rico-the-jammer

Year	LD	Theme		Game	Division	Rank
2016	36	Ancient Technology		Sumer Game	compo

Bonehenge! by colapolka 2016-08-29T07:20:00

I won!

Since you lose all progress when you die and there is no benefit to go hunt far from the construction site, I must confess I sheepishly farmed the first enemy, making it respawn by going back and forth... That's a bit lame for a winning strategy!

If you explore the concept further, it could be amusing to be able to use the bricks for more than just building the stone circle. Maybe throwing them at enemies kill them? Maybe enemies can't walk through them?

Little bug: I got the "there is no more bricks, go build some with bones" message when picking up a brick and it made the brick poof. It may be related to the fact I built a new brick before realizing I could use them to build the stone circle.

THE BOX by ReboundGames 2016-08-29T02:44:00

Simple concept, smooth execution (if you nit pick, the sound looping poorly and the riddle text being selectable are two little issues). Stuck on 8 though! :)

That said, not super in tune with the theme and I would have liked to be able to push multiple panels at once.

Ancient Astronomer by dhalvin 2016-08-29T06:30:00

That sounds like a super cool concept, but I became host and then waited and waited without any other player joining. Bug or bad timing? I could not say.

So... as far of feedback go... the 30sec secondary timer goes to -1 and the 8 in the font looks like a X and we know X is 10 not 8! Yep... that's all I have for now! I'll try at another time!

BitBullet by ccglp 2016-08-29T03:03:00

Failure hurts mostly because text can't be skipped! It's also difficult to understand spatially where the targets are and they seem to be invulnerable when they zoom in / get closer? Combined with the 'single bullet at time' mechanism, it's quickly frustrating.

Amusing idea though and functional execution.

The Temple by Supr 2016-08-30T04:34:00

I broke free from the temple... I guess that's it? Is it a piece of minimalist interactive art inviting us to break free? But if it is, what's up with the buttons? Or is it a physic/art/tech demo? Or something else? Whatever that is, it's pretty cool, but it left me the not so good kind of perplexed.

Ancient Video Games by kikijones2001 2016-08-30T01:05:00

You will be pleased to know that the Earth has been saved!

For some reason, when you lose (at least in the Pong stage), you are sent back to the title screen, but clicking start sends you to the intro text... and it stays there... and send you back to the title screen. So for multiple attempt I had to reload the whole page (and game) every time.

Also, not very nice to restart points from the middle of the screen. Sometimes you lose at the edge of the screen and if you don't instantly rush back to the center you get aced by the new serve!

Classic Connect by ToadieTechnika 2016-08-30T05:59:00

I was cheating like the best of them using the space bar to pause (and right arrow to unselect the typed text if need be) and then I got a sigil(?) that required multiple separate one character entries and got properly wrecked :( How can a cheater make a honest high score in these conditions!

(Maybe hide the text on the sigils when the game is paused)

Classic Connect by ToadieTechnika 2016-08-30T13:48:00

Oh! Sorry if it was confusing: What I am calling sigils are the disks that have on them the text you need to type.

SLATE and SPELL by junt74 2016-08-29T03:13:00

The thing is you really don't have time to try words. If we could type them directly, we might, but then you would need some diminishing returns or variations in enemies/outcome to prevent spamming the same word over and over.

Interesting concept, not very satisfying as-is, not very in tune with the theme, but could be worth investigating further post_LD.

The Crete Escape by KaiClavier 2016-09-02T22:06:00

From a thematic standpoint, I understand that the effectiveness of the wing flap is reduced when you have less feathers, but this creates a kind of composed punishment: the worst you are doing, the harder it gets.

This type of design can work (I played enough games of The Great Dalmuti to vouch for that!), but in this specific case I don't feel it does, because the difficulty is increased by reducing player control.

Maybe a compromise could be found by having the minimal height value of a flap not be zero but maybe half or a third of the max value?

The Museum by RhythmLynx 2016-08-29T02:52:00

It can be argued if it is properly "gamey" (no failure state yadda yadda), but one thing is clear: it is cleanly done and very very funny!!

Ancient Technology by tonynogo 2016-09-01T05:10:00

Yeah, it is pretty fun to try and understand how the machine works, but then it's a bit disappointing to realize that there is nothing to do with this newly acquired knowledge.

