Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Reef
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | E.T. Eats | jam | 713 | 3.46 | 3.53 | 3.05 | 4.16 | 4.05 | 2.76 | 3.26 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Landslide | jam | 529 | 3.68 | 3.70 | 3.18 | 4.13 | 3.81 | 3.43 | 3.47 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Flying Saucer Scramble | jam | 436 | 3.76 | 3.65 | 3.97 | 3.97 | 3.82 | 3.43 | 2.50 | 3.31 | |
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Daisy Danger | compo | 747 | 3.19 | 3.17 | 2.41 | 3.84 | 3.43 | 2.88 | 2.97 | 2.86 |
Interesting concept. I was keeping the fire alive, but certainly not the forest! I struggled a bit to know how effective I was at spreading the fire. Some more feedback in the form of sound effects or even more visual cues would have helped. I found myself getting stranded without enough trees or too many dead ones that I didn't spread the fire from fast enough.
I really love this game! The concept was great and really fit well with the theme. It's too bad there is no sound, that would really add to the feeling. I ended up playing this for quite a while and got to the point where I felt like I was on the very edge of maintaining control of the board, that satisfying feeling all great puzzle games of this type give.
I always look forward to you games. This was fun and was so satisfying to get into a rhythm. The procedural generation works well for achieving that "puzzle zen" state, but it eliminates all feeling of progression. Really engaging game though and good expression of the concept.
The music wasn't too bad actually, if you made it loop a bit cleaner and added a flourish or two it would fit really well. I enjoyed the smoke effects a lot. If you made it a bit more challenging, speed up faster and then add multiple drops, you'd have a really great little game!
Really cool idea. Thanks for the technical explanation in the comments! I would really like this to be a physical game to play, I bet it would be really fun.
Cute game. I liked the sound effects and the graphics were nicely done. I found it really difficult to guide my little chick past the cars, he didn't seem to always want to listen to me.
The art and sound are fantastic. I was caught a little off guard by the sudden blast furnace though, lol! Really nice concept and packaged together so neatly and polished. This is a great example of a pico8 game!
Art was unique and ambitious to try during the jam. I think the controls and inventory were very smooth and great to use.
Thanks for the comments everyone! This was my first game jam and my first real "released" game.
I made the classic mistake of over-scoping and not prioritizing the gameplay first. I had to cut features and my spawning code became buggy with only 2 hours left in the compo, and I still hadn't made music! So I had to drastically simplify and didn't quite get the tuning right! Thank you for playing!
I made it to the first campfire and then the game wouldn't let me move any more! I like the mood and concept though, I'd like to try playing more.
This was really good! I was prepared to comment that the game was too easy and didn't take the training wheels off, but I'm now struggling to beat level 2 and 4 of the hard difficulty! Really nice job of ramping up slowly with the difficulty, a simple idea that was well done. My game was my first jam game ever too!
Too difficult for me with a touchpad mouse. I think the game would be helped by an easier introduction with safe spots on the floor, or maybe even no consequences on the first level.
Great concept and art! I was a little confused how the different pieces worked at first and it wasn't clear where I could place them. I don't think I got to the point where I really got to see all the pieces interact, but I feel like there is a lot of potential in this idea.
Nicely made! I appreciated the tutorial area to get the hang of the bouncing. I liked how much movement control there was if you were careful, sometimes that little boost was just enough! A little more speed and height variety to the challenge would be even more interesting, but you made it very approachable and quick to learn.
I saw your game on twitter and thought it looked like a great concept! I really struggled having enough time to react though. The entire right side of the screen is not really relevant to the action. Also, the matching pairs are tiny and difficult to discern from one another. the colors might need more contrast from one another. I think a way to gradually ramp up the speed or frequency of the base pairs would have helped me wrap my head around what was going on. Really polished presentation though, I plan on going back to it and giving it another try!
Nice game! I really enjoyed the art and music. Your game was similar to mine in structure but with a more polished loop and difficulty ramp. I liked how you had to venture out and gather the fertilizer to grow your plant. One thing I struggled with was judging the bounding boxes and how close I could get to the aliens without them hurting me. There was also no way for me to heal my poor grandma! (or at least I didn't find it...)
