Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → nolanfa
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Finding Sam | jam | 1991 | 3.13 | 2.69 | 2.93 | 2.70 | 3.64 | 2.80 | 3.17 |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Damage Control | jam | 1068 | 2.90 | 2.53 | 3.09 | 3.71 | 2.89 | 2.34 | 2.65 |
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | 👥 | Power Bot | jam | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | |
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | 👥 | Power Bot | jam | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 |
I like the idea, it's an issue everyone encounters when playing rpgs (some at least; in others you could fit a house in your pocket), but it lacks interactivity for me :/
You probably already saw, but there is a slight camera hitch when a cube gets to the same place as another one.
the idea is really interesting, but it gets a bit repetitive after a while (though I didn't really understand how to deal with the crystals, that may be part of it).
really nice game! I'm impressed by how polished it is.
really nice game, I love its laid back atmosphere. I concurr with the others though: seeing only part of the screen at a time is frustrating (especially since you can't cancel what you've just done). Maybe allow a fullscreen mode on the web version? (I haven't tested the downloadable one)
@jerripo Haha, yeah, we really need to redo the balancing. The gunHuman is spawned at a random point of the map, and will kill any bird, fox, and rabbits it comes across. But like you said, it moves slowly. The hawks eat foxes, cats and rabbits. We'll hopefully find a bit of time next week to change the movements and preys of each unit so it's more balanced. I hadn't noticed the birds were too dark, thanks, we need to lighten up the ground a bit.
@arron-fowler thank you! <3
@raktou yeah, we should *fingers crossed* have a version with better balance sometime next week
@baconinvader thanks for the feedback! We're working on it.
We now have a brand new version, with brand new balancing, brand new keyboard and/or mouse controls, brand new food chain graphics, brand new no less than three endgames (I never got to one of them but I'm convinced you could) and a brand new absence of bugs! Relative absence of bugs. They probably will happen to other people, not to you. Don't worry about it (but do tell us if you see one).
It's prooobably the final version too (finally. I'm dying).
@firesplash-entertainment Thanks! We fixed it :)
@nerzal Thanks! We implemented it.
@saoi-games @roman-petrov Thanks! We (no I'm joking I'll really answer) lndrstrll did an awesome job fixing the balance (among other changes, we now have only one plant spwan point) and it is now guaranteed to be challenging but winnable! I'd show you a screenshot but we didn't make one and it would be spoilery :P
Most animals create regrowth; a tile turns green again the second turn it is empty.
@zinski thanks!
Ha, what nostalgy! It makes me think of old gameboy games. I love it! The music is really nice, the dialogue is hilarious, and it's a nice change from all the other games. I just have two remarks: an option to make the dialogue go faster would be nice, and at the end, since I didn't do everything in the order I was supposed to, I had bits and pieces of dialog with two or three different characters all over the place.
I wish there'd be more :)
A well-done game; I liked the items descriptions and the difficulty gradient is nice. It was a bit disappointing that your actions from one level did not have any repercussions on the others (maybe just a "total score" at the end?), and I had no way of knowing if I did well or not, as each level has a different maximum score (maybe add stars, or "score: XX/XX"). Edit: Oh, I just saw the "resume" button, nice.
nice and clean! It makes me want to play more levels :3
The humorous approach was fun, but the game itself is pretty repetitive: I just stood on the right spamming the W key and felt like I could have gone on forever. I also didn't see the life replenishement you talked about, if it is there, it's not fast enough.
hey; I loved this game. The atmosphere is great, I love the graphics, and I love the way you subtly reference the irl situation (because it's subtle). I also love how the narrative is poetic and full of hope. I kinda wish there were more, but I also kinda think it's a perfect game for this length. I was a bit disconcerted at the end, because I ended up doing several towers at once, and only reading some entries, and then there were no more towers, but I just read the rest of the entries then and it ended. Thanks for making this game!
This is really addictive (curse you, I just wanted to play one last game before going to bed, now I have to stay up to feed the fire and make trees grow)
The multiplayer part is a very good addition. I was a bit I'd be playing alone since I only found this game pretty late in the rating period, but actually there were a few other people there.
