Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → nthird
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Zombie Pop! | jam | 496 | 2.64 | 2.56 | 3.07 | 2.81 | 1.81 | 1.73 | 1.95 | 47 |
Very interesting as is and a lot of potential to expand on it. I'd love to see a few more classes (a mage would open up some interesting space). Varying the number of moves would make it more interesting as well. With some of the levels beatable in under 10 moves it changed the difficulty curve dramatically. I hope you work on this more, its a good concept and well executed.
Relentlessly entertaining. Very original. I really liked the different things that the plants did and how obvious it was simply based on color that they were going to do that. Other than the narrative explanation of why only 10 seconds was allowed the game needed almost no explanation.
Levels were well balanced to me at least. Slightly challenging but I never felt lost. I think one of the biggest strengths of this is that the plants acts as a constant autosave. So even if a particular series of jumps or whatever was hard I only had to get them right for a maximum of 10 seconds. You could easily amp up the difficulty close to super meat boy levels without being anywhere near as frustrating. I'd much rather die and lose 10 seconds than die and lose more. That being said if you were to go that route shorter overall levels might help.
Seriously fantastic overall. Really enjoyed it and hope to see more of it.
Nice interpretation of the theme, cool to see something different. I found it very difficult however. Maybe some more powerups? The AI was so consistently clumped together I had a hard time sneaking in. I oscillated between 1st and 4th most of the time. If you keep working on this (and I recommend you do) it would be interesting for the different AI cars to have different goals. Like some also understand that being second is ideal but otherwise are looking to win. That and some obstacles or more powerups would significantly spread out the racers and improve strategy in my opinion. Very unique and interesting mechanic!
Really good idea and overall pretty well executed. More clarity as to what is happening would be useful though. It took me a bit to figure out the difference between the save buttons and the end goals. Making the jump just a little better without running would have decreased my frustration considerably without making it too much easier but it might already be at a sweet spot for other people. Excellent use of the theme.
I think the board concept was interesting. Would have liked to see some more information about it though, like rolls for how far I'm moving and a map of where its heading. The attacks happening all at once made me initially confused, thinking that only one of my characters was actually attacking. I also struggled with the resolution as it led to part of it being off my screen so I was never able to change equipment on the second character. Interesting though, I can see this being very popular with some more tweaking.
Great idea but in its current form its pretty buggy and feels disjointed. As far as bugs go I couldn't seem to find a key to restart when I died and had to close it out and relaunch it each time. Also, planting a tree left me stuck inside the tree unable to move. The zombies appear apparently at random and only being able to attack or place traps to the right makes them tough to deal with for no clear reason.
I'd really like to see this taken further. Its a great idea and it sounds like you have big plans for it. I'd really enjoy a resource gathering / zombie survival game and you're off to a good start here.
Cute and fun. Really liked the graphics and the audio. I found though that I could pretty easily avoid most of the things by standing in one spot. Would love to see a fuller game in this style.
Interesting concept. The 3D objects and the ability to knock them around added some challenge. Made navigation and running about part of the game in addition to the puzzle solving too. I personally ran into a couple bugs. The mouse disabling that canvasapps did was necessary to turn fully around but didn't always trigger. So a few times on playing through again I was unable to even move as it seemed to be waiting for the mouse turn off.
Move the time limit up a little and make the shapes a bit less intuitive and I think you really have something here. I think part of the fun could be trying to match which 3D object fits perfectly in the 2D keyhole. Its an interesting twist and I hope you keep working on it.
Really liked to concept and great use of the compo theme. Really clever mechanic and I like the psuedo escort mission but you only have to save some of them aspect. It was nice being able to sacrifice some crew to survive, good twist.
I found the controls challenging which cut into my enjoyment of it. Seems like there is a small bug where it won't let you walk forward right away in a level, you seem to have to turn first.
The xenomorphs only coming from grates was not clear to me, seemed like sometimes someone would die and sometimes not, might make it more explicit in the instructions. Or maybe I just missed it :D
The graphics were really good but I struggled a little to tell what some stuff was. I tried to get a plant to follow me more than once.
Really good start overall, I'm looking forward to seeing what it can turn into if you do some post compo work.
Interesting little puzzle game. I liked the keys that flashed just for a second, giving you a hint where you should look. First few times I saw it I wasn't sure I had even seen anything. Agree on the confusingness of the interface. Most of the time it was just slightly unintuitive but when trying to climb stairs I would sometimes have to turn back around to get facing the right way to interact with them which felt wrong instead of just awkward. Was fun though. Great job!
Good use of the theme and graphics. I think it would be more interesting if instead of it being pass/fail you got scored on how close you were to it. Then my 10.1 seconds would count for something. Add a scoring system and some more challenges (not necessarily time based but all exact targets) and you've got the making of a fun quirky game.
