Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Nick Shooter
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | KILLING TIME: The Dimensional RPG | jam | 164 | 3.95 | 4.08 | 3.79 | 4.17 | 3.91 | 3.95 | 3.93 | 3.91 |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | Captain Dinohater | jam | 20 | 4.37 | 4.43 | 3.55 | 4.09 | 4.16 | 4.01 | 3.65 | 3.97 |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Turn(Table) Based RPG | jam | 3.50 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | |||||
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Phase Shift | jam | 756 | 3.24 | 2.98 | 3.03 | 2.72 | 3.31 | 3.23 | 2.50 | 2.77 |
Love the goofy animations, everything was very fluid. Sound design was great, funny and informative of what was going on. My only complaint was that it was a bit tricky to aim the boxes just right when bumping into them moves them, but the arrow showing the kick direction helped a lot. The fact that you could kick crates into the peguins was a nice touch. Good work!
I also get a 404... Let me know if this gets fixed, I'd like to try it out!
Art and music was great, I really liked how the aesthetic/mechanics of the game adjusted as your character grew older. The gameplay was kinda tedious, though I guess that was point. The story was a nice touch! The bearballs were cute, I kinda felt bad killing them -_-
Your updated download link seems to work :v:
The art and animation is really nice, I can tell that you put a lot of effort into the game's style. The game physics are pretty clunky though, and there's not really any feedback for shooting enemies (something like a red flash or a particle effect would have sufficed). The enemy variety was really nice though, it was surprising to see so much stuff going on in a Ludum dare game. Multiple enemy types, multiple guns, dialogue, pickups. If anything, I would recommend scoping your game down a bit and focusing more on polish next time. Good work though!
Minor feedback note: For a game that takes place in narrow hallways like this, I would suggest only having the camera follow the player on the x axis. This solves the issues of the camera following you up when jump, making it difficult to see where you land.
Really solid game, the mechanic of tossing things behind you and storing them in your inventory to clear space felt really nice! I like how the difficulty naturally progressed as more and more trash filled the screen. Physics was kinda janky, but given how many rigidbodies are flying around I don't really know how to improve it :P Visual direction was really nice, though the game could definitely benefit from a bit more sound. Digging around through all that garbage would be much more satisfying with the sound of stuff clanging around! All in all, a cool game that adhered to the theme in multiple ways.
NOTE: This review is based on the post ludum dare version 1.0.3
Fun game, I love how the environment is completely destructible and nothing slows you down! Except for the bumpy farmland, I managed to get completely stuck there... All the UI is a nice touch, being able to see how full the bus is and where the kids are really helped. While the minimap was really cool, I will admit I didn't really use it. It might be more useful if it was more zoomed out. I did notice that I kept having a ton of missing kids every mission, even though I went to all the markers on the map and delivered every kid. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Really good stuff for a ludum dare game (give or take a few days for the updates). My main gripes are the complete lack of sound (other than one song that gets kinda grating) and the floaty bus controls, though I understand that sort of thing is difficult to get just right, especially for a game jam game.
Fun little game, very polished with nice sound. Controls took a bit of getting used to, as the player moved a bit faster than I was expecting. I feel like the game might control better with the player coming to a quicker stop upon releasing their input, maintaining momentum seems unusual for this kind of game. Took me a few tries to get what needed to be done to win, I think it might be better to show the instructions directly before the game, instead of as a separate menu option. The art was cute though, especially the little ending cards.
Love the silly potion names and the derpy alchemist! The dialogue options were a nice touch, though having like 20 things to choose from was a bit overwhelming. It would have probably been better to randomly select 3-4 responses to choose from. Having to stack up your potions on the shelf was really cool, but the physics for grabbing potions was wonky, and they'd frequently get stuck on the wall next to the chute. Maybe it would have been good to have grabbed potions snap to a minumum value that puts them in front of the wall, or remove the wall entirely and have the chute go from the left side of the room to the right. Cool game, I enjoyed it!
