Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → oneiromancer
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Unstable Empire | compo | 228 | 3.55 | 3.26 | 3.48 | 3.80 | 2.80 | 3.06 | |||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Skycrawler | jam | 53 | 4.22 | 4.22 | 4.14 | 3.61 | 3.85 | 3.71 | 2.70 | 3.83 |
I had a lot of fun with this game. Putting the player in genetic algorithm's shoes is a really clever idea. And I do believe it would be easy for players to get into it, even if they don't know this stuff.
What a hilarious little game! I'm a little bit sad that most of "wrong" choises basically kill you and force you to start from the beginning, but the sheer amount of humor makes up for it tenfold.
The game looks gorgeous, and is fun to play when you understand the mechanics!
But, and this is a big but for me, those mechanics are communicated really really poorly. I tried to jump into it and just figure it out as I go. I got my butt handed to me. I restarted and read the info on this page. Still couldn't do anything in fights. It took me yet another restart to realize that you spend your action points both on revealing slot cards and dropping your characters on them.
Obviously, it's a jam, will be polished in future, blah blah blah, but I still think that kind of UX stuff is really important and, especially in a game as heavy with mechanics as this, you should use any trick up your sleeve to communicate those mechanics.
Man, all this feels like a little too much criticism, aspecially compared to other games.
First of all, the game itself is great. Reading the comments, I think I understand the gameplay loop now, and I think it's really clever. Unfortunatelly the game has some problems with user experience, which makes playing the game a little frustrating.
To illustrate this: you have an amazing tutorial. It's clear, it communicates well what you need to do and how. And then you have the very first game screen. Suddenly things are fast and confusing, you have only one word to write, except when you write it, nothing seem to happen. I mean, it's kinda good ludonarrative, but it's also a good way to confuse the player.
But once you push through initial confusion, the gameplay becomes quite fun (although a little difficult, especially when you have sausage fingers and backspace doesn't seem to work).
Amazing music and great visuals! The gameplay is also quite innovative. I really like the idea of using bats as platforms.
The control scheme though... There seems to be no reason to dedicate A/D to moving platforms and not use classic WASD controls. Dash controls also feel quite frustrating. I'll be honest, my fingers feel kinda sore after playing.
This game is hilarious! I kept playing it over and over just to see if there are some more puns somewhere.
That's actually a solid puzzle mechanics and it has a lot of potential!
One bit of feedback, though: the killbox in later levels breaks the pacing a little bit. In all other levels you constantly keep track of where your ufo is and which verticies you can intertact with and how not to mess it up, but here you just flop into it and it's game over. I think if you would just lost all your cows, but continued moving, it would be a little better.
Honestly, I don't know how I feel about the absence of Game Master. Roleplaying without some unified vision may becone hectic. Not sure though, my whole experience with roleplaying tabletop comes down to a couple videos on youtube.
Great entry with amazing art and music too set up the mood. A little criticism though, because you don't see the wind currents unless you are in them, it feels too risky to move anywhere, and the gameplay becomes a little frustrating.
Fun game, but the puzzles could use some polishing. In many cases you can ignore the intended way to solve them and hack your way through.
The voicelines are adorable, and the game is quite fun. Gotta say though, local co-op is a risky route to take on a jam like this.
This game is awesome and the gameplay is super addictive. I did struggle though on the second song, because it feel like the jump is off beat. But maybe I'm just tone-deaf or something.
That's a really nice game! I aspecially loved the music, reminds me of so many spaghetti westerns at the same time!
A little bit of criticism on the rope-gun mechanic. While it works fantastic on the regular level, in boss fights it kinda shoots itself in the foot: you have to shoot really sparingly, since, while focused on dodging and damaging the boss, you can't keep an eye on where your gun is. It's also not always apparent that you shot yourself, because the gun gets inside your character sprite, not behind it. Honestly, on the first boss I died more times to my own bullets than his.
That being said, the gun that flails around as you shoot is still teally fun!
I knew the game is difficult, so I thought I first finish easy mode, then jump into the normal mode. That was a mistake.
It might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the "easy mode" is too easy. That is, for me there is just enough of a difficulty spike for it to feel frustrating and not feel challenging. If I had to point my finger specifically, it was the rotating lasers that have different speeds between the modes.
Overall, it's a fun platformer with great mechanics, and I'm really sad that now I feel unmotivated to finish normal mode.
Fun little game! I do with though you had a little more time to read the tasks and to understand what you need to do.
The game looks really nice and is super fun to play. The only little bit of criticism I have is that I keep accidentally pressing Space when trying to jump.
BTW, web player seem to be broken.
It's an amazingly looking game and the swiching mechanics is quite interesting!
But from the design perspective, there are some problems. Your mechanics kinda work against each other. You need to traverse the room quickly, otherwise you lose a heart. But you also need to clear a room, and since enemies die in at least 2 hits, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to clear a room and not lose a heart.
So, yeah, if you could actually run through rooms quickly, this game would be loads more fun!
A bit of advice: if you have some content that you're planning to add, but that's not yet in the game - don't add it in Screenshots at itch io.
