Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Jwatt
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥈 | 2011 | 21 | Escape | Escape the Fate | compo | Community | 4.21 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 36 | Ancient Technology | To Give a Game | jam | ||||||||||||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Neo Oxygene | jam | 508 | 3.33 | 3.02 | 3.98 | 3.92 | 3.56 | 2.48 | 3.28 | 79 | |||
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Terraform Junction VS | jam | 447 | 3.31 | 3.06 | 3.78 | 3.14 | 3.58 | 3.21 | 1.87 | 3.03 | 58 | ||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Kemono Worlds | jam | ||||||||||||
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | The Leeway Brothers' Bohemian Debut Of A Lifetime | jam | 348 | 3.25 | 2.80 | 3.60 | 2.05 | 3.70 | 3.68 | 3.13 | 2.88 | 32 | ||
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Public Mischief Performance | jam | 229 | 3.16 | 3.07 | 3.31 | 2.33 | 2.96 | 3.03 | 4.06 | 2.62 | 84 | ||
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Maximilian Lambda Caster | jam | 339 | 3.02 | 2.68 | 3.54 | 2.79 | 2.78 | 3.18 | 2.00 | 2.58 | 73 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Vineyard Adagio | jam | 476 | 2.58 | 1.93 | 2.81 | 2.87 | 2.47 | 2.87 | 2.53 | 60 | |||
| 2012 | 25 | You are the Villain | Hunter to Hunted | compo | 334 | 3.04 | 2.64 | 3.64 | 2.78 | 3.09 | 3.37 | 2.19 | 2.83 | 71 | ||
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Manual Population Control | compo | 417 | 2.90 | 2.43 | 3.14 | 3.48 | 3.43 | 3.30 | 2.46 | 42 | |||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Downsize | compo | 261 | 3.26 | 3.29 | 3.20 | 3.14 | 2.77 | 2.42 | 2.14 | 2.69 | 65 | ||
| 2011 | 22 | Alone | My Own World | compo | 142 | 3.15 | 2.85 | 3.69 | 2.77 | 2.85 | 3.33 | 2.00 | 2.55 | 3.44 | 37 | |
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Escape the Fate | compo | 102 | 3.33 | 3.06 | 3.44 | 3.00 | 3.17 | 3.29 | 2.00 | 4.21 | 6 |
I like how the switching mechanic forces you to think where to leave your character, then quickly adjust again. The controls feel fair and the one life policy keeps the player on their toes. Addicting stuff, I'll get all the tokens eventually!
99!
It's weird how right after the player gets a speed boost, the level design becomes more about nimble jumps. Luckily there were some wide open spaces to run in after that.
These are the kinds of games LD is about. Short but sweet. I could play like 50 levels of this, so I'm glad there's a level editor.
Feels polished, an addictive execution of a straightforward concept. The level editor is a big plus since the game is so short.
Augh. Did anyone else get the feeling that the jump key didn't register even though you clearly pressed it?
;_;
This stands out from the average entry. A bit liberal take on the already loose theme, but it's worth that sacrifice.
Some of the upgrades and instructions are unnecessary because memory slots are plentiful. This tones down the difficulty and variation.
The music does get annoying quickly, I think this game could do better without it.
Yeah, I'd also like to advance the dialogue by left-clicking since I'm a fast reader.
But that's just nitpicking, it's quite impressive for a 48 hour game.
This desperately needs an online high score mode with an infinite path that keeps on going faster and faster. Also, how about something to do with the left mouse button, such as jumping?
Liking the art style a lot. I get the feeling you spent most of your time on the graphics and missed out on some features you would've wanted to implement.
A solid game with a neat mechanic.
I didn't think it was particularly hard. The only thing that caused frustration was the way you keep moving left or right while jumping, even after you let go of the key.
One of the best graphical styles in this LD.
The concept is good but the execution is lacking. The controls are awkward; it's as if the game can't decide whether it's a top-down Sokoban-like game or a platformer. It takes much longer than expected to clear each level, to the point where rearranging the blocks over and over starts feeling tedious.
The movement was too heavy for my tastes, but I guess it was fitting for an atmospheric type of game. You wouldn't really want to breeze through the environments because there's lots of eyecandy.
Your contributions to the community shouldn't be ignored either, you've written a couple of interesting blog posts and currently have the highest coolness rating on the site.
The evolution of Mojang games: from punching trees to punching boulders.
Simple but polished and fun. The difficulty level is just right, and there's a clear sense of escaping & exploration.
Basically a spot-on project for Ludum Dare, spiced with generous community involvement. The programming is ambitious for a 48h game.
A simple concept, but great presentation and so much fun. Games like these are Ludum Dare's speciality.
Just tricky enough for my tastes. Fun stuff, and a great name.
It's pretty and sounds good. But like the others said, the exploration feels too maze-like despite the changing sceneries. There's little incentive to check every nook and cranny.
"Reverse tower defense" sounded promising, but it isn't quite what the player might expect. Gets a bit uninteresting quickly because of the lack of variation. Also, there's little payoff for fighting rather than running away - but I guess that just fits the theme, heh.
More level progression could've made this a gem. Don't introduce every enemy in level 1. Shorter levels, more new mechanics per level.
The "original" version has fake difficulty caused by having to restart from the start after dying. I'm glad you've tried to respond to complaints by making improved versions; that's why I gave you a high community rating. "Escape velocity" is also a distinctive take on the theme.
However, the game still has very little content despite being promising. I feel that you should keep developing it further.
Good stuff. Kinda like a tower defense with moving towers, heh. There's enough variation between levels to keep things interesting, and the upgrade system is a plus. Enough challenge as well, and it doesn't end just when the fun's gotten started.
Not quite varied enough to stay interesting all the way.
I think you bit more than you could chew. It's pretty long for an LD game, but it still feels like there was next to no content in a way. Not enough challenge, not enough variation between stats or enemies.
Some of the enemies never appeared despite the warnings. This was especially bad with the UFOs - I think I only saw 3 of them, but kept hearing the sound all the time. That's what made the game too easy, only the grey planes felt like a threat.
Surprisingly fun with minimal game mechanics.
Beautiful, yeah. The interaction needs refinement, though. The instructions at the bottom right are unclear and you'll end up trying to click everything. Use text rather than images - you could even tell a story (describe the events) while you're at it.
It ends right when it's started, but that's only to be expected from 48h games. I'm hoping you'll develop this further on your own time.
A promising and visually impressive entry that feels like a tech demo for a larger project rather than a game in itself.
Don't fall out of the screen. Level 1 involves fall damage, try jumping down from the highest ledge to the lowest one.
Thanks to Triplefox on #ludumdare for giving me the idea of an intro level. It does make a world of difference in explaining a what's proper death.
marudziik: Thanks for commenting! Regarding the controls, what kind of hints do you have in mind?
Cosine: great comment, analyzing each component really helps me improve.
Re: Innovation: The Karoshi comparisons are inevitable, but yeah, I believe I managed to reach a whole different feel.
Re: Graphics: I tried to keep the graphics as simple as possible, with the philosophy that different-looking tiles should have different functions. It's both because of the time limit and the puzzle nature of the game. An exploration/Metroidvania game would've certainly required variation in its looks.
Re: Fun: I don't know exactly what's causing the occasional moving platform glitches, but rest assured they used to be worse. It seems you can regularly ride on top of them without problems, and you have to do some rather unusual moves to make them freak out. That was good enough for me to call them "fixed" on the late hours of Sunday. There's only a handful of them in the entire game, though.
The fluid movement, however, is an intentional design choice. I decided early that I wanted responsive controls. I realize it's a bit of an acquired taste, and might add some faux difficulty in the first half of the game, which is more about discovering a proper solution than platforming.
The climax of that first half is the level you gave up on. It's particularly problematic since the solution is unconventional: you're supposed to to get squeezed by the moving platform right under the stairs. I made this happen with a last-minute workaround - which was briefly broken by an update, making the level extra frustrating for some unfortunate players. The previous levels may have given you the false impression that moving platforms are always non-lethal. I'd say this is the one design choice I regret: it's a good level on paper (literally on paper, in fact), but it appears unfair without proper context.
The source for the laptop version only changes a few lines. Added the other file to the source download anyway, if just for the sake of covering my ass.
Oh you
This game pushes my blocks.
Pretty tangentially related to the theme.
Some ambient sound effects could've bumped the mood to 5 stars.
movy's
I love how this conveys a story without dialogue and leaves room for imagination. 5 stars for mood.
GOURUDU METARU
M-MASAKA
"What's going on, the hell am I supposed to do? Can't push these blocks... oh, there's another screen... more blocks, but this time I can push them... I wonder why-- Wait, these blocks look like... OH. OOOOOHHHHH."
Thanks for giving that feeling. One of my favorite entries this LD, really polished and unique.
Delightfully surreal, yeah.
Kind of strange you only need to throw a stone once in the game. Was expecting that to be the core mechanic.
Yeah, hyper-responsive controls are like my trademark. Keeps you on your toes and makes for good speedrunning.
I had no problems with py2exe. Come on IRC and I'll help you out.
-I messed around with the screen size a lot, and this is more likely too small rather than too big. I originally had non-scrolling 800x600 levels that were always completely visible. I changed this because some new mechanics needed you to be near an obstacle before using them. For example, your drawings used to destroy crates at one point (but it wasn't all that fun). Then I nerfed those mechanics, but the screen size stuck, so...
-The part about platforms not disappearing might be a good idea, I hadn't thought of that. Right now I'm instead relying on your ability to jump mid-air. Especially in the last level.
Damn, I almost want to do a post-compo sequel to this now.
>The behavior of block drawing(rules of down-right vs. up-left) is perplexing from a player standpoint
Mm. Rectangles are only "valid" when drawn from the top-left corner to the bottom-right one, otherwise you're only moving the starting point around. This is something I'd do differently in a post-compo edition.
>If there were a concrete reason why the player can draw blocks other than "just because," the theme of the game might gel a little bit better.
Well, my first association with "alone" was "exclusion". I came up with a shield mechanic that was your only way of interacting with the world. After some iterations, it became what you see now. It's a broad theme and the most literal interpretation has to do with mood, so I tried to reflect that with the presentation.
For the record, I drew the waveforms myself in MilkyTracker.
Pretty hard, yeah. That particle effect revealing the invisible platforms is brilliant. Lots of mood too.
Loving the concept here, looks and sounds pretty neat.
A couple of bugs, though (which probably aren't news to you, from the looks of it). For example, you can get stuck in the walls and walk on lasers.
And I agree that it started feeling unfair when the lasers came in. Too hard to aim through the mirrors.
The best part of this game is luring him to a pit. Also the way you actually need him to solve some of the obstacles, I think that could've been explored more.
A gem of a game.
Don't forget to unzip before playing.
Nice idea for a game. I've wanted to do a sound-only game, but your approach was different. Found the kitty too.
Pretty fun as it is, even though the destruction isn't quite as intense as I'd hoped because of the player's slow speed and tiny hitbox. Maybe you wanted to sacrifice something for the challenge and cute appeal, but we want to see carnage!
Simple but addictive, a good formula for LD. Lacks difficulty once you're past the start though, and you should be able to affect the blood patterns more by pushing enemies around or something.
Neat premise, but the execution can be disorientating. The god doesn't seem to care about anything I build/do/train, apart from lashing out on me in an eventual game over. I mean, a lot of the game is about figuring out what to do (and that can be fun in a "game-long tutorial" kind of way, it's not necessarily a design flaw), but there isn't sufficient feedback to make it work.
Surprisingly fun as it is, but there's lots of potential here for a post-compo version. More ways to wreck the planet, people trying to defend their home world, maybe even simple physics modeling like detaching fragments.
Moody, but not very fun as a game.
Even if one can't solve the puzzles, it's fun to just explore the planet, since it feels alive.
I really like the push mechanic over the usual "touching means death". Especially since the collisions are rather... unforgiving.
Hilarious. Does what it does really well with all the polish.
Short enough for the lack of variation not to matter. Some strange bugs like jumping through walls and text that never clears.
I don't mean the one-way walls - go left from the start point and then up, you'll see what I mean. Looks like some tiles are misplaced, causing collision glitches.
And about the text bug, I can't seem to reproduce it, it only happens randomly and goes away by respawning.
Lovely progression here.
Interesting concept. The clumsy movement detracted from the enjoyment, I think.
Only tangentially related to the theme, but still in the top tier of jam entries for all the detail.
ARE YOU A QUANTUM PHYSICS
T in Y World changed my life.
But not necessarily for the better.
T in Y World made me invest in teleportation technology.
T in Y World isn't a game, it's actually a thesis on life, the universe and everything written collaboratively by all Nobel physicians that have ever lived, that are presently alive and that have yet to be born.
All my life has been a waiting room for this event: http://i.imgur.com/9Mqjp.png
T in Y World made half of the atoms in my body disappear.
T in Y World had sex with my mother a couple of decades back.
Man, I can't wait for T in Y World.
Mom, I can't sleep without T in Y World.
Aww, I'm sorry darling, here's your very own T in Y World.
Thanks mom, now I can finally dream the eternal dream, after 23,000,000 years of waiting.
Without T in Y World, the Earth would start spinning the other way.
T in Y World is a filthy, lying whore.
Thanks to T in Y World, the world is running out of alphabet.
Now we will have to develop telekinesis to communicate.
On the other hand, who needs communication when we have T in Y World? You can go tell that to Martha Bailey in Texas. Without communication.
I fed T in Y World to my dog.
T in Y World trapped me in the comments section.
I hope the sun explodes.
Not our sun though, that would be silly. I mean the one on the opposite end of Milky Way.
Wait. I -am- on the opposite end of Milky Way.
This is the right time to pray to T in Y World, which is, any time at all.
Sometimes there is no time because T in Y World hoards it all to itself.
Then we will simply have to make our own time using duct tape and searingly hot lava.