Cute game, liked the art and the building mechanics. The dogs hopping around and wagging their tails was pretty adorable! Like everybody else is saying, the goal of the game is really unclear. Do any of the things you build serve a purpose? Or is this basically an idle game, where you build stuff just because you feel like it? Either way, it would be nice to display the material cost of an object when you mouse over it. Nice game though!
EDIT: I did not notice the help button on the main menu. My bad, though maybe this could be better communicated by showing the instructions upon starting a new game.
Congrats on your first ludum dare!
The cubes behavior on the harder difficulty certainly made things more interesting, I like the way everything slowly drifted apart. My main criticism is that the spawn rate of the spheres pretty much requires that you look up at all times, making it difficult to keep an eye on the ground. Perhaps a game like this could benefit from an aerial camera rendering to a minimap so you can track your position. Cubes changing color as they get deeper could also communicate this information a bit better. Not bad for your first swing at it though, keep it up.
Very pretty game, controlled pretty well too. The particle effects in the backgrounds combined with the colorful tiles really give it a dreamlike feel. The ramps were really cool moments, I kinda wish there was less narrow walkways and more fast, frenetic sections like those. It would've been really cool if the tiles played musical notes as you rolled over them, I feel like this kind of art style would really mesh well with more musical elements.
@jamison Yeah that's no good. Mind sharing your specs so we can track down the issue?
Really innovative idea, not to mention loads of fun and extremely polished! My favorite game of the jam so far, good work. My only complaint was that it took me a minute to realize that I wasn't damaging the armored enemy, perhaps having the player bullets get deflected might have made this clearer.
Time: 12:00:48 Deaths: 48
The game has a good level of visual polish, and the dialogue is a nice touch. However, the gameplay itself is kinda dull, it could have benefited from utilizing more enemy variety instead of an upgrade system and dialogue. The difficulty could be toned down a bit as well, it seems like you can get pretty easily overwhelmed even if you fire reasonably accurately and buy upgrades whenever you can. Gamepad support is a plus, it certainly makes the game smoother. While it was cool that you integrated money and upgrades, the UI was a bit too much information to process using text alone. Some better organization/more visual elements (like graphics, meters), could have helped a lot. I'm being super nitpicky for a ludum dare game, but it's because the foundation for a good game is here, and I think with a bit of extra polish you could have something cool!
Congrats on your first jam!
I really like how the obstacles stick to you and make it easier to get hit, it's a unique take on the space idea. I do feel like the game is way too easy though, I didn't realize this mechanic existed until I intentionally got hit. Perhaps you could make it more interesting by incentivizing the player to collect coins, which stick to them. The coins increase their score, but also makes them a bigger target for the projectiles, which immediately kill them. Just a thought, since you already have the mechanic working.
Also, it would be good to add in a little splash screen with the controls before the game starts.
Keep it up!
Love the concept here, the art style and the lighting are fantastic! I don't think I've even seen janky game physics used intentionally as an obstacle like this before, nice job. I would've liked to see more gameplay elements introduced in the later levels (i.e. bigger people, other people trying to move around, etc), but it's understandable that there would be less content in a ludum dare game. Nice work!
Wow, this is insanely impressive for a jam game. Probably the most polished, fully realized game I've played so far. The fact that you guys were able to squeeze in so much content in such a short period of time is amazing. I'm legit curious, what was your process that allowed you to work so fast across multiple genres?
Anyway, onto the actual review.
Story: At first I was worried the game was going to simply be about a person wallowing in self pity, but I was relieved when it started moving in a more positive, supportive direction. I think my favorite bit was the section where Hikari confronted the sources of his anxiety one by one, and realized that his depression was preventing him from accepting their support and working to improve his life. Watching him overcome this was cathartic, and I thought it was very well done.
