Shawn Moore

ANGRY MOUNTAIN GODS by ted 2018-12-04T04:26:08Z

Nice job, and I agree with the above that comment it did have a board game feel! I also really like the way the theme was incorporated into your game, especially the Tiki heads of other gods zooming around the mountain :)

The game balance is a bit off: every action other than spawning hikers can be spammed, so it was pretty easy to win even the 4 goats 4 gods board by focusing only on the four spots above the. I did so to win without any other gods getting a hiker in. Having a cooldown for each action would make it more balanced. Also, blocking hikers only when the tree is finished, not when it's started, would stop the easy strategy I used to win.

Sound would help a lot in keeping the player informed, even if subconsciously, about what's happening on the rest of the board.

Great job!

I Demand Blood! by Yirggzmb 2018-12-04T07:26:50Z

This game makes me feel like, bad as a human being, crushing a toddler saying "cookie?" So, nicely done :) Great use of the theme!

My Scrimbles! by Evan Polekoff 2018-12-04T08:04:06Z

This game is really pretty! It's hard to make a brightly colored game that isn't an eyesore and you managed it. The music is engaging too. Great job Evan!

There isn't really any indication of what drawing actually does or how I'm supposed to do a good job. Does ink deactivate the bomb area? The impression that I got was drawing would have the opposite effect of _trapping_ the scrimbles in the bomb area. Or do I use the mouse to directly push scrimbles out of harm's way? If so it seems like there's not really enough ink for that.

Either way though, I played it a few times since the design was so solid. :)

Sacrifice Management by Aycan 2018-12-04T07:53:47Z

I really enjoyed the humor, starting from the mug and continuing throughout. Like, of course a dark altar would have a fire extinguisher; not having that would a fire code violation. Good use of the theme to inform your design! The game had a nice puzzley feel to it.

As someone else mentioned, the menus not being hoverable after you placed an item meant that the game felt harder than it should have been, which was frustrating. It would be helpful to include icons of the items that are loved and hated right in that menu too, along with red/green color. That would focus the game on the puzzle aspect rather than trying to decide if that sprite is an apple or some cherries :)

Nice job Aycan!

Sirius Galactica by Call_me_Nutty 2018-12-04T06:45:16Z

This was a really nice game. I enjoyed the gameplay, and I loved the creative use of the theme. The music was simple but still engaging. Having allied ships was also a really nice touch (both for the theme and to make these space battles feel more important)

However I beat it without having to eject any crew members or sacrifice any other ships, so I'm not really sure what I was supposed to do with that option. I was also initially overwhelmed by the control scheme: I would get rid of the "c" and "p" commands from the instructions, because before I started playing I thought I'd have to eject crew members during the level, and so I'd need three hands to handle WASD, shooting, and ejecting. This is super morbid but I think a little animation of a little astronaut exiting the ship and fading out would really drive home the theme.

This is one of the few games this compo that made me immediately want to play through it a second time :) Good job!

The Trolley Problem by Ludovico 2018-12-04T09:18:51Z

I love the flip on the classical thought experiment named "the trolley problem". I also enjoy the nice touch that the trolley's blood splatter gets thicker and thicker as the level progresses… It's also a really compelling puzzle game!

It took me some time to realize how to play - the click to change tracks command is missing from the first level's control instructions - so I just ran the trolley pointlessly a few times before I tried clicking in the right place. I feel like the graphics are a bit too simple that they get in the way of seeing where the tracks go. Using different colors for rails versus the ties would help scannability a lot. As others have said, there's no reason for the trolley to go so slowly since the player is just waiting :)

One of my favorites of the compo so far!

Elemental Storm by BenBurgh 2018-12-04T03:08:38Z

I really liked the intro where the story and game elements were included directly in the playing area! It's also cool how the world reacts to you sacrificing each element. Good use of the theme throughout, especially the end cutscene :)

Being able to kill the water shrine was a bit too hard. Perhaps adding holes to the waves would keep the idea but make it a little more forgiving. I'd also speed up the bullets a bit so they have a chance to hit what you're aiming at. When you die you respawn at the very beginning which makes the game feel really slow. Maybe at the very least you can move the respawn point up to the shrine entrances, rearranging the descriptions to fit the game's narrative if needed. I somehow got my character stuck shooting continuously even though I wasn't hitting any buttons. Immediately after you defeat Grimmvich the cutscene begins but it took me a few seconds to realize it was a cutscene and not just the game bugging out. Some kind of positive indication that you won, even if it's just a flash or some other simple animation would make it feel and play better.

I was able to defeat Grimmvich by sacrificing Fire and Water.

Nice job kushamo!

Lost In The Flames by WongKongPhooey 2018-12-05T03:05:39Z

The graphics and music are great! I had some trouble with the controls though, as I got stuck in a few places and had trouble picking up items. It seemed like the check for whether you make it outside is a little aggressive: スクリーンショット 2018-12-04 21.53.06.png

Nice job Wong!

