Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Ransom
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Mint Sprint | jam | 151 | 3.85 | 3.82 | 3.39 | 2.70 | 3.93 | 3.16 | 3.00 | 3.39 |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Dragon Horde: Revenge of the Wizard King | jam | 456 | 3.51 | 3.48 | 3.30 | 3.57 | 3.97 | 3.31 | 3.41 |
Very cool! The animations are simple but cute, and I like how the difficulty gradually increases. I stayed with it for a good while, but got stuck at one of the levels where you get to take three photos.
Pretty cool! It feels like you're on the brink of a first-person tycoon style game, although without any goals at this point aside from making numbers go up, it feels like it could be something akin to a first-person Cookie Clicker too.
I found the music a bit repetitive, but I like the sound effects. They're cute.
I think this could be pretty cool with more goals, risks, and rewards. Good job.
I like the concept of switching between movement and diffusal, but I'm not sure that the window changing size was the best way to execute it. The challenge is that, if the window gets too narrow, you can't see the bomb code. At its narrowest, it takes several seconds of waiting to widen the window enough to see the correct inputs. I found a more efficient strategy is to run for several seconds, then switch to the diffisual mode before the bomb is armed again. This keeps the window from becoming too narrow to see the code. Then, wait a few seconds, and enter the code. This counts down a lot less time on the bomb compared to waiting for the window to widen, but it incentivizes that the player spend a lot of time waiting — run, wait, disarm, repeat.
Colourblind players might have trouble with the code too, since they're all just coloured rectangles. Different shapes or symbols would also help.
I did like how the ship changed environments as you went on. I got a bit lost in the early areas, but the cargo bay and the stairs broke the repetition.
This is an interesting idea, and could be cool with some tweaking. I feel that switching phases after every block drop slows the game down a lot. It also becomes difficult to strategize without seeing the next piece. Have you considered switching phases after two (or maybe even more) dropped blocks?
A two-player cooperative mode, with one person controlling the Tetris blocks and the other controlling the Hero, would probably speed the game and make it more fun.
A few nitpicks: The user interface text was oversized on my monitor, and obscured part of the play field. There was also no quit button; I had to alt-tab out of the game and right-click the icon to exit. Lastly, like Verbante above, I would also prefer a different naming convention since I keep my Ludum Dare games in one folder.
Overall, not bad. If you keep working on it, you might have something pretty engaging.
This is pretty good. I could easily see some more depth being added with different enemy varieties, plus maybe some way to change the rate that the room shrinks, or even its shape. How about a power-up that slows it, pauses it, or even reverses it a bit? Or if not a power-up, maybe a certain enemy type, to create more risk/reward.
I do wish the character had instant deceleration though. It would make the controls feel less slippery.
Overall, nice job.
I found it fun enough for a few attempts. The art and sound direction reminds me of the goofiness of Earthworm Jim. The environment art has a problem though: it's often hard to tell how objects behave. There were a few points where I couldn't distinguish what was a wall versus just a background, and the "spikes" look like they're just harmless grass.
There's also a glitch where if you exceed 100% oxygen, you die.
Overall, good work.
I really enjoyed this! I think you've got the seed of a puzzle game here, akin to Chip's Challenge. I chuckled when I picked up the sword and saw how zig-zagged its blade was.
What would really help is if the sprites of the weapons on the grid matched their shape in the inventory. That way, you can plan your route more deliberately, and do less trial-and-error.
I also noticed a balance issue where you can attack move to attack a monster, and have an adjacent monster move onto the same grid space in the same turn, killing you before you can equip another weapon.
Overall, really good work.
This is a fun gameplay loop, using your health/score to affect the environment. It'd be good if there was a warning where spikes were about to spawn, because I had it occur right on top of me.
Nice work. ( ºwº)b
This is cool! The papercraft art style is cute, and the music too. I like this mechanic of changing mobility with your health/ammo.
Visually, the obstacles confused me. There were boxes that the pigsy would collide with despite being in the foreground. I also wish that the shoot button was also mapped to the left face button (X for Microsoft, Y for Nintendo, ☐ for Sony), since that felt more traditional as an action button when paired with jumping.
I also wish that I could restart the same level without having to replay the tutorial.
Fun game though!
This is a dark and interesting game. It reminds me a bit of point and click adventures, with how you need to gather items and talk to people to solve puzzles. The environment and assets are pretty diverse for a jam. Good job there.