And fail miserably. Mom, my time is going backwards.
Shut the fuck up daughter, I'm trying to sleep.
And by sleep, I mean bringing your dad's T to my Y, if you know what I mean.
Thanks to T in Y World, I'm located 30 feet above myself.
When I grow up, I want to be T in Y World.
wait shit is this even the right comments section
"Every comments section can be the right one if you just learn to free your mind." -T in Y World
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" -T in Y World
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - T in Y World
"Yeah, uhh, I think I'll have a double cheeseburger. Hold the onion though, it always makes me fart." -T in Y World
"""Everything for everyone" -Ron Paul" -T in Y World"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""Always remember to escape your quotes properly"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" -Quote Man, a superhero alias for T in Y World
As Quote Man, T in Y World once saved the universe from certain doom. They forgot to escape a quote when writing the laws of physics.
The result would've been a reality with infinite gravity where everything is flat and constantly kind of hungry even though it just ate.
My god is an edible one.
Mom, mom is bullying me.
Don't worry daughter, I'll summon Quote Man to make her stop.
""G'day madame, Quote Man in your service"-- OH SHI--
And that was the end of Quote Man.
The fate of chemistry classes still remains unknown, though.
But presumed TASTY AHHHAHHHAHAHAHAH
T in Y World cured my cancer.
Then it gave me AIDS.
Then it turned me into a 5-dimensional hypersphere.
With cancer, AIDS and Asperger's.
And lasers coming out of my orifices.
Some of which I'd never known I've had before.
My avatar is a 2-dimensional photo of the 5-dimensional hypersphere.
NO T IN Y WORLD. ONLY KHLAV KALASH.
Thank you Mario! But our T is in another Y!
<Jiggawatt> I should've known that, I'm a T IN Y WORLD connoisseur.
<Jiggawatt> Every weekend I retreat to a closet and stare at different types of T IN Y WORLD.
Whenever I sneeze, some T IN Y WORLD comes out. Is this bad?
I sold everything I own because of T in Y World.
As well as everything my neighbours owned.
And by everything, I don't just mean expendable property. I'm now just a brain chilling in a vat.
As are my neighbours, so they can't hurt me.
Not until they've had such a hazardous exposure to T in Y World that they mutate the ability to send electro-magnetic pulses with the power of thought alone.
I once thought I launched an EMP, but it was just a blood vessel popping while trying to comprehend T in Y World.
This begs to be made into a full game with mouse look and objectives. Glad you tried something different, graphics are crispy as usual.
Pretty difficult, yeah. The first level(s) should be just a "retard check". I think what makes this slightly unfair is the unnaturally large hitbox of the player.
Delightful concept and presentation, and I love how you addressed the issues in the post-compo versions.
The controls, the controls! My brain is on fire!
Building the gameplay around the super-low-res limitation is a good approach. The difficulty is just right, the levels actually feel like challenges and are rewarding to complete. My only gripe is that the targeting feels slightly off.
i_have_no_idea_what_i'm_doing.jpg
A solid game, 4 stars for everything (except humor, which I don't think you were going for). I got stuck because I didn't realize what really makes up a "part" and what you can rotate. You did something new with a formula I've seen before. Luckily the content doesn't run out right when you've got the hang of it.
The setting is memorable and reflected everywhere in the presentation. It's just that the graphics are a shade too dark on my screen. The narrator talk is kind of interesting, not the sort of lolrandom filler usually found in LD games.
Great little game, this has potential to be one of those notoriously addictive Flash games like Winterbells.
Surprisingly fun considering gameplay consists basically of waiting for resources to grow. But it has an abrupt ending common to LD games. A post-compo version should expand it to have multiple planets to control and more variables to twiddle with.
The concept is good, but the execution needs more love. The throwing is often awkward and the progression doesn't seem to be well thought out.
Simple but polished gameplay, it's pretty fun just grinding for a while. And it's got attention to detail, like Dr. Freeze creating tiles in lava. I love discovering things like that.
You got surprisingly much out of minimal gameplay elements. Still, I'd like to see you expand on the concept.
The gameplay would've desperately needed variation, it got tedious quite fast. For example, the one-way floors had potential for puzzles, but they never came. And neither did I.
The disturbed mood really sets it apart from other entries. Never got a hang of the targeting, though.
Guaranteed Jonathan Whiting quality. Very imaginative, you really got the most out of the game mechanics. Some real moments of ingenuity here, like having to die to progress, and it doesn't have the "over too soon" syndrome common to LD games (although I wouldn't complain to see more levels!).
Overall it just feels like a surprisingly complete experience. 5/5.
It just seemed more intuitive to have missteps cause restarts. If you somehow ended up isolated on a single tile island with unreachable tiles left, you'd have to press R to restart. But manual restart would be a whole new feature applicable in a very specific situation. This way, restarting is incorporated into the gameplay while also being a hazard. It's part of my design philosophy to minimize manual or "meta" features like that.
The best presentation I've seen in LD23 so far, with solid gameplay that fits the theme.
What bothers me most is that monsters can spawn right next to you, I think they should only spawn off-screen so you'd have some time to react.
For me, the .jar file only launches a window that shuts down right away. Too bad.
I can tell you spent most of your time on the graphics/polish instead of refining the core mechanics first. Needs more pressure to feel like survival.
So camp.
It's got some technically impressive quirks like the procedural generation and mass-centered gravity. All spiced up with programmer art/music, heh. Quite fun for the while it lasts.
I got lost in this game. Absolutely love how there's inherent puzzles in discovering the game mechanics and placement patterns. A rare case where a tutorial would hinder the gameplay.
The sort of LD game I'd want to make, it captures the joy of discovery/creation while also fitting the theme and having a polished presentation.
This is adorable. 5 stars for mood. The controls were a bit clumsy at times but the basic mechanics are nice.
Wow, those are some smooth animations. I don't know how easy this sort of art style is to do with your tools, but it doesn't *look* like a 48-hour game at all.
In addition, it had some neat gameplay, sufficient variation, and a solid take on the theme. Good game.
"You didn't make par. Try again."
My thoughts on this game in a nutshell.
No, but seriously, I can't even get past the first level. I autopilot until it's about to hit the wall, then switch to manual, but 0.5 seconds is just way too short.
Ah, nevermind. You just have to give it a short nudge so it won't hit the wall in the first place. That's kinda clever, actually.
Like others have said, the main problem is that the player doesn't have enough information to make good decisions. It still has pretty solid production values though.
Interesting puzzle twist on block-building games. Really cozy and strangely addictive, it's nice to discover surprises like the monster and big gems.
Sadly it's easy to get stuck and have to restart, because you can't plan ahead if you don't know where the crucial locations are, and I'm sure many just give up at that point.
Oh, and 5 stars for audio, glad to see developers paying attention to sound.
>It inspires fear and dementia
>It smells like tuna
Oh man, this game is hilarious. Had a couple of shots at it just to try and get some of the seemingly unreachable items. Didn't know about pre-programmed combos until I read the comments.
Great concept and execution, like some sort of procedural Metroidvania puzzle monster. You have to think about which upgrades to buy to not get stuck. Lots of content too, it feels like a very complete game.
At first I thought you'd proceed by going beyond the level boundaries, but it turned out you just have to collect everything, meaning you have to kill the enemies too. While there's attention to detail like trajectories turning into parabolas above the surface, the mouse-only controls seem a bit awkward when trying to move small distances.
Nonetheless, this is clearly a 4- or 5-star entry.
Story and mood are clearly the focus here. Kind of reminded of the Avernum RPGs. It's too bad the technical problems hinder the enjoyment.
I could see the relation to evolution. It's not really a literal take like "bacteria in a petri dish", but something more subtle and memorable.
This is a clever game. Almost as clever as one of my puzzle-platformers! You make me proud, son.
My only gripe is the character movement, it's slippery and collisions are unprecise.
Well, that was surreal. Being scientifically minded, I thought it was fascinating to try and figure out the logic in the mutations. Seems like the cyan meteor randomizes the thing's width, the yellow one randomizes its height, the magenta one its color and the black one gives it some sort of trajectory.
My favorite part was when after one too many black orbs, the thing went on a rampage and I was able to touch it. I was expecting to find a developer message or something inside it, heheh.
Only in Ludum Dare do you see games like this, and I love it when a game first disorients you and then offers you a sense of discovery.
Cute little building game. Can't believe it's made in just 8 hours (but why is it a jam entry?).
I'd like to understand how that genetic algorithm works. It was fascinating when I generated a level with a death pit, and they eventually learned to jump over it. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/UF5dR.png (they even managed to killed me later)
NONONO-- YESYESYES! SHOOT! SHOOT! NO GODDAMMIT HOW COULD YOU ALL MISS IT WAS 3 VS 1 AND HE WAS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.
Oddly exciting for a zero-player game. I guess it's because the mechanics are simplistic so it feels fair to estimate which team to bet on and to understand how a match develops.
Great ambience & presentation. But I did get the feeling of "that's it?" after I opened the gate. Would make for a neat intro sequence to teach the basic interaction in a larger game, but that'd need more direction (didn't know you could break bottles without looking at the walkthrough).
Hah: http://i.imgur.com/Uy7XA.png
The left photo was a "scenic shot" and the right one was a photo of a bird. wat
Besides some flaws like that, (and the programmer art :P), it's a cute and immersive game with emergent gameplay.
Looks like that bug is pretty commmon at high zoom levels, but when you zoom out, it counts as a bird shot. Interesting.
I was following the updates. The result's kind of cool, but post-jam multiplayer would kick this to a whole new level.
One of the most polished entries.
Whoa. This has plenty of content for a compo entry. And it wasn't for nothing, this is great fun to play.
There seems to be a graphical bug that prevents me from playing properly: http://i.imgur.com/pyKCy.png
If you have a solution, let me know, I'll check back because it looks like worth playing.
There's something inherently funny about the physics and the low production values.
Many Ludum Dare games try too hard to be lolsorandom using text. Sometimes no words are needed.
Simple as they may be, you got a lot out of the mechanics and strategies at hand. The clear level progression is pleasant and held my interest all the way to the end.
Oh my lord. Ahhahah. The dissonance of blowing screaming people up while a triumphant Sigur Rós song is playing is some of the best humor I've seen this LD. And blowing things up is, as we all know, amusing in itself. The low framerate on my puny laptop made some of the platforming parts more frustrating than they should be, even on low resolution and quality, but that's not the game's problem.
Good game, good use of Unity, everyone gets a present.
I was promised a torture chamber and that's all I got. Fair enough.
Pretty tongue-in-cheek. I like the gimmick of using objects as shields before eating/throwing them, that's something you could've explored more. I felt like you should add more pressure to take this game to its full potential, since dodging projectiles is a pretty shallow way of interaction.
Oh, and it's weird how the people stay alive and blinking for a while after they're dead.
It would have more longevity if the destruction wasn't so obviously constrained to a grid. I'd love to destroy the houses with some kind of beam that carves out pixels.
Oh, and the music fits this perfectly.
Neat 3D, not much in terms of gameplay.
Could use some puzzle elements rather than being just a test of reflexes. Something like not being able to step on nodes already hacked (which would naturally require changes to the level design).
Honestly, I'm trying my best to find something good about this. The gameplay consists only of tapping a button, hacking and slashing at an enemy that could as well be invincible. There seems to be no action, no strategy, nothing to keep you going. There's seeds of AI and tower defense mechanics, but they haven't been developed far enough to be useful.
And what particularly strikes me as lazy is the game's complete disconnection from the theme. It doesn't help the impression that the author didn't give a damn.
Abstract and different. It's strangely fun for a while even if it all comes down to frantic clicking, and seems to have no difficulty curve whatsoever.
I like management games, and this is reasonably functional for an LD game. You could use a graphics artist, though.
Weird game. I see what you're trying to do, but it doesn't feel challenging or rhythmic enough. You can kind of dash to the end, the queue mechanic is only superficially explored. These kinds of games need strict limitations to feel right.
The prompt to "find the gatekeeper" at the start is misleading if you have to kill everyone.
I wasn't very impressed by the rest either. There's not much interaction beyond throwing blocks, and even that is clumsy.
Oh you clever you.
A solid entry. There's some cool ideas, like how collecting takes scaring first, and the incorporation of screen wrapping in your level design. The music is tasteful, but the sound effects are a bit jarring.
Yeah, it's pretty easy and basic. You should've at least done more with the gnome/goat mechanic, as once you've realized what they do, you have no incentive to talk to them again.
Competitive level design, what a great concept. Multiplayer is ambitious for Ludum Dare, and you approached it well.
The main flaw here is the interface. Going back and forth across screens isn't very intuitive - I only figured the nature of this game with some experimenting. And the editor is simple enough to not have to rely so much on menus.
I'd be thrilled to see a post-jam version. It has so much potential.
That resolution is poison for laptop users, I can barely fit all the important information on the screen.
Anyway, the gameplay itself has the fundamental problem that the prisoners approach junctions simultaneously, and all junctions also switch simultanelously. You wouldn't have to design the order as carefully if the player could toggle junctions individually. This'd also add more micromanagement, which is what the game is all about.
3 stars overall, leaning towards 4. Being a jam game, I'd expect more content.
Good use of physics, but that's what made it resource-intensive. This game is great for giving you a feeling of power.
I do like the concept, but I only see asteroids like once every dozen ships, so I can't get much out of the traction mechanic.
More than the sum of its parts. Some deaths feel kind of cheap because of unresponsive combat. Being chased by an angry mob is fun, but their pathfinding seems to lag the game considerably.
This would be on a whole different level if the materials had some in-game benefits through a crafting system.
Wall jumping? More like wall humping.
Great, great gameplay. My favorite part about this is how the lockpicking and lighting mechanics are connected. Both are fun as isolated cases, but you've also implemented the It's essentially a balance between more risk to get caught and easier lockpicking. This is something other game designers could and should learn from.
