Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Pixel Game Wizard
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Runnerbot LD39Entry | jam | 299 | 3.54 | 3.32 | 2.85 | 3.80 | 3.32 | 2.62 | 2.89 |
Good game!
The audio is great!
The graphics are so pretty. The only criticism I could possibly offer is that... they're too good, I feel so bad not looking at them while I'm playing! :-O
I thought the obstacle that you jump over blends in a lot with the background. Caused me to run into it a lot. Would it be possible to make it stand out a bit more?
Overall this is a great entry. Good job!
Thanks for this game! I think overall it's fun. I think the map is well-designed. It takes a bit of figuring out and I find I can get immersed in trying to find my way.
Personally, I found the path-finding to be acceptable, because I only wanted to move short distances at a time. So the path-finding you mentioned in your post did not bother me at all. :-)
I also liked the behaviour of the robots once they saw you because: a) It's exciting, and b) it's possible to run away and eventually lose them if you choose your path carefully.
There was one question I found myself asking frequently during my play: How can I know what areas the robots can see? Are the thin grey things glass that they can see through? Can they see past the diagonal blocks in the middle? If you're thinking of taking this game farther (and if the following idea is compatible with your vision for the game), then I think having a visual cue of some kind (maybe spotlights or lighting tiles?) might be helpful. Just a thought though!
Anyway, was fun! Very happy to have played it. :-)
I loved the feel of this game. I got vibes from Slenderman, but also a nice retro kind of feel to it... Kind of like those old DOS games back when 3D games with mazes were starting to become a thing.
And I loved how the forest changed layout as you explored. X-D
It took forever for me to get oriented to pick up items or use charging stations (see @cornelia-xaos comment above). The last two charging stations I got to wouldn't even activate... Could it be some kind of a collision box issue...?
I also agree with other players that the waiting for the phone to charge does feel strange. I get that you don't intend for players to charge to full. Maybe you can think of another way to go about that? Maybe put a cap on the amount of power each station can give/fill up to? (Maybe they're generators with a fixed amount of power?)
Overall an interesting game, great atmosphere to it. I hope you can get the item interaction to work, that was my main trouble. :-)
First of all, thank you for this game. :-) I liked the overall ambiance of the game.
I agree with Aircraft Terrier above that it was a bit hard in general to understand what was going on, especially with the pixelation. There was one or two cases where I had to try random items to try to get a result (I'm still not entirely sure I understand what the toothbrush did, but I know I used it?). There were others I picked up on right away, like vacuuming the dust and using that on the canvas (?) to reveal the writing. I never ran out of power though, so I guess it didn't matter in the end as far as getting through to the end. :-)
Overall, impressive work!
I was impressed right off the bat by the option of changing the difficulty!
I liked the art (although I get the impression you had plans to do more with graphics, it still looks nice :-) ).
The controls were simple and straightforward, also good. I could get playing without too much trouble.
I felt a lot like the combat was a war of attrition. The robots seemed to take a long time to bring down even on the easier difficulties. I found I wanted to just run past them altogether because I had a hard time liking the combat. The difficulty, as far as I could tell, affected firing rates and maybe my robot's health... but I can't be too sure.
The health bars (energy?) were small so it was hard to see what was going on.
I was confused a bit by the staircase. All the walls are represented by black lines, so when I first saw the staircase (also represented by black lines) I thought it was just part of the wall. Eventually I figured it out though.
Overall I agree with other posters above that you should be proud of this game, it is indeed an accomplishment!
I got as far as I could. I had to stop on level 5 (shrink rays). I was able to get both buttons pressed down with the two metal blocks, but I couldn't find any new places to go.
The game is fun. It's a really cool idea, and I can see you running far with it.
The graphics are adorable.
The robot is a bit hard to control, but I think that's part of the fun. It would have been nice if I could attach parts rigidly to the robot (also so their position in the grid served more of a purpose).
The physics sometimes behaved a bit wonky. I found that the metal crates would slide around... perhaps a bit too much.
Overall I think this is great and has a lot of potential. I had fun playing it. Good work!