I though for a bit that the goal would be to match the background image and that some clever almost unnoticeable alterations of the pattern could make the triangular shapes appear using the right transformations.... I am not even sure such a thing is possible though!

Onager by Larzan 2016-08-29T03:23:00

6 hits, 4 misses in 85 seconds!

I'll disagree with @brookzerker here and say that, in a way, not having a visual feedback for the strength is interesting, as it becomes something a bit musical: you have to remember/feel the rhythm of the last push-and-release action. Maybe using a sound with a pitch that goes from low to high could reinforce that?

Curse of the golden skull by Jack Slinger 2016-08-30T01:18:00

If you have some exploration or at the very least non-linear progression (like here a side room for the red key and a loop back for the blue key), it's a bit annoying to have check points that register only the first time you reach them.

Temple Guy by wr4th88 2016-08-30T01:35:00

I like the time travel idea. There are several games that use the idea of switching at will between two different states of a same place and games where you revisit a same place at different times, but I can't think of one that does both at the same time (there are several Zelda games that come close though).

To give more flesh to the idea, it could have been interesting to have some obstacles in the past that can be overcome in the present and not only the other way around. Also, actions in the past that have repercussions in the present. Maybe for another project!

The Wheel by MrErdalUral 2016-09-01T04:50:00

In this type of games crisp controls are paramount. Sadly, here, the jumping is not crisp. Also a problem, I am not sure how the people who scored higher than me did, but personally I never jumped, so it's a game of hold right, tap (guy, little rock) or double tap (big rock) and just hope the rng don't give you too many big rocks in a row.

It feels like with different rocks, guys that jump at you and can chase you, free movement, jumping and an axe to swing, there must be ways to have richer interactions (though possibly not in 72h! Maybe explore things further in a post-jam version?)

I liked though that the hit box of the axe is tiny, because it gives a good feeling when you swing the axe with good enough timing to break the rock or stun the guy without slowing down.

Ancient Heist by gontzalve 2016-08-30T05:46:00

There is a slight bug that gives you false hope when you dash away just too late and die but still move. Sorta similar, you should probably remove the control of the player during the treasure grabbing animation as currently you can slide away while slowly brandishing the treasure. Tiny things though.

The zoom in during the escape is a nice touch, but I was surprised to not see the rumbles catch up with me as I was very hesitant near the end.

I wish you could implement a victory screen after the escape instead of looping back to the (amusing) start.

Many jam games have unsatisfying controls when it comes to friction. The characters are too slow or too fast, not responsive enough, slippery, weightless, with too much inertia or not enough, etc. Here this is properly snappy and satisfying (it's easier with this movement type, but still). Not perfect, but very close.

S**ON by jakatpemadi 2016-08-30T00:47:00

I like how the space is split in 8 panels and the way we navigate them. It feels very natural.

Sumer Game by Rico The Jammer 2016-08-29T02:01:00

The game is functional, but the scoring mechanisms are part untested and part flawed.... Post your scores so I can have some sense of how to tune it.

Sumer Game by Rico The Jammer 2016-08-29T04:34:00

@CMLSC : I agree that some music (no time is my excuse!) would be nice as would be a way to make the experience more... tactile somehow. Sound effects could help, better visuals too, etches that are analog instead of just small or big could also help... Oh and to complete a level you need to use the kiln to bake the tablet.

@TheMysticalBard : I totally agree with you! The initial idea was to have a score after each tablet, but the clock made me scrap that. As for the length of the text, it was decided early from a visual standpoint (to have a finished tablet that looks filled) and then later (too late!) I noticed that it made each level last too long.

@pogo575 Oh? The mouse wheel is not working or are you using a touch pad? I should add a keyboard option to change the orientation of the stylus... As for feedback, in Easy you can see how well you are etching over the guides, but it's true there is a big gap (both in time and concept) between what you are doing and the score you get (not to mention the scoring techniques are a bit... yeah...)

@ReboundGames From a pacing perspective, I don't disagree. From the perspective of the theme though, it's difficult to score line by line because things are literally not "set in stone." I agree though that the tedious activity of a sumerian scribe is not made less tedious in this Compo and that something like your ductile clay idea would help gamify the task.

Sumer Game by Rico The Jammer 2016-08-29T05:42:00

@NinjaNic hahaha it's terrible and I did not notice. I'll edit the description.

