Something Magical by wasd 2020-04-21T16:16:52Z
What a beatiful game! Perfect score from me. Sometimes there is no need for a challenge.
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Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Remus Rain
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | Crypt Raider | jam | 494 | 3.77 | 3.71 | 3.21 | 3.58 | 3.75 | 3.68 | 2.71 | 4.12 |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | 👥 | Pseudogravity - You Control Gravity by Going Through Doors! | jam | 683 | 3.58 | 3.50 | 3.86 | 3.36 | 3.90 | 1.00 | 3.08 | |
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Egg's Eggsoddus | jam | 130 | 4.09 | 4.10 | 3.60 | 3.86 | 3.94 | 3.54 | 3.96 | 3.71 |
What a beatiful game! Perfect score from me. Sometimes there is no need for a challenge.
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Classic concept but very well executed 9/10 from me. Just a couple of improvements: try differentiating the two asteroid types more. Also you could even remove the points entirely and just make the player survive. Let him switch shiels to be able to block the two types instead of giving him just more points. Also the instructions were a bit to long, try to boil them down a bit more.
Very intriguing. The keyboard controlls are a bit strange though, especially in germany, where "z" and "y" is switched.
Very interesting
Hey there! nice attempt and especially great job for making such an ambitions projects with animations, graphics, combat logic etc.! I really think though that the game could be a lot more fun if you try to reduce the scope of the game and try to make the gameplay feel more satisfying. So maybe dont try to make a 3d game with combat in a game jam as it will just take too long until it feels god.
aawesome game! very similar to our game "Egg's Eggsoddus", lol! I loved that you keept it so simple, minimalism is key here. This gave you time to polish the scene. Kudos! This inspired me for the next game jam to keep it more simple.
very moody, very nice concept, nice graphics. Simplicity is key here. There is no need for music or crazy effects when you can hit the mood spot on! couldnt make it past the first level though :/
It just all fits together nicely, the music, the graphics, the gameplay. So good! Just one thing: I pressed space wanting to jump soooo often!!! But anyway: GREAT JOB, WOW!
Very very well executed, especially coding, music and graphics wise! But from a gameplay perspective I thin there are a couple of things that could be improved. So I have to stand next to this water canister constantly to get water back. Maybe make it so that the refill is automatic? And also I needed to click 10000000 times, maybe can I just hold down my mouse button to shoot water? And also while standing next to the canister all the time it blocked my vision so I had a really hard time. These things are easy to change and make the make so much better! keep it up! [2020-04-27 19_59_52-LudumDareProject.png](///raw/0d8/d2/z/336c6.png)
What an excellent game!!!
Very interesting. The controlls are nice and punchy. I think the level graphics were a bit confusing.
awesome
Nice concept. I think opening the doors could be automatic when you stand close to them. Also my game got glitched out when I reached the loading and restarted. The controls did not feel very intuitive and responsive. I think after tuning the controls a bit this concept has a lot of potential.
Very nice very moody. good execution! Awesome! The only thing is that I'm missing some sound effects and the player could feel a bit more responsive.
The overall game was quite nice. I would have like the action to spice more quickly though. Also the obstacles in the way dont really need to be destroyed quickly. It would have been nicer if the convoy was being chased and you had to destroy them quickly while also fending off attackers. It would have made for a nicer tradeoff. But overall very good!
Overall it was nice, but the controlls and the combat felt cluncly. Also, I think the summoning takes so much time and there is a lot of waiting involved. I would have tried to spice up the gameplay a bit. The graphics and the music are very nice but I doubt that you made it during the jam?
Overall nice idea and good execution! I like the music and the atmosphere. maybe try to make the player point his light with the mouse and not the movement. This way its easier for the player to see. Also, I found that the trap trigger on the right in the second level that did not trigger a trap was a bit misleading.
by the was the "PC browser" built also works on mac!
I was not really sure what to do. I didn't see the button on the right for 5 minutes so i thought changing the billboard text was the whole game at first. Also I think most of the UI is sized super randomly and too small in some cases. I loved the pixel art and the sound. Also the mood was really spot on.
Very nice and moody game! It plays a bit slow but I guess it's because you are stealthing ;)
Did you really create the graphics on your own?
great effort! here are some things I would improve: - The sound is too loud and has very harsh frequencies! Maybe try to filter them out. - I know the spaceship is supposed to have very indirect movememt due to space, but it just feels so uncontrollably vague that it kills a lot of the fun. - Try to bind the animation (tilt) of the spaceship according to it's current sidewards speed, and not the speed that the player is pressing! Because as it is right now the spaceship will do some very weird animations when changing directions.
Keep up the great work!
horrible!
