Planetary Defense by N4tticus 2017-04-24T03:03:15Z
Fun game, the pixel graphics look really nice!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Paul Nadan
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥈 | 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Thunderstorm | compo | Mood | 4.50 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | Under Pressure | compo | 3.60 | 3.30 | 3.60 | 3.50 | 3.20 | 3.10 | 2.50 | 2.80 | ||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | Summoning Song | compo | 4.44 | 4.55 | 4.75 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 4.50 | 4.68 | 4.22 | ||
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Spellbook | compo | 99 | 3.85 | 3.81 | 4.38 | 4.21 | 3.26 | 2.92 | 2.96 | 3.60 | |
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | Neighborhood Postal Service | compo | 3.83 | 4.16 | 3.83 | 3.83 | 3.83 | 3.00 | 3.66 | |||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Thunderstorm | compo | 43 | 4.00 | 3.71 | 3.54 | 4.07 | 4.16 | 4.35 | 2.00 | 4.50 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Wayfinder | compo | 227 | 3.57 | 3.36 | 4.13 | 3.65 | 3.31 | 3.08 | 3.68 | 3.19 | |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Touchdown | compo | 75 | 4.02 | 3.76 | 3.59 | 4.30 | 3.78 | 3.42 | 4.40 | 3.75 | |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Rocket Rider | compo | 2.62 | 2.25 | 2.62 | 3.62 | 2.87 | 2.12 | 2.25 | 2.25 | ||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | SideKick | compo | 588 | 3.37 | 3.47 | 3.18 | 4.04 | 3.15 | 3.06 | 3.06 | 3.00 | |
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | Unqualified Success | compo | 198 | 3.52 | 3.23 | 3.92 | 4.36 | 3.47 | 3.52 | 3.76 | 3.72 | |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Demonic Dealings | compo | 217 | 3.40 | 3.42 | 3.54 | 3.31 | 2.73 | 3.27 | 3.21 | 3.12 | |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | En Passant | compo | 149 | 3.63 | 3.65 | 4.15 | 3.10 | 3.15 | 3.31 | 3.27 | ||
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | 👥 | Big Pockets | jam | 285 | 3.72 | 3.79 | 3.53 | 4.01 | 3.98 | 3.76 | 3.30 | 3.53 |
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Quantum World | compo | 389 | 3.04 | 2.76 | 3.72 | 2.68 | 3.00 | 1.26 | 1.60 | 2.35 |
Fun game, the pixel graphics look really nice!
Really cool animations! I also like the music.
Graphics are nice and colorful. Very fun trying to keep other planets from taking all of your mass.
This is a really cool concept. Reminded me more of the "battle room" in Ender's game.
Great game! The graphics and music create a really nice feel, although it might be cool to add more of a storyline. The graphic design also does a great job reminding the player of the controls. The puzzles are really well done and you pretty fully fleshed out what can be done with the basic sacrifice mechanic. I would enjoy seeing the more difficult levels you could add with a couple new mechanics, if you decide to develop the game further.
Thanks everyone for all the great feedback so far!
@supergamersgames Great idea, I definitely considered that! I was a bit worried it wouldn't fit the theme as well, but I can see arguments either way.
@goldranger Thanks, although I actually wasn't originally planning to allow level customization; I just couldn't get the text files to build with the rest of the jar file :joy:
@nick-rafalski It is definitely possible to beat the rooks, although not with that approach. Listen to the king's hint!
This was really fun! The striping on the walls looks amazing, and the overall aesthetic was very consistent. The upgrade system was interesting - it looks very nice, but it started to feel kind of slow after a couple times. I think that the relatively high penalties for hitting walls also made moving slowly the best strategy, so it could be helpful to rebalance things so that passively running out of time is a bigger concern. Overall though this was a really polished entry, nice work!
I really like the idea behind this, it's a great interpretation of the theme! The gameplay started to feel a little slow after a while, it might help to have a fast-forward button or something to speed up the moving animations. Overall though this was a really cool concept, and it was fun seeing all of the different research options.
This is a great concept! The shift in mood between playing and working was really well executed, and your impression of a pay-to-win app was spot-on. The storyline was also really nicely implemented - the ending is just amazing. There's definitely room for more variety in enemy types and spell upgrades to keep the gameplay from getting repetitive, but for a Compo entry this is really polished!
The premise is hilarious, and multiple endings are always a cool feature. I also liked how the stories wove together. Nice work!
Thank you everyone for the feedback!
@trevor-shoe My reasoning was that seeing the opponent's hand gives the player something to aim for, so that every fight doesn't feel the same. I think a hidden hand could also be cool though, maybe as some kind of challenge mode or boss fight?
@carlsonandpeeters Thanks! In typical game-jam fashion, I just randomly chose a bunch of cards from a list, ran a brute force check whether the setup would be winnable, and then repeated the process until it was. :wink:
@humfuzz Yeah, fine-tuning the difficulty is always tricky. My intent was to give the player enough time to plan for different possibilities before the 3rd card was visible, but not enough time to just wait until all the cards were on-screen before looking for combos. I definitely might have erred a little on the fast side though.