Art: The simple art style works quite well as a portrayal of a more abstract story (And I imagine a nice way to finish within the time limit). The color choices do a good job of making what you can and can't interact with readable. I was really surprised when the game suddenly shifted to 3D, and played around with different styles. For the most part, it worked really well. The only section I felt was a bit lacking was the first person platforming bit at the end, it felt less cohesive visually than the rest of the game. Which I suppose was the point, since he was waking from his coma, though I think it detracts a bit from the clean minimalism of the preceding sections by looking unintentionally amateurish by comparison.
Music: I thought the more thoughtful solo piano really served the simplistic visuals of the game well, while capturing the ponderous nature of the story. In particular, I like how the section after the puzzle bit was the same song, but in the major key instead of minor. A small touch, but a nice way of portraying the character working through his problems.
Gameplay: The variety of game modes was unexpected, but welcome once I got used to it. Exploring the world and talking to NPCs was very engaging, and the clickable words added some nice interactivity to the written sections. The puzzle section in particular was well thought out, and could have easily been a game jam project on its own. I can't believe you guys even had time for some bonus puzzles, lol. A few (hopefully constructive) nitpicks:
1. The top down 2D section at the beginning had some clunky movement. You had to hold the arrow key down for waaaay too long to move across multiple tiles in the same direction, which meant mashing the keys was the fastest way to get around. I imagine this is because it was reusing movement from the puzzle section later? Speaking of which... 2. The controls during the puzzle section were a bit overly sensitive to me, it seemed really easy to accidentally do inputs twice when doing actions like switching characters. I don't know if it was reading key inputs based on some sort of timer or simple when a key went from unpressed to pressed, but the latter would work much better. 3. The platforming during the first person section at the end felt unnecessarily clunky. I would remove the hallway with the tiny platforms entirely, as it doesn't add anything to game and it breaks up the pacing of the final section.
Overall: Despite my nitpicks, this is easily a 5/5 jam game. With a bit more polish and time, I could easily see this being a solid, full-fledged game. You guys should be proud of what you've accomplished, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next!
@junber Ah cool, that makes sense. I actually went to college with the guy who made bitsy! Small world, lol.
I love these fever dream style games, 5/5. Everything was super atmospheric and off-putting in the best possible way. Those were some wild shaders you had going on there, I'd be real interested in seeing some kind of post mortem on how you pulled those off!
The menu song and the ogre animations were pretty funny, though there wasn't much feedback as to whether or not what I was doing was actually accomplishing anything. The way you got the arm to track the mouse was pretty creative though. Keep jamming, it gets easier!
The game was wigging out for me when I downloaded it. A few things: 1. The controls said to use WASD, though I actually moved with the arrow keys. 2. It looks like I can wiggle around with the arrow keys before pressing enter, and when I did press enter the character would fall through the ground and die repeatedly. 3. When I did hit enter immediately and started moving I bounced to the ceiling when I pressed jump, and somehow got sucked into the end of level portal? 4. When the next level started, the console immediately filled with a bunch of error messages.
Dunno if it was something about my build in particular, but I'm running windows 10 in case that's helpful.
Thanks for the review Tom, glad you enjoyed it! Would you mind clarifying what felt off about the aiming to you? Also what controller layout were you using? This kind of feedback would be super helpful for us going forward!
@flying-basement-studio Glad you liked it! If the controls are still feeling choppy after tweaking the mouse sensitivity settings, maybe try downloading the game instead of playing the web browser version? The latter can be a bit inconsistent in terms of lag.
Fun little jam game, it was neat figuring out how to "break" all the minigames. I love the dumb animations, like the bee eating the beers bottle and all! The ending felt a little too middle-school-creepypasta for me, but overall the tone of the game was pretty fun. Keep it up!
I liked the lasers and how they telegraph their attacks. Movement is pretty jittery with the mouse, as in too sensitive. I'd also put more obstacles along the floor and in the corners because I was able to ride the ground for a long while without any issues.
