Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Ninjavitis
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 👥 | 🥈 | 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Super Kaiju Dunk City | jam | Audio | 4.72 |
| 👥 | 🥈 | 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Super Kaiju Dunk City | jam | Fun | 4.41 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | 👥 | The Gegnome Project | jam | 235 | 3.87 | 3.97 | 3.58 | 3.73 | 4.23 | 3.71 | 3.91 | 3.80 |
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | 👥 | IBrexout | jam | 1021 | 2.97 | 2.85 | 3.17 | 3.15 | 2.80 | 3.50 | 3.41 | 2.95 |
| 2023 | 52 | Harvest | 👥 | M.E.A.T. Rancher 2199 | jam | 267 | 3.69 | 3.52 | 3.28 | 4.10 | 3.77 | 3.80 | 3.43 | 3.65 |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | 360° MICROSCOPE | jam | 539 | 3.55 | 3.55 | 3.61 | 3.74 | 3.40 | 3.42 | 2.89 | 3.25 |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | 👥 | waveloop | jam | 644 | 3.60 | 3.32 | 4.16 | 4.05 | 3.33 | 4.48 | 2.15 | 3.86 |
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Abiogenesis | jam | 212 | 4.00 | 3.70 | 3.95 | 4.15 | 4.25 | 4.30 | 2.60 | 3.95 |
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | 👥 | Super Kaiju Dunk City | jam | 4 | 4.61 | 4.41 | 3.55 | 2.61 | 4.77 | 4.72 | 4.28 | 4.42 |
Fun game! Triple shot felt overpowered, especially when fully leveled. It also overshadowed the regular shot ability (or at least it would if you didn't have to use it on rotation.) Didn't feel like "shield" should be an ability, since it basically just pauses the game for 10 seconds.
Interesting, ambitious premise. I couldn't manage to beat it; was playing the embedded game in Chrome. F1 opened Chrome's help menu, so that keyboard binding didn't work. The ability to restart the game after losing would be helpful. Might have been simpler to, instead of having 3 locations you fast-travel across, simply make a single play area with all three features.
Physics were a bit wonky (I fell through the floor), but you already called that out. Cute art, especially liked the snails flying toward the screen.
Having to recharge every 10 seconds felt like too much. Maybe it should only affect spells, but not sword swings? Alternatively you could have some sort of stamina gauge that depletes more for magic than sword swings so you don't have to grab _every_ recharge, but still have the recharge change places every 10 seconds.
Real slick game, with terrific graphics. Particularly liked the filter effect during the "enrage" time. Also like the fact that you were forced to decide between searching for health or just killing everything during the same time period.
I ended up suiciding at 6500 since the difficulty didn't seem to be ramping and I was still at nearly full health. Perhaps increase the spawn rate of enemies as time goes on (or increase the curve if this is already done?)
Got stuck on the level with the ghost to the right and the spikes to the left.
Cool premise! Mixed feelings about having per-actor 10-second timers - might be simpler and more intuitive to have a global 10-second timer during which you needed to give every unit a command or forfeit its turn. Also, given that the movement was hexagon (the bestagon) based, using hexagon graphics would have been nice. Figure that might have been due to time limits, though.
Spooky!
Fun game, and very impressive that it was finished within a jam. Graphics and sound were top notch, and it ran at a smooth framerate.
The enemies didn't feel distinct enough to me - I dealt with all of them the same way: run in a line until they're all lined up, then spookblast em.
Speaking of the spookblaster, it felt like any level-up that affected it was clearly the choice to take. The other upgrades didn't feel as impactful, partially because they all depended on deployable equipment you didn't always have.
I never made much use of the sticky grenades or force fields (whose behavior surprised me a bit - was expecting something that helped with my health.) I made some use of the turrets, which I fully upgraded after the spookblaster, but their use seemed anti-syntergistic with that of the spookblaster, which required you to move in a single direction for a while to line up enemies, whereas the towers required you to stay in a single area for a period of time (which was dangerous.)
Very nice work!