That's a well-made game with cute graphics, congrats! Maybe add some sort of an end? I lost two plants trying to understand how the umbrella worked (I didn't) and figuring out bugs existed but then once down to 1 plant it became really easy and I left after ten minutes because nothing more was happening (it's always better to have the game end than the player quit, imo; in this optic, you can add an endless mode, but the default one should end at some point)
That was funny, and the music was nice! I fucked up a few of the videocall answers, so having the save point was a good thing. I liked how the boss wasn't too much of an asshole in the end. This kind of "whoops!" feeling in relation to murder is funny.
(also, I think I recognized the default Fungus UI, I used the same in my game, though it's a very different kind of story ^^)
yeah, the same happened to me :)
It was supposed to be a cute game! I feel so betrayed D: !!!!
I loved it: the graphics are really nice, and the gameplay is clear. I was a bit sad you couldn't use seeds between levels (that each plant only built from plants on the same page), because I had obsessively built up my supply of basic cacti, just in case. It does get a bit repetitive, like others said, but it was really fun trying to figure out which ingredient was which (I died at "unicorn skin" XD), and there was some anticipation waiting to see what the flower of the new plant would look like.
I liked the sound a lot too, made me laugh (I think my favorites are Poudre de Perlinpimpin and Virgin's Tears).
I noticed two small bugs: it happened at least two-three times, that the first seed picked for a new type of plant would not come into my inventory (at least, that the seeds drawer would not re-open); also, on a gameplay a few days ago (maybe you fixed it since) I had ingredients behaving weirdly, like they would get stuck near a plant and refuse to go back to the cabinet. Also just a heads up: in the links to your twitter accounts here, BonjourCatty's is June's.
A very good game! Congrats!
The game looks fun (both to play, and funny), but the interactions don't work half of the time and kept me from playing (I tried twice, but it was really frustrating). If you post a updated version, I'd love to play it, though
@fireshake it should work now :) (thanks for telling us!)
@bongooo cool, thanks!
@caroline thanks! As for what Sam looks like... just think about the coolest person you can: that's what Sam looks like :D
@zesix thanks! Writing so much dialog was a first for us too!
@jasmine-cooper Most of it is lack of time (3. is unclear UI), but the feedback is really useful to decide what to prioritize for future jams (we did try to make it a very short VN, but clearly not short enough for the amount of time). Thanks!
@ivan-garcia-filho haha, that's good! It is a story about memories after all, and I love local jams (I always bring a lot of junk food and sodas to keep going through the night, and then I'm a bit high on sugar and lack of sleep, which is a pretty nice way to be to interact with people). If we do a second version we'll definitely look into more movement. Thanks for the feedback!
@tony-redmer thanks!
@vectorwolf thanks a lot! A Visual Novel is a bit hard to get into, so I'm glad you liked it!
@chief141 haha, thanks! Just keep drawing and you'll get better. Don't forget - to have fun (otherwise you might quit and that's just conterproductive),
- to watch images in different styles you like (I recommend reading webcomics, there are a lot of really good ones out there (I probably have a recs list somewhere if you want), and following artists (tutorials and sped-up recordings of paintings are very common and can help - though I remember thinking "Yeah but the first step is already better than anything I could do; where is step 0.1?")),
- and if it doesn't bore you, drawing from life, which I personally find quite relaxing, and is definitely very useful.
@juliette Aww, thanks a lot!
@lucisaurus thanks! Haha, yeah, the theme was the starting point, but developping the story we didn't make sticking to it a priority. I like the fact that they just get in contact (the relationship becomes alive) but then who knows what happens. Like all living things it develops on its own, and that includes the possibility of dying. Who knows what Sam thought of the player, after all?
@damienp thanks!
@maxkyckling Oh, I'm sorry about that. I dislike playing games with bugs so I even purposely wait for a few days after the end of the jam before trying out games so people have had a chance to fix them. From the itchio page you can download the deadline version (called LDversion) for mac and pc. Unless you use linux?
@meme-310 Haha, why did you try this one then? I'm flattered you did! And glad you liked it :)
@random-thoughts Thanks!
