Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Paul Merkamp
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | 👥 | Block Head Meat Mage | jam | 433 | 3.46 | 3.17 | 4.25 | 3.71 | 3.39 | 3.50 | 3.15 | 3.57 |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | 👥 | Tickle Tower | jam | 3.31 | 3.13 | 3.18 | 3.31 | 3.00 | 3.04 | 2.81 | 2.77 | |
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | 👥 | Chateau Grenouilles | jam | 444 | 3.71 | 3.56 | 3.58 | 4.00 | 3.72 | 3.67 | 3.91 | 3.71 |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Raidar | jam | 883 | 3.21 | 2.83 | 3.00 | 3.86 | 4.00 | 3.65 | 1.83 | 3.73 | |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Go On Without Me! | compo | 3.90 | 3.40 | 3.80 | 3.80 | 3.40 | 3.40 | 4.00 | 3.80 | ||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Little Shade's Big Adventure | compo | 3.16 | 2.00 | 2.66 | 2.83 | 4.08 | 3.83 | 4.50 | |||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Don't Mind Me! | compo | 354 | 3.60 | 3.52 | 2.91 | 3.52 | 3.76 | 2.78 | 2.72 | 3.14 |
The punchline is AMAZING!! Setup and delivery all in all, so good.
Style is reminiscent of all the recent gorefield stuff, really spot on excellent work.
I can echo everything above me. Just an awesome game all around, really unique and charming. I wish I had any real criticism.
cute and fun!! It's very simple but it works really well. The timer & other ui elements being inconsistent with the art style is my biggest complaint. I think enemy bullets could stand out against the background a little more too. Well done!
Too bad there's no dentist to chuck at Audrey II.
The environment, NPCs, and sound design are all spot on. The camera kept me from enjoying the game to the fullest. I think top-down would have been a better format for this. Otherwise great and hilarious.
Very satisfying to play and to look at. I found the glare to be a little too much at certain angles, that's my only complaint. It truly is just fishing.
Normally I hate motion blur but it works really well here, congrats on a great project.
Scan the QR code in the screenshot for an awesome easter egg!!!
Fantastic game, absolutely excellent on all fronts. Only comments are just a couple typos, and the music could use more "oomph". The name thing is a great moment, and all of the effort you put into the writing and the message displays themselves really shines through. I had a longer, equally glowing review already typed up most of the way through, but well, y'know...
Since there's already a massive spoiler in the comments, I'll just say - as incredibly well executed as that was, it did make me panic for the safety of my computer lol. The thanks doc is super cute. Thanks to you for the experience, it definitely got my heart pumping...
@jeremy-ryan is it possible to beat that section rather than lose to it, or does it just keep going? I'd love to try it lol.
something I forgot to mention is the combat felt very, very fair 99% of the time - the 1% of the time being an attack or two from the warden (I think the "do you like my fast attack" attacks from top and bottom didn't give quite enough response time) and of course the very end. I loved when you introduced new attacks without explaining them because at that point it felt intuitive. I think the purple attack was the one that impressed me the most in this way.
Looks like you've gotten some of the meaner comments you were anticipating ;-;
@jeremy-ryan Congrats on the placement!!! Well earned!!! 4th in graphics!!!!!
Great variety of puzzles and a great reason to complete them! The hacking style feels really great to play around in too. Well done!
Keep practicing! Focus on not throwing too much text at the player all at once. It's very creative and the subject matter is very interesting!!
I really enjoyed the smart level design, and outsmarting the pathfinding in the later levels felt great.
There's a great foundation here in terms of the systems themselves, if the buildings were a little easier to use I think this would be a ton of fun.
This game made me feel pretty badass. The character art was very neat and the controls are very satisfying. I had some issues with the sound. Game fits the theme very well, excellent job on this game.
I enjoyed this a lot. The controls can be a little funky, especially when the forces that are supposed to be applied to the circle are also applied to the square at seemingly random times (I also periodically forgot that the wall-jump existed), but there are also times where the controls feel great. The puzzles are smart and enjoyable, and accomplishing a difficult level feels really good. My only huge complaint is that the relationship between square and circle feels a little one-sided, circle really needs to step it up. Circle could use a makeover as well, the horrified screaming stare really contrasts against the rest of the game's tone.
Oh and the music is very atmospheric and cute. Well Done, Milo!!
The downloadable version had me start with 0 coin, so I couldn't hire anyone to start the game. Visuals look really good!
Controls can be a little wonky sometimes. I liked the torch mechanic and the lighting effects a lot, the gemstones look good too. Checkpoints would have been nice but the same can be said for my game, lol.
I love the visual style of this - most of it, anyway. The UI is a little ugly and I'm not a fan of the font, but the colors in the gameplay are great and I think the premise is really interesting too. The abstract idea plus the visual style could really work if some of the clunkier parts were cleaned up.
The sound design is pretty fascinating too, so I'm pretty polarized on this one. Good work though!
Data science has never been this fun!
Play time ended up being just right for the game - a nice little game, however, as someone who cannot tell the difference between a truck and a pupper, the game was a little hard.
