (Supposedly, if you record in a closet with blankets nailed to the wall, you can get less echo.)

Favorite scene: dodging the barber.

TRASH OR DIE by anotak 2015-12-20T18:07:00

Wish there were a Mac or browser build!

Sonar Vision by AlexHonor 2015-12-20T18:04:00

Excellent concept (and audio), but I find myself tripping over the execution a bit.
Some issues I encountered:
- Text spilling offscreen in web version (less so in fullscreen, but still occasionally there too).
- Survival time in game over seems to always say 0:0:0 after the first game.
- Targeting -- it seems like the nearest target should be prioritized, or encounters should resolve faster (asteroids/enemies go down or pass by faster) relative to the spawn rate, or the player should be able to cycle targets, or the E/H choice should apply to the most recently pinged object. (Though perhaps this is only an issue if you first engage an asteroid, then try to harvest it, and in the end it just passes out of range, preventing you from doing anything about the next blip or two.)

Of course, this didn't stop me from playing a couple dozen or so times--it's still a very interesting entry--but it seems like this could be even better with a little more time/love. Hope you consider continuing dev in a post-LD version!

Sanctuary Station by Joror 2015-12-20T17:27:00

Definitely feels like it wants to grow / be developed further, but this is a great little prototype! FTL (or Space Colony) + Tetris is a fun concept, and the drag/snap controls work well.

Minor complaint: I wish the arrow keys doubled for WASD for moving the view around.

All in all, nice work!

Trace Race by Oye Beto 2015-12-17T06:20:00

When I first saw this, I was expecting maybe a minute or two of familiar and easy play, so I was amused and only slightly optimistic about "hard" mode.

Twenty-odd minutes later, and I have a much greater appreciation for the value of level design & controls. It's just one level, but it ramps up the difficulty well, with nicely-interspersed breaks, and is small enough that it keeps looking conquerable after killing you thirty times in a row. The delay after death is just long enough to do a quick mental reset and not a moment longer. The trails & screen shake are nice touches, too.

Excellent job squeezing so much out of such minimal and familiar-seeming content.

Zircon by _HopFrog 2015-12-16T06:27:00

Graphics are charming, and I like the spatial nature of the puzzles, but I'm having trouble with the controls: A) I've tried various combinations and timing of pressing/releasing both buttons, but haven't been able to place a bomb. B) I'm having trouble determining which direction left/right will go once I've landed, and an incorrect press often results in bouncing back & forth. It would be nice if there were visual cues to know how the little fellow will move.

Also, for some reason the audio is so quiet it's practically inaudible in the left speaker.

Battle Rose by goodbadokay 2015-12-16T06:07:00

I like the look of the flower. Kinda wish I could use its teeth on the unarmed bugs.

Had some trouble with the controls at first. Can't tell if it feels laggy, needs input faster than I normally double-tap, or some mix of both. Improved with practice, though. Kudos on experimenting with the two button limitation.

HamsterX by UntitledQ 2015-12-16T05:46:00

Brilliant.
Intense.
Inspiring.

Infinite Chicken Quest by Gtron 2015-12-16T04:16:00

Not a fan of these kinds of games, but the peculiarity of the physics made things a bit more interesting.

Wouldn't have guessed that the levels were procedurally generated - the difficulty seemed to scale pretty consistently. Well done there.

American Excess by lectric.monk 2015-12-16T04:04:00

Yes! So many 5 stars!

I hated that the new random direction seems to be honestly and totally random, which kinda sucked some fun from the gameplay. Kept mashing on left to get another left while going left or right.

But aside from that: Yes! So many 5 stars!

MANE by Enchae 2015-12-16T03:47:00

After seeing the graphics and reading THE BEARD MUST NOT BE SOILED I was going to hammer the walls with my fists and bellow curses that this is only available for Windows users, but the soundcloud link calmed the rage.

I would totally give 5 stars for audio if I could play the game.

