Caves and Critters by LeviDSmith 2024-10-07T01:22:57Z
Graphics are really neat but the gameplay is totally mysterious to me. A tutorial and more feedback to the player would go a long way!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → richjbaron
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2026 | 59 | Signal | FINDER-1 | compo | Audio | 4.35 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | FINDER-1 | compo | 21 | 4.08 | 3.28 | 4.14 | 4.21 | 4.25 | 4.35 | 1.74 | 4.42 | |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | Keep It Up Kitty | compo | 178 | 3.47 | 3.30 | 3.08 | 2.72 | 3.79 | 3.83 | 3.29 | 3.61 |
Graphics are really neat but the gameplay is totally mysterious to me. A tutorial and more feedback to the player would go a long way!
LOL the guilt on not picking the rabbit at the start. Incredible work! humbling for sure
Also never heard of this console but love to learn something new lol
Very impressive given the time constraint. I really like it!
Really great entry! the graphics are awesome and multiple levels is really impressive. idk why, but i found it hard to do so much at once with my left hand. adding mouse controls or arrow keys to do rotation or movement would've helped me for sure.
Couldn't get it to run :( but I love all of your art in the screenshots!
Absolutely love the art and concept. Really awesome!!
I like the idea! but agreed with it being hard to control the signs. I think the player's non-instantaneous rotation contributed for me. probably best to have their angle snap to the camera angle for precision.
Damn. Humbling. Very very cool!!! This has huge potential
@gnats @william-corrin Much appreciated! :)
@ember44 haha yes they're treats! I went for the star shape so the 5 treats = 1 extra life mechanic would be nice and cleanly indicated. Clearly not my best choice! it is your score. you're probably spamming balloons too much bc they cost points. It's a mechanic to prevent balloon spamming since that's the obvious way to prevent the cat from falling and dying. It's possible to score >1,000,000
@brotherbrody haha, I'm a huge souls-like fan so it's not a game for me unless there's a way to punish you lol. Thanks so much for the feedback and for playing!
Thanks all for the kind words and I hope you had some fun playing!!
@designernap high scores happens to be a native feature of gamemaker haha, so that one barely requires any work from my part :)
My high score :) 1.48 billion 2024-10-10 11_18_42-Settings.png
lol, absolutely loved it
best game where u put poop in the trash i've ever played
HTML doesn't seem to be working? I got a 404 not found :(
Love the art! Would've been much more fun for me if i could make the guys shoot each other for extra points haha
I love the adorable little guys
Super cute and impressive work. I just don't really understand what each item does or how to do better/worse if that makes sense.
I'm a big cat lover and a huge fan of yours now too! The art is truly beautiful.
Also couldn't get anything to happen after grabbing the key. Not sure what's up :( Otherwise a pretty nice entry!
very visually impressive!
Wow!! Seriously impressive. I actually beat the whole thing. You did an excellent job with scaling the difficulty and designing the right mix of characters in such a short time. I loved it! Like a great flash game of old :)
I couldn't get it to run, but I love the description lol
Wow, you got so much complexity in such a short time i'm astounded. I love the way you command workers manually to get resources as a focus, it's an interesting idea.
Kinda hard on my laptop touchpad so i couldn't beat it, but I'm impressed with how much you got done. I've never been able to get a game to the point of including an upgrades menu like that. Very nice.
Love the music and vibrant colors!
Super interesting puzzle game! I liked this interpretation of the theme though I found shooting randomly to be easier than using the signal thingies haha :) Really polished and nicely put together, complete game. Super impressive!
2026-04-20 22_38_21-Untitled_ - Ableton Live 11 Suite.png
Graphics are awesome and this is a cool modern concept. I had Starry internet in LA which this reminded me of haha. I would've loved a little more clarity from the UI/gameplay on what I'm supposed to do but I understand that's hard to implement in a short time, especially for a strategy game. Nice work!
Wow I really love this so much actually! It's a super good concept and done absolutely perfectly. I love the level design, and especially the look of the menus, levels, and characters, etc. Incredible Jam entry!
I see that it's named signal but I'm not sure how it relates to the theme. If you did get multiplayer working, I'm extremely impressed! As it is, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing or how to play with others...