- Simple predictable controls = good. - Very strong atmosphere. - Graphics are good. - Audio is very fitting to the mood. - I'm very glad there are checkpoints, I think it would spoil the mood if the game had to be started over.
I don't really have much to add to what others have said. Good job!
Definitely takes me back to old point-and-click adventures. I actually really liked this entry.
I was able to figure out what to do based on the description.
I loved the art! It made me smile. :-)
The humour was good too! I also liked the meta stuff if you failed (or succeeded!)
Yeah mapping the islands isn't too fun. A map would probably help to avoid trial & error, make it feel a bit more like a puzzle.
Overall fun! Thank you for sharing this! :-)
Your game, artistically and technically, is quite nice. The visuals are generally beautiful (the enemies . The audio is beautiful and fitting. I really like the option to input a seed. :-D
The gameplay does feel a bit strange to me. I start out and wander for a few seconds to get my bearings. Then before I know it I find myself getting swarmed. I did manage to survive about 90 seconds once.
I found item usage a bit awkward... it seemed fairly complex to use them (first press the key, then find a good spot, and click again, then press the key again to disable placement mode). I'd think in a fast-paced game like this, item use should be a bit simpler. Maybe you press the key, and it places a single item at your position?
I find myself agreeing with @thygrrr who made an excellent post above.
Thank you for sharing this. I would be interested to see how it is developed further, if that is your intention. Good luck! :-)
Very neat game. It took quite a few tries before I succeeded.
I found the music a bit annoying at first (maybe it's a bit much at first?), but it eventually grew on me. XD I would say overall it fits really well.
I don't think there's too much to write regarding graphics - they work well. I loved seeing the eagle, the rubber ducks, and the graphical effects for using more of certain power types.
Sometimes the negative events (like nuclear plant or lake polution troubles) don't have a clear trigger. Is it random? Is it intentional?
I saw in the changelog that you have a few effect tweaks. Caution might be warranted there, because as far as I know only bugfixes are allowed. In the interests of full transparency you might want to clarify what exactly was tweaked (perhaps graphical effects?). :-)
Overall great game, was a lot of fun figuring out. :-)
@huvaakoodia
Ah okay! That makes sense. I was getting a bit confused at how the nuclear plant was not consistently reliable/unreliable.
I didn't mean to suggest that there were *illegal* activities of the sort. I figured it was probably along the lines of what you said, though my wording could probably have been a bit better. I just thought the text description should probably be more clear to ease any such worries.
I got the impression that this is a first person driving game with a hint of survival aspect to it. :-D It struck me as being somewhat different, and I actually really liked it!
A lot of the fun for me came from the need to be constantly alert and on the lookout for gas cans. You did a good job of hiding them. It was natural for me to first assume they'd be near piles of big cans and crates, but you designed this game such that it wasn't always the case. :-) And that kept me on my toes. Not every junk pile contained a gas can. Not every gas can was near a junk pile.
Getting out of the car to get gas was a bit awkward because the car might roll away. I think it would have been nice if the car had a parking brake. Though maybe it did and I just didn't find the right key for it.
On that note, a list of controls on this page (or underneath the game in the Web player) might be helpful... just in case future players forget E is for getting in or out of the car. (I did manage to do that. Oops. :-) )
Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed this! Good luck! :-)
Thanks for adding controls descriptions. X-D I appreciate the... detail. :-P
It's a fun game, throwing the head is something I don't think I've seen before. XD
Graphics, audio, gameplay are all nice. Very very impressive given the time constraint. I won't repeat what others have already said, so I'll just say: Really Good job!
I did have a bit of trouble with the head returning. Sometimes it would get caught behind a wall and I'd have no way to combat oncoming enemies. That was a bit frustrating. Thankfully the game is pretty forgiving by having infinite lives. XD
I also thought there were one or two instances where the hitboxes of the bats were a bit... off. Like I was sure I got it, but it survived. I think those instances were on the upper part of the bat?
Anyway, those are fairly small issues. You should be really happy with what you made.
Very retro-style game, I like it. :-)
I love the graphics.