Also, too often in indie stealth games you're caught the moment a guard sees you, without giving you a chase scene. Chases are a blast!
Definitely could profit from better presentation, but I'm glad you prioritized your entry for gameplay instead. It's a fun and complete game as it is, so a post-compo version with less programmer art, more suspenseful audio, and possibly more things to watch out for could only be a success.
A pretty compelling "short story", high mood points. Yes, it only exists to deliver a message, and I prefer any possible social critique in games to be subtle, but I have to admit the delivery makes it a clever take on the theme.
Ooh, this is a fresh take on defense games. Loving the puzzle aspect of it which forces you to think like a programmer. The prehistoric motif is memorable and well presented.
Great game, but not quite flawless. The difficulty curve could be more refined - it feels like the second level was easier than the first, for example. And the AI has obvious bugs, most clearly in level 3. Sometimes in crossroads, they manage to clear one path but then take the other one anyway. It seems their behaviour isn't perfectly predictable either (they do different decisions with the mammoth even in identical setups), and I'm not sure if that's a good thing considering the planning this game requires.
I wrote a lot about the flaws, but that's just because I think this game has potential and I want to give you ideas for a post-compo version. Even now, it's a 4-star game that stands out from most other entries.
Good job with the results! You deserved to be in the top 10.
Failed to load in Opera, but works in Firefox.
Audiovisually, this is in the highest tier of entries. The gameplay is fairly unique and simplistic enough not to collapse under its own scope (like many management games in Ludum Dare).
I feel like the interface is hiding something from me. There's not enough feedback on what I'm doing and whether I'm doing it right, so it's hard to learn. But I guess that's kind of the point in a game about deduction, so yeah.
The idea is fun and well executed, it stands out from the sea of entries. Hoping to see you take this even further with more content.
The only flaw I found was that the game crashed after the first level on Opera. However, I tried again and didn't encounter that anymore.
Congrats for getting highest overall, this goes beyond the usual jam game.
This shows how even a simple game can be memorable with tons of polish.
Glad to see you did a post-compo version, the option to buy itens makes the game strangely more addictive.
Well, that was a mindfuck. I love how Ludum Dare encourages people to make innovative experiments like these. Definitely needs fleshing out, but this could be the egg from which the next Portal hatches.
The game froze when I killed the thugs. On the far right end of the imaginary gameplay-art slider, not really relevant to the theme either.
Also, there is a streetlight in my room, and its reasons for being there are likely to eat my sleep for the following days.
Also, NIPPONRAMEN
Plenty of mood here. It's more like a short story than a game. That's both a strength and a weakness.
Could use some indication of health.
A direct approach for this theme. Who doesn't want to be an evil tyrant ruling the land? But I felt it lacks two things: pressure and control. Too much of the game consists of waiting around, and too many of the game's functions are invisible or abstracted away.
Delightfully surreal as your games always. It's like, yeah I get -how- this works, but I don't get the -why-. I guess it requires no further context or progression because the gameplay holds up alone.
My ideal was a game where I could just flash an image of two keys, leave the player alone for a while, and have them come back n minutes later as a strategist. It is supposed to take a lot of micromanagement, and it is supposed to come with trial and error.
I make an effort in my games to embed discovery as part of the gameplay itself, as a source of emergent "A-ha" moments, so I'm disappointed whenever someone treats that as a design flaw. The "hidden layers of complexity" you mentioned is what it's all about.
Ishisoft's This Precious Land from LD23 is one of my dream games in that sense, but I suppose I still have ways to go. I participate in Ludum Dare to learn, so I'm open to ideas about further accessibility.
I wouldn't consider adding a win condition without changing the mechanics. Staying alive is enough of a challenge (and enough of a reward) by itself. A "skill cap" would just feel artificial.
ilo: I mentioned in the description that new hunters spawn when treasure is collected, but could I make it clearer somehow? Or do you mean something else?
Suese: fair enough, I think I'm overestimating the attention span of reviewers. And I don't mean that in a rude way, I myself don't spend more than a couple minutes on a typical entry.
But what should be done about it? I'm thinking there could be visual illustrations in the background (in line with the style I used to teach you about the controls), as a sort of tutorial that could be ignored once you do get the hang of it.
Maybe the extra enemy you get at the start is disorientating too, I added it just to speed up the beginning after a couple of restarts.
lotusgame: I think that makes a total of 1 person who gets it.
No but really, I appreciate that you made the effort of coming back to it. I'm hoping people could find get as much of it as I do. Almost missed a meeting because I was so addicted, heheh.
*could get as much out of it as I do
Of course I made the music myself (using MilkyTracker). I'd never use a generator on the account that I want to have as much control over my game as possible. This isn't even the kind of track that could come out of a generator, so I'm baffled you'd ask that.
Basically, you deal with a spike by putting another spike on top of it, turning it into a solid block. Remember that adventurers drop spikes to their left and right sides when they hit anything except another hero - incidentally, this is the cause of the deaths you mentioned.
Because the starting adventurer eventually digs himself out so that new ones don't spawn, obviously you have to keep another one alive! That's part of the resource management in this game. Don't just run around eating everyone aimlessly.
Also, I'm going to write a post-mortem and record a gameplay video today.
Post-compo version coming soon. Should fix the double-tile bug and the freeze bug when the background fills up.
(Not that I'd think anyone else had gotten far enough to encounter the freeze bug. :p)
Tobias Wehrum: I appreciate the thoughtful feedback. There are some gory details about the way spikes drop: once a hunter dies, its y-position is rounded to the next tile above, and that's used as the y-position for the spikes. That's why you get different results when a hunter lands on the ground (y = 1 tile above ground, so spikes spawn on the monster) and when a hunter lands on a spike (y = 2 tiles above ground, which is safe). This could definitely be made clearer with visual cues, though.
But your comment gave me some ideas.
Cake&Code: I haven't touched the link, and it seems to be working. Maybe Dropbox was momentarily acting up when you tried it.
Upgrades are always neat, it's just that they seem to determine everything in this game. The player's role is to passively sit and listen to the cool music. The comments were what kept me going until I maxed out.
I'm a sucker for these "art games". I'd love to learn Unity and make one of my own in a game jam some day. Everything in the presentation contributes to the narrative, and its open-endedness is intriguing.
I felt like I was being talked down after having done something wrong. A bit alienating, a bit victimizing. It's a different, abstract take on the theme for sure.
I can't believe I actually had to install a game in 2012.
And it didn't even work. The cursor just blinks at the main menu and none of the options respond.
Ah, okay. Now I got to try it out.
It might be Just Another Shooter(tm), but hell if it isn't polished. An entry that does only one thing but it does it flawlessly.
So, while I appreciate the effort in the execution, its problems are design-related. I couldn't tell what LD this was from if I didn't know.
Noooo! You monster! You used the control scheme where "up" is top left rather than top right!
Deconstructions are well in line with the theme. It's a bit difficult to effectively micromanage, particularly after Pacman's had a power-pill and you can't tell who is who.
It's like a pocket world, the base seems functional with all the gadgets and drones. It's immersive how you're managing it from the inside, not from an abstract strategy perspective.
But the music... please make it stop! I can't take it anymore!
I love the trading system, hunting for efficient deals is what sets this game apart in terms of innovation. The Atari-themed presentation is heartwarming.
All the pieces of a good game are there, now you just need more content like you said.
The graphical style is interesting, but results in some awkward controls.
This is creepy, I jumped a bit when the first enemy ran at me from behind. As non-existent as the gameplay is, the super-sensitive controls don't really work with it.
Glad this is getting exposure outside of the Ludum Dare crowd. One of the best entries this time, rich in quality content.
A pretty damn solid game, to be honest. The "stealing enemy parts" thing is clever, but there's something too heavy about the ship's movement. Sleek graphical style.
The premise is a clever take on the theme as it is, but you also explored a lot of interesting possibilities with the level designs. With some above-average visual/audio design thrown in as well, it's a memorable entry overall. Solid 4 stars.
Eh. Simple and funny, but I'd like it to be more about deductions than guesswork. Some graphics bugs with the text.
This is some kind of a standout for its production values.
However, it's sad that the gameplay feels like it was never playtested. For a plain runner game, you should have a lot of reference material for making the controls work. The character's so slow and clumsy.
A technically good proof-of-concept, but the main problem is a lack of explanation. Basic things like what you actually need to *do* in the game, what items can be pushed and why.
The boss fights are the weakest part. Too repetitive, too long, you can get stuck in the walls, have to restart the whole level if you die, and what else.
The idea of the character growing works well within the theme. It's spiced with cool details like the intro sequence.
This is quite original, but unfortunately suffers from some design flaws. For example, it's hard to make up any cool strategies because the game limits you to the immediately "correct" choices.
It lacks some focus and has a bit of awkward progression, but it's still one of the most promising prototypes. 4 stars just for the amount of content.
I could see this being made into a full-length game, with higher production values. Please consider that.
I understood it, but it needs better level progression.
Because of this game, I made a boo-boo.
***END TRANSMISSION***
No but really, this has some clever things, like playing Tetris from inside the game and the ledge-grabbing. Not sure if genius or madman.
A bit unsettling. For an atmospheric game like this, programmer art/music is a turn-off.
viiskauttaviis
Oh wow, this is creepy. The audio -makes- this. I love it when gamedevs actually pay attention to sound design, rather than treating it as a necessary evil that can be rushed.
Some clever puzzle designs too. Great entry.
I can see this as a mobile app, yeah. Just needs a bit more variety, more meaningful uses for the breaking mechanic. I particularly like the audio.
Cool toy, not nearly enough responsiveness for a good game.
Experiments like this are the soul of Ludum Dare. It's a bit chaotic for an arcade game, but since there's feedback for just about every interaction, playing around with it is quite pleasant.
Above-average content for 48 hours. Gotta love the player-character relationship.
I think there was a double jump bug in the chasm, I needed to jump once on the ledge or the double jump wouldn't activate (reeks of faulty game logic).
Hey, thanks for the feedback so far. Keep it coming.
I can already see a few potential improvements (and downright flaws) with this. Some of them because of my limited Unity experience, some because of the typical LD rush mode.
One idea I had is that the collectible cubes could give you hints about manipulating the bush. Maybe the intro text would appear from a cube you get right at the start, and then you'd be informed of different patterns, strategies for keeping the water source alive long enough to reach the far platforms, and such. It'd give both incentive and guidance without harming the spirit of finding things out for yourself.
However, the scope of the game should remain tech demo-ish, even if I made a polished post-LD version. Which I probably will.
I love this. The resource management is so simple but so addictive. Really forces you to think about the essential, which is what the theme is all about.
Doesn't do much, but does it decently.
Clumsiness in the form of unskippable text and awkward attacks/collisions. The player character it animated all right, everything else looks programmer arty. A bit heavy on the scanlines, don't you think?
Quite plain gameplay coated in a sugary presentation.
Doesn't appear like a jam game.
Pretty surreal. Feels quite shoddily programmed, lags with a reasonable amount of obstacles and there's those things like the level slowly building itself every time. Some of those details add to the weirdness I guess, but it still feels dangerously "Unity factory presets" to me.
Wait what am I saying, it's not Unity. But anyway it feels quite strange to control.
This game made me feel good. :1
I loved how not only the clock and the platforms are connected, but you also extended that idea to the key dropping part. The audio was sufficiently subtle, not the usual loud bfxr noises. I'd definitely like to see a more complete game based on this.
(I found this from here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/09/05/list-some-really-cool-games/)
THE MAGIC OF THE CRYSTALLL
Leftist Society: The Game
I didn't manage to get a 302 even when I recorded every 10-second segment.
It's a pretty fun arena shooter. I can smell a Super Crate Box influence.
Suffers from a lack of music though, and the sound effects are too much like bfxr factory presets.
Made me smile on the inside. Not on the outside though because fun is not allowed.
Yeah, don't do that thing where you don't give the player any cues as to where to go.
Takes a while to figure the controls in each game, some more cohesion is needed. I mean Wario Ware only uses a few buttons, but this has mouse and keyboard, and sometimes the other doesn't work.
The levels should cut if you fail instead of waiting for the timer to run out.
This isn't T IN Y WORLD.
Despite that flaw, it's still the only entry besides mine that isn't crap for plebs.
Despite that success, this is pretty damn original.
Together we shall overthrow Ludum Dare.
But even if we did, it wouldn't be featured on Indie Statik.
We just need to find a third guy who's good at marketing and we might pull it off.
Ugh, I hate businesspeople so much.
But we can keep him locked in a cage, much like the metaphorical one us suffering artists who don't get recognition for their innovation are in.
innovation are in.
Who said that?
I think it was Point Five.
He's always been such a nuisance. Must be a businessman.
He's not a businessman, he's a business, man.
Nope, still not T IN Y WORLD.
I've lost control of my life.
Better hire POINT ONE HURTS to be in charge of it.
This is what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wUcV1-gEtA
I like taking photos of the countryside.
But the countryside is sometimes shy and melts away.
Revealing a world of pure insanity and POINT ONE HURTS.
What did the beef chart say to the doctor?
POINT ONE HURTS.
Just so I can fire him in the middle of a recession.
It's kind of awkward to move any objects around.
I never thought I would say this about an LD entry, but this game is too long. The levels are varied, yes, but if you want us to speedrun it... well, after 18 minutes, starting over wasn't exactly on my mind.
Pretty good production values. Only one slight physics bug where I'd stop sliding at the bottom of a hanging pillar, and I'd still get the speed boost even if I'm heading to the wall's direction.
Bonus points for investing in audio.
A 5-star entry here. Unique (right down to the presentation) and fun. The egg's physics felt a bit too floaty on the first try, but later it leads to some funny results. I actually like how subtle the audio is, it does its job well.
Liking the difficulty. Feels like a quite complete game with some neat level design. Some of the collisions are buggy, especially with the small blocks.