Really dig the way you were able to pull off world building in a game jam setting! Overall, a solid game, with fun characters, an interesting world, and moody music/art. I, like others, missed the flesh coin in the center of the main area, it's pretty easy to walk right past it, since the main area is pretty big and nondescript. I noticed you used colored trails on the ground to guide the player in certain directions, perhaps this flesh token could use an environmental hint as well? Also your humor was mostly on point, with silly characters and fun situations, though I feel like your world was cheapened a bit by the invincible reference and some fourth wall breaking. Have more faith in your writing, the world you've created is interesting enough to get by on its own merit!
Overall, definitely one of the most interesting games I've played this jam, and I'm impressed by how much content you were able to pump out in such a short time!
Neat idea, the water physics were neat. It was really difficult to get a feel on the controls though, and not in a good way. I would work on getting the momentum feeling better, it's really odd when you're spinning super fast and barely moving.
I love the dumb song at the start, and all the little noises characters and animals make when you run into them. The game mechanics are intuitive and work well, the object you're holding changing color to show the balance was a nice touch. Good job!
Watching the people ragdoll around in the back was pretty funny, but I couldn't get the bus to go anywhere, since it seems like every key besides forward would cause me to go flying backwards.
Man I'm terrible at this, lol. Definitely feels tight and responsive though, and very polished! I might suggest that you let the player drive over the grass though, feels weird to come to a dead halt when you run into it.
What a creative concept! Kinda reminds me of outer wilds, where knowledge is your upgrades! Really the only design change I might suggest is allowing the player to control click though gates once they know about that ability, though I can see why you might disable that since it's slower than warping. Nice art style too, it's all very cozy!
Really cool concept! The NPCs, dialogue, and inventory system were surprisingly polished, and exploration was really fun!
A suggestion: Maybe put the NPC that tells you that the important NPCs don't get deleted in an easier to spot location? I waited longer that I care to admit for the troll guy asking for money to get deleted before figuring out what I needed to do, haha.
I do kinda wish the deletion mechanic affected the gameplay more, but you got a LOT done for solo game jam projection. I'm curious actually, what was your workflow to get this amount of systems/content done so quickly?
In any case, fantastic work for a game jam!
Really simple and fun! I enjoy how the physics allows for creative solutions! The only feedback I really have is with some of the level design. I feel like the tight fit level is a bit TOO tight, as being a pixel off means you can't fit the boxes down the hallway. I would consider making them somewhere between 120%-150% of the box width, so that there's a margin for error. Also I found out you can just push the box on top of the grenade to block the explosion, not sure if that was intentional, haha. Fun game though, I liked it!
Extremely fun and polished, I honestly don't really have any particular complaints! Love how smooth the gameplay is, how the music telegraphs what's about to happen, how clearly all the different mechanics are communicated, and how juicy all the little interactions are! One of the standout games for this jam, excellent work.
Really dig the art style and music! I do wish the game feel was a bit better though, as the physics felt a bit wonky at times (understandable, since game jam and all). One immediate suggestion: I would consider adding more of the players momentum to released objects when they're running, to allow them to "throw" objects more effectively. It felt a bit tricky lodging rocks under windmills consistently, or throwing the gear under the windmill to get the rock guy to KO himself, but I feel like just a bit of a physics adjustment would help a lot! Cool game overall though, and my whole team loves the main character design :D
Fun idea of having to balance the space invaders style gameplay with timing your upgrades! Really I think the only changes I would suggest is better communicating when things are happening, such as the player/enemies reacting to taking damage. Also the music was a banger, haha.
@MerpADer That's unfortunate! They don't respond when you use the spacebar or arrow keys? Do you have any information on your specs?
@harry-alissavakis Appreciate the kind words! We've pushed a patch that fixes the mana cost bug, so hopefully future players will have a bit of an easier time with it, haha.