Sorry to echo everyone else, but the graphics are fantastic! The gameplay was fairly simple, but still fun. It might help to make the timing of your attack more important, like if enemies were more vulnerable right after trying to attack or something. It also felt like jumping wasn't super useful, maybe if the enemies took time to turn around it would become more practical. The look and feel of this was very impressive, great work!
Neat game! I wish that there was more variety in levels, but for a game jam entry it still felt nice and polished. It also sometimes seemed like the best strategy was to just wait around on the starting platform and spam attack until all the slimes died, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. Overall though it was a fun experience, great work!
Nice entry! The animations look great, and I liked the behavior of the arrow enemies. It definitely felt like running out of time was a much smaller concern than falling off platforms though - it might help to decrease the amount of time the player starts with and/or make the platforming easier. I also agree with ruddiculous that there isn't enough time to read the controls at the start; maybe you could only start moving the fire wall after the player starts moving around? Overall it was a fun experience though!
Great work, the visuals and audio are really well done! The object permanence on the feathers and the mice audience were nice touches. I wish there were checkpoints after each fight, but otherwise this is an amazing entry!
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
@toppervideogames Yeah, the spill-over only happens when certain words are used, so I didn't catch it in testing. I definitely should have decided on a max word length in advance.
@afroant I'm glad you enjoyed it! The receptionist will call you in for the interview automatically once you've gathered enough information, so you just need to keep talking to people to get more clues.
Thank you all for your feedback!
@avsc There was another clue in the waiting room about recruiters looking for applicants that use B, which is what the interview question was getting at. I can see the confusion though, "B of choice" does sound like it could mean "favorite A", I should try to make a clearer distinction.
Wow, the atmosphere of this is amazing! I really liked the vision effect and the floating text, it did a real nice job of setting the mood, and the dialogue gave me chills. Nice work!
This was an awesome game, I really enjoyed the storyline! It was easy to miss what was happening in the story by being in the wrong screen though, it would be nice if there was some kind of prompt to switch over.
I really enjoyed this game, the music and the world being created as you go made the story very impactful. Your mix of text and pen-on-paper drawings actually reminded me a lot of a poetry collection called "Where the Sidewalk Ends." There was definitely room to do a lot more with the puzzle mechanics if you'd had more time, but the overall experience was amazing. Thank you for making this!
I really enjoyed playing this! The storyline was really fun, and I appreciated that the same choices didn't always lead to the same results. The interface is also so nicely polished! The text writing, the colonizing music, the hyperspace effect - there were just nice little touches everywhere. The one thing I might suggest if you keep building on this would be to add keyboard controls to select with arrows + enter key instead of having to locate the buttons with the mouse each time. This was an awesome entry, great work!
Even without the meta-game stuff, this was an awesome entry! The different soundtracks for each boss really set the tone for each fight, and the scrolling backgrounds added a lot of depth by making it feel like the character is actually moving around the game world. The main mechanic was fairly simple, but executed really well with well-designed levels and nice visual effects on the corruption bytes and the shield. Nice work!
This was a lot of fun! The difficulty scaling was really well-calibrated, I definitely started off with a "this isn't too bad, I got this!" attitude that gradually morphed into "okay, okay, I just need to fix this quickly and it'll be alright" and finally "aaaah there's red lights everywhere, I'm sorry Dr. Glebin!!!" Also the visual effects were great, and the music fit the gameplay really well. Nice work!
Thanks for all the feedback!
@duke Double jump is an interesting idea - I'm a little concerned it would make the platforming aspect less relevant, but I can also see how it could feel frustrating right now if you miss a key jump. Thanks for the suggestion!
@ludumdaredevil I'm sorry about that, I didn't get a chance to test on other screen resolutions. If you'd like to try it again you might be able to open windows display settings and temporarily set the "Change the size of text, apps, and other items" option to be 25% lower, but I understand that's quite a hassle.
######## WARNING: Spoilers below - do not read unless you've beaten Professor Purple #########
@nick-rafalski Thanks, I'm glad you had fun! The idea with the boss battle is that the professor designed a special shield to block your attacks, but didn't consider your sidekick to be a threat. When hope seems lost because nothing you do can get through the shield, your sidekick discovers his powers and deals the decisive blow. I realize it's kind of hard to pick up on because the player might be distracted and not watching the sidekick, and if I had more time it would probably help to slow down time and/or zoom in on the sidekick when he defeats the boss. Hope that clears things up!
I'm really bad at this game, but I had a lot of fun! The sound effects and music were very calming, and the dynamic background and level transitions made this feel very polished. The levels were also really well designed so it never got repetitive. Great work!
This was really cool! The art was amazing - this game depended on every object being immediately recognizable, and even with pixel art that was always the case. The riddles were challenging enough but still felt fair, and the amount of time given was balanced well between having to solve the riddle quickly but still having time to think. Great work, this was a cute and polished entry!
