Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → natalye
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Insult Duelling | compo | 997 | 2.61 | 2.35 | 2.89 | 3.65 | 2.21 | 2.77 | 3.17 | 72 |
Cool dancing, but would've liked to have some kind of objective. Unless I missed it?
Love the graphic style and music.
Controls are relative to the player and not the camera, and since the figures look kind of similar from both front and back, it's hard to tell if you need to press forward or back.
Very nice!
The insults were funny and so was the rest of the dialog. Tutorial sequence was great.
I did notice some of the retorts were too similar to the MI ones.
It was hard to tell if you got the right insult or not (the visual cue of moving slightly forward wasn't strong enough).
By the way, I also made a game inspired by this MI puzzle, and I think your dialogs are better, good work :)
Really cool. The game was indeed very difficult, so I played a bit and then watched the playthrough, but I think I'll try playing it again at some point and getting further on my own.
It's very well done, the mechanic with the birds is original and works pretty smoothly, and I liked the graphic style very much (the Hitchcock reference really added to the mood).
Some notes:
1. You have a "tutorial" of sorts in the beginning where you see text explaining some of the basics of the game, but even at that early point it's easy to die, and that interferes with the tutorial a bit. I only realized later that the first bullet gun only shoots to a certain distance, it's a bit weird how the bullets just disappear at a certain point.
2. The text "Remember, if you run out of bread, kill yourself or switch checkpoints" - this wasn't so clear and it took a while for me to realize that getting a new checkpoint also replenished the bread.
3. When riding birds, I think it would be cool to change the character so he looks like he's actually sitting on a bird, this way they'll look less like moving platforms, and you shouldn't be able to fall off them.
4. A better visual cue for entering the boss fight (indicating that you now have unlimited bread) would help. Also, the text about the birds not being able to get through the shield confused me - makes it sound like they aren't actually doing him damage.
Loved the ending.
This feedback is on very specific things since overall I thought the game was great, very impressive!
P.S. Didn't rate on Humor since I don't think the game was supposed to be funny.
The floating in mid-air feeling made me dizzy really fast, and I think it's less intuitive than being on the ground and running+jumping. If you want to allow the cube to be walked in on all sides, perhaps you could achieve that by jumping to the wall and then the camera auto-rotating to show you're now on another plane? Just a suggestion.
I do think with the current controls and camera, there will be more than a few players that get dizzy/sick (look up simulation sickness if you haven't experience it :)).
Other than that I'm very curious to see this concept continued, and the game has a really nice aesthetic.
Minesweeper in 3D sounds like you might be on to something!
To clarify, when I play certain first-person-camera games, like Portal for example, it takes about an hour for me to feel nausea/dizziness, and with your game it unfortunately happened much faster.
I think it's impossible to completely avoid simulation sickness when making this kind of game, some people suffer really badly from it and just can't play certain games, but there are design/camera techniques that can really help make it better for most players.
Good luck! :)
Great game, really liked the thematic audio and the menu animations, really made it feel like a consistent world.
Could make the chalk "lives" indicator more clear (perhaps flash it when dying, or animate the chalk being pulled out of it).
Graphics are nice, and you made 4 games (all with unconventional weapons), so that's cool. The controls on the juggling one didn't feel very smooth. The audio in all the games was really high pitched and made my ears hurt..
I thought it was pretty funny, would've rated on humor too :)
Not sure if it's a very original take on the theme.
Great take on the theme. Found the controls a bit rigid a times, and the mech sometimes gets stuck because of platforms/people in his way.
Great music and animation too.
Very funny game, cute graphics!
This game is a lot of fun! I was very engaged in it, the flow of switching the dice and throwing them is great.
Really nice tempo with the animations and music.
One small bug - when switching dice, the previous number appears on them, even if it's "out of the range", such as a '7' on a 2-sided one.
I had many times when I accidentally pressed down again, after seeing a number I wanted, and then I instinctively pressed 'up'. So that was sometimes frustrating.
Funny idea, and I enjoyed the music.
Some things that could be improved:
- Some kind of feedback to the player when finishing a sig. I felt like I had to drag the mouse very far to the right to finish a signature. Perhaps signing should be faster?
- When the game starts I think the first page starts sliding too soon, making it too hard to sign the lines on it.
- Font is hard to read.
Very cool concept, and well executed. I liked how the area of vision is blocked by objects and changes with your position. Really fun!