Such a chill game. Perfect for relaxing the nerves after the jam.
@robinerd Wait, it does?! That's kinda embarrassing. I hope people won't pay much attention to menu screen.
Everyone, thanks for coments and feedback.
@jmoocow2003 I mean, with the theme "Stuck in a loop" repetative music becomes a feature. And the creature at the end, well, I'll be honest, it was a pain to come up with AI for it, so I decided to leave it only as a one-time encounter.
@gammaromeo I do add some more puzzle elements, like spikes or platforms that fall if you land on them. But I try to stick to the idea that the gravity mechanic should be the only thing on player's mind.
@duke, oh, it's refreshing to read some actual bit of criticism.
The whole environment art feels lacking, because, well, it actually is. All the levels are basically two 9sliced sprites, stretched, flipped and tiled.
There actually was more to it initially, I had some tiles to add variation, I was planning to make a dissolve shader instead of just alpha fade out. But whenever I've added new stuff, it would break something that was already working. So I've decided to cut it all, leave the bare minimum and just polish it.
Also, a little sneakpeak at what graphics were like 6 hours before I finished:
graphics_showcase.gif
@peace-of-cake-games Well, my best time is 02:31, and I'm yet to see someone beat it.
The game has got some interesting mechanics, but it doesn't really encorages you to use them. So in the end I just ran forward until I lapped the orc and got smacked on the head.
Nice game with addicting gameplay and a clear message!
Although, gameplay could use a little more flavor. For example, I guess like/dislike buttons don't actually do anything, which is a shame.
And a little but very important bit of criticism: if you have some sort of abbreviations that are generally unknown, let along specific to your game's world, be sure to explain them to player. I've spent half my game guessing what CMD is.
Nice game. But I don't see why you wouldn't set sprint as a default movement, holding Shift all the time is kinda tiring.
It's fun to see the same concept as my game, but implemented quite differently!
I like that there are a lot of events, each with it's own little description. But there also is a ton of choices, a ton of things you could do, which is really confusing. Especially since you can just spam "End turn" and be fine. Some clear goal would be really nice.
Even though it is basically a "press buttons fast" simulator, I found it really fun for some reason. And the whole console/OS aesthetics is really well done!
Once agane, a greate game!
Although enemy ai is a bit janky, which makes closing doors the strongest weapon against demons. And I don't really think pixelating shader works that great, because it's really hard to tell enemies apart when they are too far.
I really liked the aerodynamics of the pigeon, however wierd it may sound. It's teally fun to just fly around and explore the world. Also, it's quite funny that this pigeon can tank a bomb to the head like it's nothing (seriously, it feels like the bombs do less damage than the bakers with their brooms).
I'm a little confused about what those stones(?) that you can pick up sometimes suppose to do.
First of all, gotta thank everyone for their comments!
@concker-88 I made a [post](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstable-empire/how-i-used-an-ai-to-generate-in-game-portraits-for-my-game) about how I generated the portraits, if you missed it. I also included the code, that lets you play around with it, but it's still a little rough around the edges.
@tomorrowtoday I used StyleGAN mainly because I had a lot of experience with it writing my master's thesis. And yeah, I think I will try out guided diffusion to get a little deeper into it, just not when there is a strict deadline.
@peachtreeoath, thanks for an extensive analysis. Some of the tricks you mention are intentional, others are just messy code. And it is actually possible to win the game, BUT when your deck of events gets too big, the crown cards are just super unlikely to be drawn (I probably shouldn't have made this purely random, huh). In my experience, Marshal's chain of events is most stable, as the first card ("War declared!") is guarantied to come the next turn after you solve a gray task. Chancellor's chain is, in contrast, most unstable (and probably even bugged) because I never managed to finish it myself.
@parttimeindie Thanks. Colors denote different areas or, i guess, occupations. All orangish tasks are connected to army, all greenish - to money, all blueish - to politics, religion, and general mood of the people. If you match task's color and minister's color, you have a chance to solve a task of a higher level. Or fail a task if you mismatch.
@paulsams For the record, what is your native language? I will probably look into localizing the game to oter languages.
@ommadawn All great empires are destined to fall. But seriously, when you solve a gray quest, you only unlock the area. To conquer it, you need to solve a crown ♕ quest that will randomly appear after some time.
The graphics look beautiful and there's an impressive variety of weather stages. I really liked the storm woth the thunderclouds.
But the gameplay is kinda dull, and the game doesn't become any more challenging over time. Which is unfortunate, becaule I was really excited for the said thunderclouds, thinking they are the new obstacles I need to avoid.
All in all, a really solid game, that just needs a little more work on the gameplay part.
The concept is interesting, but the gameplay feels a little too simple: you build one mill, and then just always keep 100 food to place two houses once the eruption starts. But the potential is there.
The art looks gorgeous, and the idea feels really innovative. And once you get it, the gameplay is really fun.
But the issue is that it's really easy to lose half of the cities at the very beginning, while you don't quite get what you need to do. And on the other hand, once you're left with only one city, it's really easy to make a correct forecast and basically never lose.