The Sacrifice Basketball by kumabotz 2018-12-04T04:59:26Z

Not bad kumabotz. Picking your sacrifice up front is an interesting way to add the theme. The sounds made me laugh too.

Some suggestions for improvement: spending a little bit more time on the graphics would go a long way. Just a few black lines would make the orange ball look much much more like a basketball. Same with adding nets to the baskets: without them they look a bit like chairs right now. The "easier game mode" sacrifice could be reworded a bit since I was a bit confused about what it meant: perhaps call it "reduced accuracy"? As others have mentioned, real physics would also make this go a long way. To take this further you could add some sort of power indicator so you know how long to hold the shoot button for.

sacrifice-basketball.png

I played four or five times and my best was 30 points, which looks like high score so far? :)

The Sacrifice Basketball by kumabotz 2018-12-04T08:10:21Z

@kumabotz Please do :smile:

Saving Bris by Fersyvanderzee 2018-12-04T07:16:14Z

The music and art is really nice!

You probably shouldn't let players fly off the map :) It's also asking a lot of the player to read a dozen paragraphs before getting into the gameplay; in the future I'd limit your narrative to a sentence or two! It took me a few tries to realize how to pick up fuel: it's a little bit weird that gems and fuel work differently, so to make it more obvious to the player it's probably better to unify them. It would also probably feel more fun because then you can zip around as fast as you want, rather than having to slow down and stop. More fun that way. :)

Nice job Fersy!

Fire and Atlas by irock 2018-12-04T05:37:37Z

The art style is great and everything has a nice polish to it. In fact, the super-polished pixel art is what made me immediately want to try your game :)

Giving more of a hint about how to play the game up front would go a long way. It took me a while -- going back to the the descriptions outside of the game -- to realize I'm supposed to look for "X marks the spot" and where the map does not match the territory. And once I did, it felt like it became more of a chore than a game. I think the way to fix that would be to interact with treasure somehow, even if it's just a little animation and/or sound effect (a classic example is like, what happens when you pick up a new item in Legend of Zelda), would be enough to make me want to do it more. Taking it further, having some sort of pressure -- like time or enemies -- would, I don't think the "10 digs and you're done" mechanic is enough.

I think with a little bit more time, this could become a really fun game! The sound, graphics, and polish are definitely all there.

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-04T05:59:20Z

@Yirggzmb the end cutscene may explain the treasure chest a little more :) you're on the right track though!

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-04T06:00:11Z

thanks @Rikun! I have never written music before so I ended up not finishing any songs, but it's at the top of my list to practice for next LD! :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-04T09:00:32Z

Absolutely right @fireslash. For example I had pixel-perfect collision detection, but that significantly reduced the mass of each object, which in turn affected collisions, which ended up making the game a lot less fun. After sinking an hour or two into it, I realized I could just revert back to rectangular bodies. Definitely a double-edged sword, physics engines are! In the end, at least the pig head rotates fairly accurately. :D

I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed the main mechanic :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-04T20:38:11Z

Thanks @benburgh and @adventureislands! Nice score!

I think I just fixed a lot of the physics problems by deleting two lines of debug code. :head_bandage:

Shorter levels is a good idea, especially the third one. But hopefully now with that physics fix it's a little less tedious.

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-05T02:33:51Z

Thank you so much @benburgh!! I'm glad you liked the humor :)

I agree that levels two and three are too long, but I'm not comfortable making changes to them after the deadline :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-05T18:39:26Z

@frenchie Glad you liked Pigheaded Pirate! :D I think when I saved your submission form you hadn't yet clarified that it was limited to Unity. No worries though.

@bit Hope you feel better buddy <3

@jihem Unfortunately those penguins stand in the way between you and treasure, so they gots to go! :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-06T02:12:34Z

Thanks @cannedtuna! Yeah if I'd had time for more playtesting I probably would've ended up pushing all the enemies away from the left side of the screen when you respawn. Oh well :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-06T02:37:57Z

@incobalt: The pig's maximum possible happiness goes down by a grade each level, so by the last level you've upset your partner a lot and they're never happy again. The damage also depends on how hard the impact was, so I'm not surprised that shoving did only little damage :) The platforms were intended to make slightly more dynamic combat situations rather than just a single ground area. Finally, I modeled my game off of old school beat em ups which typically require you to defeat all enemies to proceed between each area, but I appreciate a lot of modern games give the player more choice. Glad to hear you thought it was interesting, thanks for playing! :D

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-06T05:18:48Z

Thank you @kantieno! It was intentional to allow your partner get as far as a screen's width ahead of you, but whether that was a good idea is definitely unclear :)

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-07T05:22:21Z

@ursagames thanks so much for playing Pigheaded Pirate! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Your review had me giggling throughout since your laugh is contagious. _gotta pig em all_

The level transition effect didn't take too much time, it was only about 15 lines of code. I did spend a _lot_ of time on the physics though, but there's only so much a QA Pig can do in 48 hours, so there are definitely still a lot of quirks I didn't have time to iron out.

