pauljohnprogramming

Strontium Submergence by Lintfordpickle 2021-10-17T01:41:30Z

Graphically, this game is easily one of the best, and the sounds work great too so that's a plus. Enemy bullets are hard to see, given that they are small, fast moving, and visually outshone by other things in the scene. I would highly recommend making enemy bullets the most saturated, flashy, and highest layer things on the screen. The coolant mechanic seems important but I'm not aware of what it does, or what happens if you deplete it, as even when trying to get hit quickly to rapidly drain it, the player's health depletes first. That said, your game is an otherwise very solid shoot-em-up experience. Good job.

Midnight Maintenance by Tattomoosa 2021-10-04T03:51:43Z

Lmao at the signs. This is a pretty fun game. Like it's a simple concept but the little things are dope. For example the ominous red lighting of the power plant in the distance, the scene with the signs, the gradual buildup in intensity and difficulty. And it's short and sweet.

P.S. You're good at establishing a horror tone despite having comedic elements. That's pretty rare and a skill to cherish.

Optimal Path by nate_wec 2021-10-17T01:04:05Z

The concept is cool. Scouting out things on your way down, essentially taking note of the level's puzzle, so that you can optimally path back up to the surface is a neat idea. One thing you should absolutely do however, is reorder the planets so that the ice planet is the first. Not only is it much simpler and harder to screw up, but the first level is not possible to progress in unless you have the mining upgrade from completing a different level first. That probably explains some of the other comments. Also, I guessed that 'R' was to restart the level, but that's something everyone should know. That said, is there a way to get more robots? I have a hard time imagining that I can get 15 crystals in one trip to the surface without additional bots. In any case, good job and the concept of planning while descending to solve it while ascending does have a lot of promise.

Mountain of Might by ArBe 2021-10-04T00:23:30Z

I love the intro and download description, lmao. The graphics are perfectly minimalist but the sprites read incredibly well and you picked a good choice for the aesthetic. Audio is punchy and crisp. And the idea is exactly as you say, but well executed. I do wish more rocks fell during the fight, just so I could see people get launched, but maybe they do after level 4. Nice job man.

From World 1, With Love by Kapricorn Media 2021-10-06T06:07:00Z

As everyone else mentioned, the art style is amazing. Plus I appreciate the hard work in making the scrolling text continuous despite the discontinuous shapes it has to map onto. That said, I do wish it was more obvious when something was unsavable, despite the fact that that's probably against the point of the game. The reason I mention this is because if you get it almost frame perfect, you can save the snake in an early level, yet you cannot save the bird in the very next level, even though it really looks like you can. That said, aside from the difficulty, the game is beautiful and quite effective at its message so it was worth powering through.

ShakyShaky by Arash Ghorban 2021-10-04T00:00:18Z

Hey, this is an awesome concept. It's especially appealing to me because I love card games where I can "conditionally overdraw" aka choose between playing a couple safe cards or playing a much more powerful combination with negative side effects. As feedback, I would probably tie the stability to the cards themselves instead of tying it to time. E.g. Each card has a "instability" value and stronger cards have higher instability. If you play too many cards at once the player will take damage. That encourages players to think if maybe it's still worth it. But in terms of a quick fix, I recommend increasing the "unstability's" drop rate, as I was able to play my full hand and never have to worry about it even getting close to zero. But seriously, good job. A card game is incredibly ambitious for a Compo, and you nailed the framework. Plus, your concept really has potential. Overall, awesome.

The Robotic Savior by Rolly 2021-10-04T01:19:28Z

Yoooo, this game is dope, initially, I was skeptical of all the controls, but the more I played the more I realized how **open** the game was. Like, there were several "Wow" moments: When you hit the second level and see how large the levels can be. When you bump something and realize the entire level is destructable. And when you start to understand the rhythm of the constantly changing ruleset. Absolutely, fantastic, great job!

Also, I love levitating on a telekitically pulled block. It's a dope feature.

Cliff swinger by very high ping 2021-10-17T21:48:27Z

This is a pretty dope game. And to the players, here are some tips so that you too can get a 79+ score with some practice: * Having trouble grappling? Click one boulder below where you're trying to hit. * Stuck under a rock? Rapidly click to the left of your character to slide left, and vice versa. * Launching off the sides? Generally you want to keep grapples mostly vertical, but you can also re-grapple when you're close to your boulder to get rid of momentum.

