Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → runningopenloop
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Mama Duck Hero | jam | 742 | 3.00 | 2.88 | 2.94 | 3.18 | 2.86 | 3.52 | 3.64 | 3.27 | |
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | Prairie Dog Music Collector | jam | 677 | 3.02 | 3.30 | 2.58 | 3.89 | 2.65 | 3.02 | 3.65 | 3.23 | |
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | Deep Sea Squid Hero | jam | 815 | 2.82 | 2.82 | 3.07 | 3.37 | 2.80 | 3.17 | 3.85 | 2.94 | |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | Squirrel Insulation Thieves | jam | 796 | 3.28 | 3.00 | 3.42 | 3.66 | 3.40 | 2.84 | 3.45 | 3.02 | |
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | Pack Goat Hero | jam | 709 | 3.46 | 3.20 | 3.24 | 3.13 | 3.53 | 3.55 | 2.86 | 3.35 |
I thought the idea of revolting from your summoner to be quite funny. However first and second turns I added break free points, so it was quite easy for me. I think it should be a bit harder. I like how you did the fire.
Wow, finally really get to mash that humor rating. :) @frogman, apparently I now will be playing all of captaindreamcast's other games!
I really liked this one. I actually didn't quite figure out the lenses at first either as the regular fire was reasonably effective and I was able to keep ahead of the mob following me. In spite of your press 1, 2, or 3 instructions I felt I could click and drag, by the end of the first game I took you at your word.
The mob made it hard for me to use the lenses at times, but I felt there were some strategies I could hone, like making a lens, firing through, then jumping to the other side and firing back. - perhaps generate less enemies but give less damage to enemies when not firing through lens. - And then enemies damage more too.
I think more shorter levels with "patterns" that would allow you to defeat the enemies if employed would make this a great game. Of course the damage would be higher and you would have to restart the level if you got hit to much.
I think you could evolve this with mirrors and other board objects.
Although it has just about nothing to do with it... the game reminded me of the board game Ricochet Robots 2nd edition (blue box). I think it was the gray tones and the colors + the colored mirrors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_Robots
Let us know if you make updates!
Really enjoyed this. For some reason on my linux firefox 120.0 64-bit I couldn't see anything in area, largely black screen except hype, hearts, 4x characters with spawn patterns, and the summon timer. I was very confused - was able to spawn stuff, saw hype going up, but didn't see the units. After a few rounds of this switched to chromium and then all made sense.
I'll call it a win when things got so cramped that I couldn't figure out what was going on anymore... I lost when I needed to feed the tree crawler/plant/beast/bird. Good game... but having the ability to pan would help me to setup chains of things to produce things needed by the tree. Oh, music that increases tempo as time runs out to feed the sacred tree would be a great addition. Played on linux, worked great for me. Thanks for making a linux version.
Super fun and interesting idea. * I think this is best a 2 player game.. One player to run around and one player to map. I kept getting misaligned and confused. * I wonder if it there could be an easy mode that had a dot where you are and then you can focus on mapping for points. - I also wish I could use keyboard keys to switch between plains/forest/mountain/unique to allow me to keep the mouse closer to where I am, moving it back and forth caused me confusion. * I wish I could move diagonal to save time.
Is there any end game? Thanks for the fun game.
That is really a fantastic tune! Best I've heard so far.
Good fun game. However I had trouble seeing the arrows to press, esp the purple in the top bar.
Need more! BTW, I was really hoping to find a surprise when gliding far to the left when the game restarted you.... or maybe I just didn't glide far enough. :)
Since I don't think it's possible to 'win' the game, just last as long as possible, would be cool to have a leader board. I got a 42 after I figured things out a bit.
Thanks for the input @bloodbane , one of the things we need to figure out is how to handle encounters in the world map. (1) random encounters like we have now... but I think there needs to be a time-out to prevent repeat attacks. (2) icon of enemies on world map you can attempt to run away from. (3) safe havens / places to buy replenish.
True, as you play - you get an idea of where you are and were the summons are and can learn to pick the easy ones.