I do wish that you could navigate the menus solely with the keyboard or a controller (but my jam game also had that issue, so I know how it goes). I also noticed an error that when the reaper jumped, his shadow jumped with him.
I like how "The Hand of Death" made sense at the end. It would have been interesting if you could interact with the card game somehow, if only cinematically, to tie it all together.
Good work here!
This is really cool! The wind and slow-tempo music really build an atmosphere. Combining that with opening in media res really creates a sense of mystery. Super cute capybara too.
Even though you can click to speed it up, I feel like the text crawl is way too slow. Same with the level transitions. I think you can make the combat feel more fluid too if you greatly reduce the invincibility frames of the enemies. I do like how the enemies can hit each other though.
I noticed a few errors. Sometimes the character sprite would appear behind other characters, when lower down on them on the Y axis. Kinda made it look like a frog was standing on the capybara's head.
The hitbox of the whip seems like it's smaller than the sprite. It made it difficult to judge accurate distances from enemies. Because of that, I got killed once. I then respawned in a different spot in the same level, got shoved into a corner by two skeletons, and got my butt kicked again.
Still, I'm pretty impressed with what you've made here. Not many jam games include cutscenes. Well done.
This is really goofy, haha. I'm getting some Mario Kart and DuckTales vibes from the music, and I definitely recognize "Fly Me to the Moon" at the end. It'd be nice if there were some variety in the actions in day 2 and day 3, but I do like how they ramp up in intensity.
Very good job!
This is neat. It reminds me of Burnout, causing as much mayhem in one action as possible. The poison seems like it should be renamed a biohazard though, and it's also really overpowered. I used it to win in five days.
With some refinement and more content, this could become a lot of fun.
Neat little game. I like the low-rez pixel art aesthetic.
I think there's a typo in your description: "his Defense with your Attack and his Defense with your Attack". I think you got one of those reversed. It could also be helpful to describe that aces are high.
I'm not sure if luck is working properly. I tied with an opponent when my luck card was greater than his, but he beat me when his luck was greater than mine.
Sometimes the RNG wasn't in my favour at all. I had several rounds where all of the opponent's cards were greater than mine; I don't think it was possible to win.
Aleph is right though; this could be expanded upon. Good job.
This is a neat little puzzle game. Once I figured out that I could drop pixels into the circles on the floor, and that I could do more than one at a time, I was fine. It would help to be more overt with the mechanics in the game.
It also felt a bit sluggish. If the game speed were cranked up a bit, I think it would be more fun.
I don't feel like there was much of a "life is currency" mechanic here though, because even though you called the white pixels "life," they didn't affect your character's vitality at all. I had zero life, but was still alive. Also the speed and coins counters seem superfluous, because I didn't find anything that would change those values.
Is it possible to attack anything? The character has a sword and shield, but I couldn't find a way to smash stuff.
I'm also wondering if there's meant to be an end screen after level 6. I just had a blank screen there.
Still, it's a good core. Nice work.
In the jam version, the audio is buggy, and I wasn't quite sure where to go. But on a positive note, the art style and mood is really nice. The aesthetic reminds me of a more realistic Don't Starve. Nice work.
I decided to play the post-jam version too. I noticed a bug with the audio volume. When a voice is playing, if you exit a bunker, the voice will get louder. If a voice is playing when you enter a bunker, it will get quieter.
Russian is your first language, right? I don't speak Russian, but I've got some suggestions on how you can make your translations sound more natural to an English-speaking player.
**Original:** "Wake up. It's started. As agreed*:* meet in our bunkers." **Suggestion:** "Wake up. It's started. As agreed*,* meet in our bunkers."
**Original:** "My 3D printer is really bad, look for details for it in the *neighborhood*. Let's fix it and we can print 3 sets of seats for the rocket." **Suggestion:** "My 3D printer is really bad. Look for details for it in the *area*. Let's fix it and we can print 3 sets of seats for the rocket."
**Original:** "One of the parts was stolen by my brother*, look* in his bunker. He's right behind the rocket." **Suggestion:** "One of the parts was stolen by my brother*. Look* in his bunker*; he's* right behind the rocket."
**Original:** "*It was* the main part for the printer!" **Suggestion:** "*That's* the main part for the printer!"
**Original:** "The rest are lying around somewhere. Somewhere near the remains of humanity, ha." **Suggestion:** "The rest are lying around somewhere — somewhere near the remains of humanity. Ha!"
