Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → OldBlack
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | SIPHON | compo | 62 | 4.03 | 4.02 | 3.15 | 3.22 | 4.03 | 3.51 | 3.80 | ||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | ULDOIS: Unavoidable Lonely Death Out In Space | compo | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 |
Fun, simple game that executes its concept quite well. Main criticism would be the difficulty ramps up quite quickly (I could just suck). Other improvements could be to the sprites, though they serve their purpose fine.
I like the gameplay mechanics and the simple but effective pixel art. I do think the game is a bit too difficult, mostly since the enemies shoot at you from far off screen and it's easy to get trapped under a hail storm of bullets that don't end.
Very fun gameplay. I would have probably preferred mouse and WASD, although the auto-aim included with these control scheme occasionally made me feel like a badass. One note on the graphics, it feels like the pixel art is using bilinear or similar scaling. "Nearest pixel" tends to look much better with this kind of thing and gets rid of the blur.
Nice, simple gameplay with decent artwork. I like the concept too. Really could do with some sound effects and music, of course.
Incredibly pretty environment, beautiful cinematic intro, and great mood with the radio. Only criticism is the small and simple gameplay loop of collect and drop.
@scowsh Ah, that's unfortunate. Will have to see if I can test it on a Mac sometime. Another option to play is to download the Love2D engine (https://love2d.org/) and run the game's .love file with that (I believe you can drag the .love file onto the app and it'll run it).
@ben-taylor Cheers. Unfortunately there isn't a WebGL interpreter for Love2D. Only suggestion I can offer until I get the Mac version fixed would be running the .love file like above.
And to everyone, thanks for all the feedback so far. Definitely agree with all the comments about the lack of music and loud sound effects - definitely wanted to make a music track and tune the sound effects some more, but ran out of time. If I do some post-compo improvements, that'll be first on the list.
Thanks everyone for the feedback!
@alex457 @scowsh @ben-taylor Alright, I've gotten a chance to test on a Mac and I've uploaded a new app file which should work (it worked for me at least).
@baylej That's odd. What computer do you have? If it's super old it might not be able to handle some of the graphics APIs being used.
@frogman Damn, never seen that one before. Thanks for reporting it.
@vibromatic Glad you enjoyed it. A good suggestion. I made it vibrate when you're low and get hit, but probably not enough emphasis on it ticking away.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
@spirits @aditon @izokia Thanks for playing. Very valid criticism about the foreground/background blend being a bit too much. Was planning on adding little lights to the player and enemies but ran out of time. Definitely a post-compo improvement.
@risist The number at the bottom left is your health. Rockets do deal AOE damage, but for a single rocket it's usually not enough to fully kill a small guy. The AOE becomes more useful once you unlock multi-rocket bursts. Thanks for playing!
@pisito "Giant Twin Buster Dude" Haha that's a much better name :smile:
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
@jason-woerner @mahalis Thank you both for playing and the critique. Completely agree with those points about enemy AI and confusion as to where to go. I actually only got a chance to fully play the game to the end a couple days after the compo ended and experienced a couple points of confusion myself :laughing:. Game could definitely use some pathfinding, tighter level design, and better indication of where to go.
Great looking graphics, though the perspective is little confusing when they're continually facing the camera; understand that drawing multi-directional sprites in the timeframe is a challenge though. I liked the gameplay idea, though it could certainly do with some more depth.
Also, a side note, it was a bit too easy to go out of bounds on the path to the apple.
Love the graphics: the setting is hilarious, well-fleshed out and the effects are great. Gameplay is unique and well implemented, though as some have said a little repetitive (also sometimes harder to aim than it should). Well done.
Well executed simple retro game. Had a decent amount of fun with. Loved the pixel art and the inverted colours on bombs entering the arena. Not a lot bad to say. Could just be expanded further with extra mechanics, like weapons or shifting levels, etc.
Love the vibe this game is giving. Nice and fun mechanic, great take on the theme, and well-done graphics. Difficulty could stand to ramp up a little, but nevertheless, it's a fun time.
A good first effort for sure! Definitely some fun to be had with the flying mechanics. First area I'd improve is by adding sound. Would greatly help the mood of the game. Next I'd say the graphics could stand to be improved: less bloom, higher detail textures (especially the grass texture). But nevertheless, well done on a first attempt.
I like it! Nice simple concept that's executed quite well. I reckon some soft sound effects for the trains in the background would bolstered the mood a good deal.
Awesome game! Pacing and mechanic introduction was very well done. Art was great, though the background could've used some more detail. Music was a little repetitive, but didn't get annoying. Just really impressed with the levels and difficulty.
Good, dark mood to it and a great UI. Music was well done too. I do wish that I could have more of an idea of who had come in for the day before making any decisions, although that would take a lot of the decision-making stress away.
Great game. Had me laughing quite a lot. Well executed, decent graphics and audio.
Only criticism would be: the graphics could spruced up, particularly how the background is handled, and the cries could be varied.
Interesting concept and a nice art style. However the numerous conversation bugs (such as jumping between participants, characters not showing up in the room when they should, etc.) and the amount of reading required sucked a lot of the fun out of it. If the bugs were fixed, things were streamlined further, and some further audio was added, this would be a much better experience.
Well designed game. Can see a good amount of effort went into the environment and intractability. Most notably, it was hilarious; had a lot of fun figuring out that I could throw all these outlandish items into the fire.
Only criticism would be how simple the gameplay loop is. Could definitely benefit from expansion to the mechanics.