This feels like quite an achievement for LD. Not often do you see networked entries, or ones that are this well done. Great use of the theme to add extra dynamics to the gameplay.
Some of the punching is a bit wonky I think, you can hit an enemy a few meters away but not when your sprites overlap.
I really really love the controls, everything feels responsive. There's details like how you can control yourself in mid-air (and even a level built around that, nice). The hyperactive camera adds to the hectic feeling. Hell, any game that reminds me of N is a good thing.
It crashes when you're out of focus though.
"That's it?"
Also I won the last level basically by jumping at the right time.
Everything about this is hilarious. The music, the crude 3D models/AI, and obviously throwing things.
This is a pretty clever take on the theme, glad every level wasn't as monotonous as it seemed at the start.
I was hoping for a sandbox mode where you just build things without a time limit, haha.
Running, jumping, spikes. Been there, done that.
There's something strangely moody about this. A lot of it has got to do with the pressure in the gameplay, and the audio too. Having to protect the friends somehow would add more difficulty/variety to an otherwise immediately accessible game.
The holders of the secrets of the oracles have deemed you not worthy.
I'm sure glad you managed to spend so much time on the intro that the game itself feels like it's barely been playtested.
Quite original and simplistic. Liking the music a lot. The level designs should be more involving, right now it's kind of "go to point B then wait for the timer to reset".
I couldn't help but think of some RoboRally-style pseudo-programming game while playing. That would be neat with the main mechanic.
lol
This feels really creepy, threatening. The low production values just add to the whole feeling of things not being right. A memorable entry.
Much more dynamic than the usual LD game.
I don't mind the difficulty, but there's some bad design accompanying it that makes it worse. Level 2 should totally be level 1, and you shouldn't have to start all over when you die, just restart the level.
The audio seems to get louder as you clear levels.
Oh, and some kind of a minimap would be cool to see enemies behind you and behind corners. It's a shame the game has flaws like this because it'd be a great entry if it were better polished and playtested.
Zephyr89: you should've jammed! I took an extra day to spice up my entry and I don't regret it at all.
Hoping to see a post-compo version.
It's unintentionally humorous because of how shoddy it is. Can't tell the bullets from the background, a timer with a default font floating in the middle of space, popups, that music loop...
Rounds are unplayably short even when other players happen to join in. Should be something like "you have 6 HP that each lasts 10 seconds, one shot gives/loses a HP"
This is pretty cute, board game vibes. Too fast to get anything really done though. The resolution is a bit awkward, you really didn't need that much scaling.
Pretty awkward controls. Must be more fun with other players but sadly none connected.
They should hire smarter guards.
Well, that got annoying quite fast.
But yeah I appreciate the story and all.
The documentation says "arrows/space to navigate help". So Space only leaves the documentation screen, you shoot with Z in the game.
The spinning background used to be more intense and consequently I left my body several times during development.
mrspeaker: try A and D, those are closer to Z. Also, if you select the defense parameters and then shoot, you're going to end up using them as parameters... most likely disabling them in at least one way :p You gotta shoot defense to get defense.
Norgg: the red text above the parameters shows what they're affecting. Like if you have a green (restrict) block and "shottype" over it, you'll know the shot type block is blacked out. The function notation at the top shows the last added effect. It's pretty hectic either way, but you'll get used to it after a while. (Or just enjoy the beautiful chaos.)
Jimanzium: uh, click "engage" on the title screen. But you might probably want to click "documentation" first.
angrygeometry played my game on his stream, I think I could hear some of his veins popping.
Watching him made me realize that I can't stress enough how you have to cycle through the parameters. So use those numbers (or A and D). The game is probably impossible to win without cycling through the options.
Speaking of which, has anyone else been able to complete this yet? Please comment if you do. And feel free to comment regardless, constructive comments are more important to me than ratings.
A public service announcement: if the title and help screens are too much of an obstacle for some of you, please do not bother playing or rating the game. This message will repeat every 10 seconds.
You completed it? Like did you get the "wave clear" screen? Whoa, nice.
I'll begin tackling accessibility problems with a post-LD version, hopefully featuring different game modes (including a tutorial mode where you're immortal and get comments on what reactions you just caused).
You FOOL
Don't lie just to be polite when you obviously didn't RTFM or play beyond the first impression.
That's like playing Tetris and going "not quite sure what the blocks falling from the top were for".
Winner of the "best post-mortem" award
Come on. If your experience of the game was literally standing around for 30 seconds, don't say the gameplay was awesome. That sort of dishonesty just makes me mad.
Mm, it's not really an inconsistency that there are two different names for the blocks. After all, each type can be used as both a function and a parameter. In fact, I thought making that distinction would make it more clear what is going on, but the learning curve is steep either way. Hey, I wanted to make a hectic game and succeeded, how about that.
If I were to make this more accessible in the post-LD version, I guess there's no choice but to make a tutorial of some sort (despite my allergy to tutorials). Like something where you're invincible and the blocks come one by one, and every time you shoot one, you'd get like a pop-up describing what happened. I don't know, I just like making games, I don't like explaining them.
But it's possible to learn. Whatever goes in my head while playing is quite directly dumped into the docs, and it's all you need to appreciate the depth. Which there is a surprising amount of - no two matches feel the same. Hence "situational bullet hell".
Thanks for the insightful comment as usual, I get more kicks out of that than from ratings.
The melody in level 2 sounds kinda like Legend of Aokigahara by ZUN. The music is pretty much what makes this so funny.
Or more like the audio in general, but yeah.
Woah, great job with the audio. The masses want more and promise to do their best to not execute the emperor this year. I also like the details like upgrades having their own icons.
Too bad the core gameplay gets old fast. It's like eating rice with lots of spice, there's spice but it's still just rice, y'know?
The controls felt clumsy, the ships don't move smoothly enough to actually do any leet bullet dodging. I feel like you tried to artificially balance that out by spamming extra lives. The cooldown thing with the first ship seems to add nothing meaningful or tactical to the shooting.
This makes me feel quite paranoid.
DAAN DAAN DAAN DANANANA DANANANA
While this is perhaps the most obvious idea for this theme, it's a solid execution. I get that randomly generating levels is outside of the scope of LD, but one way to cheaply add more variation would be to randomize the player's starting location.
This was quite surreal, gotta love that FOV effect.
Super laggy, unintuitive controls. The vaporizer *is* pretty cool though, I saw that development video when you posted it and was looking forward to trying it out.
Demo Effect: The Game, I guess.
Very 2010s. LD needs less platformers and more creative experiments like this. You get my seal of non-foolgarbage.
Also, people, go read the author's commentary: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/12/18/about-data-stains/
Despite being a fan of resource management games, the lackluster usability kind of ruins the potential. There's simply not enough information shown to the player. Little things like highlighting selected tiles, showing your gold income in a meaningful way, AND NOT BEING ABLE TO BUILD A FENCE ON TOP OF YOUR ONLY HOUSE GASFASDA would already come far. I can't believe you don't even show when the next batch of enemies is going to attack.
It starts off really sluggish, and the endgame comes soon since there's not that many upgrades. Surprised this is a jam game, because with 3 days' work, one would expect more content.
The idea of using enemies' weapons against themselves is pretty good. The execution leaves some fluidity to be desired, and the applet lagged a lot for me in addition.
The graphical style is alright, but the music is the worst I've come across so far. Not only is it annoying but it also had to start at FULL VOLUME when I played. Killed my buzz before the game even gave me any.
The secret to happiness is making games.
This is just beautiful. Everything from the camera manipulation to the audio and the lack of instructions forms a melting pot of confusion and hilarity.
I appreciate the idea of a first-person resource management game. I'm left wishing this was more complicated/involving though.
Could use some more challenge. Absolutely no relation to the theme, but nevermind that if it helped you finish a game. It's like I'd heard that track somewhere before, though.
This is a well-made game, can't deny. Surprisingly addictive for its simple resource management.
As opposed to other commenters, I didn't find it hard at all, in fact it's quite relaxing. Just keep upgrading the sheep's health, stand close to a teleporter in dangerous areas and let the sheep's health drop to less than 10 while it's grazing. Also let the wolves pile up so you can take out a few with one shot.
Glad it was so short because nothing happened.
Meh. Pretty repetitive, at least it's got some humor in it. Also I might add that I really dislike that graphic style.
Quite fun in a Super Crate Box-y way. The physics feel right for the most part, which is the most important aspect in these games. Dislike those obvious bfxr sound effects though.
Pleasantly silly, but the lack of actual gameplay makes this a novelty entry.
"I only had X hours" is not an excuse. You had 48 hours, or even 72 if you'd jammed. Whatever obligations you might've have during all that should still have left you with plenty of time to do more content.
Regardless, I think it's a promising concept, and I like the way you need to collect the arrows in the right order. The minimalistic presentation is appropriate.
This actually made me feel nervous. Here's some mood points for that.
Pretty indie. A bit of awkwardness in the controls, like the way the sword slings itself away when it touchs a wall, but I guess it's somewhat excused by the level design that forces you to think about it.
Ragdoll physics are always hilarious, this is a nice way to combine them with proper gameplay.
The difficulty curve is spot on, I can tell this was playtested enough. I appreciate the spherical coordinate physics, it just could use some kind of a reminder of which direction is relatively left and right. Props for being able to shoot horizontally, vertically -and- diagonally.
In addition, it looks and sounds alright, too bad you used that terrible font and sfxr blips.
Well, that was... short?
Foolgarbage with a cool interface.
Pointless gameplay. Even for the simplest type of platformer possible, you didn't even get the physics right with the stairs. At least there was some story that was probably trying to be funny or to have a moral.
My favorite thing about this game is how it feels alive in a way. The day/night cycle, the hot dog van driving to your stand, the random events.
Meanwhile, my biggest grief is that I seem to get robbed (or something) all the time and there's no way for me to prevent the sudden losses of money. That just seems like a design flaw to add fake difficulty. It's keeping me from getting anywhere at the start for a long while. Not quite gamebreaking but super annoying.
The overlapping menus are a bit ugly too, not a good use of the limited screen space. Otherwise it looks and sounds good.
Woah, didn't expect to see a bullet hell with this theme. A pretty unique take on those.
With more polish and better designed challenges this could be a success. There's some variety in the challenges as it is, but the patterns just don't feel very carefully tweaked. Can't really put my finger on what this is missing mechanically, maybe I'm just too used to Touhou controls and attacks.
Despite being short, it managed to be quite repetitive. No challenge to it at all. A reluctant bonus point for the bulldozer, which was the best part of this little presentation.
Yeah this is pretty clever, one of those ideas I should've seen before but haven't for some reason. Gotta love social experiments like this.
The novelty of the joke wears off fast.
This was fun while it lasted. Gets chaotic near the end and turns into button mashing, but it's pretty amusing nonetheless.
I am a physicist and I approve this game.
Surprisingly fun/relaxing in a cookie clicker way. A great game to just leave at the background and check back every once in a while (which I translated to mood points). The graphics are total programmer art, but at least you can tell what everything is.
I'm still playing the same game I started during the stream. Holy fuck this game is long, so many upgrades and minerals. I'm officially addicted now I guess.
Also I'm getting over 4 million stone per tick COME AT ME BRO
Was worth the while it took to get working.
I finally got the "Unknown" upgrade, so I assume I've... won? Also racking up 32,8 million stones a tick.
Want me to help with the remastered version? I could do graphics & audio, maybe toss some ideas your way. Give me a shout on the #ludumdare IRC.
The audio is the only redeeming factor.
Block placement was a bit derpy with that projection sometimes. Adding shadows or letting the user rotate the camera freely could help with that.
Of course, a multiplayer game of any scope is pretty ambitious for LD. I like to think that simple as this is, it raises some philosophical points about impermanence and anonymity in the process. Or it's just a toy and I'm overanalyzing.
I'm seeing someone place purple and green blocks right now even though gray's the theme. wut
Whih reminds me, maybe you shouldn't be able to remove blocks that aren't your color.
Oh nevermind, apparently everyone gets a different color and there just happened to be several people with my color when I first joined.
One of those conceptual games. Well, there's not much "game" to it, but it's pretty moody while it lasts. Also remember E=mc^2 yo, energy does not simply separate from matter.
Businessman foolgarbage (with candies and crashes). Probably shouldn't even bother submitting games that are this unfinished, honestly.
Not much variety in this one, at least there was the story to read. Extra graphics point for having indications for the path.
It's a decent game for what it is. The controls and enemy paths feel right, with "juice" like the screen shakes, and I like the dungeon system. But yeah, the cursor should stand out from the darkness, and you should indicate how many shots enemies can take. Some non-programmer graphics/audio would make this more appealing.
Also, it bugged for me once and I got a completely empty map. Can't replicate that one.
I like conceptual experiments like this in LD. Seems like something is forming there, it's not a purely random mess.
However, the first time I tried, it complained I didn't have a color selected even though I did. Tried again and it fixed itself.
I appreciate the thought that went to this, Metroidvania-style level design is always fun. My biggest nuisance was the music, which sounds somewhat derpy with all those hard chord changes.
A solid 4-star entry. It's like some sort of twisted dark comedy social commentary, but the gameplay idea of causing reactions is fun just for the sake of itself.
Got a wacky feel to it, almost like it was made while drunk. Guess that's just cause for some mood points.
An absolutely pointless reflex test. It's like Hotline Miami in a parallel universe of the worst possible remakes.
A very tense kind of game. Done well, save for a few bugs/oddities.
Some of the notes would bug and remain on screen despite pressing Space.
I've said it before, but a game about awkward controls is no excuse for awkward controls.
The fundamental idea behind this (=player's input gets processed) could've been implemented better in a puzzle sort of way, with some predictability or a way to influence the processing. You'd probably end up making a turn-based game in that case. Right now it's just unplayable.