This was a cool entry! The gameplay reminded me a bit of minecraft, but with a lot more time pressure. The graphics were well done, and the intro/game over screens were awesome! It would have been great to have music during the rest of the game too, but I understand there are time limitations. Like the others I had trouble with the difficulty, I'm guessing if you do well enough early game to start getting upgrades then it gets a lot more manageable, but at least for me I could never get that far. Other than the difficulty though this felt really polished. Nice work!
Really cool game! Even though the gameplay mechanics were simple, you added a great story on top that made it feel like a big adventure. You did a great job making a world that felt very open (especially with flying) but still made it easy to figure out where to go next with the dialogue clues and signs. Also the twist at the end was very well done, the sudden music and visual effects changes really dramatically changed the tone. Great work y'all, this is an awesome entry!
This was fun, and I really liked the aesthetics! I appreciated the knockback when you hit enemies, but I think the game would have benefited a lot from sound effects when you attack/hit an enemy, just to make the combat feel more engaging. I also liked how there was a brief period at the start of each level to look at your available allies and strategize a little, although to be honest I never figured out the difference between the sword and crossbow icons. Also, I had the same glitch as Bodaciouslycrazy where the enemies in the small room (hard level) didn't move. Overall though great work, this was a cool entry!
This was a cool idea, I wish you had time to make more levels! The graphics were very cute, and together with the sound effects this had a very cohesive feel. At the start of the second level it felt like I sometimes died almost immediately, which combined with the long respawn transition become a little frustrating. Something that might help is starting the player in a kind of safe zone out of range of the meteors, so they have time to get their bearings and plan how they'll approach the level. Overall though this was really neat. Nice work!
This was really powerful! The art style and music set a somber tone throughout, and little details like the dog barking or the difficulty of delivering gray letters made it feel very polished. I also thought the ending was really well done. I do think it could have been nice to give people a different dialogue line before they receive the letter, when they still have hope/uncertainty, and then show their reactions to the letter after you hand it over. Overall this was a very immersive experience, great work!
This was really cool! I liked the bold/cartoony art style a lot, and I actually thought the music fit really well with the plot. I also enjoyed the storyline. My one suggestion is that most of your branches terminated right away and it would have been neat to see at least a couple different longer story arcs you could chose between, each with their own choices etc, but also I know it's a game jame and it's impressive enough how much content you fit into the game already. Great work, especially for your first time!
This was a beautiful entry! The detail on the horse animations was awesome, and I really appreciated it when I left it idle for a couple seconds and it looked up at me. The loading screen was also very nicely done - the wait was long enough to be a little annoying, but having a horse silhouette to look at made it easier. The level design was really nicely done, and even though it was a little frustrating to die and respawn I felt like I kept exploring further and gaining knowledge each run so it wasn't too repetitive. Great work!
The art and sound effects were awesome! The gameplay had some nice strategy once I got into it, but my first run it took me a while to figure things out. It would have been nice to start with a kind of tutorial where you introduce each plant type one at a time and demonstrate how it can be useful for some specific situation, just to help with the learning curve. Overall though this was a lot of fun, nice work!
The fire, water, and smoke pixel animations were beautiful! The built-in tutorial was well done, and the discussion with mission control had a lot of potential for adding a cool storyline. I think the movement speed of the player felt a little slow at times, but otherwise the controls felt good, especially for controlling the water direction. The feeling of putting out one fire only for another to spread somewhere else was infuriating, which I assume was exactly your intent. Nice work!
This was a neat idea! The first couple levels are a little too easy, but as the density of mines gets larger there starts to be some interesting strategy around where to dig. Not sure if it's intentional, but the view after you fall off looks really cool. It can get annoying if you accidentally walk into a mine during a later level and have to fully restart, it might be nice to just respawn from the current level. Great work!
This was a ton of fun, it's awesome that you're considering making it a mobile game! Definitely feels a lot like 2048 in that a simple set of rules produces some pretty interesting strategy. It did seem like a lot of luck was involved for which color was selected for the next goal, I think it could be neat to show the player the next goal as well as the current one, so they can plan further in advance. Overall this was a super fun and addicting entry, nice work!
This is by far the best music-based game jam entry I've played! It was really nice how the notes corresponded to the music, so it felt like I was actually the one playing it. The wrong note in the audio was a cool touch, although I'm glad that all my wrong notes don't do that or it would sound a lot less pretty. I agree this was pretty difficult for someone who isn't a piano player, but I could definitely feel myself improving the longer I played and I was able to get through it in the end (although I had to switch to a better keyboard). I do think adding one more checkpoint halfway through the second section would be helpful.
The story was very heart-warming, and the graphics were simple but effective. Did the quarter and eighth notes correspond to the music at all? It seemed like they were just used interchangeably. Overall, I really enjoyed playing this!
This was really fun! The combat took some time to get used to, but once I got the hang of it landing the combos was super satisfying. I liked all the nice visual touches like the destructible tomb stones and the human hearts for your health. I do think it would be nice if your score stayed on screen for a bit longer after you die, because it's hard to pay attention to it during combat and then once I've died I can no longer see how well I did. Awesome work!