Hey @koolruz thank you so much for playing and for the feedback. Yeah it turned out that the Super Mario section did not receive enough play testing unfortunately after the submission. We already changed it to make it a lot more straight forward and consistent. But in terms of fairness we will not upload the changes build to itch after the voting is over.
@mateusboga Thanks for playing! You almost made it to the end! We already made the part with the crushers slightly easier.
@weine awesome that you enjoyed it and thank you for your feedback. We are aware of the camera issue and will fix it today!
I've tried already about 10-20 submissions and this is the first game that is actually fun.
This made me puke.
It was quite nice. My light got stuck after the first drop down. Is that intended?
Very good job! Very nice art, very nice music, mood etc. But I just feel like the game design has not reached it's full potential. Just dying everytime one of the dinos is hit feels very frustrating especially when in some situations it feels like the player cannot do anything to prevent it. Maybe you could make it so that the player can still continue as long as he has at least 1 dinosaur? And that the dinosaurs produce back over time as you already have it in the game.
Hi, good job making the game! I love this take on the theme, where you get stuck with your clones. There were some bugs with the combat, but that is to be expected in such a short period of time. Keep it up!
This game is genious. It's simple and offers a lot of complexity. Full score for you.
It just took me a bit in the beginning to get what I was supposed to do. Maybe the hickup was that I didn't realize that the white tutorial outlines meant that I should connect these nodes in the beginning. Maybe if you made the tutorial text and the tutorial outlines around the circles colored and the same color (maybe yellow) it would be clearer that the belong together.
Also it might be confusing to the player that the circles make a sound when you hover over them (indicating that this has some form of effect), while in fact hovering over them does not affect gameplay. Be considerate with you audio queues.
But those are minor points and easy fixes.
I would also love to see this being developed further. I can think of two possibilities right now to add gameplay variation and complexity: - Having levels where the interactables are different shapes than circles. You could have a triangle shape, which means that each object connects to 3 neighbors instead of 2. And still every node has to be different than to all of their neighbors. You can also do squares and actually any number of dimensions. - You can also have nodes with different kinds of effects. Maybe there is one node that needs to have one neighbor that is the same state and one that is different. Or nodes that require all similar neighbors. - Finally I thought about having more than two states (on or off). And immediately I though of graph coloring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_coloring. The goal there is also to give each adjacent node in the network a different color. Your game is actually a graph coloring game. Although you only have one color and perfect circle networks. But this might maybe expand your view on this.
Keep rocking! :) And thanks for the awesome review on our game.
@porcus-pie awesome man. I'm interested to see where this is going. We can keep giving each other feedback (remember you also gave great feedback on my game: Pseudogravity). Do you have twitter? Send me an update once you have something. I'm @RemusRain
@porcus-pie ok. Good luck with that! :)
Hey, thanks for making the game! I think however you crammed too much stuff in the game, and the mechanics are not really polished. Try to focus more on one specific thing and try to make that really polished and fun. Keep it up! :)
I really liked the atmosphere in this game! The sounds and the water shader are really well done and they do an excellent job in giving you a feeling of isloation and anxiety, but not too much.
Pair this with some more crazy puzzle mechanics and it will even enhance the emotional atmosphere of the game. You should really try to come up with one puzzle mechanic that will make your game crazy. Maybe you can have different rooms depending in which direction you are swimming into a room? Maybe do something with the colors? Maybe you can only always activate one color? Maybe think specifically for a suiting mechanic that works only under water. maybe there are some air bubbles and you have to inflate / deflater certain objects.
Maybe you can even think about making this more a horror game as well. The atmosphere is already there. If there would be something coming after me I would be terrified AF. Maybe you can enter / leave the water and you have to do it to progress the game, but something only comes after you inside the water.
Also I can see this game being paired beautifully with a mysterious story about some science research with water gone wrong. Or something ;)
Keep working, it's already nice
Good job on the game! The beginning was a bit slow and it took quite a while until you could actually play the game (at least for me). Then I died quite quickly. as it was quite hard. But good job on the graphics and on getting so much content in the game! WOW
Wow great job on the puzzles! This game is actually exploring some very interesting mechanics! I would love to see this developed further. However: - The game does not explain to the player the mechanics. And dont get me wrong, you dont need to put a tutorial text to tell the player what to do. Finding out by exploring is also a possibility. But then you have to make it very obvious to the player! For the first time when you put stones on the white things for example you could have had that happen on the same screen so the player would know what the white things mean! ;) - Also it feels like you are very unforgiving to the player. I always had the fear that I will block myself for moving a box somewhere in a corner and that I couldnt revert it. Yes trhere is a revert button, but what if I made 1000 steps after than and only then recognize my mistake? You should think of how to overcome this.