Upon completing a summons, you do get 3x goats. One of each attack goat, normal goat, pack goat. Ultimately I wanted to pack goats to be the keys to completing many of the quests... you have to pack the medicine/water/food/etc to destination.
I really appreciated the challenge in this one.
Wow, super impressed. Looking forward to sharing with my kids. Nice non-violent "3d shooter." Very happy it could run on linux to with wine. Although I think I did find a way to cheat...
Of the 4 the games I played tonight, this one was my favorite.
Great to be able to run on linux with wine. Liked the feel of controlling copil. It felt a bit unintuitive to be moving down at the beginning of the game. I liked the idea of game, but by the end of the game with the wasp, I seemed to be winning without knowing what I was doing... of course that seems to be part of the benefit of the wasp that they can attack on their own. The beetle was the hardest, in fact I ended up spawning locusts to help attack. The locust was the most fun to play with.
Happy this ran on linux for me. However the full screen presentation resulted in some of the info being cut off.. the screen was too wide for my monitor. Perhaps if there was a way to set to windowed mode I could have had a better play experience. Alt enter did get me a window, and I saw more -- didn't see (or notice) the upgrade button on the spawned creatures until I did this... Some buttons I couldn't read all of like the ones to left.
Or maybe my 1680x1050 monitor wasn't big enough?
Played linux version... seemed to work ok, although -- was I supposed to be able to see all my current "tiny creatures" when picking my next tiny creature? It seemed maybe shifted too far to right for me to see them all. Fun game. Enjoyed it and will play some more times to try for the 500 score.
Yeah, sometimes it shows the previous items... particularly if vertically stacked. Here I placed 3 green algae horizontally and I saw them all slide off to the right except that tiny bit. terrarium_combinarium.png
Good game little. Great art. Enjoyed as the game as a board gamer. However it was difficult to know what the powers of the card I was playing being new to the game... If I put someone in line, then I could read the power on mouse-over, but then couldn't retract the card. Also, improved ability to order my attackers. Once I filled up all attackers, then I couldn't move them around at all.
Hi, I think there is potential here. I think that each spoder should have a way to help move other spoders such that you can move them all to the end as fast as possible by levering each spoder's abilities. Otherwise, I thought the feel of the game was pretty good.
Very hard at the later waves. They destroyed everything!, I think they get bigger too. -J
I kept falling. -J
I liked most things about the game... except I didn't see the strategy aspect. I wasn't able to tell what I was up against --> Maybe I needed to look more carefully... but then I would just buy stuff and win everytime? I thought the "animation" and executing were really nice though.
Some info was cut-off with zooming. Linux-firefox. Seemed same with chromium. Played fine though. First run through I got 2/4. Second 4/4. In was in the second run through I realized how to combine them. I was still a bit confused about what I'd get in the payoffs but enjoyed it. Nice relaxing music.
Enjoyed the mellow music and the soft and colorful graphics. Wished things were a bit more dynamic in making a more difficult management problem / speed up scoring. Is there an end condition? - How did you make the music?
I felt like it was easy, like I just walked forwards and beat it, the second time i was even faster! -J
I feel like it's impossible to get pass farther levels without a bunch of fox's and turtles.
I liked this a lot. A multi-player option would be fantastic. Reminded me subtlety of Armor Alley. Thanks for the linux build.
@martta, I was thinking local. Could work if it supports controllers - although I guess keyboard could to 2x. At first I thought you had it, then I realized it was AI only.
Hard with the spiders, never had enough for the big looking one. -J
Harder after you get three people, Good job. Kinda strategic. -J
Good fun. I think it might be nice to switch weapons using handgun until you need to goto shotgun or minigun/smg - is it possible to switch weapons?
Very tough. Think I got to 3. Drill seemed to be a method to escape only? Not kill?
I first did not realize why i was losing but then i realized and was winning like crazy. -J
@big-nose, thanks. I added instructions to the description if that helps. I also figured out that m/n work for x/o which is good news for 2 player. The O+up/down arrow is a bit tricky. As a hint, technically the sound of the spark is louder when it is closer. So if no sparks close by on your level, that means it is close above/below you so be careful to switch levels.