Impressive game for the compo! Graphics were slick, but the sound design is what really stood out to me. Struggled a bit to gauge distance to enemies (small and near, or big and far?) though I had some of a grasp of that toward the end of my time with the game. Would have enjoyed drops from the enemies of some kind.
Also appreciate that the controls worked on a Dvorak keyboard!
Beat it, though the dog messed me up the first time I encountered it. Fun game, though it feels like there's no reason to not slow time constantly.
Neat game! Took me a while to figure out that I could combine items - was about ready to give up in fact right as I made that discovery. Not all of the combinations were intuitive to me, like the "acid heart" for example.
Neat puzzles! I know the laser refresh was in adhering to the theme, but I frequently wanted to fire before it was charged. Felt a bit strange to have to wait after I had solved the puzzle.
Also, the game took longer to load than I would have expected, though that might have been the result of the engine.
Very atmospheric, and really enjoyed the interactions with the cat (even if you had to wait for it a few times.) Didn't fully understand the ending, though I made it to it!
A roguelike with built-in teleportitis? Rough, man. :)
The game stuttered whenever the player teleported, and given how core a mechanic it is, it ended up being disruptive. I'd encourage you to optimize the teleport code so the game can progress smoothly.
The control scheme made it very difficult to play as a non-qwerty keyboard user.
@aes1 definitely a minor thing, and super common in Ludum Dare games. It's just a keyboard layout for me, but I didn't have any others installed when I started reviewing games. After running into this problem for the millionth time, I finally bit the bullet and installed qwerty and set it up so I could toggle between the two. You're in good company. :)
Occasionally I've run into games that seem to be layout-agnostic, so that "Q" in the game represents the top-left keyboard button, even if you're using a Dvorak keyboard. Not sure how it's done, and I'm sure it depends on your engine/programming language of choice. That's my preferred solution, if possible.
Wasn't clear to me why I was getting immobilized. Would have been nice to have a visual/audio indicator when I took damage. Sometimes it seemed like the machine gun wasn't doing damage. The grapple seemed to act inconsistently, one time throwing me with such force I went past the level's edge and died.
Ambitious to try a 3d game during a jam!
Wish there was an indication at the end of the game if you accused the right person. Neat art!
Simple but complete!
Wish I had more control over the ball's direction after hitting the paddle - for example, hitting the left side of the paddle could impart a leftward velocity, vice versa for the right side of the paddle. Felt a bit strange when I lost control of all three paddles. Part of me expected a 4th paddle at the top.
Very nice blend of action and puzzle games. First time one of my ghosts was shot to death, my mind was blown. Was particularly impressed you had time for tutorial levels to introduce the game. All in all, a really solid game.
Played the web version, but sadly got stuck. Figured that the numbers probably had something to do with the order I had to push the 4 buttons on the chest, but wasn't able to find them all (or make sense of the ones that I did find.)
@peter-dam thanks for checking out our game, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
All of the items have an effect on the gnomes, which is activated by dragging them onto the gnome, but I agree that it isn't always super-clear what the effect is. One of our goals with the game was to have the player experiment to figure out what did what, so there was a tension between clarity and _mystery_. Dunno if we found the right balance, and it was complicated by the fact that a lot of those gameplay/mechanics were implemented in the hours leading up to the submission deadline. :)
As a minor spoiler to anyone who comes later, you can often see the effect of an item by using it on a gnome after they've sprouted a hat. If the item has no effect because of the current state of the hat, nothing will change.
@anson-rutherford whoops, that's yet another bug where we failed to appropriately reset the state of the game upon restart. Thanks for pointing it out! I've been considering trying to clean up the codebase now that the jam is over and there's no time pressure (and it's currently a bit of a hot mess) and I'll address that bug if I do so.