**Original:** "I used to love post-apocalypse*. Until it* was in it*, now* it is the most boring genre in the world." **Suggestion:** "I used to love post-apocalypse*, until I* was in it*. Now* it's the most boring genre in the world."
**Original:** "Imagine*! Huge* radioactive pumpkin! Nobody *will* believe *if we tell it! Only there is* nobody to tell." **Suggestion:** "Imagine*: a huge* radioactive pumpkin! Nobody *would* believe *us if we told them — only there's* nobody to tell."
That's as far as I got. I could only find 2 of the 3D printer pieces. I hope this is helpful, still.
Goofy little game! I liked it. Bartering with your remaining time is an interesting mechanic. I missed a bit of the character dialogue because I had to really rush to refill the oxygen, but the humour added a lot to it.
I think if you were able to get your oxygen back in smaller amounts, instead of one large amount every time you put a piece into your ship, it would keep the player on the edge of their seat more.
Nice work! And thanks for streaming and reviewing my game!
This is cool! I like the dynamic music, and how you can really customize your difficulty. Jumping felt sluggish sometimes though; I think buffered jump inputs would really help the sense of control.
Nice work!
My sympathies about your cat; I know how hard that is.
I like how you expanded upon the Defender conventions by adding more power-ups (although I had a tough time hitting stuff with the rockets).
This is your 20th rating, so you should be able to get a score now! Nice work.
I was left confused for a while as to how to play this. I think the user interface doesn't work on my screen; I'm using a 1400 x 900 resolution (yeah, it's an old monitor). I couldn't see what the orders were or what I had in my bag.
The character design is cute though!
I like the minimalist intro, and the reactive UI that shows the controls. The initial 3D effects of a painterly style look neat.
I do feel like the walking animation is a bit weird. The jump velocity is odd too; the character eases into the jump, then snaps upwards. I was also able to jump over some walls that I don't think I should have.
It was a short and interesting playthough regardless. Good work!
P.S. This is your 20th rating, so now you can get a score!
I see you had a similar idea to me, in that your life is *working* with currency. This is well made! The pixel art is nice, with a lot of sprites and level assets, and there's a lot of audio in here for a jam game too.
I noticed some odd behaviour in the customers, where they would become impatient and angry before actually requesting any services.
Overall, really charming game.
Only two weeks of Unity? It's great to see you participating. I like this! I only wish that you could punctuate the game by sucking up the demon too.
I agree that the difficulty spike in level 3 is a bit much. Level 4 is easier. I guess that's what happens when designing puzzles on four hours of sleep, haha. I crunched pretty hard to get all of the art done and design ten levels before the deadline. If I had more time, I'd rearrange the level order to smooth out the spikes.
That's also why there isn't background music; I had my DAW and instruments with me, but just had no time to compose anything. @kaiclavier was clever though and turned the machinery into a drum machine, so you can at least get some percussion!
Thank you all for your reviews, @ryusui, @orangejuicepanda, @caveman54, @griddolini, and @macs!
**If you get stuck on a level, hit TAB to open a debug menu and do a level skip.**
Yeah, @estuvomuybien, you can glitch belts and move them diagonally sometimes, haha. And because it's physics-based, you can sometimes bounce items off of the deer. That third thing is a feature though! If you put the wrong material into a machine, it ruins the material. It's especially funny if you try to put anything other than a coin into the money bag.
As for level 8, @vilja, that one was meant to be a mid-game tutorial level. I was trying to show that, after several levels of only pushing belts, you can now push the machines. I think I could redesign that, though, so that the deer is forced to push one in order to access the rest of the level — make it more obvious. I'm glad that you told me where you got stuck.
Thank you for the feedback!
@castrolol Thank you! We know the physics aren't perfect, but we thought the imprecision and messiness was funny. "It's a feature!"
@dankovens I'm glad that you enjoyed it. If I had more time, I would have loved to try composing music too.
@alexascher If there's enough interest, I'd be down for expanding upon this concept. So far, the reception seems mostly positive. Thanks for your input!
@carlsonandpeeters I was stoked to see it streamed; like I said, that was the first time anyone streamed a game of mine. I've only watched a handful of people play it, but of them all, you blew through it pretty quickly. I'm glad not everyone got stuck on level 3, haha. You're right about that camera though; a buddy of mine also got confused by it. If I expand upon this version, I'll have to do something about that. Thanks!
@mrstari Thanks for playing it!
@bakenshake I'm happy that you like the character. We were originally going to make it a cat, but I'll never turn down the chance to do a pun. Hopefully in my next jam game, I'll have time to make music too.
