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Ninja Dodo

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankCo
201019DiscoveryRosettajam3

Comments by Ninja Dodo

LD19 — Discovery

Good Ship Exploration by Cosmologicon 2010-12-21T15:21:00

Hi!

I played through this and thought it was a fun concept. I have a couple of crits though:

Since the majority of your time is spent floating through space the spaceship handling really needs to be the main draw and I think you could make this more satisfying. Right now the physics feel a bit off. Maybe look at Asteroids for reference or something similar.

The thrust when you activate the engine could be way more exaggerated in terms of feedback, rocket engine blasting away, HUGE flame, trail of smoke, etc, shaking from turbulence. Little details like that make it fun just to move around.

I would make the earth more recognizable. Right now the only way you know it's earth is that it was near the purple arrow.

Maybe make the text pop-ups less intrusive by not interrupting the game and not filling the screen as much... I would have them just hover near the relevant location (maybe with a fade in/out).

Same with docking with planets. Maybe don't freeze the game. Just show the "Explorer bot" options and such when the player is close.

My 2 cents. :)

Good Ship Exploration by Cosmologicon 2010-12-21T15:24:00

(I missed the Jam link so I played the version without sound)

Disco? Very! by Tom 7 2011-01-10T21:30:00

Fun game. LOVE the music.

DirectionsTranscend by Devenger 2011-01-10T09:53:00

Interesting idea, well-executed. I got as far as the Reverse level so I don't know how much more there is, but especially considering the time frame, there's a lot there.

The hint system is a nice touch.

Scanno Domini by Tom Francis 2010-12-21T23:04:00

I like the sneaky scanning mechanic.

Only a couple criticisms spring to mind:

I would make it so the help text stays on screen at all times. Several help bubbles passed (a little quickly btw) without me being able to read them because they were half off-screen. Putting in a rule that nudges them back if they stray off-screen would help usability.

I definitely think you should add more texture (perhaps robot tracks) or other objects to the environment because it's hard to judge movement when your only reference is the enemy and a few barely visible hills.

Also, I would maaaybe add some inertia to the avatar so that he doesn't stop dead when reaching his destination or when turning. Giving it a little more weight might be more satisfying. Same for the camera.

I got this crash at one point (maybe the log is useful):

"ERROR in
action number 2
of Alarm Event for alarm 7
for object oBot:

Error in code at line 4:
MyGun.sprite_index=global.WeaponSprite[RateOfFire]
^
at position 41: Negative array index"

Scanno Domini by Tom Francis 2010-12-21T23:09:00

That last one is more personal preference though. I like games that have physics-like controls.

This Is Digger by txa-ea 2010-12-21T22:12:00

It's not initially obvious what the objective of the game is. I thought at first the point was to get to the bottom and the treasure chests were a bonus...

This Is Digger by txa-ea 2010-12-22T08:27:00

Maybe it would be interesting to make the endgame time-based? Survive this long and collect as many chests as you can... Having to uncover every single bit of earth to check for the last chest feels a bit unnecessary.