It wasn't very clear to me which key I needed to get for which door, and I felt a bit like I was just going around collecting all the keys, without planning.
Well, it isn't finished, but I'm intrigued by the concept - was the mechanic going to be bribing people to let you pass by raining money on them?
It seems to go on forever when you run to the right.
There are also no platforms to jump on (at least none I noticed), and the background pattern makes it a bit confusing..
Jumping feels very smooth, with the camera follow and all, so good job on that!
This was really fun!
Loved the sound effects ("oww!"), and the art is beautiful too.
It was sometimes hard to jump off the edge of a platform, even if I wasn't really at the edge. Consider allowing jumps in a larger area (see #4 in this great post - http://devmag.org.za/2011/01/18/11-tips-for-making-a-fun-platformer/).
Perhaps add a pause when the game starts so you have a chance to focus on what's happening before the running starts, maybe display 3..2..1.. so the player can brace themselves.
When dying, there is too much of a delay before you restart, better let the player get back into action faster I think.
I didn't feel that the theme (the weapon being money) was very different than just regular weapons.
But overall great fun :)
It was definitely a bit hard, but I did improve from one try to the next. It was fun but could have been more so.
Using both the mouse to plant/attack and WASD to move plus more Q/E to rotate options, felt like a bit too much.
This game would probably be much better with a tutorial, learning the basic planting mechanic first before there's any threat, etc. But I do think you should try some different control schemes and see if another one is easier to use.
For a post-compo version a tutorial would be much better than text instructions. Also, the text was a bit hard to read, due to font/color.
At first it wasn't clear why some crops were marked with an X, I actually thought you were supposed to plant on them because of that.
I couldn't figure out if it was better to attack monsters with my fruit or just throw it at the chest. Both options gave me money (which I don't think there was a way to use - was there?), so really the point in shipping the crops was unclear. I like the idea that crops would have a multiple use, so maybe if monsters didn't drop gold it would help the decision feel more strategic.
Would be nice if there was a way to replenish life (even if it's rare).
Music was nice, the tempo fit the pace of the game, and the art was cute.
Some things to improve:
When I fell down the pit to the spikes, nothing happened to me.
There's a strange effect where you can stick yourself to walls.
I managed to jump really high a few times, not sure how.
It's not clear what the goal of the game is.
Overall, I think it's a nice idea and can be potentially made into a fun game, and I like the easter egg.
Thanks for the honest feedback guys, no need to apologize!
Yes, it is quite identical to the MI puzzle and in hindsight the grind was tedious (in MI there was also a grind but for several reasons it wasn't as tedious).
I'll also look up the other game you mentioned Tuism, thanks.
As for the menu, that's weird, 'M' should work to open the menu on Web version, and it also closes the menu (I'm sorry I didn't make that clear, will fix the description).
Thanks for all your feedback!
Very good game, the puzzles were challenging and satisfying to solve. I really loved the way you presented the tutorial, with the little question signs, and the text was humorous enough to keep me engaged.
Very cool game mechanic.
There are some glitches with moving and jumping, sometimes the character gets stuck in a wall and can't move, or jumps don't work because you're too close to the wall.
The puzzles were interesting. The first time I encountered another person I didn't know he was an enemy. But that was learned quickly.
Nice combination of Bubbles mechanic and dodging to avoid being killed.
The music was a bit too loud and repetitive for me.
Movement felt a bit stiff, and it's not always clear which color is coming next - the color appears to change sometimes? Perhaps because it's tweening from the previous color? Purple was especially hard to recognize for me.
I expected that shooting a ball into space away from the ship would make it go away, was a bit surprised that it bounces back. Maybe consider if you want to allow the player to "get rid" of a ball he doesn't want.
The rules are not clear enough, for example, it's unclear whether you have to swap a body part with another or you can just take one, or swap two for one etc.
Some examples for interesting "body configurations" would help understand how the game works.
The message you're trying to convey is great, but I don't think the current game rules would convey that message very well.
Also, don't see the relation to the theme.
I recommend writing a more concise rulebook and then playtesting a lot to make the message meaningful (perhaps it can be a little less obvious from the start, a later realization of the message can make it have more effect).
Also, probably best to new people as much as possible so that the message isn't 'spoiled'.
Good luck with this! :)
Great game, loved the animations!