@rjhelms the calligraphy scoring was conceptualized early but implemented in the last few minutes before the deadline. It currently is silly (I compare what the player does to what the player should do in a very very crude way), unbalanced (I compute a value, but I have just guesstimated what would be a very good value and what would be a very bad one and derive the grade from these two wild guesstimations) and possibly just bugged (because... well... wrap up time coding!). So don't feel too bad if you get poor calligraphy grades!

Sumer Game by Rico The Jammer 2016-08-29T17:07:00

@RhythmLynx Yep yep, I feared that would happen (that's why at the 11th hour I added a note about it in the controls explanation text).

I like the idea of the cooking being done with subtle visual feedback instead of a gauge, but that means you will almost certainly fail at first and, with the current order of events, it's very likely that you will try to cook for the first time after spending a (too) long time etching your first tablet. That's not very nice... In fact that's the opposite of nice!

I probably should force people toward the "free play" mode by calling it differently, putting it on top and highlighting it in some way. I'd rather have people learn the craft through experimentation rather than through a rigid tutorial though.

Egyptian God by MyIsaak 2016-08-29T02:29:00

Possibly related to the low specs of my laptop, I did not get how to interact with the world. I managed to zap some of my minions (though their size and speed made it difficult), but I could not get a single drop of rain.

Can you explain a bit how the gameplay is supposed to work?

Satet by Tkatchenko 2016-08-29T06:53:00

Tiny platforms + 3D induced parallax without shadow + slippery character + unreactive jump = can't go up the first stairs after 10 tries.

Too bad, because there is a nice atmosphere that comes from the visuals and music.

The Mystery of the Maniac AI by reheated 2016-08-29T08:57:00

The mix of interactive fiction and logic puzzle works surprisingly well and the resolution of the story is great!

I say 'surprisingly' because you would think the puzzles would feel like needless hindrance, but they strike an elegant balance between simple design and satisfying challenge that make the IF/puzzle mix work.

The background color effect is also simple and effective. Elegant!

The next level would be to have the puzzles be a little bit more symbolic, but that seem very hard to do.

Puzzle feedback: a way to clear all would be nice.

Story feedback: There seem to be a chunk of the story before the end that does not offer much in the way of branching (it's a 48 hours compo though!). I confess I am a bit tired, so take it with a grain of salt, but SPOILER ALERT realization the AI was still around was a bit confusing to me, I guess it was not super clear that I was supposed to have disabled it (except I did not).

Sepulcrum by blackcode 2016-08-30T06:38:00

Nice game! Several things though:

- The intro is funny, but also long and impossible to skip, making retries a bit of a chore.

- Talking about retries, the game music does not stop when you lose, so you get to see the (long, unskippable) intro again with the game music over it.

- Talking about music, the sound clues in the Simon Says type of puzzle could be louder.

- Color mixing puzzles are difficult for idiots (like me) but also a broad range of people with different types of color blindness. The penalty for guessing wrong is not so bad, so it's not make the game impossible or even much harder to play, but it's something to have in mind when designing visual puzzles / feedback.

- After losing three times in a row to jigsaw puzzles, I went and replaced the four pictures by a neat squares made of the numbers from 1 to 9! I subsequently won and I don't even feel bad!

Automata by xirion11 2016-08-30T04:58:00

It feels the difficulty of the puzzle design comes from the lack of information, which is a bit unfortunate. Note that not only is the layout hidden, but also the effectiveness of the keys.

I wonder if, using the same elements, you could not have puzzle designed around the idea that you can reactivate automata that shut down. Maybe they have 5 moves and with a move you can wind up another automata if you are facing its back, maybe just like here you need an item to get more moves, but that item can be carried/transferred/thrown?

City of Words by ethankennerly 2016-08-29T03:49:00

1165 BC *cough* but I lost I little patience for some! (and also there are holes in my english).

Nothing happened once I built all the plots and all the upper right is made of generic looking pyramids. Bug or not yet implemented?

Cryptoglyphics by Bogden 2016-08-29T06:44:00

Very cool idea, but not too sure about the implementation. You will very quickly have hundreds of glyphs so we learn practically nothing when playing. On top of that I suspect that when from a puzzle to the next we stumble upon the same glyph it does not represent the same letter right?

Still: very cool idea.

Cultivate by ruthiepee 2016-08-29T04:04:00

When watering the plants, it's a bit strange that it's the center of the item that registers the hit instead of where the water is flowing. Also, when you let go of it, everything on its path back to the rack gets watered: Efficient but unintended!