The audio seemed a bit crude, but it fits in with the retro style. As far as I could tell there was a unique sound for each action, and that's pretty important.
The controls were generally straightforward.
Flying over planets did not seem to activate mission related tasks. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think I'm supposed to press the Z-key? At least that seemed to work for me.
While I do like this game, it felt a bit repetitive and it felt like a bunch of fetch-style quests between planets. Most of the time I just tried to avoid enemy ships, and tried to head for stars when I got low on energy. If I got unlucky I wouldn't see any stars and I'd run out of power. Maybe a larger map screen would be helpful for planning routes between planets? Might add a bit of a puzzle-solving element too (that is, if it is compatible with your goal for this game :-) ).
Thanks for sharing, I did enjoy playing this.
It's a pretty cool **game**!
All I can say... prettyyyyyy cuuuuuuuubesssss! XD
Thanks for making and sharing!
**later edit**
I meant to comment on the quality of the **game**, and the audio too. I was probably a little tired and a bit giddy at my initial experience. XD I was impressed at how fun this was to play with, and it was visually and acoustically a treat.
I like what I see, I think it's off to a promising start. There are a lot of things that I like right off the bat:
- Seeing other players' wines
- Seeing many different types of world and fruit
- Having the freedom to go wherever! :-)
I didn't notice the control information button in the upper-right corner, but I eventually figured out what I was doing. Would be interesting to see more content. :-)
Overall, an interesting concept! Good job!
I agree with @pkenney above on the points about the pace of the game and turning. Otherwise I think it's really well-designed, I like how each robot has unique skills. Graphics, audio are spot-on.
I *really* want to try playing this game with someone, and I might just come back to it again. Good job!
I think this is a fun game for a little while. It would be great if there were more content, or more challenge as time went on. Is it procedurally generated?
Thank you for sharing this demo! I think the overall idea is interesting, and the "Demo" level is helpful for understanding the mechanics of how to build a rubber duck. So I think including that was a great call. As you say, it would be interesting to see more mechanics. :-)
This game is great. Like, totally the best one I've played so far.
I could go into all the different praises, but I think others have already summarised my opinion. Suffice to say, really really really good job.
I had one minor frustration when picking up and placing batteries. If I pressed the key to put down batteries at the wrong time, the battery could be put down in front of me. Then it would block me from doing what I was trying to do. It wouldn't let me pick up the battery right away again either. This didn't happen too often though (I only noticed it when I was in a pirate attack :P ). It's not a big deal overall, I'm really just trying to find SOME way to provide constructive feedback, so... there ya go. :-P
You've achieved an incredible result. You should be really proud of this.
Great game, smooth, graphics are fun. Lots going on, but I think that's okay. Sounds are good. It's hard, but a fun kind of hard. Really just a great product.
I think I got the same issue as @yetman, or at least something similar. I shot down one ship, then I had nothing appear on my screen except shield and battery bullets until I got to the boss. It only happened the one time for me.
This is a pretty cool take on the space shooter/bullet-hell game. I loved the mechanic of switching ships. I find it a bit awkward to play when I get down to just the fuel ship. :-P But otherwise it plays cleanly, and it's fun. Graphics are great. Audio is very fitting. Overall just... nice!
Very cool. Brings me back to when I read the choose-your-own-adventure type books.
I also like how you let the player cast any spell... even if the outcome is a bit silly. Well-done! X-D
I don't really have any suggestions to improve or change this. I really enjoyed this as-is. :-D
The audio and art are great IMO. They add a certain quiet (yet desperate) ambience to the game.
I loved the texting sequences. I'm sad I didn't get to keep the phone on to see all of them. :-)
The only suggestion I have is perhaps to reduce the amount of backtracking involved. I felt like a lot of time was spent mindlessly returning to where I was before.
Otherwise, it's a really nice entry, good job! :-)
Neat concept. I loved the eyes in the dark, that really added a lot of character to your game. :-) I love the pixel graphics.
I got the impression that finding the battery was mainly a matter of luck. I couldn't figure out a strategy to find it. It seemed random.
