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ShaunJS

Overall Medals

YearLDThemeGameDivisionOverall
🥉 2016 35 Shapeshift SpaceShifter compo 4.43

Category Medals

YearLDThemeGameDivisionCategoryScore
🥇 2016 35 Shapeshift SpaceShifter compo Theme 4.64

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoCo
201637One roomMaking Things Okaycompo3623.192.634.064.133.503.80
201636Ancient Technology1995jam
201635ShapeshiftSpaceShiftercompo34.434.073.634.644.324.113.814.19
201534Two Button Controls / GrowingLife Is Shortcompo384.053.843.584.093.513.722.853.8849
201533You are the MonsterWas It Something I Said?compo993.762.783.294.243.763.682.934.14
201532An Unconventional WeaponA Gun That Shoots Beescompo84.224.243.294.244.353.403.683.6263
201431Entire Game on One ScreenBoxcompo503.903.664.154.323.142.612.372.9757
201430Connected WorldsPlanestrollercompo653.853.963.673.923.443.523.7345

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by ShaunJS

LD30 — Connected Worlds

Starving Symbiosis by Lasty 2014-08-27T04:19:00

Having not read your instructions and just diving right in, it took me until my friend in the underworld died for me to realize it was two separate people and I wasn't just 'warping' between the worlds. At that point though it clicked! and I really liked this idea that the only connection you have to your 'partner' is this shared portal that items can be passed through. I think this central mechanic has a lot of interesting potential and I think the basic way in which you've explored it with money and shops demonstrates that well.

I would have really liked to have actually seen no money _at all_ in the surface world to make the two worlds truely symbiotic. As in my first play it was fairly easy to keep the surface player alive, and it was only the underworld player that truly had a dependency on the other for food supplies. This sort of makes the relationship seem more parasitic than symbiotic, but the abundancy of the money underworld does make up for this well enough to still express the themes you were going for.

The controls and general feel was a little slidey but they were good enough to express this key thing that you were getting at with the game which was this co-dependency and shared portal mechanic. I think however the general control experience is what I would put a lot of focus into if you do decide to take this concept further, and I hope that you do!

I really really like what you're exploring with this game, and even though you say you had much more you wanted to add (didn't we all!) I think you get the essential message across reasonably well! A lot of potential and a cool use of the theme.

Elemental by Aurel Bílý 2014-08-25T21:43:00

Really well presented, very nice transition effects and very fitting colour aesthetics.

I think perhaps the inclusion of lots of different minigames as a different way to play combat through different elements, while cool, makes the game feel a little less cohesive and spread a bit thin. Like it's trying to be a lot of things at once and cater to lots of players and the main thing connecting to the theme (the shifting worlds) doesn't seem like it plays massively into this.

A very solid piece of work presentation wise though!

I Find Another by ItyBity8Bit 2014-08-27T04:37:00

I enjoyed this and managed to get the end (just). I really, really like how the mechanics really slowly grow on the player. I initially assumed that the controls for these mechanics were always available and you were simply controlling when the player got access to that knowledge by showing them a sign with a thing they didn't know about yet. I was actually a little sad when I reloaded the game and found that wasn't the case and these mechanics are simply locked until you approach the sign, especially when I saw areas I couldn't reach through lack of a jump early on and wanted to go back to once I could fly. However I understand your decisions here and I think the subtle way you pace these mechanics is really good.

As an aside I never particularly found a use for the second mechanic, which I first assumed from the image to be a 'glide' of sorts but it seemed to only be a tool to stop momentum which didn't seem necessary at any point. So I'm not too sure what to make of it.

I was almost physically forced to stop playing this entry due to the repetitive strain that 'flapping' was putting on my fingers. I feel like the general control experience of this mechanic could have been implemented better, especially as you encounter a very long tunnel of spikes which is difficult to navigate and requires a lot of rapid button presses. I worry that you will lose a lot of players at this stage not to frustration but to simple hand strain.

I liked it overall though and I think the pacing and structure was generally really strong. Congrats on making it!