@bitdecay I see what you mean about Don't Starve! Credit goes to @kaiclavier for helping with that. I'd drawn and animated the character, but I only had time to do a 2-frame walk animation. He kinda looked like an Earthbound character like that. Then Kai used Unity's animator to apply rotation, squash, and stretch. Even though there were only 2 frames, he looked so much more fluid like that. I was impressed.
Thanks for giving it a shot! Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to get stumped at level 3. I ramped the difficulty up a bit too much there. If you'd like a hint, try turning the ingots into flat plates first, then putting them onto the red belt. But if you're really stuck, **hit TAB to level skip**.
@bitzawolf Haha, I'm glad that the character is so well-received! I was originally going to make a cat, but I got hit by inspiration: what better animal for a game about making money than a buck? (That's actually where the slang "buck" comes from — deerskin as a sort of traded currency in the 1700s.) I'll have do something about that camera too, yeah. Thank you for playing it!
@charlesschar I've seen a couple of people cheese the levels by bouncing items off of the buck, haha. The machines were originally able to pushed and pulled, but we actually removed pulling for the sake of more challenging puzzle design. The game does have an undo function though! Just hit CTRL or one of the controller face buttons. I tried to explain that in-game via the signs. I wanted to make something that could be understood regardless of language, but not everyone got it, so that's my fault. If I develop this concept further, I'll approach that design differently. Thank you for giving it a shot!
@moldymagnet If I had more time, I'd rearrange the level order, because a lot of people get stuck on level 3. Glad you liked it though!
@hans1203 Thanks! Yeah, in retrospect, I wish that I'd put level 4 before 3. Glad that you had fun though!
@muzigpuzig I'm pleased that you like the visual design; I was hoping to make something cute and eye-catching! Credit goes to @kaiclavier for the undo mechanic. We were just on the cusp of the deadline when he implemented that, and I really think that it made the game a lot more user-friendly. Thank you for playing!
@bluwind360 Hey, if it works, it works! Haha— Thanks for playing.
@yukimiitsuka Yeah, I had hoped to compose some music, but I was already crunching pretty hard to get all of the art and design done. Hopefully my next jam game will be more complete. Thanks for playing all of the way through!
@snowschu I'm happy that you had fun with the game. Thanks for including me on the stream too! It's really cool that you bring on devs to talk about their designs as you play. It's kinda like Double Fine's "Devs Play" series. Credit goes to @kaiclavier for the audio; he programmed the items and machinery to turn into a drum machine. Thank you for playing!
@no-grapes-games I'm stoked that you enjoyed it! If I had more time to playtest, I'd try to make the mechanics more obvious. I was trying to explain without words, in-game, what could be done, for the sake of people who don't speak English. I'll have to make it clearer if we continue with this concept later. As for the theme, I figured that the low-hanging fruit would be bartering with character hitpoints. I decided to take a different interpretation, in that this character's livelihood — his life — is currency — minting literal currency. My own grandfather minted money for a living, so it's partially where I got the idea. That's where the game's name comes from too. Thanks for playing it!
@hwaet That's a good idea. If we carry on with this concept, I'll definitely do that. It's been getting pretty favourable reviews, so I'm strongly considering it. Thanks for the suggestion!
@gurkan96 I'm glad that you like it! I realized that I had the chance to make a visual pun, so I made the player character a male deer -- a *buck*.
If you get stuck on one level for too long, **hit TAB to skip the level**.
Thanks for playing it!
@andidebob Thanks! I'm glad that it could keep you engaged.
@cheesepencil Glad that you could finally play it!
@f1krazy That's often the thing about puzzle games like this; you figure out where things should go, then work backwards. I appreciate the feedback!
@tommyflower Thank you very much! It's encouraging to when someone wants multiple playthroughs. I'm going to expand on this game after Ludum Dare ends.
@amour-du-pain I'm glad that you liked it. Thank you for playing!
@littlew00d It would be frustrating to have to restart every time you make a mistake, which is why the game actually does have an undo button! Press CTRL or one of the controller face buttons. Granted, some people didn't understand that from the in-game sign, so I tried to make it more explicit in the instructions on this page.
The reason we made the bag needed to be filled to 100 coins was as a quick safeguard, to ensure that you can actually create a reliable production line. Because of the physics, items sometimes end up in funny places, so we didn't want to have people beat a level if a stray coin somehow bounces into the bag at the end; it had to be consistent. Even still, some people found ways to cheat, haha. Thanks for playing! I appreciate the critiques.