Always good to see new programmers taking a crack at Ludum Dare. Not a bad first effort and a good take on the theme. Areas I'd improve are: the art (particularly the tiling of the background) and adding some sound effects (I didn't hear any when I played, at least. Good job.
Great and unique platforming concept. I feel like the physics could be tightened up a bit, but still a satisfying mechanic.
Decent game, one of the better implementations of a typing game that I've seen. Could certainly do with some polishing of the gameplay (such as smoother implementation of levels, enemy reactions, etc.) and bugs to do with enemy placement. Graphics could be better, but I thought they served their purpose. I certainly liked the desert landscape you put in there.
Great game with a well-executed concept. UI and character animation was great, laser felt satisfying to fire. I did feel like the difficulty was a little high, as everything quickly became too much to manage and flowers wilted a bit too fast when plagued by bugs.
Absolutely beautiful pixel art and a nice soundtrack. I do wish there was more to the gameplay or more scenery, though I can understand why there wouldn't be with how much effort clearly went in to the game's set. Nicely done.
Awesome art! That and the background ambient music really gives the game a rich mood. The puzzles were also reasonably satisfying to solve. A couple points of criticism: the constant hmmms from your character take away from the mood, I'd probably ditch those entirely, and some of the object interactions felt a bit glitchy (it took me many tries to finally fill the mug with water, for instance). Nevertheless, nice game.
Interesting game. Liked the overall mood of it and the use of the antagonistic/unreliable narrator. Text design was good too. Obviously the graphics and audio was rather lacking, so that's the main thing I would point to for criticism. Also, the controls were quite laggy and unreliable though I get the feeling that could be intentional as part of the theme?
Awesome pixel art! Love the style. The concept is good too. I did find the platforming gameplay did let the game down a bit, as it felt heavy and some of the jumps were very difficult to perform. Another minor recommendation, allowing the player to pick up the flower from the water hole without having to jump down in it would help keep the pace a bit better.
Love it! Great graphics and a simple, satisfying mechanic that was well communicated to the player. Only suggestions I can really offer is perhaps making it a tad clearer what the maximum ore amounts in the cart are (I caught on pretty quick, more a quality of life thing) and more fidelity in the sound effects. Great job!
Rich, scary mood with some nice pixel art (though I do wish it had a little more detail to it - might be expected too much on that front though). I did find it a little confusing to play through, however, and I do wish that it had an more easily accessible way to exit rooms (spent a little long hunting for the option sometimes).
Great atmosphere and an interesting concept. Computer death animation was nice too. I did feel like there were too many enemies on screen at once to manage. Also some more visceral feedback from killing enemies (such as particle effects, screen shake, etc.) would certainly improve things.
Cute graphics and a neat concept. I do think the pond should be a bit closer to the plant though. Most of the time is spent moving back and forth between the plant and the pond.
Decent concept and nice graphics. As others have said, could've definitely done with further progression/mechanics.
Also, I did experience a bug toward the end where my player disappeared and the camera zoomed way in.
Interesting take on the "fire tending" version of this theme and certainly a decent amount of content to discover (particularly the bear with the honey). I will say that the platforming felt a little off (such as some surfaces clearly having rounded collision while appearing straight-edged) and the some gameplay elements (such as the traps and the animals stealing my twigs) proved more annoying than fun. Nevertheless, a good effort.
Brilliant concept, although it didn't make for the most satisfy gameplay, given the character was very difficult to control. Nevertheless, great simplistic graphics with well fleshed-out worlds and a good take on the theme. If I had to change things, I'd work on making the music a little less repetitive and maybe tighten the controls just slightly.
Decent game with nice graphics and a hilarious protagonist concept. The gameplay could certainly use more elements, such as weapons. Enemies could use some sound too. Overall though a good entry and fun to play.
Great concept and the skills felt satisfying to use. I like the cover art you made for it too. A few points for improvement: a wider field of view would've helped keep track of things, doing upgrades at the end of a wave would prevent the flow being interrupted, and obviously some further visual refinement would give it a better and more satisfying feel.
Very simplistic game, not that the gameplay is bad. I would have preferred more varied patterns of how the foot comes down though, differing pauses, different places, maybe multiple feet on screen at once, that sort of thing. I like the art, even though there isn't much of it.
Platforming controls felt quite good and I liked the particle effects. Areas to improve would be the tiling of sprites, making the lighting a little less all on or all off, if you know what I mean, and adding more sound effects (and improving the how the walk sound effect is repeated).
Nice little set of minigames and an interesting concept. Never seen a phone that _gains_ battery while you play games :P. Anyway, main areas to improve I'd say would be the graphics, by adding extra particle effects and so on, and movement responsiveness.
Also, a minor design suggestion, in the box catching game, the sound effect being the same to catch a box as when you get hit by one in previous games instinctively confused me initially; making it a different noise would be better I'd say.
Like you said, not much of a game, but I like the idea, and it comes with a very chill mood which clearly a lot of people appreciate - mission accomplished there. Music and particle effects are satisfying. My primary criticism is that the breath sound effect definitely needs to have more variation and perhaps be a little softer.
A lovely chill mood to this game and great pixel art. Felt like it needed more to it gameplay-wise, however, such as enemies, having to move camp sites, or other complications. Like I said, mood was nice, though I think it could stand to be improved with added background sound effects (wind, etc.), especially if complemented with extra weather effects (which I see you're considering).