Four Sided Sanctuary by pinkduh 2014-08-25T21:18:00

A good entry all round! Very well presented, slick controls and definitely an interesting challenge. I like the way you incentivised the collectables by having the character lose speed over time. It's definitely an interesting dynamic. Your level generation seems to also do a good job of spacing out / alternating obstacles early in a run to prevent too much 'do two things at once' very early on. The difficulty can ramp up very, very quickly at times though! And at other times be very easy, but it has a nice feeling to it overall.

It might seem trivial but I think that tracking score/distance would have been a really simple way to 'complete' this experience. Otherwise even though I can feel like I had a particularly good run it's hard to really compare or feel like I'm definitely getting better or making more progress. I don't know if there is any more to the game after you stay alive for so long, but I did play quite a few attempts.

I noticed the shmup style hitboxes too. A good touch, but until you become aware of your hitbox some of the mazes look very intimidating and you have to learn a little bit by trial and error. The other problem with these hitboxes is that being very different to the size of the player(s) it's hard to identify exactly where the hitboxes REALLY are. As in a shmup it's usually a focal point like the ship pilot or cockpit. So sometimes I expect my small collision box to save me and it doesn't, or other times I expect to die and I don't. I think you could possibly have afforded to have larger hitboxes here and perhaps smaller obstacles to compensate, but I definitely respect that you put thought into this to begin with.

Very enjoyable, good work!

The Hamster Effect by stjahns 2014-08-25T20:10:00

I actually quite liked this but it took a bit of perseverence to get to what was cool about it. The fact that the early text auto progresses meant I ended up having to reload the game just to remember how building bridges worked before the end of the tutorial.

I like the mechanics and think it was a cool and interesting take on the theme! Has a very nice mood and atmosphere and I like how it feels living. The fact that the game is moving while you're in the tutorial and 'goes on with or without you' has a really nice feel to it. And I think the presentation is generally pretty good!

The UI handles a little sloppily, the controls are a little slippery and that can really let you down with a real time game. Sadly I only really got as far as trying the second objective before an enemy ship began to circle my systems blowing up all my trade ships and I couldn't work out what to do to combat this :(

As much as I like the idea of a rebel faction growing along side you I think this enemy threat is too present too early when a lot of intrinsic fun is being had just from moving resources around. I think the fertile worlds vs barren worlds, food management and the way civilians slowly die in transit is all very intuitive and cool though. I think these numbers might take a lot of tweaking to get right in terms of avoiding having the feel that once you have your settings of export and import set up you just have to 'wait' and hope your ships eventually meander in the right direction.

All in all, very cool! Quite a lot of potential and well presented but possibly let down a little by a lack of accessibility and sometimes awkward controls. Would love to follow how this develops if you keep working on it!

Great work!

Planestroller by ShaunJS 2014-08-25T18:54:00

@Aedx

Well spotted! I actually became aware of this in the last 6 hours or so of development. I decided to leave it in because 1. the effort to track it down and 'fix' it wasn't something I could afford and 2. I actually just thought it was really cool! haha. I think my softspot for speedrunning slips in to the things I make sometimes =D

Planestroller by ShaunJS 2014-08-26T16:11:00

@Steve
Thanks!

I actually did play with the idea of the music syncing with the switching as that would have been AMAZING to get working. But unfortunately for gameplay reasons the timing of the switches had to occur differently on each level. (and also the timing resets when you die, etc)

Not that it wouldn't have been possible to find a way to do this, but there simply wasn't time. Would have loved to do it though and I agree it would make things better!

Thanks for playing =)

Color Runner by vinhuman 2014-08-25T03:32:00

I really enjoyed the concept! Controls were pretty hard and falling and bouncing back the way you came was a little frustrating. Didn't feel like it was actually super necessary in the end for the character/ball to automatically run. Just meant for a 'waiting' style penalty when you miss something, might have actually benefited from more regular platform controls.

It's cool though! Bonus humour point for the 11/10 title screen.