@merpader Thanks for the review! We've added some text with the controls to the main menu, as that being unclear is a valid criticism.
@substain Thanks! The final boss is actually programmed to only use time drain 3 times, so your timer won't go any lower than 4 seconds. That would be an interesting fail state though, haha.
@100th-coin Thanks man! A lot of our time and resources went into coming up with fun ways to obstruct menuing, so I'm really glad to hear it panned out! Unfortunately there were some UI scaling problems we didn't have the time to figure out, so it's probably an issue on our end.
@wolderado Thanks for the review! Yeah, balancing was a bit tricky, haha. When I was doing playtesting, people who played games like slay the spire steamrolled everything, while people who didn't play turn based games were struggling. So we decided early on to make it fairly easy so that just about anybody could complete the game. You make a good point for the more skilled players though, if we ever revisit this concept, we'll think about ways to throw them a bone too!
@natpat Glad you enjoyed it! The difficulty seemed to vary pretty wildly for different people based on their experience with turn based games and which new moves they took, so I wouldn't worry too much about comparing runs, haha.
Yeah given more time we'd have liked to have done a second art pass, but I'm pretty happy with the mechanics we managed to cram in!
@freerunner Hey, sorry about that. Should be fixed now if you wanna give it another go!
@jeanbon Good point on the MP thing. I was considering adding some sort of MP drain move, or making guard restore a little bit of MP, but unfortunately we ran out of time. Definitely something I'll think about if we ever revisit the idea, though!
This is actually really fun and tight once you get used to it! I would maybe explain the controls better, I didn't realize at first that charging a shot in mid air would spike it, or that I could adjust my jump direction while charging. Also the font was so bulky it was borderline illegible on my computer, though that might just be a windows thing. Once the gameplay clicked though, it felt excellent! The animations are very smooth, and the communicated what was going on very well. Overall, very good!
Blasting a bunch of goons with the laser definitely felt good! Almost wish it fired for a bit longer so I could kill even more enemies in a big sweep! The recoil was definitely a nice touch. As others have said, it does suffer from a lack of enemy variation, however. This could be as simple as having enemies with different speeds, enemies that fire projectiles, enemies that move in different ways, etc. The little cutscenes were cute though, good job overall!
Being able to direct enemies and sell/rebuy turrets on the fly was a really neat mechanic! Like others have said, the balance was just a bit off, particularly in the early game. I would consider making the blocks cheaper, or perhaps starting the player with a bit more money so that the early game moves a bit faster. Really cool concept though, and good work for a compo game!
Took me a bit to get used to the gameplay, as it was pretty challenging, but felt good once things clicked! Syncing the music to the enemy's attack was an excellent choice, and really helped telegraph the timing well. The risk/reward between charging ahead versus taking cover in more visible terrain was also really engaging. My only real critique is that some of the levels felt just a BIT too big, leading to a lot of wandering around and getting lost (especially when trying to get back to the door). Overall, really creative idea executed well!
The game works well, and the variety of things you can do is definitely a plus! I do feel like far too much time was spent going between the two buildings, though. I get wanting to make the player run around, but 2/3 tools were in a pretty cumbersome location, far away from the places where you need to use them. I'd perhaps consider shrinking the map, but upping the amount of things breaking, to have a tighter gameplay loop with less navigating between the same two locations. I did like the art style a lot however, everything had cute little animations and it was clear what needed to be done. Overall, good job.
Nice little multitasking game, like the art! Definitely feels like it could use some sort of goal in lieu of having time to make more mechanics, unless there was one and I just completely missed it, haha.
Super impressive game from an artistic/mood standpoint, I'm floored you guys managed to make an environment this big and good looking in 3 days! The sound design and mood were excellent too, really sold the fairy tale like danger.