So this game is basically about evaluating which monsters you should kill, instead of just bashing everything. I appreciate games with some strategic value like that, and enemy behaviours support the gameplay.
One drawback is that the levels don't feel equally designed around the idea. I could use some more information about where I'm going to get new items, and more options to backtrack. Like, I got into the strawberry boss fight before I was supposed to, and had to restart the game. It felt like a punishment for doing well.
With more appropriate level design, you could also safely have a checkpoint on each screen transition. I get that this is meant to be retro and all, but it's the year 2013, and by now you have the freedom to question NES games' fake difficulty/length that comes from replaying sections.
Nonetheless, this game had a definitive feeling of exploration. There's quite a lot to be seen for an LD game, so good job for that.
FUCKING ARROWS/5
This game is a joke.
There doesn't seem to be any meaningful gameplay to this. You just hold right and talk to every creature. It's like the entire game is a cutscene and the whole time I was just waiting when it actually starts. "Yeah I get it already, I'm a cripple".
It's got its fair share of mood, and I guess it's trying to make a point, but there's nothing particularly engaging about this interactive way of conveying it.
A game about awkward controls is no excuse for awkward controls.
So, this game mainly suffers from usability problems. You spend a lot of time explaining the obvious, and the Next button is only tangentially mentioned in the jungle of instructions. Also, there wasn't a Next button on the intro, which is further disorienting.
The reload button looks just like your browser's one, and even the text says reload, so I kept refreshing the page. That was silly.
Also, I don't get why the ship's position is randomized every time. Makes no sense when these kinds of games are about improving your estimations iteratively.
It's promising, but it shows that you ran out of time.
Oh, ain't this a clever proof-of-concept. Glad you already have plans for a post-LD version because this idea deserves to be taken further.
A bit of a twist to an old idea, nice to see there are multiple solutions to each level too. I've seen so many of these games that it felt pretty easy. The music was a bit annoying.
Okay, I have to admit I found this funny, props for the song in particular. Not much of a game though.
Not really as fun as you'd expect from a game labeled a "very fast-paced FPS". A lot of the difficulty is artificial, the mouse being too sluggish and the AI erratic. Also it has that problem of the physics feeling too much like an Unity game.
Oops, forgot to rate this one when I first played it. GUDGRAFIX but much to my surprise the gameplay's tolerable too.
Pretty unique, not badly implemented. I think I could've used a higher mouse sensitivity to try out different configurations.
My beautiful RPN tarnished by being featured in a mobile-y game! Nooo!
...Has no resemblance to the author.
The key is to use bullet time and nitro mode at the right places. There's not really any deeper "weirdness" involved in the core mechanics (though one might expect that from some of my earlier entries). With a bit of practice you'll get the nitro meter charged and it gets slightly safer from there.
AH GREAT NOW THE SHOUTBOX IS RUINED
Then again, I was kind of asking for it.
Now with a gameplay video where I please all the judges. Go check it out for hints on how to play.
Woo, got some press: http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/24/ludum-dare-28-part-two/
Haha, what the heck was the deal with those rockets? They seemed to have no relevance to anything. First a typical platformer where you just jump a lot, and suddenly rockets knocking over boxes for no reason.
Kind of a dull execution, but there's room for expansion in the concept of a turn-based platformer. Would've loved to see enemies or just anything more interactive than bouncing around. The audio is derpy too.
I like games like this that question the basic tropes of game design. This one essentially swaps hit points for a more unique and engaging way to measure damage. It seems to even produce some interesting gameplay despite being simple, and the flashback to dungeon crawlers is appreciated.
Gets my seal of "please develop this further".
This was very "2013 jam game trying to be a "2005 Flash game trying to be an Amiga fighting game"".
I feel like this game suffers mostly from trying to be too faithful to the theme. It's perhaps the most obvious idea one could have, and there isn't any added variety like ways to influence the bullet's trajectory. The presentation is similarly mechanical, with "that one font" and pseudo-chiptune noises.
A fairly moody and difficult game that's still intuitive. Probably the best audio design I've come across so far.
The tileset bugs out regularly, you can go inside walls at several places. I guess I should like the risks involved in just having one life, but in practice, the controls feel somewhat clumsy since you have to stop to fire an arrow. It makes deaths feel frustrating rather than justified.
I told you about drugs man
It'd be fun to explore, but the (seemingly unnecessary) time limit hinders that.
Great use of the theme. Super funny and unique, with a memorable graphical style and lots of polish to boot.
Gets pretty repetitive fast. I felt the random spawning adds fake difficulty.
Okay, this is pretty fun in a roguelike way (the focus on replayability is neat for jams). Hard to tell it's made in 48 hours.
Streamed this. There's a point when low-res graphics stop being "retro" and become simply unreadable. I feel like it was trying to be moody but didn't really succeed, and there wasn't much else to carry the game. So yeah.
In a simple game like this, polish is extremely important, and the lack of it is an eyesore. The difficulty curve is ok, but the restarts are what really subtract points. You're trying to teach the player the basic design implicitly, yet you punish them for trying things out. It doesn't work out like that.
Streamed this. I could've used some more threats until the last minute, the difficulty curve is kind of exponential. Maybe you could've incorporated the branches into the gameplay somehow (like being able to prevent monsters from spawning). Randomness in arcadey games like this is kind of cheap, and this could've used more tweaking than some 12 hours.
This is the sort of single-concept game that jams are good for, but the execution is lacking. There's not enough responsiveness in the controls, and seeing where the openings are feels awkward.
I am so smart, I am so smart, laa laa lalaa, I am so smart
S-M-A-R-T
HOO HOO HOO HOO
Oh resource management games, my Achilles' heel.
The gameplay's decently addictive here. The layer mechanic and the mayor add extra personality. But the programmer art/audio are a turn-off. I actually had to mute the game because the banging sounds were getting on my nerves.
Streamed this. The game ends before it's even started, and it's a bit of a shoddy run even for that short length.
Streamed this. It's an interesting new take on the tower defense genre, but I still felt like the gameplay wasn't involving enough. There weren't really any decisions to make apart from spamming projectiles (past the upgrade screen of course). Also, the 3D environment made it hard to sense the enemies, felt like they were just sneaking up on me. Could've used some sort of indicator for approaching enemies. But it's alright, upgrades make any game better.
It's not trying to be a typing game, just something where you jam to the beat based on interval fragments. But I found it hard to enforce players to be musical, so I could use some ideas.
The gig mode would've been more rhythm game-like (except with resource juggling), shame I ran out of time. But there's gonna be further development of this, consider the submission a first prototype.
Xaychru04: Yeah that's how you should roll, go with the rhythm to get the most out of this. Maybe add some extra notes here and there to jam something more fun.
I did try a metronome feature to enforce the rhythm (marked by the blinking green light - keys wouldn't count when the light wasn't green), but that was kind of restricting and laggy so I disabled it in the end. I guess that wouldn't have been so bad though.
And I appreciate that you appreciate my font connoisseurship. I downloaded the red font but it didn't work right, so I recreated it in Fontstruct because it's perfect for this. Using 04b_03 everywhere feels lazy, details like that matter to me.
joe40001: Something did happen, you already unlocked the next scene. I guess you just missed the dialogue about pressing left/right to move between areas.
Which reminds me, I should add like arrows highlighting that you can change the area. I understand it's easy to miss some of the spam during a good jam.
Just a joke game made for the sake of being a joke game. If you're gonna have humor, at least incorporate it to some meaningful gameplay.
Streamed this. A solid game, enough variety even if it was kinda short. Conceptual games like these are always alright.
This one just doesn't strike me as LD winner material. The gameplay is essentially "tap harder to win", with little content or captivating design. I would appreciate it if fans of the game explained the appeal.
Most of the games I thought of as 5-star entries are now sitting somewhere in lower top 100, so I'm legit curious of what the difference in taste (or popularization) was in the end.
The best audio I've come across so far. FM for life.
Some awkwardness in the controls, I protest against using attack+jump for throwing. And the level complete cooldown is long enough to make you think you've still gotta do something.
But these are just small details, it's quite a complete package as it is. It has a limited pool of mechanics and all of them go well together (like the way you've still got to catch dashed enemies.)
I chuckled at this, it uses audiovisual effects for humor effectively.
Bonus points for multiplayer, definitely improves the experience and goes well with the lolworthy nature of the game. (I guess it wouldn't have been too hard to add a moderately paced AI just to make single player more of a race, though.)
I don't see a reason why the bread is a limited resource. There's no way to collect it, and the game even explicitly tells you to respawn to get more, so the pressure of bread running out feels pointless. Besides, being able to carelessly create bridges would make traversing things like those spikes less clumsy and eliminate undeserved deaths.
And a bit more about undeserved deaths. Right at the start of the game, the hectic nature of the controls becomes apparent when trying to jump over a sensor but also over the birds. You could tone it down so that you stay airborne a bit more during jumps, so you have better control over your airtime. Fidgety character physics like these are for games like Super Meat Boy, this could've done with a more relaxed and moody feel to it, starting right from the controls.
The traps quickly become overkill, with little room to utilize the birds, and so it's in this weird state where it's temporarily a hectic platformer between bits of exploration. Give yourself the permission to make this an honest artsy-fartsy exploration game - it feels like you were compelled to add the usual tricks and traps just for the sake of it being a platformer.
All in all, these are flaws that can be easily fixed. I'm resorted to pointing them out not because I hate the game, but because I want to see you fix them. I can't honestly rate this below 4/5 as it stands, taking into account some unnecessary frustration and a slight lack of focus. I appreciate how there were a few clever uses for the birds, and it's trying to be moody in a way, but the impression is damaged by the previously mentioned out-of-place platforming cliches and the obvious Autotracker music. (Yes, people *do* notice.)
To sum it up, it's a solid idea with flawed execution, and this warrants my seal of "please develop this further".
I'm a sucker for games with multi-purpose abilities. The game made an effort to showcase quite a bit of the bubbles' potential. I got a SNES vibe from the experience.
Attaching bubbles to walls was a bit buggy, though. And for the sake of responsiveness, I'm not sure if there needs to be a delay for making the smallest bubble. Should've been like, tap Z to spam small ones, hold Z if you *really* want the bigger ones.
Dude like, one sees oneself in that hourglass, and so like, everyone sees a different image in a way. But still all of our lives equally drip away like the sand, yo.
5 stars for humor, had a few genuine laughs. And that's kind of all this ride is, appreciating the nonsense, like I don't see how one would even play this "optimally".
I see a lot of the specific things I would've complained about you've already fixed in the post-compo version, so good for you.
The visuals are certainly in the "brag more" department, but there's more to do than just to look at it. The idea is pretty unique, and the tutorial walks you through it concisely.
My main problem here is that it isn't really as balanced or strategic as the mechanics would suggest. Spam happens without micromanagement appearing to clearly control the board situation. I didn't get the impression that you'd planned that much for effective strategies, which is crucial in tower defenses.
Also seemed a bit buggy. Sometimes rocks just don't care that towers were added/deleted, for example. This is definitely a game made by an artist (rather than a game designer or programmer), for better or worse. It's got a lot of potential and effort, but it's not quite there yet in all aspects.
I do actually check for replies periodically. Probably an exception to the rule, though.
I play a lot of these types of games and perhaps my expectations weren't warranted. This game does have a fairly unique focus, so it's difficult to compare it like that. I never really got the feeling of pressure even with rising difficulty, but if you were targeting this for a more general audience instead of TD fanatics, I can't really complain.
And just to clear it up, the artist comment wasn't meant to be derisive - you made a full game in a weekend, even if you've mostly specialized in one area of gamedev, and that's just more of a reason to appreciate the effort.
Glad to see you're still releasing updates, and seem to be taking feedback into account.
You've convinced me that the main mechanic could be going to places, there's a few creative uses in here already. Nothing particularly bad to say about this, more content would've been nice.
You guys get -it-. A lot of people don't get -it-, or might even want to distance themselves from -it-, but I really appreciated the absurd humor style here. Screw the theme, the fact that this exists was worth that sacrifice.
Okay now this is a genuinely impressive entry. Some kind of special abilities to make monsters stand out more would probably be the next level for continued development.
This definitely has a C64 air to it, in the music and sine scrolling and all that. I'll translate this to the mood score. Using default-looking UI elements kind of subtracts from the impression though.
It's a bit flat for a shooter, but amusing enough to go for score a few times. The shot types don't really have enough variety to justify their existence, so the lack of autofire feels like a cheap compensation for that. Even if it's trying to be retro, things like these just don't translate well to 2015 games, where we're not playing with C64 joysticks.
It took me a while to figure out that the enemy particles are hurting me, and I'm still not quite sure where all my health modifiers are coming from. The hitbox feels too big, too, which is the most obvious with the bullet hell-style spams now and then.
Could've used ledge-grabbing or something to give leeway for the jumps that require you to gain speed first but to *also* make a pixel-perfect jump. Or when you have that one tile to gain speed during the escape sequence and waste 20 seconds hitting your head. For a game that's entirely about character controls, these kind of things feel like fake difficulty.
Most of the time, I got the warning messages when it was already too late. Gotta go fast.
It's got a cozy style overall, I had a bit of a DOS game flashback. The best part was the way the stealth style changed into speedrunning during the escape. But I was hoping for some twist to really tie this into the theme, it's quite vanilla for a platformer.
Textboxes are wonky and written in lackluster English, which doesn't help with the first impression. I'm conflicted because the design is generally amateurish with some fake difficulty and things like jumps into unknown, but the floppy system is kind of creative, and the production is surprisingly good. It's weird, but I can't tell whether this is somehow fundamentally crude or a solid but rushed game.
As a multiple LD winner and a cool dude, I'm really expecting you to up your ante constantly.
So I'm honestly disappointed to see you do just another stock platformer with a shader. There's a few puzzles alright, but they're fairly straightforward, with floaty controls that don't match the gameplay style. And it just has to be the standard issue "playing with light and darkness" concept.