@loveschach: controller came for free with Pico-8! :)
@codechomper: Pico-8 is fun. I was tempted to try their Voxatron, but decided to stick with what we knew from LD55. Plus they don't have HTML5 export for Voxatron yet.
We meant to make more levels... on the right is your level indicator. We had a small, medium, and big. With intention for easy/medium/difficult. But due to time constraints we went with a simple 4 sparks active at anytime.. so I flipped it around and the big level is the easy level as you can avoid the sparks better.
Didn't get the outside bounding box in either. :)
Up/down is 'disabled' for 2-player since didn't make sense to switch up/down level for one person.
@chispalbc Thanks. Yeah, room for improvement for sparks... perhaps play the spark noise at a high volume for a second before spark is generated again if you are close. This is how I give the player a chance to swap levels and not die. At the beginning, we had plans for bare insulation to be some sort of a risk... a lot to learn about how to make a game interesting, compelling, and challenging.
@enchaec Thanks... we're definitely still learning (and using it as an educational vehicle with my kids) - but technically this is our second go. See Pack Goat Hero from LD55 :)
Fun game I was able to beat it on my second try, but on the first one I was whopped at the second level. -J
Very nice. I was a bit confused at times of how much I had evolved. Really like the microscope view.
At first I thought I was running around doing nothing, then when I realized 10k was the magic number I became possessed to it hit. I enjoyed attempting to out maneuver the yellow guys. However then I never hit any form of end game -- around upper 9xxx I got a dead sub picture with 5863 ft.
Really liked the sounds of the environment. I had a good learning curve experience as I went about reading the signs.
I was able to beat the game on my first try. good game. -J
This game is really a fun puzzler. BTW, I was moving right and hit C and ended up getting stuck behind some dirt. I guess that's what "R" is for in part.
Screenshot_2025-04-07_22-14-11.png
(John Conway's game of life + ricochet robots) * (Teleporting Biscut + ostanton + shtanton) = Depths of the Mind. Very fun game, took a bit to grasp but we're on our way, and man -- lots of levels. Could use a printed level counter so we can commiserate on the hard levels.
This is great, I've been wanting to do games like this in real life. Where you run around with your friends trying to keep things 'afloat' or otherwise.
@lisek-gagatek
I never thought of it as an escape room or reverse escape room. If anything my thought was more in the direction of some Star Trek holodeck game, with my goal to make more different games.
In my game (I think of naming it "Storms at Sea") you are a small fishing vessel trying to get home from a fishing trip in adverse conditions. A storm as arisen and your small crew has some trouble. * There is a helm and you must steer your ship. (in life: steering wheel) * There is a engine area (in life: treadmill and/or rowing machine) * There is a bilge pump (in life: something like a bike air pump) * There is a harpoon gun (in life: wii gun controller) Then perhaps two team members must navigate back to port. - As window blows you get blown off course. - You must provide propusion by running on the treadmill or rowing machine (no power, you must turn it) - As water comes in due to high seas/damage, you must pump the water out. - You must fight off sea monsters. I figure it can be scaled to more players by requiring more "work" to be done for propulsion. My progress on this has been diverted at the moment to making a naval fighting game that uses two dance pads to control two ships which fight. Imagination is the limit to create HIDs using small microcontrollers to interact with the game. The game running on a PC with projector and or multiple machines with monitors at different stations.
Getting a 404 error to download your game.
Got it, thanks.
Very nice, really enjoyed. However too hard? I wouldn't say that -- but I would say that perhaps the game overstayed its welcome... but since not restore, I was compelled to see the anglerfish!
Other feedback, (1) I was a bit confused with the art for the first brown fish... I didn't realize there was a difference between the anglerfish and the brown fish... I thought I was just doing what I was supposed to be doing... then I realized the anglerfish was the goal and at the very bottom. --> I guess I didn't read the instructions well, perhaps if that fish was another color like yellow, it would have been more clear they were different fish (2) I think a clean red X for those (guardfish?) would have been better to be clear it was not possible to catch. (3) I am still a bit confused about the middle power-up, was it just supposed to help me avoid?