Two buttons to save the city ! by LavWa 2015-12-16T03:40:00

Pretty perfect length -- it ended just a few turns after my amusement faded.

I like the tableau you've put together around the input -- if it were just the console, this would be much less engaging. As it is, though, it's much more fun than it really ought to be.

As others have said, the name and description is a bit misleading (I wondered if I should try to type '2' in binary, too), and the latter two screenshots initially made me wonder if I'd somehow missed half the game. Might be good to edit the page to clarify.

Nice job pulling a new-ish game together at the last minute!

it grows! by skripteriant 2015-12-16T03:24:00

Yeah, I'm having the same trouble. The webplayer isn't loading (the error in the console says: "Refused to display 'https://www.dropbox.com/s/et1l0t37rv8werq/web34.html?dl=0' in a frame because it set 'X-Frame-Options' to 'SAMEORIGIN'.") and the Mac download seems to be just the contents folder of the app.

Not sure what to do about the former (does dropbox offer origin policy settings?), but for the latter, maybe uploading a .zip of the .app file will solve things (it looks like dropbox is mistaking the app for a plain old directory).

Glutton by CalmKai 2015-12-16T03:09:00

Cheers on completing your first Ludum Dare! Especially on making all the non-font assets (and on crediting the font-makers)! The models are pretty great, interestingly stylized. The chickens remind me of those marshmallow bunny extrusions sold around Easter.

There's something appealingly nightmarish about an expanding and contracting wolf drifting through a vast and too-green field crowded with pristine white and perfectly motionless chickens. The music really adds to the effect. I can't tell if this was the intended, but it amused me nonetheless. Light-hearted but strange.

Gameplay could stand to be more dynamic/varied, but it's oddly meditative as-is, particularly if I embrace that funny nightmare quality.

(Uh, just so it's clear, I'm not making light of the game here, just trying to report that way I'm engaging with it. In sum: I genuinely like its oddness.)

FYI - playing using the embedded player / iframe on the ludum dare page chops off a good chunk of the screen -- I didn't notice that there was text showing the size limit of the wolf until I scrolled around a bit.

SPACE DILEMMA by argowen 2015-12-16T02:20:00

Oof, the difficulty's a bit high for me.

Two thoughts:
- Really wish I could see further out, or at least get a minimap with most object's locations.
- Mixing insta-kill with slow auto-fire and fast-turning is interesting, but feels kinda unforgiving. Letting the player restart by just tapping a button (e.g. "r") might help death feel less off-putting.

Quite impressed you made the sound effects with just your mouth -- I wouldn't have guessed.

Flee From Debris by zzapp 2015-12-16T02:05:00

Hah, our entries are surprisingly similar.
You've got nicer-looking debris art, though.

Re: Benjamin's comment on the particles -- if you select the particle system and change the "Simulation Space" setting from "Local" to "World," your particles will no longer follow you when you're turning.
(Er, I'm assuming you're using Unity's "Shuriken" particle system there, of course.)

Evilator by Dyn 2015-12-16T01:44:00

Brilliant concept!

I like the elevator's nose. And that people will run into the shaft after you've left. And will happily ride the top of the elevator. And attempt to exit normally at their desired floor.

Minor complaints:
- the responsiveness of the controls is sloppier than I'd like
- people should be able to step up if the floor's a smidge high.
- people die a little too easily (this seems to be fixed in the latest version)
- if people fall into the shaft, it seems like they should die from the fall or get squashed when the elevator comes down

These things didn't stop me at all from continuing to play, of course, they just added friction. I'd love to see this further expanded upon.

Some small ideas:
- People could have a new "injured" state that they can reach before dying. In this state, they move slower and give less rep from a successful trip.
- You could get a notification when someone starts to wait, and/or see a count of how many people are waiting at each floor.

Cavernous Pink by Zemmi 2015-12-16T01:34:00

I re-enabled Flash for a bit just to play this. It's worth it.

Initial learning curve is pretty steep, but things get more interesting after the first dozen or so deaths.