For someone's first entry, this would be a solid, fairly polished game - not a standout, but solid. For someone like friggin' Managore, I get the impression you didn't truly challenge yourself this time.
Soft 3 stars. You can do better, man.
Dude, this is C64 as all hell. (Well, except for the music.)
I don't have anything explicitly negative to say about this. It's quite a complete package as it is. There's a clear level progression, variety between the different types of people and what they're converted by, then things like using your converts to spread propaganda, and how even that is subverted by enemies that deconvert your allies. All of this for the benefit of the political sub-theme.
Hoo boy, there's a lot going on here. Well the starting point of combining two types of beating is memorable enough, and it's taken quite far with the disco theming and brag-worthy production.
Unfortunately at the core, it wasn't responsive enough for a rhythm game, and that's a downer. It felt like there was basically a 50/50 chance to get "perfect" or "fail" regardless of whether I was syncing with the music. (This could have to do with some Unity lag for audio playback, and maybe a larger window for pressing keys would help with that.)
GTA LUDUM V: okay, good to hear.
The physics are moderately satisfying, could use some super fragile objects for good measure (like tone down the sturdiness of the trees). I'm not sure if it's because of the isometric projection, but it was tricky to stay alive for long at first.
Props for the music. Surprised you've disabled the Audio rating since you've made it yourself and all.
Or more accurately, "uploaded with permission". Was it someone in the dev team to make it, though?
It does have that Ultima feel to it a little. Or just DOS RPG one in general. Attacking is wonky, maybe hilight the target tile or something.
Yea this has some AAaAaaaA vibes but still a distinct focus. Does feel a bit unfinished as you said, this has room to be more dynamic with some more work.
This has somewhat satisfying gun physics, which I would figure is kind of the point of the game. Character momentum is too easily stopped by a simple bump in the road, though.
But the game as an experience is just plain lazy for a team with 72 hours. It's like, I'm given this neat gun to use, and then there's really no use for it. You just go down, catch the last few oranges, and win the game.
I mean, you had the structure that the player's travelling to a boss fight. Why not have them actually prepare for the fight with some proper treasure hunting that's essential to winning? Juice just seems like the first of many resources that never got implemented. It's a letdown cause the fundamental "physics gun" idea seems polished enough and would've had a lot of potential.
Fair enough, thanks for clearing that up. And don't you drop this yet, the improvements you're planning sound legit.
There's no threat of failure whatsoever. I guess it's fitting for this kinda game, but then you could've focused more on the humor aspect instead.
senpai pls notice
Unique as fuck. An easy to learn but hard to master kind of game, getting long combos is satisfying. Really creative in the audio department too.
It was amusing enough to keep me going till the end. And this is coming from someone who isn't big into story-heavy games in LD.
This crashes Flash instantly after the HaxeFlixel logo on Ubuntu. Lemme try on Windows a bit later.
Okay, new try on Windows.
The game builds up the different uses of your gun in a guaranteed Flash puzzle-platformer style. But there's a shift in focus towards more reflex/spamming-based gameplay once you get to the levels with lots of green and purple borders.
Like, it feels like the borders should exist mostly to prevent the player from cheesing the levels, but they're your main challenge most of the time, and the physics and aiming aren't *quite* accurate enough to warrant the tweaking involved. Meanwhile the spiked balls are kind of just mentioned off-handedly and not really used in puzzles to crush things, as I was lead to expect.
Some sort of simplistic beatmatching would've gone well with this game. It's kind of one of those games where there's an audiovisual theme, but it's not really used to its full potential - the gameplay would be basically the same if you were zapping fishes in water or whatever. The solo is a nice touch though.
The challenge ramps up faster than your cursor can react to that. I'm not a fan of the discrete hops it does, especially when Shifting, just feels clunky to control. It's a letdown that the most crucial way of interacting has an unpolished air to it, when the rest of the experience has attention to detail.
Also the whole "Shift to speed up" thing is problematic design. Even now you're getting comments about people missing that part, cause it's kind of a necessity to move fast enough, not something that needs to be behind an extra key. Slowing down would be worth that instead, but then you'd probably notice there's no need for that - just have a "one size fits all" speed, or boost the cursor as a reward for some gameplay achievement.
I've never understood things like QWOP and its legacy. A game about awkward controls is no excuse for awkward controls, and intentional bad design is still bad design.
Like, I can't honestly say this was fun to play, even taking into account the humor aspect.
I'll assume good faith in what you said and remove the warning. There were misunderstandings, but I don't want to carry this further.
Good luck with your future endeavours.
For "An Unconventional Weapon", it would've been too obvious to make a platformer where you throw your equipment or something. I still found this theme inspiring in a sort of abstract way, like how it's really about conflicts in unusual scenarios.
Chaotic layouts are part of the fun of the mid-/late-game.
Also to reword what's said in the description, resources will always go straight forward when they can. If they can't and have to make a decision, they'll turn counterclockwise. Factor in collisions and dead ends fizzing them out. Reading paths quickly is the core skill that can be practiced in this game.
Played this with some friends just now, they loved it but pointed out how buildings should be differently colored for each owner, so you can plan roads more effectively (without bring the cursor to the building first to see who owns it). I think that might reduce the initial confusion.
Yeah player feedback is always the tricky part. I don't want to cram walls of text on screen for obvious reasons.
I figured a tutorial would defeat the point too. I'm giving the players a system, and it's up to them to find out what configurations are beneficial. I don't want to explicitly point out and create a bias toward certain strategies.
So the next best thing I could try was to make the system transparent - resources move around slowly enough, buildings have hopefully helpful descriptions, any text on screen updates in real time, etc.
I ought to address things like that in a post-jam fix build. Tweaks in usability are technically trivial to implement. Since I consider the game feature-locked, it'd just be small hindsights that would communicate the coolness of these features better.
So I'm messing around with building colors: the base color is blue for Player 1 and red for Player 2, and it actually looks really neat.
Another improvement is that when a resource gives the floating -20/+20 text, that text is the color of that resource - a simple thing that underlines at a glance what sort of income was useful and what wasn't. (Maybe score updates should somehow flash the total score too..?)
The next thing I noticed is that all floating text should have a 1px outline for clarity.
Maybe the post-jam version could have some sort of practice/infinity mode too, with like arrows showing where the resource wants to go. I don't know, wouldn't want to overcomplicate things or cause feature creep.
Although, having played another match of this against a first-timer, seems like some sort of practice mode is definitely the thing.
The first POST-JAM BUILD is GO! I took you guys' feedback into account and will continue to make some tweaks in the future.
(As in a proper title screen, more music and cute animation things)
More balanced? I'd appreciate some pointers about what felt unbalanced here.
Remember that everything, including your opponent's buildings and roads, is an asset. That's why it's possible to recover even from seemingly insurmountable cash differences. Playing this somehow "optimally" (well, at least without rushing through), Player 1 and Player 2 both usually have managed around $5000 in the end.
Ah, that's a bummer. Teeeeechnically it doesn't matter even if all the buildings are banks, then it just becomes a race to get the least minus points. But it is a bit silly, I'll see if I can add conditional RNG.
Hmm, I don't think I could do "just a" Simcity clone. Sim games are one of my favorite game types, but my sort of jam is weird conceptual takes on them.
Okay the dream is of course some kinda massive evolving simulation with learning AI and all that, but during game jams, I like to take one really specific aspect as the central theme and bring it to some sort of interesting conclusion. Like how logistics are the entire interface in this one.
...And how you can create conflict with only that logistics interface, of course.
Thanks brahs.
What I think of the above: part of being a creator is being able to deal with one negative comment among 99 positive ones. The fear of retaliation is a bad motivation from not speaking your mind.
I don't care if this kind of poop-flinging happens to my game, but it's unfortunate if "revenge voting" is a thing that actually takes place on a larger scale here.
Your games often seem to have this thing where the interface shapes the gameplay. It adds a certain charm and makes for interesting conceptual games.
It's got a bit of a panicky feel to it, trying to come up with any word whatsoever. I feel like this would be more focused if different scenes had different themes (like words beginning with a letter, or words relating to nature). You'd have a smaller pool of words to sort in your head, so you could spare the short related words to counter attacks. Those kinds of things seem to be details you've planned for, but you didn't really add further mechanics to support them.
Not nearly as dynamic as the quirky presentation would've warranted. No strategy or skill required, just tappity tap tap at roughly the right time and see what happens.
Well-placed delays are your friend, as are animations that communicate enemy intelligence. There's no delay between an enemy noticing you and shooting at you, and then there's suddenly three things on screen spamming rapidly. There's no real window for reaction, things just sort of happen. Another thing is that the physics are fairly sluggish, trying to fine-tune your momentum to jump over tiny pits can a pain. Save points are aplenty to compensate, though this is more of a duct tape fix to the underlying difficulty issues.
Having said that, the weapons you get are fairly imaginative, and additionally each of them seems to have a strength and a weakness type of thing. It would've ruined this if the weapons were just "shoot forward in 4 different ways". Something like going around zapping things with the transmat is just crazy. I actually like that even if the other commenters might've wanted something traditional, I find it gives the game this roguelike unpredictability vibe. Like a feeling of genuine exploration where the world and all its items aren't just obviously handcrafted for the player character.
The production's slightly programmer arty, spiced with ugly sfxr beeps and all, but there's relatively a lot to see and do, with no need to sugarcoat lack of content with flashy graphics.
Overall, I can see it's a good effort. It's a soft 4/5 entry with room for rethinking some details, and I hope you take it further.
I'm blue balling here, dude. This is so close to being good. Honestly it just needs more effort, not even a proper advice for finding a focus. It's got all the resources to be fun but it doesn't really do anything with it.
And I'm not even sure if there needs to be "anything" like upgrades or whatever. You could (and probably should) take the simplistic route that it's a TD about figuring out placements for towers and hearts. But looking at how the bullets never really hit anything during the actual wave, and how ultimately placements don't seem to matter much, is just a letdown.
As it stands, it's a two-star entry, but don't you drop this one quite yet.
Quite a lot of uses for a fundamentally simple mechanic. I could confuse this for a Nitrome game in spirit, but also in terms of production values.
I wonder what kind of unrealistic expectations you had if you call this "unfinished", it's an order of magnitude more finished than most entries. This actually utilizes the mechanics pretty thoroughly, and as a package stands out from the average game. Real good job all around.
This is a clever little game/toy. Big up for the timelapse aesthetic. Also that music is hilarious to me for some reason.
Unmistakably a bitslap game, in both good and bad. The music was like avant-garde free jazz.
Let me just fetch my good old Playstation Move controller, which I totally have. It's like a mountain of Playstation Moves just piling up in my closet.
Sometimes I go to work wearing nothing but a Playstation Move over my intimate area.
Pretty clever, and you've taken the concept places. Since people are already raving about this, lemme work some quirks out for your further development.
The ball getting stuck fairly often is a bummer. Tilting is a cheap way to fix this, when you could just avoid flat tops in the level design or have some boosters going on.
Flipper physics need some more work, feels like there's not enough punch and the ball's position doesn't affect the shooting angle as much as would be intuitive. And when the ball does manage to gain some speed, the camera lags badly, which is problematic in a table this large.
Also, I'd like to have a special mention for the music. This is my jam, successfully captures the visual aesthetic in audio form.
Nevermind, I hurried to play this now after all.
I see this primarily as a tech demo to build on. Even without the features you were aiming for, some feedback from the enemies could make this an interesting little experience. The presentation is of course on point, but what's being presented is very barebones.
Keep us posted on future updates!
A modern classic. This will go underappreciated in its time, but I predict an academic interest booming decades after.
You think you're an OG gangsta but you ain't seen Jazzy Jeff
A clever and cute little package. The way the next level portal scales with your progress is pretty next level in itself. Also good thinking for including dampeners for the effects, they get pretty hard on the eyes after a while.
...But really, space bar and right arrow?
You can tell this was made by someone who thinks of themselves primarily as a "programmer". There's no transitions, no interpolation, no rounded edges. Everything either just happens discretely or doesn't happen at all. Zeroes and ones brah.
Conceptually very basic, no mentionable twists to break the monotony, or to change the player's relation to the environment. You've pretty much seen every mechanic there is in the first few moments. And it's very short to boot, almost ashamed to exist on your screen for the briefest moment.
That was one wild ride. I don't go "woah" about LD entries often. Concept aside, it has solid audio design and a visual style that stands out.
Take this to the next level in post-jam development and have the timelines influence each other somehow, that would make for some great puzzles.
Okay, let's get this out of the way first: 5 stars for Audio, easily. I could see this claiming a top 3 spot in the Audio category overall, comparing this to the Jam entries I've played. A case in point of how it really does improve the whole experience when people have a dedicated sound designer in their team.
The puzzles were just the right easy/medium difficulty. Nothing too challenging. Some fairly clever uses of the simple mechanics that I was anticipating to see, like your limit of 6 drops coming into play, and things like fires spreading to other blocks. I don't primarily think of this as a puzzle game after all, but more like a Knytt-style exploration game which happens to have environmental puzzles in the mix.
Speaking of that, I did note how the levels have all sorts of neat nooks and crannies. Sometimes there's a longer walk to get somewhere, sometimes there's purely decorative fires out of your reach here and there. All this gives you the impression that levels don't exist only for the puzzles' sake, which is important for the sort of immersion you were surely going for. This game really has a sense of cohesion about what it want to be and convey.
Graphically it's a bit hit-and-miss. Many of the sprites look like a "first attempt", but then again, there's a lot of content visually and none of it is ugly per se. I'm not sure if I should count the lack of contrast between foreground and background as a criticism, as the game's pace is slow enough for you to stop and parse the landscape for a while. But I'm sure all of what I'm saying has to do with acknowledged time constraints, and post-jam development would be a good time to round off some of the sharp corners in the visual look.