The physics around room entrances are a little bit weird. If I run into the edge of a doorway, I'll get a bit disoriented because my position changes suddenly.
Really cool, good luck with this if you pursue it further! :-)
This game is different and neat.
Graphics and audio are charming. They give the game a fun personality, that's for sure. XD
I was having a hard time enjoying the gameplay itself at first but... it kind of grows on you if you give it a chance.
If you are planning to develop this further, I wonder if having some kind of tutorial, or level progression might help?
Good job on making this unique compo game! Thank you for sharing it!
This is a very interesting mechanic! I don't think there's too much I can add that others haven't already said. :-P Good job in coming up with it!
I also love some of the smaller references to How I Met Your Mother (e.g. I think "Swirly" was a reference "Swarley"? :-P ).
This is a fun game. I didn't find the controls too bad overall. It's very difficult to get far, sometimes I think that there isn't enough warning for oncoming ships. Anyway, good job. :-)
I thought this was an interesting entry. I liked the overall ambience of the game. The background was beautiful. The story-telling was decent. The ending on a cliffhanger left me wanting to see more. :-)
I found the transition from one place to the next to be rather slow. When I failed my mission, I would have to restart the game from the beginning. And that meant waiting for the intro sequence to replay again... and also more long wait times between decision points. It felt rather unnecessary, it might have been nice if there was a 'skip' button for those long decision-less periods.
Overall, I think it needs some work but it is pretty. Thank you for sharing this. :-)
I was excited to see the thumbnail (see my handle :-P ).
The graphics are beautiful.
The music is fitting and very atmospheric.
It's *very* good that you have checkpoints.
The gameplay needs a lot of work: - I had a hard time controlling how far I could jump. It was frustrating when I had to try to control my jump distance to clear gaps of varying sizes ( like at the bottom of the cave). - It wasn't clear what surfaces I could jump on (at one point I had to jump onto the middle of a "No entry" sign) - When I was going down in a level (like after the tree at the beginning) I couldn't see what was below me. I couldn't see if there was ground. I couldn't see enemies. It resulted in a couple of deaths that I did not think were preventable. - When I got to the mushrooms I couldn't figure out how to jump higher. At times I thought holding space helped. Other times nothing I did helped me jump higher. The one time I finally did get up to the top, I got immediately killed by an enemy and had to start again from the bottom.
It is a very pretty game though, and with some work it could be a great fun product. If you intend to continue working on it, I wish you the best of luck! Don't give up. :-)
First of all, I think this is a very interesting and innovative idea. :-) I love the graphic style (I love the original Star Fox better than any other Star Fox games I've played, so kudos to you!), and I also really like the humor, your protagonist is fun! Overall the game made me smile. Good job!
The gameplay itself was interesting to adjust to. I wouldn't say it came naturally, but eventually I did get a rough hang of it. I never felt I had complete control of the ship (which I guess is consistent with the premise). While it's interesting as a proof-of-concept, I don't know how I would feel about that over the course of more levels.
I have a few questions about the control, actually: 1. I was a bit confused as to whether I was supposed to hold X/Z to change speed, or whether it was a single tap of the key to permanently change the speed? 2. (Really just out of curiosity) Is there a reason you used X/Z instead of W/S for speed? As far as I could tell, W and S didn't do anything. Did I miss something?
Overall I think the game was fun, I'm interested to know if you'll take it farther. Thank you for sharing it! :-)
I agree with a lot of comments here, full points for innovation! I love the idea of trying different controls to try to get through the level. X-D The power cube station made me laugh for all its retro-ness... and doohickeys, and... just everything.
Like @zee above, I also found having to press the red button to be annoying after a while. Having a power meter might have helped.
I got confused about the shake thing the first time I played. I was worried the power cube station might turn off and I'd have to restart if that meter fell to zero. At least, that's what it looked like to me whenever the screen went black, and I saw the battery meter at zero (though now I guess I just fell off the platform when the screen went black). So I kept shaking to charge power, then pressing the red button, and repeating. It wasn't until I picked the game up a second time that I finally figured out that it is an entirely separate mechanic to control the platform movement from level 2 onward. The game made a lot more sense after that.