I love the vibe of this. Sound and visuals etc. were so fun. I just wish the hearts moved faster lol
Your art is absolutely tremendous! I'm so envious of people with this skill. Nice work
@colisan —- ..- .-. / .-- . .-.. -.-. --- -- .
This is hilarious and very cool vibe. It took me a awhile to figure out what was going on haha, definitely needs a little more immediate feedback for the player. You did a really great job!
Wow, extremely ambitious project! I loved the music in particular. Either you're a great singer or got a great sample library... My first time, I also struggled with everything I tried erroring out. I read through the text and it described like what the goals are but not actually how to play at all. Despite trying for a while and clicking everywhere and pressing every button I couldn't get anything to work :/ I was so excited based on the art and vibe and music but the gameplay was just too hard for me to grasp. Incredible entry anyway considering the obvious complexity in such a short time!
I absolutely love the look of this. And the musicality of the text is really very nice. I was super excited at first when I found some targets. But despite clicking everything and typing in every combination of things in the target boxes, transmitting directionally and radially etc. I just couldn't get anything to happen beyond finding some targets. Not sure what I missed :(
I really liked the design of exploring the open world then instancing into the little arenas for combat. It let me feel relaxed during the exploration which felt quite worthwhile. I enjoyed particularly the climb up the hill to the smoking bit of ----- (no spoilers). In particular I found that combined with the soft atmospheric organ music to be really nice. The combat arenas reminded me a bit of the evergaol's in Elden Ring. I feel like there's a lot you could do with enemy mechanics and gun customization with this. You could even fit a risk-of-rain esque roguelike experience over top, clearing monoliths to strengthen the signal home. I'm super impressed with the level of combat polish given the time limit. So stoked to see the stuff you're working on and your skills!!
Hmm, couldn't find any audio or mechanics other than clicking the triangle and text appearing. Is there more I'm missing? I was so intrigued at first
hahaha the "AHHHHH" sent me lmao loved it!
Very impressive collaboration with so many people. I'd love to have a crew this big. Nice work y'all
I love the vibe of this. The chromatic aberration around the walls and the fish eye lens give a very dream like view. And the back-rooms-esque map is cool. I wasn't quite sure how it tied into the theme beyond the waveform in the top right of the screen but I really liked it a lot!
Thank you for the comments! I fixed the ITCH issue!!
The writing is not AI I'm just bad at writing but I work at a spaceborne radar company so i knew a few things lol. Thanks!
@jack-maxwell @dzejpi @liam @ethan-hammonds Thanks all for the kind feedback! I worried greatly about the difficulty, I'm glad I included the hints. You can see how (as the designer) it's hard to tell how hard a game like this is. I would've loved to have play testers to help with that... Ah well, I'm glad it was enjoyable nonetheless!
@dzejpi no joke I got that working in the first like 30 minutes LOL. I just had the player do raycast collisions with a surface and produce dots that connected to their neighbors. Obviously needed some refining after that... But the constant orbital movement of the player and sweeping of the rays means that the radar signal is always moving. Honestly, that visual effect was what gave me the encouragement to keep going and finish. Thanks so much!
@fassenberg @nathmate @mdotedot I'd love if you'd give the game another chance now that I've fixed the functionality :)
@mrtroy :grimacing:
@drtizzle The scanner always plots 16 points within its width, at a fixed frequency. So, the wider your scanner, the more difficult it is to make out fine geometry. The intended game loop is to manipulate your scanner width and orbit around the asteroids to first "map" the surface, then go in with a finer beam to pinpoint the target. I played with a number of strategies, and had to do quite a lot to prevent it from being cheatable. The obvious strategy is to fly around and spam indicate everywhere, so I made the inidication take a second and freeze the player in place so there's a small "punishment" for using it. That was intended to force the player to follow thru on the rough scan/fine scan/mapping game loop. Seems I had only medium success in that regard :) Thanks for playing anyway!
I've been a musician for >20 years so that's always my favorite and the easiest/quickest part of the jam for me. Helps to have all the tools available to me as well. I really appreciate your kind words.
@termight I'm so glad you got out of the game exactly what I intended. That's very humbling and exciting. I so appreciate you playing and commenting!!!
@baknik This was my first time attempting a mood/narrative so I'm thrilled to hear it had a positive impact. Thank you so much!