But outside of that, great job on all the amazin puzzles! :)
Great job on the game! Especially the graphics are very nice! Super impressive that you made all these models in such a short amount of time.
Wow so much work, such a high polish, great art, great sound! Kudos! :) For me the main gameplay loop was not super appealing but that's just personal preference :)
Wow the artstyle is REALL RAELLY good! Great job! :) But the rest... I was really confused on what to do. I clicked on 1000 ghosts and then lost all my progress because I clicked on the credits.
Hey, I love the visuals and the atmosphere! I found the game quite hard but good attempt! Keep it up <3
Thank you @porcus-pie for taking the time to play and review our game! We are super glad you made it through the confusing part of the game and came to enjoy it.
We are aware of the many issues that you pointed out, but unfortunately since we only had one day for the jam we had to make many compromises. We already have many ideas on how to improve on the issues that you pointed out:
- the beginning can be improved by a better tutorial
- The disorientation Problem can be solved by making the doors be actual portals that you can see through and make the transition between the portals “seamless”
- we already had a lot of audio ready but didn’t have time to put it in
But given the short time, we are super happy how it turned out. We are also super thrilled by this prototype and already have so many ideas for what could ultimately form a full game release. Of course it needs a lot more work but we will tackle it! Thanks again <3
Hey there @indigo. Glad that you enjoyed our game!
You screenshot shows not a bug, the doors are just too high to reach them in the state that you ended up in. Little tip: try to have the three boxes stacked like a staircase in the end so you can climb to one of the doors. This level is definitely the biggest jump in difficulty ;).
Anyway, glad that you liked it! We are planning on working further on the game :v:
@ace17 awesome! You even found the secret ending! Great job, and thanks for the great feedback.
Our biggest hurdle right now is to onboard the player and to teach them quickly how the mechanics work. We have refine this process ;).
Well... Jakob seems to be the protagonist that you're playing. How did he end up in the testing facility? And even more importantly, who is talking to him? Will we ever find out?
I will play & give feedback to your game for sure :)
Great game! A lot of great work put into this. Already a lot of great stuff working here! But I just could run past all enemies and didnt see why I should find them. Also, I had no idea where to go and why. It will take you many many years to make a game from this. You should really think twice / thousand times if you really want to make a game from this. Making realistic 3d games with combat ... takes a team of really experienced experts and many years to do. If you want to release a game in the next years, work on something smaller :) I found the jumping on buildings for example a lot of fun and the speed that the player had. Maybe make a platformer from this where you parcour through a city quickly? That is way smaller and for me the main fun of the game so far
Nice game! Especially your idea is really nice, great job on that! As both a puzzle player and designer, I found that some of the puzzles could be a bit more carefully designed to force a certain solution. Most of the puzzles I had to spend no time whatsoever to come up with a solution. Just run to the nearest crystal. Also, I found that for that reason the difficulty ramps up too slowly and run in danger to lose player attention because you don't challenge the player enough with new unexpected ways to explore the mechanics. Of course this is a high ask! And definitely a great job for a game jam! But if you want to explore this game further I would take some time to really find unexpected things you can do with the gravity puzzles. I'm sure there is more hidden :) Also, I don't know if the vanishing platforms neccessarily play to the games strength, as it becomes more of platforming skill check rather than playing to the games puzzle aspect. Anyway, all of this is meant in a nice way! Goood job, keep going, you already have something awesome here!
There is a lot more room for improvement, but anyway, good job and keep it up! Here are some improvements: - I dont know how you move the character, but it feels really really unresponsive (here for some hints https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFsJIrm2btU) - Also the art really is not all that appealing, I also recommend in making simpler art with a more distinct color palette https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTaQVVHK0uY&ab_channel=GucioDevs - Also i felt frustrated when I fell on the first platform and left. Dont make me walk 1 minute back to the platform again please!
Good job on the game. I found especially the music, the graphics and the overall juice to be very good for the mood and the flow of the game. However, the core gamplay of the game can definitely be improved. I found myself waiting always for many seconds until I could pass the electron to the next container. You should try to make the gameplayer flow more, to benefit from the awesome juice.
Hey there! Great game! I really liked the movement with the arm. I think this the best thing about this game! It is fun to navigate around the levels.
I think you could have improved the level design a little bit. I could run past everything in 20 seconds until the last level, where I had to shoot for the first time. If you had put some goals for the player to achieve in the levels (like unlocking a door etc.), you would have forced him to fight the enemeis.