Good take on the theme! The interplay between shrinking enemies and then consuming them with the slime was interesting. Couple of comments:
- I found the slime frustrating to deal with, in particular trying to get it up the ramp leading to the book before the rat missile launcher. I was able to eventually to get it to clip under the small opening beneath, but then it got stuck. - I missed the HUD elements the first time I played - they're too far apart from each other, and not where the player would naturally look. - Running out of energy for the shrink ray was frustrating, since the only way I could figure out to replenish it was to wait as it very slowly recharged. Felt like it either needed to recharge faster or another mechanism replenish ammo, like the slime eating something. - Given its importance, I think a little time should be spent improving the graphics of the shrink ray so it is more than just a flat blue beam. - For the transitions in the intro, I'd recommend registering a click anywhere rather than requiring the player to click on the buttons. Simpler to implement and more intuitive. - I was confused by the flow of the intro graphic - it doesn't seem to read top to bottom, left to right, like I would expect.
Fun game! Enjoyed the graphics, particularly the cutesy fish juxtaposed with the assault rifle. The rigging of the piranha responding to your aim and your movement direction was also well done.
Couple of thoughts:
- Some visual feedback when a bullet hit a fish would significantly improve the visuals via a modest investment in effort. I think it would particularly help with providing feedback when hitting the big, beefy fish that take multiple hits (as I'm not sure I'm doing damage currently.) It might enhance killing the smaller fish, as the transition of living->dead graphics currently feels a bit abrupt. Particle effects could be useful for all of this, plus could be used for greater clarity when the player takes a hit. I sometimes missed the blurring effect currently used. - Pausing after the suicide graphic briefly so the player can see the final frame. Currently the fade to black feels abrupt. - I never figured out if the spin does anything. If it doesn't, tying the reload to the right mouse button might feel better - clicking to the left of the fish to reload felt awkward.
Very impressive visuals! Really enjoyed the retro industrial vibe.
I almost missed the animations of the Papufels though, since I didn't originally realize you could back out of the control panel. It would have been a shame!
I think disabling collisions between the control frog and the spawned frogs would help - you do explicitly call out the risk of getting stuck, but it's still frustrating when it happens. Similarly, sometimes the spawned frogs would get stuck in the geometry and I'd have to restart the level.
It would also be nice if the dangers interacted with the player frog somehow - perhaps stunning them, with a brief period of invulnerability afterward so you wouldn't get chain-stunned?
Overall, fun game! Very good visual clarity.
Impressive to have a cohesive experience completed by the end of the jam! Particularly enjoyed the painted art, and the gradual increase in difficulty of the puzzles felt on-point.
Thought that the music could be a little louder - I realize it's atmospheric, and you don't want it to drown out the later sounds, but I found it a bit distracting, kind of straining myself to hear it.
I would have preferred to be able to drag the bugs out of the box instead of having to right-click on them - I found myself doing that, even knowing better, because it felt more intuitive to me.
Very cool game! We ended up making something similar - including bonuses for selling things with specific characteristics. Was particularly impressed with all of the different variations in characteristics of the HOCS smoothly animated. The sound design was also spot-on.
Took me a little bit to figure things out, as I hadn't read the full description before playing the game. The main thing I missed as a result was the importance of buying new eggs to diversify the gene pool. The use of all of the other items was intuitive to me, though the costs felt a little steep. I also really wanted something to speed up the incubation of eggs - I don't _think_ the bed helped with that, but I wasn't certain.
I also never fully understood the ui elements on each HOC, particularly the circle and dot.
I also accidentally dropped a few HOCS off the side of the world. It probably led to an exciting adventure for them, but was frustrating for me.
Didn't realize what the goal was until I think my third attempt. At that point, I realized that having 77 clicks and 777 dollars would be extremely challenging with auto-clickers, given the tendency to overshoot, but would probably be impossible without them. I made another attempt to see how close I could get, but then gave up.
Ideally there should be some sort of adjacency bonus with the grid, or perhaps the grid should be removed so that adjacency effects aren't implied. Also, I think the game might benefit from some simplification - not having each clicker provide a different amount of money _and_ have an effect. Maybe just one or the other.
Also, found the descriptions a bit confusing - "Get 1$ per clicker" made me think it would scale with number of clickers. Also thought the auto-clickers might just affect adjacent clickers.