I'm so excited to play! Good luck Jeremy!
Wonderful job once again!!!
You've definitely accomplished what you set out to do with this game - great job with the writing, I saw the symmetry coming there but was very happy that it happened. The gameplay itself is nice - the notes are super responsive and satisfying to hit (maybe 2 or 3 times I hit a note and it didn't respond - I'd chalk that down to either a bug, or I'm delusional). I got stuck at the very end of the second to last section and had to do it 3 times, but I think you handled the player's failure very well from a writing standpoint and a gameplay standpoint, as it didn't feel devastating to start from the checkpoint, and I was improving every time (hey, just like regular piano). Missing a bunch of notes all at once felt pretty bad - the screen shake and other effects you've included make the feedback very aggressive - but, again, failure wasn't devastating, so this didn't matter much. ~~also this one didn't shutdown my computer so it has that going for it~~
Graphics are not my strong suit, so take this with a grain of salt - they didn't pop out at me as much as they have in your previous entries, but they're still perfectly good, and the subject matter isn't such a poppy one anyway.
I enjoyed the music composition a lot - it reminded me a lot of Nintendo DS games, partly because of the nature of Musescore's midi instruments, partly because of the dramatic string flair that comes and goes throughout the game, and partly because the way the music itself is written. It worked really well here. If it's something you can swing, in the future, I'd love to see what you could do with a DAW and some fancier libraries, rather than composition software - not a slam against this style at all, just a thought of mine.
This was a very heartful entry with a super unique spin on the theme. You knocked it out of the park again Jeremy, see you at the top! :smile:
All of my gripes have already been covered - great job! Love me some minesweeper
@ghost-wave Glad you liked the atmosphere! That's what I was hoping to accomplish!
@roboolet I'm especially glad you enjoyed the music!
Thank you both!
@jeremy-ryan Thanks so much - the seams in the background textures, the popping of the audio tracks, and the light circle at the end are all details I really wanted to iron out, but ultimately decided probably weren't worth the time investment (instead I made all the music in the last 2 hours!). And you're right, this definitely isn't the best gameplay loop I've come up with, but I'm glad you were able to vibe with the atmosphere.
I'm graduating college next week, and I've had time to pick up more hobby game dev, so I fully intend on participating in every LD for the foreseeable future! Thanks again for your great remarks!
Looks super neat - huge fan of the sound design and the music too.
I would have liked to know how many lives I have left before moving on to the next level - however I think the powder physics added a lot and made it feel like a neat little experience.
Great job!
This is a 5-hour masterpiece. Jeremy has done it again.
Seriously, I would have loved to see a full LD game based around this, you were really able to pack in some neat details in your time constraint.
The web version wasn't loading in-browser and I'm unsure how to fix it - I tried to update this page but it looks like the changes didn't go through. It's available for download as a windows or mac app
Great idea for a game, I had a hard time figuring out some of the puzzles but getting them right was very rewarding. I appreciate the animations for when the temple is breaking!
Another wonderful game from Jeremy Ryan!!!
I can't believe how perfect the difficulty was. It took a little bit to get used to, then once it clicked it was just satisfying and fun and exciting.
Bravo and best of luck! My team (myself included) loved the art that you made of Raidar!!!
the monster sound is SO GROSS but I really enjoyed this quick little game! I especially enjoyed retrieving the objects that required a little more of a leap of faith. getting a grip on the timing wasn't too hard and I think this game could stand to be more difficult (safe areas further apart, less forgiving with the number of bullets, that kind of thing) to keep the tension higher. great game!
The surreal sound fx and music fit the mood of the game perfectly, and I really like the dread of wondering how many rooms might be left as you're slowing further and further down. Very fun
@zoryana Thank you for playing!
@dippitydoop I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks so much!
@celtican Yeah, story segments were something we had to cut unfortunately (the idea was your spaceship you return to is progressively degrading, mutiny and alien attacks, that kind of thing). And I think the game is likely far too long, I don't expect anyone to beat it even with invincibility on.
Thank you so much for your feedback! I enjoyed your game a ton!!
This is fantastic. I got the bad ending but seeing the reactions when you pick the obviously wrong move was worth it. I'll probably come back and try to get more endings at some point lol. Amazing game
Cute fun game!
The mysteries of the duck are beyond human comprehension
@jeremy-ryan congrats on your placement!!!!!
This is such a neat idea. The polish / presentation are simple but effective. Great work.
This game's really sweet. I was worried it was about to be a slog when I got to the hands part, and then I became Spiderman and was moving super fast.
I'm really impressed by the pacing, it's a really nice, short, well-contained package of a game. Really good job to everyone who worked on this.
I would love to see a full game of this.
You have a fantastic talent for graphics and polish!
I died on the last day as I was being congratulated for doing such a great job, lol
Great atmosphere. Kudos to everyone who worked on this!
@drmurderizer @johnstarich thank you for playing the game!
@sergs-workshop this should be working now :smile:
I love the art!
The music didn't play for me, I think that might have added a lot.
Really cool idea!