Shared Destiny by Pesty 2014-08-25T18:52:00

I like it! I think it's cool you managed to get so much content out of just a few mechanics. The difficulty ramps up very quickly, but the mechanics are very easy to get to grips with!

I think gameplay wise one of my only concerns would be that some levels take a very long time, or look very intimidating from the beginning which may dissuade people from playing to completion. This is always something to be wary of in single-screen puzzles. Especially where failure resets the whole thing. My own entry is guilty of this sometimes as well.

I think you focused on the right things, and 'did what you could' with the presentation to give it a neat aesthetic despite obviously being very simple. Always the wise choice if you're not artistically confident.

Good stuff!

LD31 — Entire Game on One Screen

TMO by aaronjbaptiste 2014-12-08T14:44:00

Haha! I really liked this one.

I think you did a good job of communicating your main idea well. This core idea of the "MMO simulator" comes across well and nothing in the game feels wasted or extraneous.

I actually thought I was doing quite well until I suddenly game overed, it took me re-reading the instructions to realize my rating must have hit zero! I found it difficult to notice much was 'going wrong' except ofcourse but these are just minor feedback concerns.

Honestly most things I'd be critical of come down to the UI. Without being able to delete or sell rooms, not knowing how large or what shape a room is going to be until you place it for the first time can cause issues. Something like a highlight of the grid to show where a building would appear is a good idea, especially for when the player hasn't gotten used to the whole "builds from the cell, up and to the right" idea yet. I misplaced a few buildings even when I knew!

I know this was a 'one screen game' but I'd be interested to see what this game would be like if it scaled infinitely. If you could scroll and literally keep placing buildings forever in increasing monster levels and building costs. Right now with the goal as it is, the game quickly hits a "well that's it" point. I almost feel this sort of game is better suited to 'getting as far as you possibly can' (and I think by including the option to continue after finishing, you probably feel this way too!)

I think this concept could go a long way pretty easily, congratulations on making it!

BEARPG by MaxguN 2014-12-08T12:33:00

Hey dude! First off, congratz on finishing a game!

I think there are a lot of ideas here that didn't get fully realized. For example, you play with two attack buttons but the attacks themselves don't appear to be different (other than the kick seems slightly longer ranged?) I had no reason to use a button other than the kick! I get the feeling the main reason for these two attacks instead of one was to allow for button combinations for your special attacks?

Your increasing strength over time works reasonably well, but the difficulty doesn't scale to match.

The controls for me felt very unresponsive, perhaps it was my machine's fault but sometimes attacks and movement simply weren't registered by my key presses, which is pretty essential in this sort of game. If you were to do more to this game I would work on this first and foremost and after that, I think there are some cool ideas that you could run with here but it would be good to pick perhaps just one of them, cut away on the others and make the game feel more focused and polished on one area. Perhaps the combat, perhaps the special attacks, perhaps the RPG element.

But either way, good stuff!

Pixel Peon by jojocanard 2014-12-08T21:54:00

I escaped! One of my stream viewers worked out how to get the 'ending', I presume otherwise the game goes on forever?

This whole quietly embedded 'ending' (trying not to spoil anything for others) is my favourite part of the game. I think you were quite brave to be so implicit about it and never really explicitly expose it. It's risky because I think without it the game isn't nearly as interesting, and many players may miss it, but I think you handled it the right way.

The game itself is a neat little idea, I like the concept, the narrative, etc. It's simple, but it's everything it needs to be. There's a neat thought excercise in efficiency when deciding where and when to move but it felt generally quite easy to not be too inefficient which made solving stuff not feel as satisfying as it perhaps could have been. The difficulty reaches a point where I feel like the game is just deciding it's time for you to lose rather than it feeling like I'm performing badly. It's hard to explain.

I think the controls and player movement have some room for refinement, I can see how the slow acceleration would play into the theme of planning your movement but I feel it generally worsens the feel of play.

Overall though I think it's very cool, thank you for making it!