@ditam Well, that's not a typical visual novel by far so I don't know if it would have helped. They're usually more about choosing between different dialog options and less about choosing who to talk to. I guess in this way it's almost a point-and-click, and the conversation contexts are our very own lovely little failed experiment. We actually considered adding a zoom in to each conversation, but it didn't get done. It's definitely on the to-do list for the potential more-finished game with updated graphics, audio, more interaction, and a more complete story, that may or may not happen in the future. Thanks for the feeedback!
@stefan-jovanovic @vernalbehemoth Aw, thanks a lot! Yeah, music was forfeited due to lack of time, but I'm thinking next time I'll put aside some time, even just one or two hours, specifically for it, because in retrospect very basic audio and music would have added a lot with comparatively little effort.
@vernalbehemoth Maybe I'll add some interactions in a future version, you're right. It wasn't really the point of the game, but it would make it more engaging, and it makes sense that you could choose how the player behaves. Thanks! :)
@mrstari thanks!
@krammetje Technically you can just interrupt them to ask a question, and they'll change tracks (but then you won't get to the end of the default dialog). I should think of a way to show it in the UI, or, you're right, cut the default dialog in several smaller pieces.
@z4v0 @rujo thanks!
@minnka thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely put some time aside for sound in the next jam.
@tobiasw Ow, this first bug was supposed to be fixed :/ guess I forgot to check the windows version and only updated the web one, weirdly enough. (I never even met the second one, I'll keep it in mind) Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's very useful! (also I'm honored you checked out my game, yours is probably the one I spent the most time on this jam (I even planted a record-setting tree!)) I'm really glad you liked it! I was worried it wasn't game-y enough, but the goal was to have people invested in the story, so your reaction is great. Thanks! (if you do want to play the rest, either try the web version, or re-download the windows build tomorrow -I'll post a dev log on itchio once it's updated- but from what you say you could have been close to the end - the story is not that long)
@tobiasw about the end, I didn't want to get into too much detail: I didn't want to decide on Sam's gender, and maybe they get together in the end, but maybe Sam wasn't that into the player, or maybe they break up after two days and stay friends. Dunno, the incertitude was important for me.
about the picture... huh, maybe Sam had their back to the camera? (I think I just forgot when writing that line XD) You're right, if I make a full version I'll give a bigger role to the picture.
The contrast between what I imagined it would be reading the description and seeing the screenshots (it looked super cute), and the actual game (I found it really creepy), was brutal ^^ The sound especially makes me feel creeped out, but in that way it's really efficient And it's a very hard game; I managed 33 hours on the third or fourth try (first one I had forgotten to close the closet's door :D) but I'm not quite sure I understood the mechanics; even after doing lots of chores in front of the mom she sometimes came into my room unanounced directly from the garden
I played a few times (till I won ^^) and the dialog felt kinda random: I was never quite sure what would set the terrorist off and which effect each action would have (does the color of the vertical bar mean anything?), and when I found out the prompts appeared in a random order I was disappointed (though now the more I think about it the more I like it; and the fact I hadn't noticed in my first playthrough means they were well-done). But I had fun, and the dialogs were funny!
really cool game, very chill I like a lot the walking animation, the trees are pretty, and the progression in the shapes is very well-done (fish shape <3)
Really good game! I loved the mechanics, it was very original,
I liked it! It's fun and slightly addictive.
But I read a few comments about the genetics approach you had to it, and I hadn't felt that at all in the game. I was mostly just hoping my people wouldn't die young and matching them with whoever was available, of the right sex, and young. I think it's a very interesting part of the game that I, at least, completely overlooked (I'm not sure how you can make it more visible though).
Also if you start having really big family trees it gets kind of crowded and small and sometimes I killed off branches just because on the diagram they were too far away from my main one. I have a few ideas to fix it but I don't think they're easy to implement: reorganize branches periodically to keep active branches close together (or have a button to do it, or let the player reorganize it). Allow inbreeding. Allow players to mute some branches when they know they have traits they don't want. And an easier one: make dead people more obviously dead (when you zoomed out quite a bit it's not so visible any more; maybe just a lot of transparency?)
(well, off to play some more to test the genetics part!)
