Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → penguindustin
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | A Barren Land | jam | 1100 | 2.69 | 2.57 | 2.45 | 2.02 | 1.58 | 2.97 |
The art and music were pretty good. The wall jump mechanic wasn't very intuitive and I got stuck on level 5. Bugged out twice with the lava glitching the board so it stopped moving and then glitching the character on a different time. Adding a little extra head room would make the game feel less cramped.
As soon as it clicked how to play it was really fun! The mouse turning felt a little too high and it was sometimes hard to find the next shell in the progression. Once you get past the first few bits and get a weapon you felt like a beast!
Liked the graphics and the menus. Using only arrow keys felt unintuitive, supporting both is usually the way to go because people typically never touch the arrow keys for games (or at least for me). Hitting escape unituitively closed the game instead of opening the pause menu. Loved the little sound bites and particle effects when colliding. Would be great if there were some simple AI that just randomly moved. I didn't really understand why if I hit the blocks too many times in the level it would sometimes shrink me instead of grow me.
For some reason, the disclaimer in the description made me think that the sound of the boxes had anything to do with gameplay and i was frustrated that I enabled the music and couldn't turn it off. I realized later that it didn't matter for the music based on the gameplay. After figuring out a method to easily determine what weight each box was, it felt like there was no reason to keep playing other than get more credits/jokes. There never felt like I was building up towards an "end". I only used the scanner for a little and I think it hinted that it could do more but all I saw was getting the weight. It would be cool if the scanner changed the gameplay loop somehow.
Really surprised at how big the word was! I like that you had to learn to use the powerups to get out after you get them. Didn't like the leap of faith before the last powerup, it felt cheap to put lava there without the player knowing. Some of the jumps you had to be pretty precise with your double jump to get up on. If the jump was a little faster or more easier to be consistent it would be less of an issue. I got stuck on a animation loop which i think might have been another end game screen?
Music and FX were top of the line in this one. Controls were straightforward. It wasn't obvious from the start that I needed to collect the orbs maybe because they were purple which feels like a color to avoid (think like poison). I really liked how the music went in line with the arena too. It felt like there was a weird balancing act between having to avoid collecting things and waiting to grow smaller so you can collect more and just trying to stay alive since there were a ton of spikes being kicked out at you. These two contrasting gameplay didn't feel like they meshed 100%. Would be interesting to see the game progress by having new maps as you level up to spice things up.
Could not run.
Very fun puzzler! I got around 140 a few times. I could definitely see this being fleshed out, slowly progressing by increasing the size of the plate, the types of symbols and effects, and different shapes.
I think I got into an endless loop and didn't really know how to get out/reach the end. The pacing of text feels like an explosion/visual novel but without all the bells and whistles that reward you as you read it. I thought it was interesting how it progressed based on the choices. Leaning more into the puzzle/mystery might have made it more enjoyable for me.
Interesting art direction. Couldn't solve a lot of the puzzles and stopped when I got submerged.
The changing of the rooms was flipped in my mind all the way until the very end of the game. The arrows felt like it was an elevator and everytime I wanted to go up, I would "go down". At the middle of the game I realized you are changing the rooms around you, not yourself, but still it would make sense in my mind if the arrows for up and down were flipped. Had to restart the first time because an bugged out beneath another item and I couldn't move it. The sensitivity default was too high! The switch to change rooms should have been in front so you can see the rooms move up and down isntead of looking away from it. One of the trophies got swapped with a book and was stuck for the longest time due to how big it was. The knife would always be jittery all the time. Alarm clock felt like it should have been next to the bed, and the "toilet paper" that needed to be placed next to the toilet looked like a roll of paper towels and didn't match the other "toilet paper" in the bathroom. It was an interesting experience and felt like it might have been improved if there were some light puzzles sprinkled in, otherwise it just feels like a scavenger hunt which imo isn't all that interesting.
I chose not to rate this because i definitely am not the target audience. I will be honest and got to the first choice and was already exhausted from reading. Mind you, i am an avid reader and read multiple books so that wasn't the issue. I think the first initial hook for choices needs to be earlier if this is meant to be a sort of "choose your own adventure/visual novel" like game. Visual Novels can get away with lots of text because at any one moment there is at most 2 or 3 sentences on the screen, paced with visuals and music which this is lacking. I would love to try this again if that gets added in the future because Visual novels and stories are so great. Even better, I would probably read just the text version of the story by itself, but in it's current form I couldn't get to the end sadly.
Theming was interesting. It was a little hard to tell which unit I was controlling, change the outlines to a slightly more contrasted color might have been helpful.
Loved the music and art! At first I was going to complain about how the levels felt so different, some levels were way easier than others as you get farther and then I reread the description and found out it was randomly generated. For puzzle games like this, hand crafting the levels might be more enjoyable, it defintely felt like there was a sense of progression when you figure out certain tricks on how to illuminate certain areas. My favorite puzzle was one where the solution required placing two lights right next to each other which i would never have thought of.
Cute!! The game felt a little laggy and the collision boxes felt off in a lot of places. I would hover the watering can between 2 spaces and it would water neither of them. Loved the music and slimeee!
My first Ludum Dare Game Jam game!
Some things I'd love to improve/learn how to better do: - manage UI screens/buttons - better event/unlock system
Some things I'd do differently for next game jam: - focus on the interactive mechanic/loop first - don't have a "dynamic" UI - SFX and music
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I updated the description so it's more clear that you reached the end.
@chimney-eggs yup that's the cliffhanger.