Overall, this really managed to engage me for a while. I think you did a great job making an experience that seems complete as it is. It left me with a positive impression, with just slight quirks that I see have been mentioned and taken into account.
Holy crap, this looks and sounds exactly like a C64 game. Not just vaguely retro, this is faithful stuff down to the title screen.
5 stages is a lot of content, with fairly interesting enemy patterns, an upgrade system and the whole kitchen sink. It's very much a complete shoot-em-up. Pretty impressive all around.
It was charming alright. About the difficulty curve, the first lesson felt like the most tricky to time right, but after that it was smooth sailing.
Can't get this to run. "Game.exe has stopped working" straight off the bat, using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I did unzip the game first.
Looking at the other comments, this is probably a problem on my end. The game seems to be based on SDL, so I wonder if it's somehow trying to use some of the SDL 1.6 DLLs I have on my system instead. (SDL has been problematic to setup before...)
Looks like we have some lore going on here. Very simplistic when it comes to design, but the gameplay isn't as zen as this would warrant. (Lore-wise, a nearly enlightened monk certainly wouldn't fight off enemies! They'd just accept them and spread kindness to them or something like that.)
While I would argue that space+mouse stretches the definition of "two buttons", making breathing the focus of the Growth theme is pretty clever.
This is fundamentally a very fun game. Hard to give it anything other than 5 stars for Audio, as it's very listenable but also used effectively for gameplay (I mean, duh).
No major gripes about this, it's a game that knows what it wants to be and delivers just that.
A no-bullshit arcade game/reflex test.
The fundamentals check out, it kept me trying for a while. The visual style has a distinct personality to it, and the palette is fairly tasteful. Music's alright, gives this a fittingly tense touch.
So yeah, this is a solid entry. It's just that I can't really see a connection to the theme(s).
One of my favorite concepts so far. And you've done a lot with it.
Objects with varying uses increasing your hitbox, making it a risk/reward thing to capture new weapons. Then you think that's subverted with dummy objects, except dissassembly is basically a bomb attack no matter what you had attached. And there's a bunch of enemy patterns relating to your configurations, testing your understanding of the possibilities in various ways.
The one gameplay quirk in the current execution is that the player's movement isn't symmetric - going up is way faster than coming down.
Madly wanting to see this become a more polished little experimental game. This leaves you hungry to see the full potential, like a bunch of new enemies/blocks for all sorts of combinatorial effects. And of course you could slap some fancy graphics/audio on top while you're at it. Stay in touch with the community about this.
This is such a Java game. There's something about the controls that gives them that shared feeling of unresponsiveness. Similarly to how Unity games are bound together by floaty physics and the mouse swooshing all over the place.
Combat is pretty tedious due to enemies being so static. I'd say you should rethink this with more of a Binding of Isaac control scheme in mind, which would let you could go wild with enemy logic. The lack of autoshoot and the slightly too slow movement are more annoyances that could be easily fixed. Unless they're a requirement in Java(TM)(R)(C).
All my cheekiness aside, it's moody for sure. I wouldn't call this a 1-star entry at all, the story and ambience are the meat that kept me playing. Maybe speed up the dialogue boxes a bit and lose the "use your gun to shoot" type lines.
Captivating audio, and I guess including bits of narrative adds some level of charm.
But ultimately I'm with HuvaaKoodia on this one, the levels themselves are more of a chore than anything. Everything's already been conveniently settled for you, every step of the solution is in the right order. Despite all the stuff you've gone out of your way to introduce, there's no assembly required.
Just by seeing a level, it's like you immediately know what you gotta do, and then you just have to do it with no surprises or depth ahead. It's endless exposition with no resolution, and once I realized this is how it's gonna be, I didn't bother playing till the end.
Besides that, there's something very repetitive about the basic interaction that peeves me. For a bit of automation, you should be able to drag a new mechanic over an old one. I mean, instead of dragging the old one out of the way first. That alone would go a long way.
This had tons of style. A puzzle game that's actually a puzzle, not just an exercise in repeating a bunch of rules.
4 stars gj (5 for everyone's favorite category, Mood)
Audiovisually a pretty damn impressive entry.
But you could've afforded to sacrifice some of that detail in favor of more content. LD is always a learning experience in time allocation.
This is actually quite well done and solid. Now that this exists, I finally have a game for which to give 5 stars in Theme.
The performance chart at the end is much appreciated, would hope more of these kinds of high scoring games displayed some stats.
This was kind of a surreal experience to play first thing in the morning.
The game seemed to play itself for the most part. Gotta have more feedback for the player about what their actions are doing. If watering the mushroom is the important bit, it'd help to have some visual cue of water falling when you press left Alt or something. Just in general visualizations of the information that would affect your watering, like a timer for when elves spawn.
No se oli sitten vissiin vaan semmonen. Ilmeisesti aika helkutin tärkeitä puhekuplia kun pitää aina tulla hiiren tielle. Eipä mulla muuta.
Not particularly interesting apart from the screen growth. It does have a bit of an aesthetic sense going on, so I'll translate that to the Mood score we all love.
Hah, I appreciate the surprise factor. I'm not sure if stuff was syncing with the music or not, would've made the multitasking easier.
It's moody and stuff, but man is the control scheme off the wall. It's fun to look at but not really rewarding or enjoyable as a game, and it's utilization of the theme seems like an afterthought.
The best way to describe this is that it feels like the result of an animation studio hired to make a game, when they don't really even play video games. I'll be a bit bummed out if the presentation fools people into rating this high in the jam.
I actually kinda like this a lot. There's a lot of different elements that go together in fairly interesting ways. Well-executed in the gameplay department, and I can say I'm still having fun after quite a few retries.
But let's have a word about visual presentation.
There's something about this style that seems very MS Paint-y as far as pixel art goes. Muddy colors, palette all over the place, shading not having much contrast with the environment. Also moving things kinda-but-not-really snapping to the grid - which I guess can be excused as a stylistic gimmick in games not actually based on old hardware - but in combination with everything else, it just comes across as carelessness.
It's not just about looking pretty, you gotta consider functionality too. Composition-wise, most of the screen is just empty space. And there isn't really any gameplay consequence for everything to be moving like you're on a treadmill, so it's an unnecessary (even misleading) visual cue. Not to talk about how the more urgent threats don't always stand out more.
...Yeah, it's a lot to digest. But I'm not pointing it out to be mean. In fact, I'm hoping you'll find advice like this useful in your future games, so you can give them that extra polish to really complement your already solid design thoughts.
On the plus side, the audio's OK, seems like you have a good sense of what kind of tune fits the mood.
A thousand points for the name alone. Bookmarked so I can try this after finals week.
A fairly unique experiment on using both themes, but it's very RNG as a game.
It feels very much like an arcade game, thanks to the whole PICO-8 environment. (I'll translate this to a high mood score.)
There's plenty of things that have got to be just right to even land one shot in a terrain like this. This premise could be interesting if dealt right, but the biggest frustration comes from the game not doing a very good job communicating where the worm is.
It's not easy to put my finger on what exactly it is that bugs me about that, but I think it's a mixture of
1) the camera angle,
2) the reticle pointing at an inexact direction,
3) misleading depth perception due to lack of luminosity differences with the distances you're dealing with, and
4) the worm's aggro respawning almost instantly after it's gone underground.
The physics feel as you'd expect from a pinball game, no complaints there. The presentation is fairly charming too.
But the character growing seems kinda like a gimmick, it doesn't have a real effect on gameplay. If you want to take that aspect further, consider blocks that are only breakable when you're big, or something.
It's a fun, mindless sort of reaction game. Good for rapid replaying. Was having difficulties determining what my orientation is for shooting, though.
The updated version makes a better use of screen space regarding the arrows, for sure.
It's an alright take on a fighting game, even if there didn't seem to be any time pressure or rewards for being quick at tapping. The environment changes gave a distinguishing character to each level, and made it look more like a journey to tie it into the (J)RPG aesthetic. Mood-wise, this comes across as more than the sum of its parts, which is really needed for an idea this simple and straightforward.
But with two graphics artists, you really should've worked more on your palettes. Also, those glow effects mainly only serve to blur any important information. No complaints for the audio, though.
Tricky, partly due to the challenge of the controls, and partly due to the cramped level design. Since the knight orbits the cursor so far away, he's got kind of an "icy floor" vibe to his movements. I ended up trying to lunge whenever I could, but I still didn't get very far.
Looks like most everything has been said. This makes you forget you're playing a jam game.
This is a clever and polished little toy, unique as far as the entries I've played go. Tamagotchi vibes. The zoom-out is cool.
This reminds me of the very first (unreleased) game I worked on, which had a similar concept. Except you'd also place down springs where you wanted to jump.
Okay, this is buggy and short, but you still get an award: http://i.imgur.com/j75vIc8.png
Starts getting pretty tricky later on. Zero production values, but it's got heart.
I like the concept of only having half of your movement directions, but the execution suffers from some false difficulty at its core. The sluggish movement makes it tricky to estimate where you'll slide and bounce. While it was fun for a while, ultimately my patience wasn't enough to reach level 15.
You could try ramping up the speed or having some visualization of your expected trajectory.
The commentary from the player adds an extra bit of charm. The audio is listenable I guess, but those graphics kinda hurt to watch.
Oh, and there's a fair amount of content, quite a bit of new twists in the later levels. I don't think most people will play that far because of the fundamental issues in control/difficulty curve, which is a shame.
With all that in mind, I see potential in this with some more work.
You asked for feedback, and this is a great chance to give some, since I immediately saw some issues that were fundamentally hindering the simple gameplay. So while I am focusing on the negatives because they're easier to write about (and maybe because that's the kind of guy I am), I don't mean to discourage you in any way. I can see the effort is still there, and I appreciate you taking risks to liven up the game, like those 90 degree turns upwards. The neat Japanese aesthetic to tie it all together thematically is worth mentioning as well.
...
Okay, so the biggest nuisance is easy to condense into one example: those small platform jumps.
They demonstrate a lot of what needs fixing in this whole experience. I've seen straight up bugs like the player flying inside a wall. There's the classic missing the jump because I wasn't able to predict what was coming. Sometimes I manage to do it and feel like I didn't earn it.
The point about not being able to see it coming implies that the running speed in this game isn't proper for doing these kinds of precise jumps. There's no variation with how heavily you've pressed the jump button either, which is a detail I really feel you should've focused on, since - well - it's only one of two buttons, after all. Plenty of those "little things" that pile up to make me feel like it wasn't my fault I died. And they come back to haunt you on a lesser scale when fighting enemies, for example.
I think the common factor is that the game feels like it's going in fast-forward. This is something that happens with a lot of entries - during testing, the authors get bored of the slowness and ramp up some variables. After a weekend of having gotten used to the speed or difficulty or whatever other adjustable setting, they release the game, and the poor players who are just seeing it for the first time will feel left out of the ride. Having a third party playtester somewhere along the development is the best kind of reality check about what aspects of the design to focus on.
So because of the above points, you'll be resetting a lot. Regardless of how often you die, I'd say there's never a reason for a jam game to return to the title screen. The music restarting with resets is an additional small thing that becomes a big deal over time.
(In fact, I think title screens in LD games are unnecessary altogether. They don't offer any kind of meaningful representation, because a screenshot is more informative in a huge list of games anyway, and the lack of an options menu is simply an exercise in having reasonable default configurations to begin with.)
The graphics are tasteful for the most part. You've got some shader and particle type things going on that aren't overused or distracting. Be careful of pixel-perfect sprites stretching out, though. The only place where I felt like you were being lazy with the sprites was the sudden screenful of monotonous brick tiles in the tunnels.
One trick people easily overlook is fonts. Picking something beyond system fonts is an implementation-wise quick way to bring the visual style to the next level - for a game like this, many of the more readable bitmap fonts on Dafont would be appropriate. Consider the layout as well; place the relevant text to where the player can see it, and try to keep the possible text spawns to a minimum. (Text popping up in the middle of the screen is a bit of a dirty solution, and in this case makes some of it blend with the backgrounds. Better to dedicate some spot on the screen for announcements only.)
...
Hopefully you'll find at least some of my ramblings helpful. Grats for finishing and good luck on future LDs.
This has quite many layers of misdirection to hide what's "only" a memory game at its core. It's moody as heck though, I'll give you that... couldn't have expected an entry like this from a two-button restriction.
Now this is quite an interesting experience, and a creative take on the theme(s). Goes to show there's a lot to do with two buttons. I mostly enjoyed playing to the end, and this is one of the more memorable entries altogether.
To help you work on this more, maybe, here's my two main gripes regarding the gameplay:
1) The reaction times required are occasionally a bit overwhelming. It sorta feels like playing a debug fast-forward mode that you got used to during development, and which you never slowed back down for the poor players who are just taking their first look.
2) The skills aren't really explored to their fullest extent. I guess this is one of those things that feel "off" to me about many modern Metroidvanias. You only get skills to reach the next area - as a new key to a lock - not as a new degree of freedom that allows your character to explore more. This can sort of be excused considering it's made in a weekend, but I'd like to see you play around with non-linearity more after the compo.
Also, the audio does get on your nerves after a bit. Actually it seems out-of-place right from the start, mood-wise. It's just there doing its thing but not really complementing the gameplay.
You should have the controls in the description rather than hidden in some menu. People just don't read menus. It seemed intuitive that it would've been just the mouse, but the mouse buttons did nothing. (In fact, why don't they?)
Your take on the growth theme seems like a good idea, but it has a very one-dimensional effect, and I feel you could've done more with it to add some variety. Like shooting different kinds of enemies would cause you to grow in different ways, with your shots becoming different and all.
The bumping gets pretty crazy sometimes, but it seems well playtested enough.
Yeah, it's intentionally hard to recover from losing all your browns. It's essentially the lose condition if you want to find one in this game/toy.