Overall, an innovative jam entry. While I had trouble playing it, I still got a biiiiig smile. :-) Thank you so much for sharing this!
Interesting game. I liked the graphics. I liked the music too. And I definitely liked the main character, hehe (see my handle).
Although I'm not normally a big fan of fighting games, the gameplay here was fun. It played a bit like a puzzle. Different spells for different situations, and you need to think carefully about how you use what little magic you have.
This game was fun as a demo concept, but if you wanted to take this idea farther, I think you'd need to have more mechanics... a bit more variety... or just something different. By the time I got to level 4, I started to think it was getting repetitive. It really wasn't too bad though.
Good game! Good job!
I really like the premise of this game, it's pretty unique. XD
Graphics are good. Audio is a bit silly... but it's funny and it fits. I really like it. :D
When I started, I thought that the city would use up the guts I placed into the bins. I was confused about why the power kept going down (the bins were full, so they had lots of zombie guts to use, right?). I did not know that I had to move into the next area once the bins were full.
The control of the main character can be a bit frustrating at times. I find the jumping to be a bit sluggish (I jump up, it takes a while for me to come back down).
If a zombie is on a ledge above me (like the steps in the second area), then I have no way to shoot it unless I get closer to the zombie and risk getting hurt. It might have been better if I could jump and shoot?
In the third area, I filled the bin on the left, then I went to the right side area and there were about four zombies on the ramp downward. I had one heart. I couldn't target them (similar to the situation above), so the only thing I could do was try to jump over them. I did not succeed... my character died.
So I think the level design and/or gameplay need a bit of work. Otherwise, it's a very creative effort, so good job! Thank you for sharing your game. :-)
There are some cool mechanics here. I felt like the main thing that kept me from getting very far was luck. I found the placement of cores had a tendency to be... inconvenient for me, destroying (or forcing me to destroy) weapons or components that might be useful. :-P It's a great idea, but I think it would have been neat if there was some kind of save feature so I didn't have to start over. And an option to grind against weaker enemies for components.
I ended up getting as far as floor 5 (I think). I couldn't seem to get past that for reasons stated above and in other comments. Eventually the game crashed, and I stopped. I don't know if there's a log I can send you?
I really do like what I see though, I'm curious to see where this game takes you!
I don't have too much to add to what others have already said. Best thing is the overall mood, very cheerful and adventurous! The thing I had the hardest problem understanding was bullet collision. Sometimes they would pass through me, other times not.
Overall it's a great LD entry. You should be very proud of this!
Likewise as above, I think this is pretty good for a first Unity game!
I liked the control scheme. It was simple and straightforward. The car behaved the way I expected it to. I drive into the grass, the car slows down a bit. I drive into a rock (?), I get slowed down a bit. The gas is pretty obvious. So good job on all of that!
I feel like my performance in this game is limited by the random generation of gas. Even if I collect every gas canister I see, I still eventually run out. So it might be worth tweaking (increasing) the generation rate, and at the same time make it so that getting gas requires some more skill (maybe rocks sometimes generate near gas so you have to carefully drive around them?).
Otherwise, I'm really impressed that you learned Unity during the Jam. That's an impressive feat. Good luck! :-)
This is a cute game. I feel a bit bad for the cleaning bots. :-P
The overall feel is good, I don't really have too much in the way of suggestion for improving on this particular kind of game. Maybe the act of repairing the generators (holding F while standing still) was a bit tedious? But it's such a small thing.
Overall, great work! :-)
BTW - @nokusu I've seen a lot of your comments on other games. I think you're giving great feedback!
@nokusu Well I'm glad I wasn't killing poor, innocent cleaning robots! X-D
I'm happy to see you're making changes and going forward with the game too! Eager to see what you all do with it!
Hey no worries. I'd love to follow you on twitter/Youtube/etc.
(I don't know if there's a direct messaging on this site, so my apologies if this is an awkward place XD)
Congratulations on your first game!
Like others, I found the models interesting. The clock was definitely a nice useful touch to have.