This is really atmospheric. I like what you've got going here, although there's some definite room for improvement in the controls. It's needlessly complicated, having a bunch of single-use buttons that you need to press with split-second timing. I would condense it like this:
1. Have the same button slow time, return time to normal, and remove a placed memory, depending on the context. Tap the button to activate it — make holding it unnecessary. 2. While time is slowed, you can then choose your memory to place. Tap the button associated with the memory to select it, then tap it again to confirm placement.
I also couldn't get past level 7. It seems like the solution is to place the tree up by the floating exit arrow, but I just fell off instead of proceeding to the next level.
I do like this though; it's cool.
The name of this game drew me in, haha.
This is a cute little adventure! I like its lighthearted tone. It'd be nice if there were a more direct link between defeating the knight and freeing your friend, but the ending still made me chuckle. Nice work.
I really like this. Having you type all of the commands is nicely consistent. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered varying power-ups. I did have a problem though where I hit a certain gap that I just couldn't jump; it was impossibly far.
Nice work.
Pretty good jam game. I like that you were able to include multiple game modes in one weekend, although the only minigame that I got to play was "Don't Let the Ball Fall". That one confused me at first, because I'd expected it to bounce off of the wall when instead it just looped to the other side.
It's good that you included audio, but check your volume levels; it was ear-splitting.
I also noticed this error once I beat the boss:
ERROR: emit_signal: Error calling method from signal 'timeout': 'Area2D(final_demon.gd)::_on_start_timeout': Method not found. At: core/object.cpp:1238
@spirits The error didn't crash anything, thankfully! Just thought you should know.
Nice work! It's a fun mechanic, although it is pretty easy to heal and purchase upgrades. I got pretty overpowered pretty quickly by immediately upgrading my soul capacity, then buying the strongest scythe, haha.
I feel like the camera could be improved by having it not follow the scythe so strictly.
Keep it up.
Nice work on the graphics. I like how there's music included too, though it could use some percussion. Trading health for your battery and vise versa is interesting, but it didn't seem like there was much reason to do anything other than keep the two balanced. If you had more uses for your health and your battery, that would add some interesting strategy.
This is cool! A couple of critiques though: I feel like the exposition at the beginning is way too slow. Have you considered mixing some of the exposition into the first level, while you're getting the hang of breaking things? Secondly, I don't feel like flip and grab needed to be separate buttons. You could have one button that you tap to flip, and hold to grab. Thirdly — and this ties into the second critique — I think you should be able to flip anything, not just the tables. These three things would make the whole experience feel more fluid.
Nevertheless, this game is fun. Good work overall.
Very slick! Kind of gameplay-light, but it's got a lot of polish. It's an interesting mechanic; it feels like a tower defense, except that you have to expend parts of your base to defend the whole. I do wish that I could have zoomed out more, or otherwise had some sort of indication of where units were.
Great job.
This is an interesting idea. I found it difficult to interpret what some of the characters wanted though. And like Sylvie, I kept getting killed by the robber.
I think Octopoid's suggestion is a good one.
What a unique game. It's like a virtual terrarium.
I do feel like the narrator was too quiet. I also couldn't tell what the icons at the top-right were supposed to be. Curiously, I clicked them, which deleted my planet and then closed the game.
Kinda theme-light, but cool idea.
Here's your 20th rating, so now you can get a score! I like this concept of guiding little robots around. I do wish that they were better at following though; even after a few upgrades, it feels really easy to lose some of them, especially in a group. And on top of that, it's really hard to move groups through narrow obstacles, so you gotta move one at a time, pretty slowly. The puzzle element of activating switches is a good idea though.
Nice work!
I like the very bendy arm; it's funny. I found it hard to steer though, because the pivot point seems to be pretty far behind the hand. I also had junk items appear right in front of the hand a lot.
Fun idea though. This could be engaging if expanded upon further.
This is fun! But I feel like the camera really needs to be ahead of the car. Because it lags behind, it gives no time to react to incoming obstacles. I couldn't see what was coming, hit a wall at high speed, and got the car partially stuck inside of the building. A handbrake would be cool too.
Nice work!
I like the effort that went into the models, music, mechanics, and theme. It's pretty good! I think the player model would benefit from being less symmetrical though, so you can more easily distinguish his front from his back. The biggest problem I had though was punching things; I had trouble landing blows.
Overall though, nice work!