But overall, very nice. I really enjoyed it, the art kept me going.
No, the aieee isn't death... it's just what I would probably say if someone bigger than me hurled me somewhere else.
@johnnysix, thanks - that's a good idea about moving the pressure to the main UI. My kids had fun using Dialogic to make the story.
One of my theme submissions was crew. Thank-you for the great crew game. Feedback: I found it a bit hard to see the crew quarters. I think it would have been helpful for the bottom right 'room status' to be in the same pattern as the actual rooms... although maybe that was by design to make the repair room more important?
I knew there had to be lots of great game ideas for depths given it's final selection. I just wasn't thinking of them. Great idea, nice execution.
The mechanics of the game remind me of the pico-8 celeste. It was a fun game and how did you determine that the levels are possible. I think I was better at it because I played pico-8 celeste before. -J
Good job! it was fun, it matched the theme well. -J
I wish I could have used the little hermit crab? to help me find stuff.
Good game! i was confused by the capturing at first, but i figured it out. it would be nice if it had a win animation. -J
Hard game, good graphics. I think it will be funner with a easier way to heal. Overall good job! -J
I think it would be even more fun if you can money faster, because some of the upgrades are 6000-10000 dollars. -J
Good job! you should add more stuff for the player to do.
Good game! its hard. -J
Great game! i loved it. it would be nice if you could see how much lives you have left. -J
This has to be the best scratch game ever. Very impressed... you need to update your submission to allow ratings. I did make it to retirement! (eventually).
I think this is the best 'relaxing' game I played. Except, I guess it was not full relaxing as I got fired numerous times for screwing up. To make it a bit more less relaxing and up the ante, perhaps a time limit.
I enjoyed this world. Good atmosphere. I think it would have been fun to have some different bad guys and power-ups.
Great game! it would be better if you added more levels.
Good job! it would be nice if you could get more levels of sharper blades and speed power ups and have more powerful versions of the jump power up. overall Great game! -J
I found this to be any enjoyable chill game. Nice music --> I guess not yours because no rating for it. Online passive multiplayer web game.. interesting. I'll have to look-up how to do that in godot. I would like to add that to my game... I was wanting to add a leader board using Talo but didn't get to that.
@ulziton @ry0 @adamg @kuggenhoffen @honeypoo @seel @bastillas @eugenik and all, thanks so much for the kind words!
@sharky3188 yeah, I mounted the camera on a spring arm, and since the prairie dog is so low it kinda bounces forward. I also made it possible to angle the camera up to look for the eagles, and that kicks in the spring arm. I'll have to figure out how to make this better for future.
@emilija-marija yeah, I noticed we had some issue with the falling through, tried to fix it with a bigger collision shape but seems not to have worked. I think this only happens when jumping? And since jumping isn't really required, the solution may be to simply disable jumping. Although I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for letting me know about your game, I'll comment more there, I like what you did with playing more notes of a song as additional notes were collected. - I actually broke out all the song into different tracks and used a synchronize player to play them all. I was actually going to have each track turn on only an amount of time associated with the song - and when I created the notes, they were indexed so I if you collected the 1st note, and 3rd note. Then the first x seconds would play the track, the second x seconds would be silent, then the 3rd x seconds would play again... as you got more notes, more of the song would play. I actually had everything ready to go data-structure wise, but didn't get it implemented. I'll try it sometime because I'm curious how it would sound. Maybe I could try your approach to creating a separate track for each note and do the same thing generating a track for each note and see what sounds best. Have to figure out of there is a way I can process the LMMS song with a script to do the note isolation easily.