Nice entry! I really like the visual effects for the water and the way the sharks turn around. The variety of enemy types and levels was great, especially when it switched over to the dark theme. The gameplay was pretty fun, although it's easy to accidentally get stuck on a wall when trying to jump. Like someone else mentioned, it would be nice if there was a way to kill enemies and avoid the buildup of starfish over time. The music was very light and relaxing. Great work!
This was neat, it reminds me a lot of Galaga! I really liked the pixel trail on your ship. Having multiple laser sounds was also a nice touch. I appreciated how dying just increased a counter, rather than making you restart back to the beginning when you ran out of lives. To make it more fast-paced, you could also try having more/faster enemies, but increasing your own speed and firing rate to balance out the difficulty. Also, the menu text didn't contrast well against the background which made it hard to read. Overall this was a cool entry, nice work!
The knockback on enemies felt really nice, and there was a good variety of enemy types. I also liked each level had a different color scheme. It was unclear to me what the different upgrades did, maybe some kind of description could appear when you pick them up? I also went through a door and got stuck in a wall at one point, so there are still some bugs to iron out. Nice work, this was fun!
Had some issues with lag that made navigating the boat tricky, but I really enjoyed the spooky feel! The music was nice and ominous, and the creepy sounds mixed in did a good job of keeping me on edge. The monster being half-hidden by darkness from a distance was awesome, I definitely had to get closer to be sure of what I was seeing, only to immediately regret doing so. Nice work!
Very nice puzzles! There's definitely a lot of room to add more puzzles that make use of the depth mechanic if you were to expand this further. The graphics were really clean, and the scene transition effect was really neat. Great work!
I really liked the 3D aspect of the maze. The music was very calming, although some more variation could have been neat. Having the rotation of the screen lag slightly behind that of the submarine could also make it a little less visually disorienting. Nice entry!
This was a really cool idea! I really liked all the different custom effects you included for specific words. I think it could also be neat to make the words you need to find different every time, so it's more of a puzzle - for instance you could be looking for specific clues related to some crime you're investigating. Overall this was an amazing concept, and you did a great job implementing it with lots of fun little Easter eggs!
This was an awesome experience! I really liked how you could go back to all the same things at the end and get new descriptions. The music was also extremely well done, especially how it switches to a different tone depending on what's happening in the story. Figuring out how to use the key at the beginning actually took me quite a while, I think some kind of tutorial would have been helpful (at least for using the inventory). Overall I really enjoyed this entry, great work!
This was really fun! The graphical style was unique and looked awesome. The platforming portion was kind of short, but the bossfight at the end was really well done. I appreciated how the progression of boss attacks kept changing, and the music got more and more intense. The conveyor belt effect was also very neat. The visual indicators of the heart beating faster and faster and flashing different colors were really nice to see that the boss was actually taking damage. Great work!
Navigating without being able to see was a neat challenge! The graphics were pretty simple, but I liked the feel of the music a lot. I think the constant engine sound got less interesting after a while, maybe it could only make noise while you're moving up and down? It could also be nice to use a smooth gradient for the transitions as it gets darker, rather than the abrupt cutoffs. Nice work!
I liked the progression of hints, and how seeing the same thing again with more context can bring back different memories. The art was simple, but captured the feel of the hospital really well. Also it's really cool that you went back and made a full version!
Neat entry, reminds me of super hexagon! I think making the openings bigger would help a lot, I had a lot of trouble getting precise enough positioning with the arrow keys. It could also be cool to mix up the types of obstacles, like having some with multiple openings so that you have to plan further ahead. Nice job!
This was a neat take on the theme, and I liked the sleeping sound effects. I think it was a little too easy to just sit in the center the whole time, it might help to have more long-range hazards that you have to go out and deal with (like the dog/alarms, but spawning further away from the bed). Nice work though!
I really enjoyed this! The circles of hell-themed levels were really nice, and it was neat how they each had their own scenery. I really appreciated how missing a letter didn't make you instantly lose, but just added a new mechanic of enemies to avoid once you got to the late game. The progression felt very good, as you had to go further and further each time, and having the 666 letter from the very beginning made the payoff for winning feel really satisfying. Awesome entry!
I really liked the stock graph and how it visually showed when it was time to buy or sell. I think some kind of positive feedback would be helpful, like a happy noise when you sell at the right time and an angry noise when you do the wrong option. Also, allowing you to choose how much stock to buy/sell on any given round could be fun, so that can gamble it all on one purchase if you so desire. Nice work!
Neat idea, and I like the variety of villagers each with their own name and dialogue. There's definitely lots of cool directions you could take this for a post-jam version (maybe have the villagers give hints about what you need to do to stop the dragon?). Nice work!
Great title, and the opening zoom sequence combined with the music was epic! Overall great audio, and really nice pixel art animation. Definitely just needs a little more time to develop the gameplay, e.g. giving more attack options when you swipe in different directions, and some variety of enemies. Great work!