Especially lovely is the variety of changes that creatures can undergo, from the drill-eels losing their tail to the jellyfish becoming jelly-bumps, then joining into jelly-walls. These little surprises, and the emergent complexity of the situation as things progress, are excellent.

Abyssal Zone by Leddev 2015-12-15T14:41:00

I started out wondering what two-button controls and unidirectional turning could possibly add to sokoban, but you've done well building puzzles around these limitations. Still kinda wish there was an undo function, though. I "won" with 4/6, as the thought of redoing the "normal" sokoban puzzles rather than moving on wasn't appealing. It's nice you made those optional.

While minimal, the graphics & audio work well together to conjure mood & a narrative haiku of sorts. Excellent job.

(Oh, and FYI: Trying to quit normally (cmd+Q, right-click -> quit, etc) isn't working for me; for some reason I have to force quit.)

Electric by Madsj 2015-12-15T06:44:00

Arr. So many lovely-looking entries that are Windows-only.
Perhaps I can arrange to borrow a PC from a sympathetic associate.

MapleCopter by TheBreakfast 2015-12-15T06:24:00

Dagnabbit. I like the theme and the look of this, but I don't have Windows.

Little Unstable Planet by Mekuri 2015-12-15T05:36:00

Mac version seems to work fine in Yosemite / 10.10.

"Easy" mode seems difficult -- the slow speed of the shots is frustrating, and finding the rocks is strangely difficult. Never found a crystal, though I did deflect quite a few rocks. Are you unable to look straight up, or am I confused?

I like the concept of balancing growth against instability, and something's weirdly fun in plinging those rocks away, but I'm definitely struggling with the controls.

Impressive work for so little time.

Nature's Will by 4B 2015-12-15T05:19:00

Wish there was a mac build -- it looks neat!

The Lost Wanderer by The Vall 2015-12-15T05:16:00

I'll echo dekart's comment first -- it'd be smoother if movement were more cell-based (I kept misjudging the player's hit size by a pixel or two).

Aside from that, it would be nice if there were a run button, and a bit more to see/do. It feels like a solid base to expand on.

This would be kinda hypnotizing on autoplay, or as a mini-game to play while heftier content is loading.

Family Board Game Night: The Board Game by monika 2015-12-15T05:06:00

Hah. Odds of me playing this are slim, and I suspect it's vastly more fun to read the rules than play, but if one enjoys cynicism and parody then they are well worth reading. It's an acerbic humor essay in board-game format.

push your button then punch by 525 2015-12-15T04:52:00

The Mac link seems to be broken. Looks like an error page in Chinese?

Voidbound by disdanes 2015-12-15T04:49:00

A children's storybook. Definitely charming.

Criticisms are largely technical: Would've liked to press & hold to move, was a bit confused by the green running-man bar (what is it, exactly?), and sometimes was surprised when clicking to speed up the text ended up skipping it before I could read it. The "gameplay" seems better suited to young children, while the moral is much more broadly relevant.

More games need dancing motes.

Scrap Yard Racing by lastnerd 2015-12-15T03:10:00

Nice job ramping up the difficulty over the course of the levels!

Handshake Sim by fixedgerald 2015-12-15T02:59:00

Cheers on the humor!

A few impressions:

That first (extending) moment as your reach further and further across the table is great.

Took me a minute to realize that only your hand is vulnerable, but the formation of the levels made that clear pretty quickly.

Mr. Business is a very abrupt difficulty spike, felt a tad cruel. Eventually did shake his hand, though.

mr. a

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Feedback left by mr. a

LD37 — One room (4)

the beuys are back in town by tylerdoggone 2016-12-18T01:30:00

The Failures Of Felix by QuinnandWin 2016-12-18T01:05:00

I Clean Toilet by Flaterectomy 2016-12-18T00:35:00

Thug Life Simulator 2016 by nax 2016-12-13T05:59:00

LD34 — Two Button Controls / Growing (49)