In edge cases, the plant can chop off some of its small branches to produce more browns. But if you get stuck, just press R to reset.
I only regret the font, which is one of my Flashfunk library's defaults, because I couldn't get the fittingly futuristic ones to work properly. Otherwise it looks basically just like it did in my head.
Added some tips in the description based on feedback.
If there's some specific things that you don't get, I'd appreciate some pointers on how to communicate them in-game.
Tijn: I'd disabled the Audio rating for honesty's sake, because the track wasn't made entirely during LD. I simply picked up an unfinished track from my magical drawer and worked it into a listenable form.
I did have another dubby song brewing for this game in particular, but now it's become one for my magical drawer of unfinished songs.
You don't beat the white square. It's only there to FUCK YOUR SHIT UP.
(It reflects back bullets, essentially disabling shooting on the same line and protecting the other enemies.)
Although I realized its effect lingers around for a bit too long after it's gone off-screen. Might cause some "WTF I died" moments, but oh well.
Well my headcanon is that the right area happens inside the branches, but in the end I wasn't able to add anything in the actual game to convey that.
Would be mechanically interesting if there was a sort of feedback loop between the two screens, as in good scores in the right one would allow you to progress on the left. Think of that as a possible post-jam scope.
There's the observation I was bracing for, about that one color being too important. I agree, and adding a fourth dedicated resource would perhaps save people from getting stuck so easily. I did impose a four-color palette limitation on the game, so adding any more would be tricky (and probably unnecessary because I could just charge several types for some hypothetical super swag).
It started with just the yellow and brown, which I think were hue shifts of something slightly less absurd. The write and intermediary gray were easy additions, and the magenta just... happens to be there as the fifth wheel.
I love making crazy palettes, they give each game a distinct character of their own. Four colors is particularly fun to work with.
Nintendo DS homebrew would be crazy, but if I did ever work on that, this would be the first concept to remake.
A delightful reaction.
Huh, rare to see GUIs in LD with this amount of effort gone into them. On the other hand, the crude sprites aren't exactly a treat for the eyes.
This sort of interpretation of the theme could easily be an excuse, but it's actually been worked into the game well enough. The whole ranking thing is a solid framework for keeping an otherwise simplistic game interesting.
Now, the actual gameplay has Unity Physics(TM) written all over it. Too much focus on acceleration and not enough on dampening. The result is a velocity curve that swooshes all over the place, making basic control an unnecessary hassle. (And no, the possible comedy aspect isn't enough of a defense.)
I'm intrigued, but get your differential equations together.
Oh god, it's Invisible tiles: The Game. And when I thought we had, as a society, moved on.
The cube aesthetic is neat and all, but... no. Not my type of concept, no matter how cool the execution might seem.
These sort of coffee break strategy games are my jam. The difficulty's pretty well optimized to not be too easy and to make use of every structure type. Looks very much like a DOS game with the details of aliens doing their thing inside the hexagons.
If there's something explicitly negative to be said, having the camera just snap around the place is kinda disorienting. And there's the bfxr effects once again, taking the focus from the otherwise spacey ambience.
4 stars gj brah
I know it's hard to make anything that revolves around music and still feels like a game (without it being a rhythm game). It's equally hard to rate, cause I was pretty impressed, but it's hard to defend quantifiably as a game.
This is an interesting experiment in its own right, and the interface has lots of neat tweens going on. Of course having any sort of online play is a technical achievement. The way it's one object per player makes this a social experiment kinda thing.
This could scale quite a bit faster, so that one could see the different types of enemies and test out the shot types with less tedium. The cash system is a decent start.
Reeaally not a fan of the audio. Brings back PC Speaker flashbacks in a bad way.
It would add an extra layer if tapping Z didn't reverse your direction and you'd have to go around the planet when you miss something. That would've been a more natural way to utilize the whole two-button theme and complemented the gameplay as well. I mean being able to tap-dance around the same spot suggests fast maneuvers, but this game is actually quite slow-paced, and the difficulty curve doesn't seem to ramp up anytime soon.
Speaking about slowness, and on a larger scale easiness, that's my main gripe. I managed to get the impression there was no way to lose - even if enemies do crash on the planet, it doesn't seem to get smaller or anything, and you just get more points. Weird.
This control scheme combined with a noisy level type is quite a frustrating experience, really. It seems like an obvious case of a design issue when the player spends nearly half of the game time in an input-blocking state.
Some fixes would include the frog grabbing onto ledges when hitting blocks from the side, or a slower movement in general for more precise left-right mid-air twiddling.
As it is, this felt more like fighting against a software's quirks than playing something, unfortunately.
ZAT IS NOT HOW MOMENTUM VÖRKS. ZAT IS NOT HOW ANY OF DIS VÖRKS.
More seriously, having the camera follow the ball all the time makes the screen a bit too active. Unfortunately, my run ended by getting stuck inside a wall.
Now it's just me and this music... forever.
Solid entry. This gave me an inspiration of a game with a similar control scheme where you need the ball to grow larger to break thicker and thicker walls.
But there is one big problem here. One that I'm surprised not to see in the comments already.
You are simply transforming the local coordinates of the *room*. It does not change the relative movement vectors for the *ball* in its local coordinates. There's no need to have this smoothed out trajectory business when turning.
Consider a short scenario without collisions. If a ball goes up at t=0, and there's a rotation at t=t_r, then it'd damn well keep going up (from the camera's perspective) at t>t_r. The direction of the gravity in the ball's coordinates doesn't change either! Which means the ball doesn't start swerving right/left or doing those bonkers loop-de-loops visually, even if one did keep spinning the room around. The way you're doing it now is as if the ball is collecting extra momentum from the rotation itself, but there's no interaction to cause that, which fucks with the player's brain.
This is a big deal because it causes the result of your input to be less intuitive and harder to predict than it needs to be. Also there are some additional concerns with the floatiness (common to Unity games because of default physics I guess?) and the lack of elasticity of the ball.
@noddingTortoise: thanks for the response, cool to know about the inner workings of the game. Quite an interesting way to approach the rotation mechanic. Perhaps it's an example of an engineering mindset, while I'm a physicist by education. (All this talk is giving me flashbacks to spacetime coordinate transforms in relativity and string theory... they're quite a whopper)
But if you've deemed your method to be functional gameplay-wise, then I guess I won't object to it any further. Glad to hear about post-jam updates as well!
Uh, okay, apparently the mouse controls are the opposite of what the instructions say. That took me a while.
It's presented like a strategy/resource management game, but it's more like a micromanagement smash and bash. On a larger scale you just buy all the farmers ASAP and grind some soldiers. Then you just move the guys around and sorta hope something sticks. Seems like wasted potential on the whole setup's part.
The fail condition of 250 bunnies comes across as an obvious quick solution by the programmer, especially when there isn't a counter in-game to support it. Strange because there is a visual cue of bunnies stacking, and I thought that'd be an indication of how deep in danger you are.
Would also be convenient to be able to click on the mini-map and hop around like that. And maybe to not have the instructions just float around awkwardly.
All in all, it's pretty solid, but there are also signs of lackluster time management. It's gonna take a few more bandages to keep this package together, and apparently you've already been working on post-jam fixes, so let's hope something comes out of it.
I'll give you credit for being ambitious, with special props for the audio work. The concept came across as somewhat unique, even if the constant underlined catering to 90s' kids was close to cringey levels.
And to reiterate the same complaint once again, this really ought to have a checkpoint in every room, considering the timing isn't very precise and leads to tons of fake difficulty. Having to replay 3+ rooms in a row all the time is nearly a game-breaking flaw here.
Ohgod this game. I kept playing because I wanted to see all the dialogue. Also all these faces are killing me.
Is anime real??
Woah, the mouse pull is crazy. Makes this pretty intense, like you actually gotta put your body into survival. Especially when the bottom part is pretty much instadeath. I kept thinking this could be nudged slightly towards a more ambient, artsy kind of game.
Perhaps surprisingly, I haven't seen other games interpret the two-button theme as a "light vs. dark" motif. So it's got that personality going for it.
Your choice of song affected... nothing, which is strange especially in a game like this. The entire gameplay seems like an afterthought, and nothing in the visuals really wants to complement it. Even the "enemies left" text is ashamed to be there and would rather sit this one out in the corner.
But hey, I guess it's at least neat to look at.
Had to play this in fullscreen to make anything out of the text or sprites. You've got liberal screen space - use it!
Okay, those little creeps take like a cosmological amount of time to kill. It comes across as an artifical way to stretch out the game, as fighting them isn't very dynamic. Would've hoped for some variety here, as it's kind of the only thing you do in this game.
I feel like the audio was a nuisance more than something that complements the gameplay. So honestly I can't give that aspect more than 2 stars at best.
RIDING ON CARS
JUMP AND SHOOT
MEGAMAN MEGAMAN
It feels quite honest and polished for what it is. I'm glad the lack of ratings gave room to these kinds of narrative games - I'd have no way of traditionally judging this.
But describing your own entry as "a deep psychological experience", "full of meaning" etc. is kind of overkill, no? You should let the game speak for itself.
This game was very consistent in weirding me out. Perhaps that was the intended experience, like living the main character's Groundhog Day setting for yourself. But there were also collision quirks as extra spice.
I think I get where you were going with the platforming style, but the biggest issue is the sluggish controls combined with everything else happening super fast, often without warning. If I had the velocity necessary to dodge anything, I might actually complete one of the levels.
And I've never seen a graphical style like this. It's inconsistent in a way that makes it look almost randomly generated, sort of like every sprite and UI object came from a different game. Is this what happens when people use Unity assets??
Also, apologies if that's not very useful feedback. I did have fun with this, but it was more unintentional humor from the game's randomness.
This seems quite unfinished. There's little to no challenge in drilling, even with the time pressure. Having a concept of money is suggestive of upgrades, but the game just resets after playing once.
The fundamental controls are pretty good, I'll give you that. But it's kind of like a sandbox rather than a game, as it is. Are you planning on taking this further post-jam?
The presentation is very transparent, good work on that. What makes this unique is that it's so freeform - it's not a puzzle game with predefined steps, you're just exploring the level with (presumably) random cards.
This made me think of how the punch card system could be used in an RPG. Like making the environment also dynamic, so that different cards would have different use cases.
This game is very clear on what it wants to be. The enemy types complement the simplistic controls nicely.
The music is a big part of the charm!
Oh, this is a clever take on stacker games. Just pretty laggy on Chrome, and it seems like I have to reload the whole page+game after every game over.
Ohh, this is a novel approach to user-generated content. It's quite interesting as an experiment in its own right.
But... there's no way to deduce your way through any of the puzzles, is there? Like, it doesn't seem to give any kind of feedback about the correctness of your guesses, so trying to figure out any glyph comes down to randomly getting everything right. There doesn't seem to be a Hangman-like penalty either, you only get to request a hint (and that feels like cheating).
Am I missing something?
It's got style, very C64. Appreciate the modern touches like shaders too.
The gameplay is a bit spammy though, considering the low reaction time (which is further diminished past level 5).
This game is legit. Pure action all the way through, with an uncompromising Sega aesthetic.
Also one of the most polished games I've seen in Ludum Dare, like, ever.
After Momotori, I wasn't able to interact with either of the doors. It didn't seem intentional, because the game was also lagging quite a lot.
Maybe I'll give this another shot later, it reminded me of mid-game Undertale slightly, and I'd like to see what you have in store.
This seems very polished. While being simplistic, the level progression makes this pretty appealing to play through.
I would just appreciate outlines on the spikes, especially with the randomized foreground decorations. I died a few times just by not seeing that I walked into something deadly. The controls are fairly responsive in themselves.
The music is actually really nice, while the sound effects can be kind of jarring in comparison.
Whoa, this is like... resource management with a narrative. Whatever term you'd use to describe it, it's pretty damn unique and cool.
I agree with Wan that the minimalism didn't hinder this at all. There's actually quite a bit of diversity and challenge from a few possible events. So it's very much got that old-school spirit I love.
Ooh, I have a sweet tooth for resource management games like this. This one's seems to have a clear "coffee break" focus too, the world needs more games like this.
I can see how the lack of guidance can be a hindrance, but the visual feedback allows learning through several plays.
The difficulty is pretty high in the gameplay segments, but it's not meant to be discouraging. The thrill of winning "just barely" is my way to nudge people into being more than passive listeners.
Very useful feedback, and it's great to hear the final act resonated with you. I'm happy with it, it's an uncharacteristically open moment from me but it ties everything together very nicely.
Skipping text is a possible anti-frustration feature, for sure. As is autosaving the state to hard drive, cause the game is long enough to benefit from it. (I mean, script IDs are already checkpoints for dying, so it's literally just one string to write/read.)
More critically: fixed a mid-game health bug, and made some typo-tier corrections.
Alright, seems like no-death mode needs to be a thing. It's a shame seeing people give up on the first of four chapters because of the difficulty.
I've gotten some good feedback here and on IRC, keep it up.
Aww, you guys are making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Some curious uses of the cloning thing. It seems to have a surprising amount of lore to it.
Now, let's talk about the very basic things like collisions and camera. Those feel very funky, and that's what makes this more frustrating than it needs to be. The bit with the stairs is a good example: you get stuck on every possible wall, struggle to make the jump across, and when you do, the intended click spot is in the lower right corner of the camera view. (As an added bonus, the checkpoint next to it doesn't seem to register for me...)
Really needs some tuning with the essentials, because I think there's something here!
After Momotori, I wasn't able to interact with either of the doors. It didn't seem intentional, because the game was also lagging quite a lot.
Maybe I'll give this another shot later, it reminded me of mid-game Undertale slightly, and I'd like to see what you have in store.
...Wait. This wasn't the right game. So much for tab hell.
As for this game: the setting mostly reminds me of the DOS game God of Thunder, feels like a simplified take on it. Taking constant contact damage is pretty brutal, especially in the top-right screen with lots of spiders.