I'm getting some Hotline Miami vibes here. I like how the guns were punchy — they may have been too loud though. I almost felt like I needed hearing protection. It'd be good if the movement were faster too, and if you wouldn't get slowed down by moving against walls.
Nice work.
I like how the music increases in tempo with the lava speed. I gave it a few shots, but I got dropped super far down after stepping onto a fake platform. Nice job on the first compo entry.
Straddling the line between good and evil is an interesting concept. It reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment. I don't feel like some of these decisions made sense though — like I can understand being bribed or using personal money to do certain things, but some of the decisions didn't feel like they should have had expenses attached to them.
It could be interesting if there were prisoners with stats and outcomes that were affected by your day-to-day decisions. You might be able to pull off this theme without that mechanic though; it's just a suggestion.
A trade quest with a time limit? Neat. I like how you worked the countdown clock into the dialogue. It'd be nice if the text boxes would change with the different characters somehow — maybe use portraits or change the colour depending on who's speaking.
I beat it with, like, 9 minutes remaining. It'd be nice if there were some more clues to work out, rather than just being told where to go, to keep the tension high.
Nice work.
A unique take on a rhythm game! The butterfly flying around was a great touch.
It's neat to see a first-person tower defense. I think there is some room for improvement in the visuals. Overall, the game is pretty dark. The user interface doesn't contrast well against the background, so it was hard to read against certain backdrops. If you used bright text with a dark panel behind it (or vise versa), it would read well.
I tried using a controller at first, but the look movement was significantly slower than the mouse. I do appreciate the control options though, so nice work with that. Same with the control explanation in the menu.
If I had a better understanding of what was happening on the field, this could be pretty fun.
Nice work!
Oh, this is neat. It's kind of like a mix of a tycoon and a clicker game.
I didn't understand what to do at first though. I bought my first property, then waited two in-game days before realizing that I needed to click on it. So then I placed the statue, and waited a couple more days, while my count still read zero. Then I realized that I needed to click on it. Clicking on it too quickly kept opening the menu to sell and repair it though. Theeeennn I realized that if I wait a bit, it will give me more souls rather than clicking on it rapidly.
Some visual queues of what to do and when the souls of each stand are maxed out, beyond the sparkles, would be really beneficial, if you plan to continue with this game.
Despite wasting four or five in-game days, I only used a small amount of the board, and bought my soul back in 35 days. It might be beneficial if there were more things to spend souls on, beyond repairs, and/or if the cost of the buyback was increased.
Nice work!
I like the old Apple aesthetic, and your logo design is pretty clever too. The hints made the game pretty easy; I doubled my money within a few minutes.
I like the coin-flip movement. That's creative. It'd be cool if you could change the force of the jump though.
Increasing your currency value and changing coins was also neat.
I felt like I had to fight against the camera though; it was sluggish. The sound effects were also pretty loud; does their volume account for distance to the camera? It's hard to tell.
If you wanted to expand the characters further, you could switch to Canadian currency. Canada has $1 and $2 coins.
Overall, good job!
Catchy tunes, good art, and a decent maze chase idea. Movement was a bit sluggish though; I do wish that I could just hold the direction button to continue moving, or at least buffer the next movement input. I like the idea of playing as the chest though — that's funny.
Nice work!
PowerPoint jump was really hard, then really easy. At first, it seemed like the bounce velocity was slightly too low to make progress — I just kept barely missing the next platform. But then I discovered that I can just cling to the wall like Spider-man, haha.
I can see this as a commentary on how some people are drowned by capitalism, privatized healthcare, and predatory loaning. From the start, it's impossible to make ends meet. You bust your ass for a boss who underpays you, your family inevitably gets sick, and your only option is to stay afloat is to reach out for a loan that you can never repay. You can't win; you just hang on for as long as you can.
I'm impressed with the variety of games included in here, and their 90s office aesthetics.
Good work.
The character walking and idle animations are pretty good. I feel like this would become a lot more fun when you apply that same quality to the missing attack, block, and enemy animations.
This is your 20th rating, so you can get a score now. Good job!
This is interesting. Like I said in Schu's stream, I like how the batteries are transparent so you can see their energy. I think that they should be completely empty, visually, when they're drained to make it more obvious. It might also be helpful if you sometimes had smaller batteries on the machines, so that you wouldn't waste excessive energy powering them beyond what they need to do, or if you could get the excessive power back.
Good job on your first entry!