Nitpicking time! The timing to get to the fireflies felt pretty tight during the swamp section, especially when you don't know where you're going have to wait on the trail to appear. I would've maybe upped the number of fireflies along the path a little bit to give the player some more wiggle room. I would also consider making the fireflies get sucked INTO the player, rather than away from them when they get close. It's a real bummer when you're near death and get close to a firefly, only for it to flitter away at the last second for a game over, haha. The checkpoints definitely helped it to not be too frustrating though, good on you for getting that in.
That's about it for criticism! One of the most memorable jam games I've played so far, great work!
Dug the art and sound design, and the gameplay was well communicated! Kinda feels like it belongs on the DS, would be great with a touchscreen/stylus control scheme. I do wish the timer was a bit shorter though, it's kinda long for the kind of game this is. Also it would be nice if the ingredients were just a bit closer to the bread, as it feels like I'm waving my mouse around a lot, haha. Cool game for a jam though!
Fun game overall, definitely captured the vibes of a game like doom! It could use some sort of instructions though, I'd strongly consider adding the controls and an explanation of the mechanics to this page, if nothing else.
Took me longer to figure out the escape gimmick than I'd care to admit, haha. The different art styles were definitely interesting too with the art style getting more abstract the further you went into escapism via games. The big reveal at the end didn't really land for me though. I felt like there was a progression being established for things becoming more dark/realistic as you backed out, though I feel like the art in the final image was going a bit too much for shock value over substance. Perhaps the implicit would be more unnerving than the explicit? That, or if you're really leaning into the gory side of things, I feel like the art could use a bit more realism. Anyway, it might just be a personal taste thing for me, overall it was a unique experience.
The art/animation was really nice, but I gotta agree with the others the controls/gameplay felt off. Some notes/suggestions:
1. The character moved so quickly, that it was difficult to react to upcoming light. The hitboxes on the light also felt overly large, I think it might be okay to make those smaller than the actual light radius, since a hit means instant death. 2. As far as I could tell, there's no indication of when the shadow form is about to wear off, making it difficult to know when to stop running. Perhaps the player could start to flash when it's about to wear off, or the UI in the bottom corner could fill back up, reaching the top when it runs out? 3. It felt like even after the shadow form meter had fully refilled, I still had to a wait a few extra seconds to use it. Is this a bug?
Definitely a neat idea though, could be fun with a bit more polish.
Reminds me of those early 2000s flash games, haha. The art was pretty good and funny, but the gameplay felt a bit too hectic. I would maybe pull the camera back a bit so the player can see what's coming better, or perhaps slow down the speed on the enemy projectiles a bit so it feels like like you're getting sniped from offscreen? Feels like with a bit more balancing this could be fun!
Surprisingly fun, mashing the little balls off the stage and hearing the little clinking sound was very satisfying! Just a heads up though, the game ran very poorly in google chrome for me. It ran a lot smoother in edge, though. I would suggest including a downloadable build of your game, as web browser performance can vary wildly. The little mixups that happened every 10 seconds were enough to keep me on my toes, the player physics felt pretty dramatically different depending on my size!
Controls felt pretty tight and responsive, and shooting the enemies was fun! However, there were multiple times where enemies would spawn on top of me and kill me, might wanna either telegraph where the spawns are going to happen, or program them to spawn further away from the player. Might wanna also include some controls in your description, I thought I was a stationary turret that couldn't move, haha.
Looks good and controls well! I especially like the sound the enemies make! I would definitely consider toning down the animation on the enemies though, it's a bit a hard to look at if they get close to you. And as others have said, maybe slow things down a bit at the start so that the player isn't getting jumped before they even realize what kind of game they're playing, haha.
Really cool game! The core gameplay is fun and intuitive, and I like the clear color language for what does and doesn't hurt you. Like others were saying, I agree that the fixed aiming doesn't feel great, as I believe that tight, responsive controls are generally better in twitch action games. And the lack of sound when killing enemies feels like a missed opportunity for some extra juice (though I imagine this was a time thing). Despite that, I still enjoyed my time with it, good compo entry!