The idea is really nice, and I love the UI (the character selection arrow looks really cool!). The variety in goblin types also adds a deeper level of strategizing, and it's fun. The red-blue-green bar is a nice touch: more interactivity than just choosing from a menu, but easy enough that it doesn't hinder your strategy.
But sometimes it feels slow: when you've incapacitated (whoops, almost wrote 'killed' here ^^) all but a shield goblin, and you've calculated that you just need to keep hitting him till his health reaches the right range, so basically three fourths of the characters are useless to you and you're just waiting for SwordPerson's turn. Maybe make the descriptive texts's duration shorter, or allow to skip them? Or just have them not pause the flow of the game. Or (if it doesn't go against what you envision for the game) allow StaffPerson and ShieldPerson to attack too, maybe doing less damage?
Also the goblins always attack SwordPerson (maybe because he has less health?). So I just always protect him, and I know for sure the others are safe, which is less fun. Edit: I just noticed: All my turns go: Heal Sword if hurt, Protect Sword, and then choose who to attack (which is the interesting part, because it changes). And if you protect Sword and then Sword attacks, he loses the protection, making Shield completely useless in those levels where Shield plays before Sword.
Well. Back to trying to beat this level :D
PS: After reading others' comments, I remembered I too thought it would be a good math teaching game.
Hey again :) Local Kids Behaviour Expert (aka: my mom)'s opinion was that my neighbours kids are a tad too young right now to try it and that I should wait a couple years (which is why I edited the previous comment, sorry), but a couple parents were actually interested in testing it. It was indeed much too hard for the 5 y.o. I got to test it (I don't have any older kids around), they didn't understand the goal of the game and tried every time to do max heal/damage/protect (but they really liked the red-blue-green bar's mechanic), but the parents said the graphics were very nice, and the dad at times pretty much took the keyboard from the kid to play himself, so I'm guessing he liked it ^^
Also, a fun fact: my ggj20 game was called don't sink, and you had to manage a pirate ship and keep it from breaking down
Well, in retrospect, the kid was really young. I don't think they could have enjoyed any other game made during this jam.
My pirate ship game is here: https://fal.itch.io/dont-sink . It's multiplayer (up to four, though you can technically test it alone) and you need a controller.
This was very good! The levels are very well-paced, with the first few levels simple but not boring, and the later puzzles are very well thought-out and interesting (I got stuck for a bit on the second-to-last one and almost quit there). I like the way you used the dnd character archetypes to give them all different powers. I also found the dying sounds very funny.
I like the graphics, they're simple but they work very well with this kind of top view, and the game overall has a clean and polished feeling.
I think it would make a good management game if you added more interaction and resources and mechanics, but as it is, there is (for my tastes) not much of a game.
If you decide to expand it though, I'd be glad to play it again.
I liked it a lot!
The white grid on the ground and the red sides of the robot's feet and the wall-bot's mouth, coupled with the inability to move too much to the side (and the timer!) make it just challenging enough to be hard (and kinda sneaky) but not frustrating (when I lost a robot I was thinking "Dang, I should have known, I'll be more careful next time!" instead of "No but the game is not clear enough, I should have won it's unfair!"). It was probably helped by the very clear feedback you get (with the tubes lighting yellow) at the end of the level. And the text is a very good addition. It's funny but a bit distracting, which makes it all the more enjoyable because you *want* to read the text because you're curious but you're acutely aware of the timer in the background.
The graphics are good, they feel clean and... soft? in a way? Because of the lighting.
It's a game I would play more levels of.
One addition that I think could be cool would be to change the timer's sound in the last five seconds, so you know it's almost finished (but you usually get enough time for each level, so maybe most people wouldn't even get to the last five seconds). The timers could probably be shorter too.
Nice game! It feels very polished, and I had fun with the scientist's inventions. The graphics are minimalist but work very well (I love the character's portraits). One detail: I noticed a few typos (feul for fuel, gol for gold). I played twice, and first play I thought I'd die by lack of fuel, so the second one I focused on that and food became scarce and health bad, so I think the game is well-balanced too. Congrats!