I wish there was more to do in the game, but hey; You finished a game in the time limit, and that counts for something. :-)
Good job!
Neat little game.
The music fit really well.
I had a lot of fun picking policies and going through all my options. :-)
I'm not sure if this is a bug (I didn't see it in the comments), but I couldn't see the Youngsters' support level after a while playing. I knew it was above 40 because the bonus effect was active.
Good job with this entry!
@cttfow I'm pretty confident I was playing the web version
I really liked the graphics - you did a really good job on those!
Here are a few thoughts I had about the platformer itself: 1. I found the movement was a bit finicky... I kept sliding around a lot. I don't know how you set up your character/Unity scene, but in my past experience I've found it can help to play around with the Physics materials. It might be worth looking into that more at some point. There might be other solutions too. 2. The introduction of the different mechanics might have been better spread out a bit more. Right away at the beginning, after the first jump across the gap, I was tested with the monsters. So I used the energy weapon (mechanic 1). Then right away I had to figure out how to double jump (mechanic 2) to get an item to recharge my energy (mechanic 3). Even though there aren't a lot of mechanics here, it did feel like I had to figure out a lot all at once. Then the rest of the level felt... perhaps a bit repetitive because there weren't too many new things after that? 3. I found that I could jump past the monsters, so there was very little point in combating them. Maybe that's okay though.
Disclaimer: I don't play platformer games all that often. If something I said here seems strange (because it should be obvious/conventional), please do let me know.
Thanks for sharing!
I've read a lot of the comments... Iunno, I kind of like the art style overall. I would consider it to be unique and consistent. Nothing wrong there in my books. :-)
The game itself is playable. I kind of wish there was more to do. :-)
I found I didn't need to use the arrow keys. Is that normal?
The spacebar is used for both the thrusters and exiting the result screen. This didn't work for me very well, because I'd be tapping the space bar to land gently... then the result screen would pop up while I was still tapping the space bar. So... I often missed seeing whether I was successful or not.
Overall an okay game, there could be opportunity to expand it. What are you planning to do from here?
Nice! I like the humor. The mood definitely resonates with how I'm feeling right now. :-P
I think the sounds are pretty well-designed. I like being able to hear the footsteps - it adds to the mood of sneaking around in the dark. I think the door sound is also good because it catches my attention.
I had a bit of trouble seeing the coffee cups (if that's what they are?). I'm not sure if that's intentional, or if even it's just me. The size of the bags was good though.
So... just one question out of curiosity - why's mom out of bed at this late hour? :-P Anyway, good job, it's fun!
@cataractar Oh cool! I'll have to look into sfxr sometime! As for background music... you know, I almost think this game is better off without background music. The mood already fits... and you'd need to make sure your music didn't drown out the useful footstep and door sounds. So I think the audio is fine. :-)
EDIT: Yeah sfxr looks really useful! Thank you for sharing that info, I'm very likely use it!
It's always so impressive to see what can be made in a single weekend. This blows me away. X-D
I like how touching enemies defeats them, unlike in so many other platformers. It gave this game a unique feel.
The level design is pretty straightforward. It gets pretty obvious what needs to be done, guides the player without any obvious hand-holding.
I did manage to beat it in my first try... but I only had a sliver of power left. So I'm thinking the difficulty is probably about right.
I wish there were more levels to play. :-)
Good job!
I enjoyed this game. It felt to me very puzzle-like, and it has a personality of its own. I would have liked to see more I think, but I guess that's how ludum dare goes in general. XD Overall I think this is great.
I loved this! This is a novel idea, and it's one of my favorite LD entries so far.
To illustrate some of my fun:
- Me: VERIFY == Computer hears: "Is there a fly"? - XD... I guess this has more to do with the Google interpretation, but I still enjoyed it XD
- Me: GALAXY WINDOW BANANA APPLE SPACE PLATYPUS FATHER WINDOW BANANA - XD XD XD
- Me: TOMATO POTATO - need I say more?
The graphics are fun, great!
I can't say I noticed the audio much, but it didn't hinder me in any way. Maybe some suitable music would help?