This was a great idea for the theme! I would have liked more puzzles. You definitely made feel that feeling of apprehension as the wave got closer, I didn't want to mess it up! I think I missed a few times but the game didn't seem to care. Maybe there's a lesson in that?
Really inventive idea! I struggle with fighting games and have trouble pulling off combos, but this game really captures the creativity and challenge stringing combos together involves. I had trouble pulling off the buster dunk, the timing and predicting where I would land and hit was a little challenging. I didn't get past all of the tutorials but I think you have a cool idea here.
Nice game, I always like when puzzle games take inspiration from molecular biology, it seems like such a nice fit. I only got 4 on my first try, but I made a big mess of the chain of nucleotides and it wasn't clear what the order was until it disentagled itself, which I'm surprised worked as well as it did. Overall it looks nice, was fun to play, and the music was pretty relaxing.
Really great! I enjoyed the funny writing and the puzzle. You art was nice, felt just like a gameboy game. The jumping was a little unpredictable at first but I got used to it. You could also make it a little more clear what objects the player is able to interact with. I'm tempted to play again because I think I missed out on some things! Nice little world you put together.
Thank you for playing everyone!
@grenk @mbrezu Difficulty was something that I'm definitely working on dialing in. Last LD my game suddenly got extremely difficult, so I biased towards being easier this time. Clearly, different people have different experiences, thanks for the feedback!
@peachtreeoath You found all of the movement quirks! I initially didn't intend for the player to be able to stop their movement, but didn't have time to fix that bug and figured it might allow the player to last longer when the number of enemies really increased. You can also resize the loop if you are stuck on the edge of the screen which is a bug that needs to be fixed. Giant loops around the screen is indeed a way to cheese the game, but you run the risk of an enemy spawning or getting cut off by an enemy moving towards a corner. I had another enemy planned that would move just fast enough to cut you off if you tried to loop around the screen, but I had to cut it. That would make it a bit riskier though!
The circle movement was something that I had to spend a lot of time on to get to feel right, keeping the player on the screen if the loop went off, and getting that to feel right, were the things that took the most time. Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!
I really enjoyed the art and the audio! Fun mechanic and I think your tutorial was particularly good, though it did become pretty difficult for me after a few levels. This felt well polished for a jam game, good controls and felt nice to play.
I used pico-8 as well! I really liked you game, it feels very complete and well put together. The music in particular was excellent and really set the tension for the game. I think you nailed the difficulty progression, although I wasn't sure whether I was ever close to losing. The homing shots were challenging but fun, I tried to see whether I could cause them to loop back and hurt the enemies, but I couldn't tell whether that was possible or not. I would have liked some way to get back at those dinosaurs! The overall presentation was really great, nice job!
Really really cool concept. I had a little trouble playing at first and there are a few things that would help make it more enjoyable.
The red X combined with the next tile being transparent made it difficult to see what the current tile is and place it precisely. I think that should be extremely visible and obvious because it is critical to forming a shape and must be timed appropriately as well. I would also have found it helpful if the special tiles stood out more in the list of upcoming tiles, having them sparkle or pulse or something. It would be helpful to have a "speed up" button too or something.
I think it's really fun as is! With a little tweaking I think your puzzle game could really shine and it would be worth developing further. I'm really happy I got to play this one!
This is a really cool idea! Having 9 squares to keep track of made it challenging to plan but also allowed me to catch some squares and combinations that I might have otherwise missed. I played on a laptop without a numpad though, and I'm sure it would have been much easier if I had one. The presentation is great over all, really slick looking. with the music and minimal feedback I found the game almost meditative or relaxing, but I could also see how, with some tweaks to the speed and player feedback this could feel entirely the opposite and be quite frantic! Varying between those two feelings would be pretty interesting. I'm impressed you even have a leaderboard, it was fun to see where I ranked on it.