Key Point by oranebeast 2014-12-08T15:21:00

Classic platforming is always cool. There's some clever misdirection going on here with how the keys are in different rooms requiring a slightly non-linear approach to the 'levels'.

The collisions are a little imperfect and the controls feel slightly rough and I think when you make a game in this style these are things you really need to have nailed above all else. Pixel perfect collisions and a smoother jump arc would definitely improve things!

This aside there are some slightly awkward areas in the level design. Many seemingly unplanned low ceilings in areas that make jumps particularly unforgiving, but perhaps this was desired. The game also requires a significant amount of backtracking at times and re completing areas you have already passed.

Be careful of instant respawn on death. The benefit of a death animation or brief pause is not just aesthetic, it gives the player a chance to see exactly what mistake they made, whereas if a player just snaps to a respawn point the transition can seem very jarring and confusing, as it takes the player a moment to realize that they died, and how they died.

Overall I think it's a solid use of the theme and all round strong attempt! Gratz on making it!

Hidden Village by Cruion 2014-12-08T16:39:00

Hey man, congratulations on entering!

I can't lie, it took a lot of time for me to work out what to do. Despite quite lengthy instructions they still didn't sufficiently answer the myriad of questions I had about how the game worked.

I think 'Skills' was an odd choice of word for what appeared to be something akin to 'Elements'? It wasn't until I saw your skill matrix on this page did I get the idea of what these things were about.

I think there's quite a large number of these skills! It's very hard to remember in your head what-beats-what where the only relationships you have to go on are colours and very similar symbols. Elements often work because of intuitive relationships (Fire beats water, and so on) other than color "opposites" it's very hard to keep an idea of the skill relationships in your head with so many to track.

I unfortunately gave up on trying to understand the "Attacks" I tried very hard to understand what the formulas represented and while I could see the multipliers from relationships taking effect, I had no idea how to decide what would fight against what, whether there was any random chance involved or just what was happening in general. It seems like a shame because it appears a lot of time and thought was put into this system but it is very unclear to a new player.

That all said I like the concept of procedurally making continuous interesting "yes or no" choices based on resources, risk/reward, pros/cons etc. It's a similar flow to games like FTL and some elements of Civ. I definitely think the idea has a lot of potential, the main issue is just that the game can be a bit of an informational brick wall! The ideas underneath seem like they have a lot of merit it's just very difficult to approach.

Hope that was useful / not too harsh sounding!
-S

Box by ShaunJS 2014-12-10T17:47:00

@Rodaja, the only 'indestructible blocks' are the ones that make up the purple "end game" area in the top right. It was the one concession I made to the "everything can be broken" rule. I don't like that I had to do that though and on reflection would like to see if there'd be a way I could still allow those blocks to be broken. It's an interesting problem.

Thanks for playing!

Box by ShaunJS 2014-12-13T01:41:00

@Florent, you have to dig to the red exit button to exit! I know it's a little unclear though :(

Robo Pusher by WaffleWorks 2014-12-09T03:08:00

Sorry if I sounded harsh on stream!

Keep making games man, this was a great effort! The graphics especially are strong!

One Killer - One Window by Thalia 2014-12-10T17:44:00

This caught my eye! I liked the look of the screenshots and concept so I wanted to check it out.

Cool use of the theme! It took me a while to really try and work out 'how to play' and what was going on and what string of logic I needed to use to work out who the killer was. I spent a lot of the game early on paying attention to the text that seemed mostly unhelpful compared to where each person was at any point. I think some of the not-great english hurts the game a little as some lines are difficult to read or understand.

I noticed time could suddenly pass an hour even if I didn't click on a window which was very surprising given the timer moves in smaller increments by itself. The sudden loss of an hour while I was trying to work out "who was where" was a bit jarring.

Overall though I think the idea is pretty cool and could go a long way with some general polish and cleaner presentation.

Good job on making it!

LD32 — An Unconventional Weapon

Caves of Undalek by iamwhosiam 2015-04-30T18:22:00

Interesting!