Overall GREAT entry. Loved every moment of it!
I concur with others who've posted above and I don't have much to add. Fun little game, I was able to get into the rhythm without too much trouble. Graphics, humor, all the pieces are there. :-) Good job!
I LOVE the graphics.
The gameplay feels very retro, which is also a bonus imo!
The controls are predictable, and the importance of this point cannot be overstated. Great!
It's very good that you have checkpoints along the way, I died a lot. :-D
If I had to suggest things to change/improve, one thing would probably be the attack rates of the bosses. I found the bosses to be a bit frustrating because I couldn't find opportunities to get in attacks of my own.
Fighting the same enemies over and over again did get to be a bit repetitive. I just found myself running past them a lot.
Overall, GREAT Ludum Dare entry! Thank you very much for sharing! =)
Thanks for all the comments everyone! I'm glad you're finding it fun. I'm actually kind of relieved that you're finding it easy. I was very worried it would be too hard at submission! I decided if I had to err, I'd rather it be on the easy side so it's... more inclusive. That way more people can have the satisfaction of reaching the goal. :-)
I'll make a note to adjust the spawn rates of some enemies/items. I would do it now, but I don't know that it's in the spirit of the jam. I could be wrong though. I'm leaving the spawn rates as-is until I know otherwise.
@pilarius Ah, dang! I'm sorry that happened to you and that it affected your experience.
Well, since the Web player seems to ignore the list of supported aspect ratios... I'll just put in some black quads to cover the areas that are off-screen. A bit hackish, but simple and it works. I hope this fixes your issue!
@zeriver Thank you for your feedback!
I think I might expand it a bit. I haven't decided yet. :-D
If I had more time during the jam, I would definitely have spent more time playtesting and balancing it. As it was, I had to made a last minute call to reduce difficulty (increase item spawn rates) because I honestly thought it was hard. XD
But other than that, I see quite a few possibilities for features: - Difficulty settings - Music and sound (Someone suggested sfxr, I wish I'd known about that tool!) - More 'end-conditions' - A "biome"-like system in the procedural generation - Different characters to choose from, perhaps with different abilities and items
We'll have to see!
@ping78 Thank you LOADS for the screenshot, that's AWESOME! (Not that I'm glad you got stuck, but at least I can try to apply some reverse logic and figure out why my failsafe is... well, uh, failing)
@ninjascribble I'm sorry to hear that the WebGL version didn't work for you. Thank you for letting me know about it. I'm afraid I don't have access to a Mac to investigate further, but if this problem keeps popping up... maybe I can work with a few players to pinpoint the cause and fix it. :-)
Thank you for feedback!
As always, thanks all for comments.
The Post-Jam edition contains fixes for a lot of issues that have been mentioned. Most notably there's more of a challenge now. When I submitted, I honestly believed the game was too hard. Clearly that wasn't so. XD
Since I seem to have trouble gauging difficulty, I'm hoping for more feedback in the Post-Jam version. :-)
@nokusu Thanks for the feedback! I've added some sounds, and I'm currently trying to figure out soundtrack. And thanks for the award! I love Doc Brown :-P
@thygrrr Thank you for the detailed feedback! The original version did not have any sound. The current post-jam version does. In the near future I'm hoping to get some original soundtrack in there.
@pilly I'm so sorry about the difficulty reading the robot text! I've made them brighter in the latest version. I hope that helps until I can find a more permanent/robust solution!
@huvaakoodia Yeah, the lack of challenge came as a surprise to me. XD I thought it was hard! Thanks for reporting the bug RE item use. It should be fixed now.
@ping78 Thanks again for the screenshot. It helped me to debug the failsafe. It *should* be working now.
Thanks all for feedback
@wan
I'm a bit hesitant to shoot pulses forward because the intended target might be diagonal, or somewhere in between. And in that case there isn't any good way to aim.
That's a good idea about having the pulse expand faster though! I've made the change in the latest post-jam version. I'm going to experiment with the idea of having it go even faster or instantaneous.