While pretty, this is not very satisfying, since not much needs to be done to get a full bloom. As it is the only "goal" (unless you want to fight the RNG to make floral arrangements), it's a bit limited.

Also... the theme?

Ethan Nichols by 5Cents 2016-09-03T00:17:00

SPOILERS EVERYWHERE: I first solved the pyramids irrigation riddle. When I tried to enter the code it gave me, the code vanished (a bit lame) so I had to resolve it, write the code down, and enter it... ok.

Next I did the crates puzzle. I started a bit randomly and then with a little more method to collapse all the crates into one, which gave me a not super satisfying victory (not sure why some panels switch the crates controls though *shrug*).

I then solved the sliding puzzle (with the help of the itch.io screenshot!). It sure would be nice to be able to slide several panels at once!

Solving the sliding puzzle gave me what I assume is a clue for the jar filling puzzle, but the buck stopped here as filling the jars from left to right with the same color pattern as the clue resulted in a big fat nothing. Could it be that I broke the puzzle when I experimented with it at an earlier point as I tried mixing colors etc?

Anyway, I liked this idea of having to figure out several different interconnected puzzles, but I did not find this particular set of puzzle particularly inspiring (but again, who can imagine 5 different, original and interesting puzzle types and implement them in a single week-end? Probably no one... or maybe increpare :) ).

Retro Player by justinooncx 2016-08-29T05:25:00

I used the same strategy as @McMutton (put the crosshair in the middle, keep left click pressed, dodge everything) and could not die.

I am not too sure what you can do to avoid that though... trivializing winning strategy aside, it is very well done!

Compass by leffe108 2016-08-30T05:21:00

I always like in games when you have to actually read the map instead of relying on a minimap. Obviously an orienteering game is quintessentially this! Here, it's this, but on some strange psychoactive drug thanks to the home made engine! It would be interesting to see the source to have a sense of what is going on, because it's really strange, but it has its charm.

Ancient Periods by suVrik 2016-09-02T23:11:00

That a pretty sweet execution but... is this a proof of concept or a game? I am asking because after a number of honest attempts I still can't find a way to exit the first room. I turned the artifact into a trampoline though, I guess that's... something?

GRAVIQUATRO by puppetmaster 2016-09-02T22:41:00

Amusingly this is a kind of digital game board as it requires two human players and does not even check win conditions! Not necessarily a problem, but a bit strange nonetheless.

I have no one to test it with at the moment so it's close to impossible to assess if the additional rule, adds to or subtracts to the original game or even make it something different completely. My gut feeling is not very good I must say, but I don't trust my gut that much! I am curious to try it with another player or hear from those who did.

UI Note: why not have the possible row/gravity choices be highlighted in the color of the next player?

Cave by ElectricThinker 2016-09-02T22:25:00

Scary music!

The movement engine is all kind of fubar in a fun DIY way. A more polished version would also require the level design to be a bit more complex, like maybe having broken wall pieces be used to fill gaps that the boulder would otherwise not be able to cross, etc...

The sprite that walks no matter what gave me a nice Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior retro feeling. Amusingly, Enix kept that "feature" up to the VIIth episode of the serie on PS1 for pure nostalgia value.

The Great Sphinx Pyramid by Alphish 2016-09-03T00:55:00

Played the post-LD version, nothing much to add except that maybe having tile-based movement for the character could help with the diagonal jumping issue and make the stair clipping issue easier to fix. It would probably make the game feel even more clean and sturdy than it already is too, but that might be because I love old school tile based action-puzzle games such as Adventure of Lolo or Little Magic.

Babel by johnbjuice 2016-08-30T00:36:00

Not a good game for the people who look at the keyboard when they type... this could be fixed by having - like in the beginning, spells that are sentences (bythepowerofthepurplebook), bunched up words (oatmealcatapult) or at least be read (nomarimanagat not ztrrgfdetzz).

Aliens vs Ancient Indians by paruthidotexe 2016-09-04T04:25:00

Out of the 72 hours, it feels like than 5 minutes could have been spent on finding a gameplay idea :/ A bit of a shame also that an original take on the theme is reduced to two player models.

On the up side, the '3D game with gameplay on a 2D plane' system reminded me of Sylpheed on Mega-CD.