The cool pixel art caught my eye, so I played the jam version. It's a nice start! I've got a few critiques (assuming you haven't already addressed these in the post-jam version):
The title screen credits were a little off-screen on a 1440 x 900 resolution. The cursor should be hidden; having both it and the crosshair makes aiming a little confusing. The crosshair shouldn't be constricted to a small circle around the player. Let it follow the invisible crosshair, to make aiming easier. It'd be good if the dropped coins were a bit magnetized to the player, so you don't have to walk over each one. The enemies need some reaction when they're hit. Screen shake would make it punchier. I got so rich, so quickly, that there wasn't a threat of running out of coins.
Those suggestions aside, I like what you've got here! Nice work with the art and original music.
I finally had the chance to play this, and I really enjoyed it! First, some constructive criticism:
1. Couldn't set up the joystick. It just didn't work in the menu, so I had to use the keyboard. 2. Colour of the character is too dark. With colour, she blends into the purple backgrounds. Even in different colours though, all of her values are really low. Some bright values on her as well would make her pop. 3. Wish there were a combo system. I hit two bad guys with one arrow, and it would be nice if that were acknowledged. 4. Wish the edges of the screen that were impassable looked so. I tried to walk to the next screen a few times.
Some good stuff:
1. Nice controls. Moving and aiming felt pretty easy to do. 2. *One, two, three, four! ♫* Cute music! 3. Love the user interface. I like how the health flies out of the character, one hit point at a time. Shooting the balloons in the menu is nice too. It would be more clear if "Load Game" were changed to "Continue" though. 4. I like how the arrow can catch fire. You could create puzzle and combat elements out of that.
Impressive amount of work for a weekend! Very good job.
I'm impressed that you created random dungeon generation over a weekend. I also like the eclectic mix of art styles, with the realistically-proportioned knight contrasting the cartoony merchant.
I noticed some areas for improvement:
Some of the dialogue is quiet and difficult to understand. When you're recording, check the wave form to make sure it's loud enough where it needs to be (without clipping).
I think the trap door in the starting room should be more obvious; it took me a moment to find.
My intuition was to click in the direction of the enemies to swing at them, rather than face with with the keyboard first.
It looks like I should have been able to go behind them, from the perspective, but the walls were actually flat and impassible. This means there were some paths that I couldn't go down, because the opening was just too narrow.
Overall, it felt sluggish to control. The knight is slow, and both the sword and shadow movements stop your movement. Cranking up the speed would really help the fluidity.
Keep it up.
Bon travail! C'est un jeu marrant. Le fusil à pompe semble mieux que le fusil d'assaut.
Qui a fait la musique?
Cute game! This is like musical air hockey. I think it would be really good with touch controls.
It'd be cool if each levels was one song that you had to last through, but I understand that there's only so much time to compose during a jam.
I noticed a typo in the game: it reads "jokebox".
Keep up the good work!
I like this! It's like a mashup of a tower defense and a MOBA. I did have some trouble getting started though; I couldn't figure out how to build stuff at first. And later, I kept missing the flowers where you could build. They were hard to see and disappeared quickly. I think you've got a good core here though, with definite room for expansion.
I do wish that you could move while aiming, or that your attacks would just occur in the direction of your cursor when they were chosen. I can see that you're mimicking MOBA controls, but unless you're able to design it to solely use the mouse, WASD/joystick movement would also be nice.
Overall, very good job.
This game's got pretty good visual feedback. I like that the characters are expressive, and I got an explicit "Combo!" reward. It can be pretty easy to get cornered though.
Nice work.
I was interested in trying your game, but your download link is broken!
This is an interesting, atmospheric game.
I think, in the second area, you should tell people to press space to shoot fire. It took me a while to figure out how to do that.
I also feel like the weather effects should occur more briefly, or be easier to dodge. It forces a lot of just sitting and waiting.
Cool art palette. Nice work.
By the way, your smart balance rating is super low — it's actually in the negatives. If you want people to rate your game, play and rate others, and it will bump yours up in the ranks for more people to see.
This is a silly little game. I have a few critiques though, that I think could help.
It's not really clear how much the bike costs. Showing it would add an incentive to continue playing.
It's sometimes hard to click on the animals. Maybe the click should just swing, even if there's nothing there. That, or the animal hitbox could be larger.
You should also explain the game's bartering mechanics, at least in the description on this page. It took me a while to figure out that I could even buy anything.
I like the idea of replacing the scythe with other harvesting tools; that's creative. The pixel art is charming too. Nice work on that.