@pkenney
Yeah, had I known about the sound-generating tools out there (and how incredibly easy they are to use), sound probably would have been added really early on. Ah well, next time.
Thanks for the tip, I've reduced the length of the sound you mention.
How did you find the difficulty in the post-jam version?
I love the art of this game! The ghost's appearance and sounds are actually really cute!
The overall gameplay I think is fine for a jam. Controls seem very usable, I generally didn't have too much trouble getting through the levels.
I agree with other commenters ( @simonhutchinson and @mgpxl ) that, although the zoom-in was cool at the beginning of the levels, it became a bit strong and too frequent... and started getting frustrating after a while. Hopefully it wouldn't be a big problem to change!
I also agree with @simonhutchinson about trolling players. I find if done tastefully and in a way that people will generally just... find funny, it can be fun all around. But if you do it in a way that even slightly punishes the player, it can make your game real unpalatable real fast. It wasn't too bad here, just something to consider for future. :-)
Also just so you know, I saw some weird graphical... weirdness in the last level. The platform I was standing on had no thickness. I also saw the outdoor skybox (?) between a gap in the wall:
spookyghost.png
Overall, I think you'd need to invest some time in bringing this beyond the jam stage, but the visuals, controls, and audio really help to give this game a unique feel... I like. Thanks for sharing! :-D
This game looks really cool. Not only that, but I think the game levels were really well-designed. They introduced concepts one at a time and it wasn't too overwhelming.
The main thing that I would recommend changing (as many others have already said) is the movement speed. The game felt somewhat slower than it had to be, it seemed to take ages to get back on track if I ran into a dead-end.
The individual level I had the most trouble with was the first one with the moving platform. It took me a while to figure out that the "1" sensor's information was out of date, so I kept getting confused why I was moving toward the gap, and why when I tried to stay on the platform I kept falling through the floor. :-P I eventually did get through it though. :-) Maybe instead of having a platform move across a gap, it could be a solid block platform moving up? If the player is moving up, I think it would be clearer that it is intentional movement and not some trap. Then when he or she reaches the top, they should need to use the sensor again so they can immediately see "Ah! The platform has moved".
Overall I like this game, it feels unique and is a fun experience. :-)
This is a humourous little entry. :-)
I was confused about what I was trying to do. I kept trying to throw batteries at blue team, but instead I kept throwing mugs. XD I guess if my power fell I'd automatically use any battery I was holding?
Eventually the robots started spending the majority of their time throwing mugs at each other and at me (which was kind of funny I guess), so I just grabbed the batteries myself and started coding for red team because they were closer to winning. :-)
It's an entertaining idea I think... Though I get the impression you had more features in mind. What are your plans for the game now?
This is a really neat idea.
I was surprised at how intuitive I found the interface. I skipped reading some of your intro, but regardless I figured out what to do pretty quickly. I saw the big machine/mecha on the bottom screen. Then I saw the top left screen. I knew right away I had to look for mechanisms to control the mecha. A few deaths later (from hitting space bar and falling to my death), I was already figuring out how to play the game proper. Before long I found myself running between the power recharge and the canon as my main seats. That was really interesting learning all of that. :-D
Having said that, I do agree with another poster @ryte2byte above that I think I would have enjoyed it a little bit more if there was a minimap display somewhere, just to provide some initial orientation.
Thank you for sharing this, it's an interesting entry and it's fun to learn!
Good job on this entry! I really like the pixelated graphics, and the idea of controlling ship position and turret rotation simultaneously.
I found the controls to be a bit hard to wrap my head around. I kept getting confused about which set of keys corresponded to what. Have you considered getting turret input from the mouse instead? Like the turret always points to the mouse cursor, and you shoot with left click? It might be easier to keep track of what's doing what if the inputs are different.
Also - is there a "win" condition? I wasn't sure if there is actually somewhere to bring the astronaut, or if it's a planned feature. I flew out far (or at least, what I felt was far), started seeing big alien ships and looooots of aliens. I might also just have not been very good at this game. :-D The poor astronaut may have been torn apart by the limbs once or twice... :'( :-P
Having said all that, I had fun playing this game. Overall great job!