@theoconfidor thanks! The kids are 13, 11, 9, and 5.95 years old. The oldest did the background art, music, along with the blender models for prairie dog and eagle along with animated the dance. The 11 year old did the landscape and fixed blender assets and some of the HUD code and art with some hand holding. The 9 and almost 6 year old did the sound effects... the younger kids enjoyed pico8 more and it was easier for them to make art for that... and the younger kids also really liked tracking in pico8. - Wow, I see you're quite accomplished at composing! Our team had some difference of opinion on making the harmonies. I was hoping for more simple repeating layers that would build against the melody vs. what we did so as we collected the notes it would build the song up. Don't know if you have any advice for us. I thought perhaps some sort of arpeggio of notes of some of the chords for the "harmony" layers. - We followed your link to your soundcloud, outstanding stuff! They younger two have enjoyed listening to your music. They really liked Pancake Breakfast and continued listing to your songs after I left for work... have to ask what their favorites were. They wanted to share them with the older kids tonight, perhaps this weekend.
@prunus-padis if you keep your eyes to the sky you can avoid the birds... they strike in range "50" - you may have a moment to get away through a hole if you happen to be close. There is some strategy on which notes to get first. After an attack, they will fly to the tree and wait 10 seconds before hunting again, so close to the tree can become dangerous and the birds start at the edges. - At about 10 minutes before deadline I realized that I should swap the hearts out for more prairie dogs... so then you run around in a pack, and the eagles come and grab a prairie dog away, take them to the tree for eating, then spit out the bones before hunting again. >:) Then the dance at the end will have as many prairie dogs as survived. - Of course I never really got fail screens in... so losing is more of an honor system thing. :)
@lerkadverka Извините за падение! Похоже, это ошибка, которую нужно исправить. В конце нашего игрового тестирования мы заметили это во время прыжков. Возможно, мне стоит отключить прыжки, чтобы решить эту проблему, поскольку прыжки не требуются. Надеюсь, вы сможете попробовать ещё раз, чтобы увидеть танец!
@red I see the capybara too! :)
Fun game, at the end I researched all the technologies and built a whole bunch of researchers. -J
@breadstick, I found the same to be true. I will say I enjoyed it. I also expected to face enemies with those same benefits. As I went on, I wished there was way to speed up the gameplay animations. Have you played? https://www.looneylabs.com/content/pyramid-sham-bo
Good job, it would be nice if you could destroy building, sometimes it would be nice to destroy a building. overall good job!
We really enjoyed the game - I see we did make it to the end based on the feedback above, pretty much everyone covered what I might say above.
The music was great. I was impressed with how good it sounded with your partitioning of adding notes in as play progressed. Did you try different compositions to get one that worked well? How did you make it/extract all the individual notes?
Oh, and your game is just about the right amount of "horror" for me. :)
Nice, enjoyed looking for those constellations or parts of constellations. I did have trouble finding the Corona Major & Minor. Actually, never did score one. - I would put key images of left and right on the book. - This game could be even more therapeutic with flashier stars and flasher line that you draw. - I like the page during effect.
Good game, i keep accidentally push the wrong button because of flight simulations. -J
I think if you decide to improve the game, you should make it so that you can't just go as fast as you can to the other side. -J
I got to 26 and felt I also got stuck by reds... I imagine there was some solution? It was fun to keep seeing new surprises. I'll try again to see what I can find. Wow 216.
Wow, fantastic and clever little puzzle game with nice music vibes to go along. Would be nice to have the color mixing cheat sheet. What a joy to have this be my first game to review/test. I wish to make games like this.
I made it to the second level! i think the next step would be upgrading the graphics so that you can see better the direction the cannon is pointing. -J
Had to figure out the controls, good game. -J
Great to see another animal game! Wonder if different terrain could present different challenges. Like cover in the trees. Or a river.
Did you have any method to the madness when you balanced the game with prices and such? I see your screenshot shows selling sheep for $5 to $10, but in the game it is $6 to $10.
I think you should be able to buy a pig who is super awesome at herding. :) My dogs ran the sheep off the edge a time or two.
Great game, i beat the easy! -J
Fun, hard to get the controls down! -J
Good game! -J
Good game, i'm at wave 21. -J
I really like these types of games. I guess the next step would be to up the graphics and make things a little more blingy.
Thanks for all the feedback. Don't hold back :).
A few of you mentioned the controls being difficult, anything specific you think could improve? I didn't really think too much about it. I wonder if there is something that could be more compelling beyond forward/backward and turn left/right. Maybe backward should be eliminated... don't think I've ever seen a duck move backwards.