Mummy craft by Sabina Lis 2016-09-01T01:58:00

Very nice use of the theme and very clean looking, but some kind of Champollion is needed to understand the rules!

After a few game I understood that there is a three step process (remove viscera, bandage, put in sarcophagus) with target combinations (showed when you click in the uper right) and if you don't have all three components of the target combination you get a partial success. With each combination you get one less component slot in the table, so you have to reach 9 successes before you are out of combinations...

The criteria to get back the Anubis(?) head that allows to get a new board, I don't understand... I assume it is related to the little guide diagram we see at the top right? But I could not make sense of it.

As it is so difficult to understand the rules (at first things felt totally random/buggy), it's equally difficult to comment on the design of the game that results from this rule set. It sounds pretty cool and more subtle/complex that one would think at first glance.

Did you design the game expecting the players to figure out the rules while playing or would a non-jam version have a tutorial or at least an in depth explanation of the rules? And would you mind telling us what the rules are? :)

Dreams : Armillary by dragseal 2016-08-30T02:36:00

I am not sure the concept is all that great, but it is very smoothly executed!

You should maybe find a way to prevent frenzied clicking from being a winning strategy. Maybe a 'no click' period after a missed click, maybe a previously made alignment is lost?

Super Cave Man by antglynn 2016-08-29T07:39:00

I am not a big fan of hard and precise platformers, but, much to my surprise, I enjoyed that one!

It's a mix of several things I guess:

- First, by a clever use of level design, the game tells you right from the start he will be kind of a dick. That's refreshingly honest.

- Second, there are many check points.

- Third, while we are used to platformers being built on a grid with a clear sense of what can be done and what can't, here the granularity is brought down (or is it up?) significantly as jumps are made or missed because you needed that extra pixel of height at the apex of the jump, but it happened a bit early or a bit late... In way, it's almost a meta-platformer, and maybe that's why I giggled after each death instead of throwing my laptop through the window.

Tiny bug: if you land right on the corner of a platform, you can get stuck, with only a jump allowing yout to get you unstuck.

Light of the Ancients by LooksLikeSomething 2016-09-01T05:44:00

I think there is a core flaw in the game, but it's a bit difficult to explain. I'll try!

It's an action-puzzle game as time plays a role in the success of failure of the puzzle. But here there is a mix of things that take time (orbs moving, time an orb stay lit once hit with light, guardians moving) and things that are instantaneous (rotating the sources of light, the light path being drawn, the target orbs being lit and, critically, going to the next stage once you fulfilled the winning conditions). As a result of this mix of timed and instant actions (compounded with some unpredictable instant behaviors, like where the light will go after a connect orb is hit), I would say that in most level I won and was sent to the next level before I could even understand what happened and how and why I won.

It's even worst in the later level where all planning goes through the window and you just click the orbs until, somehow, you win. This is not very satisfying!

On the up side, I don't think a lot needs to be changed to avoid this problem. Something I would try is do something like what was done in The Talos Principle, where lightning a target is not enough: it needs to be continuously lit for a certain amount of time for it to become active. As a result you can have chain reactions that, instead of being instant, allow the player to understand clearly each of their steps.

Lost Temple by Dietrich Epp 2016-08-29T07:02:00

Neat idea that would deserve to be explored further, but with a more sturdy character control / char-world interaction engine. Currently you can do all kind of weird stuff like getting stuck on walls in the elevator shaft or mini double-jumping... odd.

That said... that music!!

Hero's Robot by Yumeito 2016-08-30T02:24:00

It seems Hero also invented perpetual motion (drop-front-front)!

Amusingly, because of the theme of the jam I also considered Hero for a while (mostly his pneumatic contraptions), but then went in another direction.

farm defence by yoel1234 2016-08-29T06:23:00

I won at wave 21 or 22 with a cross of 5 farms with a crossbow in the four corners. The fact the crossbows are immortal make them too good of an investment. I don't think I even lost one of my five farms.

A little more mechanical depth is needed for it to be more interesting.

Nice music even if it does not scream medieval!

Call of the Ancients by fenwick 2016-08-29T06:00:00

That sounds like a great great idea. You should probably release a standalone at a later date to allow people who, like me, are not in the US to be able to experience the... experience.

I think Cardboard Computer did something similar with a free Kentucky Route Zero spin-off called (pun!) Here And There Along The Echo.

Rico The Jammer

Games

Comments by Rico The Jammer

LD36 — Ancient Technology