Another thing that didn't quite work for me is the inventory which took away more from the fun than it brought, because it is so slow and finicky. Instead, I would love to see the whole game play out in the actual game. I think there could have been a way to make the picking up ammo or reloading work without the inventory, where you have to make some specific moves with the inverse-kinematic arm. That you have to pickup the ammo with the arm and move it towards the gun on the players side or something. That way you would have leaned all the way into the fun arm mechanic and gotten rid of the annoying inventory.
Keep up the great work! See you on youtube! :)
Very nice game. I like that you made the game look cool with simple art. Also, there is a great sense of action in the game. The level design is very good! It's fun!
Here are my two cents for improvements: This game is about action, running and jumping. So I would even lean more into that and try to make less features but make them more polished instead. So instead of attacking and the jump attack, just go for the shooting for example and make that feel more satisfying with sounds, impact, screen shake, particles, lights and more accurate aiming. Less is more sometimes.
But don't get me wrong, this is a great game for a game jam! Keep up the great work! <3
Hey there! Thanks for playing our game and for the nice feedback. I really enjoyed playing your game. Great music, great atmosphere and now I'm really good at labelling cats :D I felt like I had a really good go on day two but then I still got fired :O The grabbing mechanic is really satisfying. Great work
Wow, what a great experience. Great job! I especially liked: - That you keep the upgrades that you have collected. And in general the game feels designed fair. When you die you don't have to start over again from the start which would cause most players to quit after the first death. - The environments look very nice, the whole game is just a nice atmosphere, awesome chill music. It just makes it fun to be there and explore the ocean.
Thanks @nomus it's working now.
Hi @enderswype, most of us already make games together for more than one year. So that definitely helps with establishing a certain workflow. Also, we stay in a discord call together throughout the game jam and everyone shares their screens, so we can know what the others are doing and get quick help and information exchange. I can definitely recommend that for a larger team, as you constantly need to have information about the work of the others.
Hi @lrvstudios Thank you so much for the positive feedback! :) I'm curious to find out exactly do you think about the art style didn't match? Do you mean the combination of 3D and 2D? Or the way that the skeletons look (more like a comic art style) and the way that the other graphic looks (more low poly kind of)?
Please keep in mind that even though we are 6 people on paper, that doesn't mean that all members were available throughout the whole jam. So we didn't have 6x the manpower, because some people could only join 1 or 2 days if that's what you mean. ;)
@msipp27 yeah I totally agree! And they should also announce themselves better. Maybe they should wiggle a little bit before coming up in general so the player can prepare better for that.
Thanks for the feedback! <3
Hey there @zackavelli! Awesome that you got around to play the game man. I'm a huge fan of your podcast and I'm currently listening through all the episodes.
The problem you had with the mouse is weird. We neither have smoothing, nor mouse acceleration in there. Maybe it was due to the web build?
I understand the ask for more complex combat, but it was actually not meant to be a focus of the game. It is just meant to temporarily stun the enemies as you mainly have to run away from them.
Hi there! Very nice mood, very nice game. Good job on exploring the puzzle mechanics so deeply.
If I could improve one thing about this game I would try to make the gameplay a bit more simple and fluid. For example picking up boxes and throwing them exactly where you want is a bit difficult.
But anyway, great job for the game jam ! <3
Quite a fun little game! Great job!
Hey there, great job on your game! I really enjoyed the mecanic that you slow down when you move to the left and right. There is a really nice tradeoff between slowing down and burning more fuel. Nice!
The sound and the graphics came together nicely and made for a great atmosphere. If I could improve one thing about this game: Sometimes I couldn't really see clearly the next obstacle. Maybe you could distinguish them a bit better from the background.
Lastly, I would like to point out how disappointed I am about @phobos for leaving such a toxic comment on our game, just saying "everything is bad". And also he blamed us for making such a bad game with 6 people. That comment gave no useful advice and just hurt to read. This is not constructive criticism at all and really bad for the game development community. We are all in this together.
The game doesnt look very good and it has it's flaws but damn did I enjoy playing it! Super cool, great job. Would love to see this expanded on.
This game has a nice vibe to it. Great job! :)
Very good job! I really like the graphics and the atmosphere of the game. It felt relaxing and very fun to jump around in once I understood the rules of the world.
I would improve the following things: - There seems to be some glitching with the tiles, as you sometimes see a pixel of ocean between them. There are ways for unity to cope with this. One way is to set the camera size to a multiple of 2 I think. You can google for "Unity Pixel Perfect Camera" - The controls don't feel super satisfying. Because sometimes you can get stuck. Try to give the collider of the player a physics material with 0 friction. This should improve the gett stuck aspect. - I would distinguish the killing plants better from the rest of the tiles (make them red or something) and also make it more obvious what killed the player. maybe by putting a small particle effect at the collision point.
But all in all, great job! Keep rocking!