Neat idea. I like the clean interface, and the music was pleasant.
Other people have mentioned more mouse support and numpad support, which would be good. On top of that, I feel like "buy all" and "sell all" buttons would be helpful. Similarly, if you try to sell more than you own, it would be good if the game just sold everything instead of requiring you to input an exact amount.
Maybe it was just my luck with the RNG, but I don't feel like there was much incentive to buy or sell at any particular time. You've got nothing to do with your money except buy more money. There's no reason to get impatient. I bought as much of one currency as I could when it hit 99, then just waited for a few minutes for it to drop to 1 and sold it all. I made my fortune 99 times bigger just like that. In fact, I just did that same strategy again while writing this review. After that, the currencies all hovered at a really unfavourable exchange rate for a long time.
If there was something else to do with the money that required immediate attention, you could have a decent risk/reward mechanic.
Also, I tried all of the influence options but couldn't tell if they actually did anything.
Nice work on the visuals; this looks pretty slick.
The controls felt difficult though. I'm playing with a mouse and keyboard, and so I wanted to attack in the direction of my cursor, rather than move my character to face that way before attacking. It's also pretty easy to fall off of the world because of how fast everything moves.
I could see this becoming a fun action game. Keep it up.
This is cool, although I got stuck on (I think) level 6. It seemed like I needed to jump to a platform that was just out of reach, and I couldn't find another way up.
It would be nice if you could also continue and restart levels without using the mouse.
Nice work.
I played three rounds, and got a team of 8. I managed to make it through without any lost troops. I'm impressed with the pathfinding, and the pixel art was well-made. I do wish that there were more sprites, since it's hard to remember the abilities of each soldier, but I know there's only so much that can be done in a weekend.
I noticed a glitch where the UI wouldn't show the status of the currently selected character, but would get stuck on the enemy's character.
Pretty cool work!
This is an interesting game. I've played a lot of rhythm games, like Frequency, Amplitude, Rock Band, et cetera, but I had trouble staying on beat in this one, even after syncing. I feel like the window could be a little less strict, or the penalty for missing could be less severe. It's a buzzkill to build up the track and then have it completely cut back to zero. It's a cool concept though, and has room for expansion. Maybe you could add sound effects in the key of the track, when you attack or get hit.
Funny! I had trouble clearing the kids a lot of the time, although that kinda added to the humour — especially when it sent a cat flying in an unpredictable direction. With some greater variety to the environment and hazards, this could be keep someone entertained for a while. Nice work.
This is really well made. I'm impressed with the plethora of art assets that you've included. I like the dynamic music too! I played until day 17, then I figured I'd probably seen everything.
I don't think that the grey enemy should be invincible before it splits, or it should be obvious that your attacks do no damage to it.
I could see this becoming really engaging if you had more things to build at day, and more abilities at night. Some tower defense mechanics feel like they'd be right at home here.
Great work!
@fiiction I actually felt like its movement was pretty good. Keeping it close to the player made the ghost more dangerous.
Congrats on completing your first jam game!
Using your health as ammo is an interesting idea. It incentivizes you to be efficient with your shots. This could be pretty cool with some more content variety in it.
I like the sense of humour here, and that Don't Starve-esque animation.
When I completed a level, I was in the midst of spam-clicking to attack the monsters. The menu immediately popped up, and I chose an option there without being able to read it. Adding a delay would prevent that.
Good job on completing your first entry!
The number of art assets that you have here is impressive. I like the inclusion of the music and storyline, and the second level.
I think the instructions screen could benefit from some cleaner design though, like adhering to a grid and less use of bold font.
The game is cute and original, still. Good work!
This is cute! I wish that each heart triggered an animation. It would be more rewarding then, and show where you've already looked. It would probably be helpful if each section of the map would somehow indicate if you've found all of the hearts there, because I got stumped after finding 26.
I got stuck in a wall temporarily somehow when jumping; I wasn't able to repeat the glitch.
I like the animations, and the control is fairly fluid. I did buy the cool sunglasses, but didn't see them on my sprite!
Nice work. The competition is gonna end in 5 days, so you should play, rate, and comment on other devs' games. When you do that, your game will become more visible for others to play.
This review is only for the jam version:
The art style was really clean and polished. Good job there. I felt like the gameplay was on-theme, but content-light. By introducing new challenges and goals, you could potentially make an interesting gameplay loop. But of course, I recognize that there's only so much that you can do in a weekend, and this is a good effort. Nice work.