The graphics are amazing all around - I'm really impressed how you made a bunch of simple sky-scraper graphics come together to make such a cool skyline effect (also the LD50 is a nice touch). The particle effects are also really well developed given this is all done in pygame. The music sets the mood nicely, and I like how it's always synced up with the sunset progression. The game feel is great, especially the kunai physics. The gameplay itself is fun, but I think it could use a greater variety of enemy types to mix up the strategy. It was also really hard; I think it would have been nice if the shooting enemies moved around a bit horizontally, so that there was some way to hit them without a kunai getting stuck at the edge on a bad bounce. The fact you lose all your charges when you get hit was also a bit unforgiving, because if it happened near the middle of the day there wasn't always time to recover; maybe deducting some fixed amount each time could work? Overall though this was super polished and really fun, nice job!
Thanks everyone for all the great feedback!
@jeremy-ryan I think you're right that defaulting to "Continue Straight" instead of "Recalculating" after each turn would be more intuitive, so the car doesn't turn unless you tell it to. Indicating the planned movement is also a good idea; I was initially planning to add a turn signal animation to provide more warning of upcoming turns, but ran out of time to implement. Thanks for the feedback, and nice job getting 154 minutes!
@toppervideogames Yeah, a mini-map would definitely have been helpful, or maybe starting with the level zoomed out all the way before focusing on the car. Thanks for the suggestion!
@zimny11 Sorry the controls weren't super clear! You use the arrow keys to indicate which direction the car should try to move in the world frame, rather than in the car's reference frame. So if the car is driving to the right of the map and you want to make a left turn, you should press the up key. I actually had originally started with the car-relative control scheme, but it was a lot harder to keep track of while playing.
I really like the idea behind this! Definitely curious what it would have looked like with a bit more time.
This was really fun! You did a great job of giving the "doomed last stand" vibe, between the music and the swarms coming in from all sides. I liked the variety of turrets and enemies, and I think the money drops were great for making me leave the shelter of my base regularly whenever there was a lull in the attacking wave. A potentially easier control scheme could be clicking to place a turret, and just changing which turret type is selected with either the scroll wheel or the number keys. This was a great entry, nice work!
This was a cool take on the theme! The story was really well-developed and I really liked how the relationship with death went from adversaries to old friends. The graphics look great, and the music fits the story pretty well. The gameplay was a neat take on Tetris, although the left-over boxes were pretty hard to make use of. Great work!
I liked having to split focus between the fighter and wizard, although the optimal strategy seemed to be abandoning all the houses except one next to the wizard, so that the fighter only needed to guard one spot. I also really liked how the chaos bolt spell looked. Seeing which spell was coming up next was helpful, but because of their similarity it didn't affect gameplay much; having some more variety of effects could be interesting. Overall a fun concept and nice execution, great work!
I really liked the puzzles! Definitely took me a bit to get the hang of it, but I was able to get through them all eventually. The aesthetic was simple, but still made it clear what all the different blocks were. One minor nitpick is that falling into the pit should just automatically undo your most recent step, rather than making you click through the warning screen after your try to move again. I had a lot of fun playing this, nice work!
This was a cool experience! The pixel art looks really nice, and the bell ringing felt so ominous after we'd been told what it meant. I definitely thought the running through the forest part was going to turn into a neat little minigame, but I know given the time constraints that would have been a lot to add. Great work!
The sound effects are nice, and I like the map with lots of different obstacle shapes. The camera tracking where you aim was also well done. I think it would be cool to add some knock-back effects to the guns, and maybe even a bit of recoil for the shotgun. More variety of enemies could also be neat, e.g. flying enemies that can go over obstacles, or enemies with a ranged attack, so that they wouldn't all tend to clump together as much when chasing the player. Overall this was a fun zombie shooter, nice work!
I really like the music! The rotating effects for the planet/asteroids looked really good and 3-dimensional, and there was a nice variety of powerups to keep things interesting. It might have been neat to try letting the powerups keep building up over time instead of expiring, so that there's more of a sense of progression. It was still a fun experience though, nicely done!
Really neat idea, and definitely a relatable struggle. The castle looks really cool, and I like all the different versions as it succumbs to the waves. The overlapping wave effects also looked good. Like a couple other commenters have mentioned it would be nice if the effect of the sand breaks was clearer, but it was still a cool experience. Nice work!
This was a neat boss battle, I liked all the different boss phases/attack patterns! The sound effects were nice, and the music really set a kind of mysterious/ominous tone. Mixing up the arena terrain might have helped force the player to jump around more, as it was I definitely just stayed on the ground most of the fight and took advantage of my attack range. Overall this was really well-executed, great work!
This was a neat concept! It took a couple tries to figure out the mechanics, but after that it was pretty fun. Is there any way to know what the ability options will be at each node in advance, or do you just have to try all of them? I think this would be really cool with more levels and some audio. Great work!
I enjoyed the spookiness of the game, and the different camera effects were really neat. The enemy location swapping mechanic was pretty innovative, although it would be cool if there were some harmless enemies mixed in as well, so you could keep track of where they went as safe locations. I think the items and ghosts/monster children you have to interact with were sometimes hard to tell apart from generic monsters/obstacles, it might be nice to give them a bright outline or something to visually distinguish them. Overall I really liked this entry, great work!
This was a fun word game! It was more challenging than I expected, given that only a single letter is fixed. I appreciated that you couldn't keep repeating the same words, so it effectively got more difficult over time. The interface and audio was simple but effective. Great work!