I found it difficult to angle the back of my ship correctly. I kept exploding :(
Really cool look to this game. I was having a problem where I kept resetting and didn't see how I could possibly bring the triangle back in time without using the checkpoints and without getting hit. I'm afraid I was missing something.
Really cool look to this game. I was having a problem where I kept resetting and didn't see how I could possibly bring the triangle back in time without using the checkpoints and without getting hit. I'm afraid I was missing something.
Put together well and a funny concept. At first I had some trouble where the attack would just stop working, but I think that may have been an issue with my laptop trackpad. It was harder than I expected! I had to play on Easy. You could add things like obstacles in the water or something similar vary the gameplay a little, but I guess I had enough trouble just dodging those darts!
This was a great idea. It took me a long time to repair the ship but the push of the day/night cycle made it compelling. A really nice an cohesive experience with art that all went really well together. Some nice music would make the lulls while waiting for the resource you need more enjoyable.
The music is really exceptional. I was able to collect all of the coins and had a great time playing. Normally these types of magic door games become frustrating but I didn't have too much trouble with this one. It's very polished and has a lot of personality, nice work!
This felt like one of the most complete and polished games I I've played yet! You've gotten some great feedback already, but I'll reiterate that I couldn't figure out how to properly buy things from the shop at first. This is a game I could easily see myself playing more of.
It took me a little while to catch on, but once I witnessed the trick I realize I should have figured it out sooner! The wall collisions are a little glitchy, but I liked the simple music and the art is great. I could only find 4 hidden paths, are there actually 6?
I really like this game! I used pico-8 as well! The sound effects were impactful and the graphics effective. Like others have said, the controls tripped me up a few times. I think the arrows would have helped me remember which is which. The balance between managing speed, dodging hazards, and collecting shield dots made was really fun. The challenge curve was great, a great challenge without being frustrating or boring. My high score was 42!
I really loved the mechanic in this game. 1 played it all the way to the end and didn't get too frustrated, it was so satisfying! I think the minimalism was perfect and you didn't over complicated it. You made good use of the simple concepts the game introduced. I think you could explore this further with many, many more levels. It would be a perfect mobile game.
You certainly made me feel lost! I think you really caught the mood of not being sure whether I took a wrong turn or not. I liked the art and the sound was great. I think the interaction of walking around could have felt more exciting to play. I wasn't able to escape though I could tell when I was looping, I just got so turned around! I think a little more guidance or hints to get the player started would be helpful.
This is one of my favorites I've played so far! It's an inventive idea with enough levels to explore the concept. Nice and clean art with pleasing level transitions. I don't have much feedback other than some music and extra audio feedback would really help. Great game.
The sound, graphics, and effects are really excellent and make smacking that can so satisfying. Like others, I struggled a bit with the controls- my fingers were cramped and it took me a while to wrap my head around which button was for the racket and which one was for the bat. Learning the way the game works was fun, although I feel like there are still some mysteries for me to figure out if I wasn't so poor at playing!
Don't worry about the theme not fitting enough, this was really clever and fun! I think the levels were really well designed to show off the mechanic, and the way you introduced it was perfect. I finished the game and I was looking forward to more but satisfied with what I played, which is perfect for a jam!
@spudboy @agameortwo @polymathld @hacksawunit @aquilart @potkirland and everyone else, thank you for playing and leaving a comment! I know and agree, the biggest thing missing from the game is more warning and indication for where the rocks will fall, I ran out of time! I spent so long tuning the way the ground moves and fighting last minute bugs. For what it's worth, the rocks will only potentially fall in the same three places--just watch out at the top of the slope!
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This was great! I really loved the character animation and the puzzles were the perfect level of difficulty for me. The level @soul-grinder got stuck on stumped me for a minute but I got it after wondering why some of the clues were there... The character control felt great and the level humor reminded me of Portal. I'd really like to see the game expanded on and I'm glad I played it. Thanks for sharing your game!
This was delightfully silly! I don't have a lot of feedback because the execution was excellent. I enjoyed the interpretation of the theme and found it really visually appealing. The object hunting was fun and it became challenging quickly!