@mr-flower Genuinely made my day with this comment. I'm going to be on cloud-9 all day knowing you had such a good time and even the patience to play it through!!!
@purpledartfrog That's very encouraging to hear! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll have to give your entry a play later when I'm off work!
@william-corrin hah! Not to freak you out but we actually know each other IRL. I had no idea you were a game dev. I really appreciate the feedback. I agree with everything you said definitely. The main game loop needs refinement for both clarity and fairness. As is it, you're basically randomly scanning and any method requires deep understanding of the sweep mechanic that the player isn't encouraged or guided to develop. Plus a lot of luck. I'm going to check out your entry this evening after work! I'm excited based on your images/gifs
@avhatar That's a totally fair critique. I agree that the core gameplay loop suffers from maybe being too simple, or at the very least, unrefined. I really appreciate you taking the time to play and comment :)
@smolbigby I try to keep it as simple as possible but sometimes there's a line where it loses any semblance of "play" and ends up being "work" lol. I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway.
@soothsayer I agree, the maps + level description do almost nothing to let the player "solve" it, and I don't do anything to describe how a radar in the real world actually works to hint the player towards the "official" technique. It's more just like I-Spy than anything without those details. Glad you were able to find some enjoyment anyway!
@jesse-martin I'm glad you were able to beat it and enjoy the sound/music. There's some technique to be had but it requires either time to learn or instruction that I didn't provide, so I'm not surprised you did any better.
@oleksandr-marynenko Thanks for the kind feedback!
I uploaded a gameplay tutorial here that explains the intended gameplay loop more clearly since I did a less than stellar job in the game: https://youtu.be/bSP-6V5TALE
I know it's supposed to be a feature but i really liked the game otherwise and found the input lag frustrating. I'd love this aesthetic in a faster-paced game with like more clean controls (mouse aiming instead of the keys etc.)
As a big synth lover, I love the design of this so much! It'd be so cool on a little handheld. Nice work
We used a similar radar mechanic! That's fun. I really liked this except for the sub is so damn slow lol. Not sure why you'd want it to be so slow... I gave up after a few minutes because I couldn't tolerate the speed lol. The audio was awesome too
I went thru all the channels and loved the chaotic vibe of them all! But, to get thru the game, there was no punishment for wrong guesses so i just clicked all the buttons because the clues were confusing lol. Very interesting concept and wonderfully executed other than the lack of punishment for wrong answers! Great work, I loved it.
@noobman64 LOL EA executive in a past life is great :laughing: That would've been super fun. And yeah the time constraint is brutal for any "nice to haves" like that. Great work considering the limitations!
I actually think this is a really fun dynamic, but without any live feedback it's really hard to get the timing between a dot and a dash right. Something visual or auditory to help really would have made me get super into this.
I'm so impressed by this. You put in so many details in such a short time. I quite like the sound effects and art too! At some point I was expecting without many enemies then just got totally overloaded lol. Was still super fun. Great work!!!!2026-04-20 22_27_15-Untitled_ - Ableton Live 11 Suite.png
Really great concept! I found the knobs super finnicky but otherwise quite liked it. The knobs could've used some labels too bc I spent a lot of time ruining my correct settings lol. Great entry!
Another embed fail :(
Wow you're either incredibly productive or there's a lot of assets you didn't make in here... The amount of effects, 3D graphics, unique assets in the game is incredible. Amazing work!
I love the images you created. As someone who still has and plays on their childhood gameboy, this vibe really speaks to me!
I also may be dumb haha, but cannot find the game?
Ah I got it to work! I love the artwork and room transitions especially. Also the player's huge ass guns lol. I found the circle mechanic to not add too much to the game but I still really liked it otherwise. Very impressive and fun entry!!
I also got stuck with not enough money and no way to get more twice haha And, I hate to say it, but those aren't satellites they are antennas lol :)
I love the vibe of this! The coloring and map design are super vibey. Really nice work there!
FYI, to get rid of that clicking sound you need a couple ms of fade at the start and end of your loop...
The audio is awesome and I like the concept. I actually think you could do like a timed, fast paced version of this and it'd be really cool. Especially on mobile? My big problem is knobs are super awkward on the computer with a mouse. If it was sliders, and potentially ratcheting inputs instead of continuous, that really would've brough it up to the next level in terms of playability.