This was hilarious, nice work! I really liked the animation style, and the camera effects were really nice (especially the ultimate ability), although some of the effects could have been sped up a bit. The enemy with the separate head was also a really neat concept. Overall a very silly but fun entry!
The graphics are amazing! I especially like the background scenery and the grapple animation. The tutorial was really nicely integrated, and the gameplay felt very intuitive. There was also some depth to it, like by the end I was learning to grapple things while still being launched upwards, rather than waiting until things stabilized. I think the music could have been more intense/fast-paced, or even gradually increased in intensity as you got higher up, but on the flip side it was nice and relaxing which helps combat the frustration of missing a platform. Overall a worthy sequel to last time. Great work!
Thank you everybody for all the great feedback!
Definitely the most common piece of advice was to increase the amount the player can see, either by increasing the rate of lightning flashes (@william-derksen @jeremy-ryan @deepfreeze @n4tticus) or making the screen bigger (@rashcan @deepfreeze). Balance-wise, my intent going in was that the game should be beatable even without any lightning flashes by repeatedly dying until the level was memorized, and I had hoped that the frequent checkpoints would make that a little less frustrating. I think it is important not to provide too much lighting - I want the player to have to take the occasional blind leap of faith into the darkness, or run into a monster where they aren't expecting one. That said, I think a combination of a slightly higher frequency (maybe 7 seconds?) and a slightly larger/zoomed out screen could make for a more enjoyable experience.
The other common pain point was the non-deterministic enemy behavior, especially for the spider level (@jeremy-ryan @ninjacreeper47). My intent there was to prevent the player from memorizing the enemy patterns, and instead have to see the enemies as they reach the edge of the player's light bubble and react quickly. I think the best solution here might be to keep the non-deterministic behavior but make the light bubble a little bigger and/or the enemies a little slower so it is easier to dodge in time. For what it's worth, the spider level is winnable from either spawn direction, but you need to run towards the spider initially, stop outside its patrol range, and then wait for it to come into view and follow it once it turns around.
The anglerfish-inspired "lamp" generated mixed reactions, but the majority seem to have enjoyed it so I'll consider it a success.
@deepfreeze I agree adding a dedicated jump button would be a good idea, it never hurts to give people more options.
@ninjacreeper47 I think some kind of screenshot is necessary to get people intrigued enough to play the game, but I agree it's a bit of a spoiler and I might try replacing it with a version without any monsters visible as a compromise.
@n4tticus I'm glad to see you and the monster are getting along so well!
Most of all though, I'm super happy about all the positive feedback on the atmosphere/music/visuals! This is my first attempt at a "horror" game, and my main goal was to give it that scary aspect (especially the initial lightning flash). I'm really glad to hear that people liked the effect.
Thanks for playing!
This was a really neat concept! I really liked how sometimes it's best to be sneaky, but other times you really just need to run for your life. The fields of view and lighting were really nicely done, and the drone AI makes it feel like they are actually all going about some unknown tasks. I'm still curious if the pink drones do anything special. I think balance-wise it would be good if the pings increased in frequency over time, to add a bit of a difficulty curve. It could also be cool if running when you're too close to the drones would lead to them sounding an alarm and putting down a ping for the enforcers. Overall I think this has a lot of potential, and I'd be super excited to see it developed further!
The controls were a bit buggy (mouse aiming was glitchy and the game over menu didn't work for me), but it was still really fun! I liked how the level terrain changed each level, and the variety of different weapons. The player movement was a little too fast though, which made it hard to control where they were going. Nice work!
I really liked this concept, and overall the graphics, music, and sound effects were very nice! The angry manager was also funny. However, I think this game really needs some kind of tutorial or more detailed instructions - I'm not a barista or coffee drinker, and I had no idea how to make any of the recipes even with the recipe guide. I still had a lot of fun though, great work!
This was really fun! The music was super groovy, and the field of view effects and enemy AI were nicely done. The teleporting was a fun twist, although I wish the frequency was higher (I know this was limited by the theme). This one is also really fun to play with 2 people, one controlling the mouse and the other controlling the teleport location. Great work!
I really liked the concept of slightly changing the physics and switching around a few platforms every 10s, so you need to wait for the right world to make progress. I think the player felt a little slow and floaty, which could be fixed by just scaling up the speed and gravity a bit. The combat could also be sped up a bit, e.g. making the gun fire much faster, making the player's bullets travel faster, having more enemies but with less health, etc, so that you don't have to spend more than a couple seconds standing still shooting at any one target. The AI art was beautiful and and really made each world feel super immersive. It would be nice to change the text color for higher contrast, depending on the world. Great work!
I really liked this idea! I wish the game had gone on longer and increased in difficulty, so there would be more need to get the rhythms right rather than just making everything shoot once every few beats. The graphics are simple but look really nice, and the sound effects are great (especially how the sound changes when more turrets are firing). Great entry!
This was a great mix of addicting and infuriating! I really liked the gear graphics, and it was neat how the music incorporating a ticking noise reminiscent of clockwork. I think it was too easy to just wait 10 seconds for the direction to change, so it would be cool to make a level where you need to combo multiple transitions in a row before the direction switches back. Nice work!