This was a great idea, I find it hilarious and you pulled it off well. A good parody of the Tony Hawk games. I immediately tried doing flips, so I agree, you have to add that at some point! I liked the music and the whole presentation, really well put together. Now I'm laughing at the idea of fully 3D version of this, bouncing around a skatepark on a pogo stick.
I think the concept is clever, but I couldn't get past the second level. Maybe I'm just dense but I felt like I couldn't figure out the controls. Am I supposed to be able to interact with the box? The particle effect is a little thing but really contributed to the mood and I like it.
I think this is a solid basis for a puzzle game, like Where's my Water. I thought few things that I would consider adding. I think it would benefit from some acceleration and momentum to the cup; this might make it more challenging, but would make interacting with it feel much better. Also, I wasn't sure if I was completing the puzzles successfully at first! I didn't notice the UI until the third level. I also like to know how many levels I have left when I'm playing puzzle games for Ludum Dare, it often helps me play longer to know I'm only stuck on the last level! As for the music, I felt like some of the bass tones cut out just as they were beginning, but music is a challenge for me.
This was a great idea, and I enjoyed the story wrapped around it. Things fell apart really fast for me! I found it difficult to grab the smallest particles, but I held out for a while! Well executed and really fit the theme.
I always look for other Pico-8 games! This was a cool take on the theme. I only made it to level 8 but I liked where things were going! The jumping felt good and being able to manipulate the speed of the platforms was helpful and added some strategy. I enjoyed your use of the glyphs for simple graphics.
Yay, someone else who used Pico-8! Really lovely games, loved the graphics and the music! Really reminded me of Cave Story and captured the vibe of some areas from that game. I just wish my jump went a -little- further horizontally, but felt great to get the glider. More games need gliders! I'm very impressed, good Compo game for sure!
Really enjoyed the visual design, the game has a lot of style and nice little touches, like the characters watching my fridge crash to the ground over and over and over again. I am very bad at the game, unfortunately.
What an excellent game! It took me a round of complete failure to get a handle on the controls, but my next attempt was much better. The art in super charming and all the little touches are really impressive: the water, the tire tracks, the jaunty little bounce of the car, the controls, minimal but perfectly suited music and sound effects, really great stuff.
I appreciated how you can kind of control the difficulty by deciding how many kids to lure towards your truck.. at least at first! Things can spiral out of control fairly quickly after accidentally messing up an ice cream or bumping into a kid on accident.
This is the kind of Pico-8 game that pushes me to make my own better!
What a fun idea! A perfect jam game, I can imagine all the extra polish and personality that you could put into this with more time. I wasn't very good, but had a lot of fun being bad at it. I would have appreciated just a little freedom to adjust the pitch of the camera when aligning my cannon, though not too much because I think that's part of the challenge. I also found the mouse controls too sensitive for my liking. FYI, the game didn't seem to load in Firefox, but I used Edge instead.
I like your art! I find the game incredibly difficult though! I initially expected to have to tap really quickly based on the instruction, but after realizing it was more of a "pulse" control I still couldn't manage to keep the meter on the target. It felt incredibly sensitive. Poor babies :(
Just excellent. It's a great twist on Mario Bros and captures that classic arcade games, black box NES games vibes (something you are good at, Annalynn is fantastic). The art and sound are perfect and the gameplay fun, though too challenging for me! I really struggled when the number of rats increased.
@wadlo thanks for the kind words!
@jepjoh2 sorry, by default Pico-8 doesn't let me freely map the controls, though there are a few tricks. A gamepad should work though if you have one! Thanks for the feedback.
@breadstick Those are all ideas I had in my notes, and even had art for, but didn't have time to properly implement. I really enjoyed how this game started coming together at the end and think I'll find time to properly finish what I intended in a post-jam version. A distance indicator is something I'll have to think more about, it would introduce an additional level of skill that it's missing right now. Thanks for the feedback!