I couldn't really work out the reference to the theme, or how enemies worked for that matter! They seemd to occasionally die themselves? but their corpses also hurt to stand on! A little confusing but the world was interesting to explore. I liked the way a kind of music played as you collected the blue dots.

Well done!

the dispatcher by davidB 2015-04-25T19:46:00

I liked where this was going! I've seen a couple of entries play around with selecting the 'correct' weapon I think it's a neat approach. There's kind of a frantic-ness to it. I think it would be neat if all of the enemies etc were symbols as opposed to text but I presume that was probably part of the plan.

It took me a moment to realize that there was an ammo system and I couldn't quite work out how the multipliers worked either, but it's an interesting start! Good job!

Billy McMath Solves Problems by Manky 2015-05-12T02:59:00

I'm so, so, so glad you got first place in humour. <3

The Penanggalan! by Beavl 2015-04-30T19:15:00

Cool! Some interesting puzzle design! Took a moment for it to kick in that there was gravity and I wasn't technically looking at a 'top down' game. Interesting take on movement.

There were a few strange level design elements where some of the spike/block puzzles weren't necessary to complete? Unless they lead to optional stuff I was unaware of. Other than that it seemed pretty solidly put together! Good job!

Badass Inc by deepnight 2015-04-30T18:09:00

Really pretty!

Took me a while to notice the blue particle effects were designed to draw my attention to interactive objects, a nice tough though! I'm not sure the combat worked particularly well, it was very well presented and nice looking but it felt fairly RNG dependant on whether a dude would instantly shoot when vulnerable or instantly move back to a defensive position after shooting and so on. It's great that you added this much variety in such a short time but I think this was the weakest part of the actual gameplay.

The puzzle solving was pretty simple, there's not a massive amount of 'game' here but what is here is very, very well executed!

Gravity by suurin 2015-04-30T19:08:00

Cool!

I'm not sure if the enemies were really a necessary addition, it was cool knocking the first dude off a ledge but the second one felt very tough to deal with. It also seemed very difficult to target the top or bottom face of an object to make it rise or fall.

Interesting concept though! Would be interesting to see where you went from here.

Slam Jam Bakery by DragonXVI 2015-04-21T21:16:00

This was really awesome dude! Lots of nice attention to detail, I like the effects when hitting something 'destructable'. It's very clear and effective!

I faintly wish that the "push you around" effect of the jam was more pronounced so I didn't always have to worry about timing my jumps to get that max height. I know that plays into the challenge of the game but I can't help but feel a game like this benefits from giving the player a lot of freedom and power with the movement tool.

Super solid entry! Great stuff!

The Unconventional Ninja Cat by Ershany 2015-04-25T20:50:00

Good job dude!

I think there's a lot of work to be done on the general feel and flow of the movement. Jumping is difficult to guage a lot of the time because of how the velocity is very digital and goes straight from like "exactly this fast up" to "exactly this fast down" if that makes sense?

I liked the changing cursor for different weapons, made things feel very clear. I feel like I wouldn't really opt to use the really short range melee attack over the projectile since you have an infinite supply of them and they do reasonable damage. I would opt to probably just focus on the projectile weapon if you took things further as it's generally a little more fun.

Again, good work!

Hat Attack by funisfun8 2015-04-30T18:31:00

Nice job!

I think the lose state is a little bit jarring, the getting hit animation is perfectly solid but because the "you lose" triggers instantly on losing your last piece of health it's a bit sudden and hard to tell where the damage came from.

Fun though, Well done!

Platead by ChrisAntem 2015-04-30T17:53:00

I love the mechanic! Some neat ideas on how to use the head to do stuff/solve puzzles. The actual level design itself though is probably a little rough, it's hard to work out the idea that you can walk on wooden bridges while your head is thrown, and also that the button on the far side of a difficult set of early jumps would allow me to get my head back if it was trapped in the upper area. I think these 'concepts' are strong just the actual distances and spaces could use refinement.

Really clever idea though, cute graphics, seems very promising!