This game looks really cool, but I'm stuck in the surgery screen; how do I leave it? (I'll leave a full review once I have played more than one corpse's worth)
Oh, right, I was transfering the husband's body parts to the John Doe's, instead of the opposite. That's because I hadn't paid too much attention to the drawings in the instructions, but I think it might have been avoided if the body positions between the instructions and the surgery table weren't swapped (but then I seem to be the only one to have had that problem, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
The game is great! - the story is really cool. I really like how in the introduction the husband says "I'll live forever in your memories" and in the gameplay the wife is like "okay, then I'll just Frankenstein you" (which... seemed contradictory with some of the dialog later on? Which I just chose to disregard. It's much funnier that way (english is not my first language though so I may have misunderstood something)). And the aesthetic of "don't worry about me, I'm just chilling next to this dead body" is really funny (also when you're just outside of the field of vision of someone, painstakingly dragging the body while walking three meters before them, and they keep walking like nothing's wrong). - the voice acting adds a lot, and it's done really well. Maybe think about adding subtitles for ESL people? I mean, the diction is very clear, but I think a few years back I might have needed it. - the art is great. The shapes of the passers-by and the dead bodies are very clear and instantly readable as exactly what they are, I love the main character's sprite (probably because a lady in a big frilly dress cutting up bodies and dragging bodies is much funnier than a guy or a less lady-like lady doing the same), and the background is perfect with clear clues as to the gameplay. Also the Zzzz are very clear about what's happening and what you should do. - and the gameplay is interesting, with, I think, a good length (though I cheated and came back several times to the same body, the closer one, for different body parts (btw for consistency's sake I would prefer that a used dead body disappear, if it doesn't make the game too hard))
Wow, I'm really impressed by the graphics. Very high-end. The lighting and the animations were very good. Somehow (possibly an issue on my end) it was very laggy in fullscreen, but windowed worked very well. The gameplay was solid, too. I was kinda sad I couldn't see the monster we had summoned, but that was a gut reaction, I completely understand the problem of too little time in a game jam ^^ Congrats!
The game was kind of unclear as to what you should do (I did one playthrough just clicking on every platform twice, and I spent a lot of time trying to harvest berries and fish before getting the spear), but once I got it I really enjoyed it.
It's rare to get a game focused on sound, so points for originality. I liked the sofly square aesthetic (especially on the trees, and the fish are pretty), and the animations added a depth it wouldn't have had otherwise (like sound does in graphics-focused games). Also I liked how you made both berries and fish available as food. Plus it's fun to play. Which is the most important.
I'd be interested in the mechanics of making it: did you make a music tune with five tracks, assign them each to an island, and then add random ones to the rest? Or is some part of it procedural?
+ I like the graphics and the music - the sound effects were a bit too loud, and the movement mid-air felt a bit sluggish, which is weird for a jump
good job on finishing the game!
It's a very good game, clean and polished, with solid mechanics. I liked the graphics, and I enjoyed playing it.
But I was a bit frustrated at times when I felt selecting the doctors or assigning them to a bed wasn't as smooth as it could have been (maybe add a bigger bounding box?). And I tended to forget which doctor was where, and to then reassign them when they already had a job. Maybe adding some evidentiating sign to the currently selected doctor, for example some sort of colored circle under their feet, would make it clearer?
Of course, it might just have been my refusal to take responsibility for my failures and the multiple deaths in my hospital :D
The game works and I didn't encounter any bugs, but you should fix the difficulty balance: the first two levels are very easy (which is fine for a tutorial), but then the third one (named level 2 I think; the one with the enemies) is suddenly very very hard. The hill makes you jump when you arrive on top and three times out of two I would then be unable to jump over the first pitfall because I landed too late, resulting in my death at the hands of the second enemy.
Congrats on finishing the game and having it this bug-free, though, keep going!
Indeed, I hadn't read the full name of the versions since they were so long and seemed really similar, and just read the version number (if instead of BlahBlahBlahEasy1version3 you rename it BlahBlahBlah1version3easy it will be more obvious that there is an easy version).
I still had the same problem with the easy version though, which is the hill just after the first enemy where when you arrive at the top physics make you automatically jump a bit, which means your feet are not on the ground when you want to jump. For an (even) easier version I would make the top part of the hill longer and the platforms with the enemies after that longer too. Or maybe more lives.