If you can master those three things, you should be able to get 40+ pretty consistently, and then 80+ with some practice. Good Luck!

Critters by BeasRabbit 2021-10-04T03:36:25Z

Aww, this is incredibly cute. I played for about 15 minutes and fully decorated my critter's pad. He seems very happy. And the game is surprisingly fully featured, having everything I would expect from a Tamagotchi-esque idea. I agree with Myles that having the currently selected slot be darkened would help with navigation. For the first 5 minutes I thought the slot to select things was the bottom, hahaha. Regardless, it nails the aesthetic and if I wasn't paying attention, I could easily lose track of time with this game. Very, very nice.

Sanity Is Reality by MCHS productions 2021-10-17T02:10:33Z

I agree with a lot of the comments here, the game has a lot of neat content under the surface. And it gets surprisingly scary. BUT, it takes way too long for any of that stuff to trigger. Players can comfortably get to 40+ score with their health maxed out, and it takes about 40 seconds of deliberately touching the basic ghosts for anything to start happening. Think about it like this, if you have a bait-and-switch esque game, you can't have 80% of the time be the "bait", especially when it is very basic and the "switch" has all the content. I recommend highly increasing the sanity drain over time, and making the thresh hold for when things start to happen at 70%. These two changes should ensure that players encounter the meat of the game, and engage with it for most of the play time. Very cool concept.

Shrodingor Unstablor Borgor by Tata_Yoz 2021-10-06T04:07:58Z

I have no idea what anyone is saying but it made me and others lol. 10/10

Euro Drunk Simulator by Tardif Adrian 2021-10-17T22:00:03Z

It's a pretty dope game, aside from the optimization, it's a fun short little experience, and to be honest, that's everything I want in a Ludum Dare game. One thing that could be cool is if the seats break down after a while, so the kids can now yeet towards the camera for even more chaos. Nice job.

The Worm by Debone 2021-10-04T00:09:20Z

This game is dope, and incredibly hard to master! Hahaha. The graphics and simple but clean and appealing, and it's an incredibly original take on the theme. Nice.

SteamScale by The crane 2021-10-04T04:06:31Z

From your screenshot, the game seems incredibly interesting, unfortunately, I've never used construct 3, so I don't know how to open the game.

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-04T04:56:42Z

@doc-kaos Hahaha, I don't know how to port gamemaker stuff to Mac without, y'know, getting a Mac virtual machine set up, let alone the rest of the process. So, I'm sorry.

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-04T04:57:09Z

@cratthew Aight, I'll release a patch after work tomorrow.

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-04T12:37:53Z

@the-lame-brain Would that I could, haha. Initially I planned for a 30 second sequence of rooms where it teaches you each of the controls, but I didn’t manage my time well on the second day and had to cut it. But it’s great feedback and motivation to better manage time. Since I agree that a introductory sequence would benefit the game. P.S, did you know that the boss’s current sprite was actually supposed to be for the tutorial guy, but nearing the deadline he got a promotion, haha. In any case, thanks for the feedback.

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-04T12:48:08Z

@bloodyaugust Yoooo, thanks for the feedback. Given that Ludum Dare submissions are time-constrained attempts at expressing a game idea, it’s dope to read that players like you guys “get” what the game is trying to do.

Regarding the game exe in a zip file, that’s actually already a thing. If you click the .Zip link on the itch.io page, it is exactly what you’re talking about. My bad, I probably should have named it “zipped game” and not just source code, lmao

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-06T08:17:47Z

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback! I've pushed an update that should solve most bugs, and I *think* I know what's causing the bug noticed by @vectrex28. My hunch is that improper clean up of the surfaces is causing the surface variables' pointers to be misaligned. But regardless, I couldn't have done it without your guys' help, so thanks again.

Unstable Gun Fishing by pauljohnprogramming 2021-10-17T01:44:23Z

@zimny11 Hahhaha, thanks I totally forgot to remove the .exe in the itch.io page. Thanks, and credited.