Jungle Hair by ncannasse 2015-04-30T18:41:00

Awesome game! Occasionally my controls felt unresponsive but I think that might have been the fault of flash rather than the game. Was hard to judge where I was going to land from the swing and the high speed of everything made progression hard and slow but it's still super fun. Great execution in general and a solid entry.

LD33 — You are the Monster

Was It Something I Said? by ShaunJS 2015-08-24T13:10:00

Oh wow, how did you manage that Sunflower? Did you use rocks to bypass some houses? I tried to make it inevitable that you would damage some.

I don't think it's my best work by far, but I'm happy with it yeah. =)

Was It Something I Said? by ShaunJS 2015-08-27T08:58:00

Technically you can also use Enter for H and the arrow keys to move and shift to jump. I just mentioned the controls that I found myself using the most while testing.

LD34 — Two Button Controls / Growing

Nightlight by AgentParsec 2015-12-16T20:17:00

Good job!

St. Orchint's Orphanage by Double Zero One Zero 2015-12-16T20:01:00

Great stuff!

Galactic Growth Commander by DesignerNap 2015-12-16T16:33:00

WHOA THIS ISN'T GAMEMAKER? I THOUGHT WE WE'RE FRIENDS NAPPER.

Jk jk

Had fun, flying up and down felt hard and it took me a while to realize that's what up and down did and weren't affecting speed. I got the TOO MUCH PLANTS ending.

Instructions music is top tier.

CICP : the Center for Interplanetary Pest Control by Robber 2015-12-16T19:32:00

Good job!

CHILL PILL by alvarop 2015-12-16T21:18:00

Very cool, the use of "Growing" here is very unexpected and I think works really well =D

Radical Revolver Recoil Rampage by AndreasL 2015-12-16T18:24:00

Awesome! Solid design =)

Life Is Short by ShaunJS 2015-12-14T01:33:00

I did it... D:

Life Is Short by ShaunJS 2015-12-17T14:04:00

What were the crashes if you can remember, Allthebees?

Life Is Short by ShaunJS 2015-12-20T20:23:00

Catblocker, it's subtle unless your'e looking for it but that's actually exactly what happens! =)

Hero Feed Co. by SkullPixel 2015-12-16T18:55:00

Enjoyed it! Good job!

MANE by Enchae 2015-12-16T17:55:00

Very cool!

Potatiana Jones by Ildfuglen 2015-12-16T20:42:00

Well done! Enjoyed this one a lot =)

Upright by BoltKey 2015-12-16T20:54:00

Good job!

Slash to Victory by Juin 2015-12-16T16:12:00

Nice work! I think you've done really well functionally here and managed to get quite a lot of features and mechanics working for a jam game.

I'd say in that area you're doing really well, I'd say your next step should be to practice polish and presentation =)

Well done!

Holiday Rejects by local306 2015-12-16T18:41:00

Good job! Has a good twist on this type of game =)

Hope by Vidinu 2015-12-16T19:06:00

Good job! Perhaps consider adding more tools for the secondary button? (space) would be interesting. I think the mousewheel is a tough choice but it's fairly playable!

Well done =)

Electric by Madsj 2015-12-16T18:11:00

Good job!

Poop Ball by quacklemtduck 2015-12-16T19:20:00

I really enjoyed the music more than I feel I should have haha, good job!

Long Long: A snake lies in the Past by Tapehead 2015-12-16T21:09:00

Great work! Keep it up!

Tubutten Beetle by YinYin 2015-12-16T21:25:00

Good job!

Friendly Plant From Beyond by T-Rex Interactive 2015-12-16T20:26:00

Nice work!

LD37 — One room

Making Things Okay by ShaunJS 2016-12-12T12:07:00

Yeah, a few people will run into that problem. It doesn't let you water the plant unless there's room for you to stand next to it, you need to move the sofa a bit further.

Just poo level design by me!

I definitely expect to see many people suggesting it needs a goal, but for me that detracts from the point, if it gets boring fast that's fine =)