I liked the switching buffs and debuffs. I found some of the collision handling a touch buggy overall but nothing serious. Would like it if the combos repeated less often. Getting 30 seconds of the same thing is frustrating. And some combos are extra hazardous, might be worth forcing rerolls on some, something like no moving/no shooting is almost a guarantee you'll take damage. Put this together with all your own graphics and it will be a lot of fun.
I really liked the artwork a lot and the simple gameplay. I just wish there was more to it. The switching back and forth feels a little arbitrary. Maybe you could have a gust of wind blowing you back up and some rainfall pushing you into the water. Something to give reason to the transition. The handdrawn art is beautiful and this could be a really fun relaxing game. I hope you keep working on it.
Thanks for the comments, I updated my description to be a little clearer about what I want to do with the game and why it ended up in the jam.
Unclickable zombies sounds like a great idea @mtrc I just gotta mull it over and see how best to handle it narratively.
I can totally see how the huge grid is overwhelming at first @DaanVanYperen. I'm wondering if I need to rewrite a smaller one to start and change the sizes on everything. I think its a good size for later levels though.
@manuq hadn't had a chance to set up my hosting mostly. Its available now at nthird.com/zombie_pop.html Its cutting a few pixels off the right edge of the screen but it doesn't affect gameplay in any way. I'll take another look at it next time I get a chance.
Thanks for pointing out the Linux error. I changed filenames to be all lowercase so hopefully that fixes it. If you try it again let me know, I don't have a Linux machine to test on at the moment.
@wally2069 thanks, I totally agree.
@manuq I'm intending to have graphics at some point but my skills are not up to it yet. Its a high priority for after I have some more levels in place. I'm glad its still enjoyable without though :D
@xrm0 I'm getting the same thing without anything having changed on my end. I'll look into it when I get back from work and see if I can find the issue. Thanks for letting me know. In the mean time you can download the source code and just open the index.html if you're interested.
@flap That's an interesting idea. I'm toying with it being turn based where each click is a turn, having the exploded flesh (which is what that red dot would look like if I had more art skills) only move based on the turns would be interesting. I might have to mock something up and see how it plays.
The game is working again on web for me so hopefully that fixes it for everyone else too.
@DDRKirby(ISQ) heh, fair enough.
@savethejets1 I'm toying with there being an unlimited amount of food but you get stars based on how little you used. So you can still complete the level without strategy but you need strategy to get enough stars to unlock later levels.
@Empyrealhell yeah I tacked the theme on in order to make a game I wanted to make. I think it adds an interesting tension but it makes so if you don't make good progress in those first 10 seconds it gets way harder really fast. I definitely want some graphics which will hopefully make it easier to distinguish them and some animation to demonstrate the digestion if I decide to stick with it. I might pull digestion entirely and make it part of an optional challenge mode or only part of some levels.
@X-0r thanks! I spent a fair amount of time on the blood on the walls. Just felt important to help sell the narrative. Glad you appreciated it. I agree about the variety, I'll try to spice things up some more as I keep working on it. I'm pretty happy with how the feeding comes across. I might let the player shoot one or two in the future but feeding them until they explode is going to remain the best way to kill them for sure :D
@Katamori thanks! I'm hoping to expand it and make better games in the future. I'm super glad LD inspired me to actually start this one.
@Lizzip Thanks, I certainly hope so.
Really good concept and great use of the theme. I found the puzzle bits on the unintuitive side but interesting. I had to stop playing though because I simply could not hit the time limits well enough. I kept getting stuck momentarily on corners or slightly overshooting and after 5 or 6 tries with no success (even looking at the walkthrough to be sure I was doing it right) I gave up. A slightly smoother interface or longer time period would have been enough for me to finish it. Love the graphical style and gameplay though. Great concept for a puzzle game and interesting unfolding method to handle upgrades of a very unique sort.
Really liked the them and there was some great level design at play here. I completely gave up on the one with moving platforms though. Between them phasing in and out of visibility and being reversed and zoomed in it became basically impossible. Some way to undo the changes or some better handling of it (like not making moving blocks phase) would help. I liked it a lot right until I hit that wall where it became impossible though. With some tweaking this could be fantastic.
Really good concept. I found the controls cumbersome but otherwise enjoyed the concept and execution.
Interesting take on the world building type of game. Just felt like it petered out at the end. Would be interesting to see where it goes from here. The multiplayer aspect of it was really well done though.
I really liked this one. Its like a reverse of Chronotron. Clever twist and interesting challenge. The existing levels are good difficulty, would love to see more of the same. My only complaint is that I'd like to see the timer not start until the first move. That way you can check out the level for a bit first without making it way more difficult.
All around fantastic. Really liked the upgrade system, and the graphics and audio were both all around top notch. My only suggestion is that I wish I restarted at the beginning each time I died so that the upgrades were carrying me through the easier stuff faster. And I'd love to be able to keep going after the boss to take full advantage of a full upgraded cat :D And hyper mode was amazing!