This was fun! I liked the alternating run and fighting phases, although it would be nice to have some obstacles so that there is more strategy about where to go during the run phase. The rapid shooting speed and sound effect is really satisfying, and overall the graphics were simple but nice. Great work!
This was really fun! There was a great variety of cheating options to discover (and the list was neat/helpful), although maybe a penalty for using the same one too often would be a good way to make players mix it up. The music was also really groovy, and the facial expressions were a nice touch. Great work!
This was a cool idea! I liked the feel of orders appearing everywhere, but you might want to add a check that they don't overlap the player or it makes it hard to see what's going on. It would also be nice if there was no delay between picking up drinks, otherwise it's too easy to get the wrong number. All of the patrons milling around set the feel really nicely. Great work!
This was a neat concept, it seems like this could be turned into a cool tool for learning to identify birds if the typing was replaced with some kind of multiple choice. I really liked the bird artwork, but I think typos were punished kind of harshly, and the lack of a sound effect made it easy to not realize you had messed up until it was too late. Great work!
Great variety of puzzles! It would have been nice to have some kind of checkpoints, so you don't have to keep replaying all the old levels if you mess up on the new ones (especially if you keep adding more levels in a post-jam version). Graphics were simple but clean, and the music fits the game really well. Nice work!
Thanks for playing! @krynxx There actually is a 3rd layer, but it's a pain to get to if you don't upgrade the buildings (right click on the circles and the roads). The message about how to upgrade is really easy to miss unfortunately, I was planning to make it persist until you upgraded something but ran out of time.
A really fun city-building game! I liked how the island placement synergized with the different building types (e.g. using long skinny pieces for the piers), although by the end it felt like there was kind of an optimal strategy (criss-crossing houses/fields, diagonally spaced mines, and piers extending from the edges). The pixel art was really well-drawn, and the ambient ocean sounds made the experience feel very tranquil. Great work!
This was a very cool experience! I like how there's such a wide variety of possible solutions for each problem, and it was a lot of fun getting to exercise some creativity. I think the main thing missing were some ease-of-use features, e.g. copy-pasting parts, an undo button, resizing parts, etc., otherwise a lot of time is spent maxing out the stiffness and max-length sliders on all 10 of your springs, and it's hard to make minor adjustments in between runs without rebuilding the whole machine. This was still definitely a unique experience, and I had a ton of fun playing. Great work!
This was super creative and a lot of fun! I really appreciated how you used words with thematic significance; combined with the hopeful music it really made the game feel immersive and uplifting, like each level was its own little story. The artwork was simple but fit the vibe well, and the particle/glow effects and screen-shake were nice touches. The puzzles were fun and a good difficulty level - not too obvious (unless meant as a tutorial) but still solvable in a few attempts. The one improvement I could think of is having more of an overarching storyline as you progress through the puzzles, rather than just a constant theme throughout, but that would be pretty difficult on a 48-hour timeline. Overall this was excellent and I really enjoyed playing. Amazing work!
I really enjoyed this! The puzzle mechanics are pretty standard, but having to feel out the shape of the level made it very engaging. I think the sound effects (and the graphic effects) when moving into things were nicely implemented. The instructions were also very clear and the levels gradually added new mechanics in a really easy-to-learn way. Great work!
This was quite an experience! I appreciated how the early levels acted like a tutorial, so that I understood what was happening by the time things really went off the rails. My main complaint is the text on the power-ups was hard to read once they started moving, some combination of higher contrast, larger font, or different colors for good vs bad ones would be helpful - by the end I was just highlighting the whole screen and looking to see if the score change would be positive or negative before releasing. Overall I thought this was a really creative and humorous entry, nice work!
Great premise, upbeat music, and simple but clean graphics! The puzzles were enjoyable, although it would definitely be cool to see more if you had more time, especially at higher difficulties. Overall great work for a game jam entry!
Between the graphics and music, this game has a really nice vibe! I think the flight controls were pretty intuitive, although it would be cool for the camera to rotate with the ship so the control directions stay lined up. The cutscene in the beginning was also really neat and made asteroid mining feel like it was of great importance. Great work!
This was a really neat take on Tetris! The graphics were simple but clean, and I especially liked the twirling animation when jumping. The platforming also felt really smooth, making it easy to focus on block placement. I think the one issue is that after getting used to the platforming it basically just becomes Tetris with slightly harder controls, so it would be nice if the platforming was more central to the gameplay - maybe there could be power-ups to collect to slow down/destroy blocks? Overall this was a creative idea that was really well executed. Great work!
This was amazing! The combo mechanics are really addicting, and the game makes great use of time slow-downs and particle effects. The variety of cube types adds variety and a bit of strategy as well. The voice lines were also great and the sound effects felt really satisfying. Awesome entry!
This was a very neat idea, I feel like I actually learned a bit about how compression works from playing! The execution is really polished between the level select screen, high scores, and ability to share custom levels. Definitely a bit more of a tutorial would be helpful, and I was really hoping there would be some kind of overarching storyline or twist revealed by the text snippets (especially since the first couple levels seemed to be hinting in that direction), but given the time constraints this was still really impressive. Awesome work!