@smiley I thought the same because I was trying to use wasd instead of the arrow keys. Try the arrow keys?
I thought it was a cute game about herding your chicks the right way and keeping the exploring one with the rest, and then you go and kill them off D: How could you! And then just when I thought the road was done and I could relax, it drowns in the smallest puddle ever! D: How could you! My heart! And the stark remindder of my past mistakes and all my other chicks that I failed to save, emblasoned forever on my breast...
But yeah, I really liked the game. - The graphics are really nice, in a weird cute but kinda postapocalyptic way that works really well, - the audio just reinforces the overall feeling of the game (some games have audio, animation or theme that are jarringly different from the graphics (like Limbo, or Happy Tree Friends), and sometimes it works really well, but yours does the opposite, where audio and graphics work hand in hand, and it works really well) - the gameplay itself was also original and interesting and fun (even if it broke my heart several times :( ) - and I really liked the autosave feature :D
Nice game! I liked the pixel art on steroids aesthetic. Some visual feedback as to what's going on could be useful, like an idea of how far along you are. On the other hand, audio feedback was very clear as to what was good and what was bad (maybe a touch too loud for the bad ones), and not having any UI *is* kinda pretty. Congrats!
First, I love the graphics. The tiles look really good, and the way they appear and disappear is great!
Second, there is no feeling like getting almost done in by a chicken, finally managing to end it, running into a dog and then running for your life, only to bump into like ten more animals, all of them out for your blood, and just when you think you've finally lost them, seeing a ginormous cow inexorably come for you D:
Third, gosh is that game hard! Like I said, I'm mortal enemies with chicken now, and running away turns out not to be a good idea.
I may have missed something, but I didn't find any way to heal myself, which might otherwise have kept me alive a bit longer. I also wasn't quite sure how to do the "give berries to family" quest: I tried using E on the starting house tile once I collected 50 berries (both over all 4 kinds and in one specific kind), but it didn't work. I guessed maybe there were other houses that I had to visit, but I always got gored by ferocious pigs before I found any.
Also I thought the particles over the berry bushes (I love that among the berry types are melons and watermelons) were there only when there were berries left to gather (those particles are very nice and are a very clear visual cue btw), but I feel like I sometimes saw them over a spent berry bush after I came back from a walk.
Congrats for the game! If you fix the quest/explain how I can complete it/release another version, I'd love to play some more!
Ooooh, makes sense! Since all the rest was done using the keyboard I didn't think to try using the mouse.
Also, a couple minor things: I find the chicken noises a bit too loud compared to the rest of the audio, and I feel like the bridge-building doesn't work on the whole bridge tile, which would imo be slightly better (but, like, it's very minor).
After a quick test, it's much better now I know how to use the inventory. I still died by chicken ^^, and I have to go now, but I'll try again in the next few days and I'll let you know if I manage to finish it.
PS: I'm using the gamejolt version
Edit: I can confirm the chest quest doesn't work. I got 4 of them! (tadaaa!)
hey, just wanted to say that I played again and I like the small grey cross you added on successful hit, it makes it much clearer when you've hit something, especially in the middle of the woods. Also I feel like I got the Give Gold to Family quest too early (before I gave them the 50 berries), and it stayed there even after I gave one gold to bjorn (but I think also last time I had to give two gold to complete it maybe). I had just died and tried again on the web version, maybe it's something that doesn't reinitialize correctly (I wanted to play it all again but I died a few times so that took too long so I didn't) (also I took a look at the commits on your git and I'm absolutely horrified XD) good luck, thanks for your game, good stuff to you!
Darn, that is one high-maintenance plant. Not only does it need stuff all the time, but think about all the cleaning!
The graphics are really clean, I liked having a different sound on each button, and the end text shows the story with efficiency as well as kinda tells you how to play (I hadn't noticed before that that mmistakes gave you more illnesses). Overall, though, I didn't really find it fun to play, as there is only one mechanic - though it is implemented well and trying to do more might have added more bugs than was worth it. If you have time to add some interactivity with the body parts or layer a few other mechanics over it, it could easily become fun for me, though.