@bartalomew Thanks! I considered markers for the trucks but didn't want too much clutter on the screen. That's actually how I got the idea for the smoke! It helps you orient and find the trucks, but you have to remember the order or what the building looks like (granted, the buildings should be more unique to make that easier!).
@poppy-entertainment thanks for the feedback. I didn't get time to play test or tune much.
@jampla-games A tutorial and levels of increasing difficulty and complexity was planned, but I always run out of time in LD!
@weirdbitgames Thanks for the positive feedback! I didn't prioritize sound or music, which I now regret. I got a little caught up tweaking the visuals.
@alpacalypse Thanks for the comment. The delivery bubbles are intentionally partially off-screen. I'll have to consider whether this is the right choice, or if there is another clearer way of communicating that information without blocking too much of the screen. Funny you mention random windows! I started making completely procedurally generated buildings but quickly realized it would take too much time, so I tried to make the buildings somewhat unique so the player wouldn't get lost.
Isn't it great when a game jam really sparks your creativity and you get tons of ideas while working?? I also felt the same, there's never enough time though!
I was going to suggest calming down the camera and making the map easier to ready, which I see you fixed in the post-jam version. I found this really fun and the driving was just the right amount of chaotic for a game like this, the only suggestion would be to subtly straighten the car on long straightaways to help me make slight steering adjustments so I can really build up speed and make those hard deliveries! The snake delivery cracked me up!
Nice water effect! I think the boat could feel more like a boat though. Was I meant to be able to cruise through the land as well? The overall vibe was very relaxing, the audio fit you theme well, and it was very relaxing.
Not 1 game, but 4. Art. Love the road running baby, incredible animations. Your rap helped by get over the uterus rocket maze, those controls were tough at first. I respect the vision. I often have difficulty rating the Mood for LD entries, but not here. The mood is excellent.
Fun game, great graphics, nice music. Made me think of a cross between a clicker-game, Settlers of Catan, and... some kind of train game.
Even after I "got it," I played until I won because I found it relaxing and satisfying driving my little train around! I also found it unclear at first why my train slowed down at first, but laying track through the mountains quickly made it obvious to me, and I realized it was more expensive! All would change is extra polish to communicate those trade-offs to the player, and a little more celebration after reaching 200!
Aw, this is so good! It's very similar to my game! I think the controls are good, they are loose without feeling too sloppy, that's something I felt was important to a game like this. I appreciate the challenge of avoiding the pedestrians but also being able to walk past them to avoid bouncing off them when trying to get to a shop adds a little strategy. I like how complete it feels and how much personality it has!
Cool idea! I liked the art and audio. I think the packages often ended up pretty similar so it was hard to get the right one without a lot of hints, my coworker was very frustrated with me! "What is this, geometry class??" I think I would have liked to be prompted with a vague hint from the beginning, because it felt like trial and error a lot of the time. Cool game!
Love a good one button game. Nicely polished, great art and music. I'll echo others that I accidentally skipped the score screen and it would be interested to add one tweak to the gameplay to offer an opportunity to push my luck, like a coin.
Nice game! Your art suited the game really well, combined with the music it's a real mood. I cracked up at the twerking horse.
Nice cozy experience, biking simulators are poised to take walking simulators to the next level. All this needs is some wind and birds chirping, very relaxing. I thought maybe I missed it so went back to check and got no sound the second time. I remember the bike chain fitting perfectly though.
Nice game! I liked the character art a lot and the parallax effect was cool. You've already gotten good feedback on the controls. Something else that might have been fun is having to pick up things from different heights, like apples from a tree. The mushrooms on the ground are low, and the falling bat wings are a dynamic target, something always up high would have been fun too. I also didn't expect or realize at first the cauldron kept hurting me!
I saw you used LOVE to make it, that was what I used to start learning how to make games years ago. I didn't realize love.js worked so well now!
The game looks nice! I wasn't sure how to get the orders to appear to deliver though! I ended up with a lot of very angry customers. I did manage to serve 3 of them though and I felt like it was a fun challenge to try and keep track of where each order needed to go.