This was a neat concept! I really liked the way the meteors looked, and all of the screen-shake and strobing effects were nicely done. The music was really pleasant to listen to, although some of the sound effects felt a bit jarring in comparison (I liked the meteor impact sound though). I think the way the shield became a smaller target as your health decreased was a really nice self-balancing mechanic. One thing that could've been added is more of a difficulty curve - it seemed pretty constant up until the impossible shower at the end. Also not sure if it's a bug, but there was no game over - the meteor shower just continues forever after I die (my score reached 40,000+ before I closed the window). Overall I really enjoyed the game, great work!
I like the idea of this game a lot, but the input could use some improvement. If you tap too slowly or quickly you can't go fast enough, and as a result I spent most of my time trying to get through puzzles after I had already figured out the solution. Other commenters have suggested switching to a continuous input, but another option would be to make it rhythm-based and have some kind of visual indicator for when you should tap (see Crypt of the Necrodancer for a good example). This way the player still feels time pressure and can't afford to make any wrong moves, but also has an indication of the correct timing so they don't just have to guess. Otherwise I really liked it, the graphics were simple but clean, and the puzzles were creative and varied. Nice work!
Really creative concept! The board speech was hilarious, and the mechanic of drawing bounding boxes made for interesting gameplay. I think later in the game it got to a point where I was moon + planet-limited and just waiting for contracts to expire regardless of how I drew the boxes, so it might be worth adding some logic to ensure the contracts are theoretically possible, but overall the balance seemed pretty good. One other feature to add would be a button to speed up the text rate during the dialogue. The art was also very well-drawn, I really liked how you did the moon and planets. Great work!
This was a neat concept! I enjoyed the puzzles, and I think the sound effects were well done - I especially liked the rising pitches as you open more doors. I wish there was a way to tell which switches affected which doors though (e.g. switches a/b/c would open doors A/B/C etc). Great work!
I really liked the variety and balance of the different summons, it was a lot of fun just to see which compositions would win against each other. I think one potential issue is that the fact different units counter each other means there's an incentive to wait until after your opponent commits, which can leave you both waiting for the full countdown every time, but I'm not sure there's any good solution to that. The music is mellow and pleasant, and sets the tone as a bunch of friends rough housing rather than a fight to the death. The hopping/bouncing animations are really effective at maintaining the upbeat tone, and the UI was intuitive. The descriptions are also pretty hilarious. Overall this was a super cute and fun entry. Great work!
This is a really neat concept and the gameplay/music felt very relaxing. I do think it's a little challenging that if you get off by one square without noticing your entire map can end up incorrect. I really liked how you used the color filters to show the day/night cycle. Nice work!
I'm really impressed you managed to make a whole tower defense game! I liked how there were a lot of different paths, but because you can place towers overlapping it was easier for me to just defend the point at the end where they all come together. I think adding descriptions of the different towers would also make it easier to play strategically. I really liked the music, especially the menu theme. It was a bit abrupt when the menu music cut out though, it might help to add a fade effect. Overall great entry!
I appreciated the tutorial levels at the beginning to help get used to the mechanics. I think the earth and life summoners were less interesting because their location didn't matter much, but you still managed to make a lot of neat puzzles. Nice work!
Really neat entry! I like the pixel art style a lot, especially the backgrounds, and I think the enemy summoning mechanic has a lot of potential. There were a couple gameplay bugs, like the ranged enemies shooting through walls or weird hit boxes (e.g. when two slimes collide), but the core mechanics seemed solid and the momentum when moving felt really nice. I also appreciated the in-game tutorial, but wish it didn't make you keep replaying it after the first time. Overall though great work!
A simple but fun platformer! I really liked the opening cutscene (although I wish it didn't replay every time you respawn) and the animations were great, especially the bats waking up. I didn't really use the avatar because it wasn't worth the guaranteed damage, but if there were stronger or larger swarms of enemies it might become more useful.
This was a really neat idea with excellent implementation! I appreciated the little tutorial images, and the variety of shapes each with their own use. I also really liked the "boss battle" at the end, although it took me a while to realize that I was supposed to keep hitting it after it turned off the first time. The glowing effects made the graphics look really good even though they're relatively simple, and the music was calm and eerie in a way that I liked. Great work!
Peaceful music, polished graphics, and relaxing gameplay with lots of hidden references. This game was a really enjoyable experience and a much cozier vibe than most entries. The technical aspects of the nesting and pixel-perfect collision checking were also well-executed. I wish there were more levels with increasing difficulty, but given the amount of art needed this was already super impressive for a compo entry. Well done!
I love the absurd premise, and it's pretty awesome to see all of these furniture towers climbing into the sky. I also really like how the variety of furniture types allows a lot of creativity in how people design their towers. The furniture placement controls took a little time to get used to, but that was partly just due to my computer being slow. The Dies irae style music and the smoky sky really set the scene so you can never forget where you are trying to escape from. Great work!