As for the ducklings. They are using a vector system for movement. Avoid other ducklings, go to mom (with reduced weight when they become adult... need to have them do something more as adult I think). However, I need to add a small vector draw to food so they aren't too stupid and walk right by it. I'm thinking this may allow me to make other things more challenging by not making the picking up of food so fiddly. I was also thinking to have another random direction vector but didn't get that added in.
@super-dario - thanks for the kind words. Kids did great.
@jamope - Mama duck movement was fastest thing possible. Iteration could improve.. as per thoughts above? As for more indications. Perhaps hunger bars atop ducklings? Anything else you're thinking could be improved for indications?
@universeflow - quack, quack
@cat-value - thanks for the kind words.
@midnightmist - thanks for the kind words. I was thinking the pools of blood weren't quite appropriate for the starvation. Perhaps some gravestone.
@shanyu-jin - thanks for the kind words.
@rowling - thanks, kids did all the art/modeling. I was thinking, if we did more work on this... you could start by "coloring" your eggs - then based on the coloring by some method/mapping - your baby ducks are colored.
@anaastaska - thanks. Any thoughts on what could have made the controls easier for you? I wonder if the camera wasn't controlled by the mouse, if point and click would be better? (And hold middle/right mouse button to rotate view -- ahh, maybe no rotation should be allowed. Although ducks as many other prey animals do have eyes on the side of the head for better visibility.)
@guydesu - 谢谢您的美言.
@padla - heh, never thought of it as horror. :) Horror. That's all the rage on steam right? :)
@qqruzkin - thanks for the kind words.
@gdman - Thanks for the kind words. VCamera. Yeah, I spent more time than I should have on the camera. Ended up just going with something simple. VCamera. I did some searches but didn't seem to find the project or add-on for Godot? I found some Phantom Camera on github, might this be what you are referring to?
73, Timothy
Thanks for the feedback @johnnyalfonso - what would have you liked for controls vs. tanky/car-like? Or is that your point and it should be like pikman? Thanks for sharing about pikmin... never heard of it. I'll look into it.
Thanks @johnnyalfonso .
Ah, missed your comment above @johnnyalfonso . Yeah, that's what I wanted to be sure of the movement tank/steering opinion. The strafe left/right vs. turn left/right must be the thing people are not liking. I'll have to try it out. I can say, I did consider doing strafe left/right but decided that wasn't going to be "realistic" to how a duck moves. That would mean (probably) turning would require the mouse. Of course, this is a game. Thanks for the additional clarifications! I'll try this stuff out.
@beats , thanks for the feedback. I'm hoping adding a vector to help the ducks move to the food when close will make the feeding not fiddly. In **my mind** the game is balanced (player does ok/breaks even) when surviving with 2 to 4 ducks as per expectations in the wild. > 5 alive is winning. <= 1 is losing. But maybe some different game results are in order vs. real life.
GREAT GAME, probably among my favorite Ludum Dare 59 games, through i wish it was longer! -J
I was thinking more weapon types and more waves, maybe more new enemy types that do different things, like maybe a goblin with a gun and it shoots at your stuff. -J
I feel if the keys were made so that I could use more than one hand... wait a second.. I should have been gliding with my right hand on shift. I was doing it all with the left... yeah.
Good game, i played twice two see what happened after, maybe if you choose to leave the planet you should go to another planet and have to fight other ships their. -J
Really enjoyed this. Fantastic shooter. I wish it was possible to skip the intro. As a ham operator the different tone for the dash seemed unnatural vs. the same tone longer. Wish there was a a way to gain heath. As @exteegi mentioned, I also really liked the cooldowns. I run linux, I tried running the exe with wine, it sort of worked but then it lost keyboard input and I was stuck. The dark edges provided a bit of a challenge, in subsquent plays I realized if I looked carefully in the shadows, I could see the enemy sooner. Of course, I may just have my brightness turned down too much. But would have been easier if I could see them earlier.
I was able to sneak by the first guard without the light. However, the last challenge took a bit.