The game was made in JavaScript using the Phaser engine.

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-08T23:45:23Z

@jupiter-hadley: Thanks for playing Pigheaded Pirate, Jupi! Glad you thought it was silly 😄

Pigheaded Pirate by Shawn Moore 2018-12-24T16:45:39Z

@mgsx haha yep, I am rubbish at graphic design, but I can animate box positions pretty okay :laughing:

Stones by jihem 2018-12-05T05:13:12Z

Nice game! I like that the entire game is on one screen even though it's multiple separate levels. I ended up winning at 2:25 my first play through, then played again and got 1:30 :)

To give it more of a puzzle feel, maybe let the player move only onto each tile exactly rather than allowing some slop? I'd replace the gray stone with a yellow stone or something because the player and the world are both grayish. I think spending more time on polish would go a long way towards making this feel fun! Perhaps some more animations like when you teleport with the blue square, or graphical flourishes like a particle explosion when you finish a level. That way the player better understands their effects on the world.

Good job jihem :)

Eldritchual by arkinrev 2018-12-04T08:25:25Z

I love love love the art style. The humor too, like the cultist carrying popcorn and soda.

Going through the tutorial, it felt like the rules are _suuuper_ complicated! I feel like the only way to make that work well is to introduce them gradually rather than explain them up front in prose. But, with only 48 hours, totally understandable that there's not enough time for that :) But, once I got into it, I was able to figure out that it is about resource management. I hadn't played a "worker placement" game before but it seems like an interesting genre.

Small bug: You can click the previous lesson button immediately after loading the tutorial, which leads to a blank screen. Also, I paused the game to review the tutorial, but afterwards was really worried that the button "Begin Summoning" would lose all my progress by starting a new game, so maybe relabel it to "Resume Summoning" ?

Great job! I look forward to your postmortem.

Total Party Kill by adventureislands 2018-12-04T03:47:53Z

Everything about this was PERFECT. Bravo! My fiancee, who doesn't play games, saw me playing this and took over from me :D

Typeless by Naihto 2018-12-04T05:10:50Z

Interesting take on the theme! It definitely got harder as the game progressed because I couldn't respond due to losing too many letters.

It took me a while to figure out how to actually play due to things like tapping space to advance to the next dialog, and starting the game by typing, were both a little unclear.

Very nice graphics!

Depths by potatolain 2019-04-30T04:40:53Z

NES support is SO COOL! :D

Ollo's Life by Memel06 2019-05-05T04:59:53Z

that rocks :)

ｉｎｖｅｒｔｅｂｒａｅ by jjjjason 2019-05-06T04:46:11Z

Surprisingly immersive! I'm sure my company's security team would love this too :)

Bora Bora Or Bust by WongKongPhooey 2019-04-30T03:32:36Z

Nice game Josh! I instantly recognized your art style from your previous LD entry about fire rescue :)

Small bug: if your exchange rate is below market value, when people exchange money, it doesn't lower your score.

Bora Bora Or Bust by WongKongPhooey 2019-04-30T07:29:01Z

Totally fair :)

DISREGARD LIFE, ACQUIRE CURRENCY by notb 2019-05-05T05:09:18Z

Very pretty and I love the cute name but I sailed for a while and nothing happened :(

Yodin Defense by Neon Glass 2019-05-02T05:05:57Z

That battle music and the explosion animation are really slick!

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-04-29T17:50:17Z

Thank you all for the nice comments!!

@tero-pulkkinen sorry about the confusion with double jump. I see now that the instructions were unclear! You have to already be in the air when you hold up and press jump. I'll add a little demo video once I get some sleep :D

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-04-29T20:07:20Z

Hi @boltkey, thank you for the detailed and honest criticism :) I'm glad you liked the game!

I could see getting rid of holding up to do a double jump. Since you do have to be holding left or right to do a walljump, so every case should be unambiguous.

For the badges, I did intend to have a main menu with a level select, best times, and badge descriptions,, but I had to cut it for lack of time. :( That was the one feature I really regret not being able to add!

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-05-04T18:08:14Z

@alexrose I watched your platforming physics talk and feel inspired to make the physics be force-based (among other things!), using this game as a playground. Thanks!

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-05-06T04:05:27Z

@jjjjason thanks for the kind review! Reducing your mobility on double jump was an intentional choice to better differentiate double jumps (high y-velocity, low x-velocity) from wall jumps (high x-velocity, low y-velocity). If the jumps were more similar, then it wouldn't really be a meaningful choice which one to use, and so there wouldn't be much point to having both. :)

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-05-06T04:10:05Z

@jjjjason Phaser is quite good! I used it previous LD and will next time too :D It offers all the primitives I want: both simple and complex physics engines, animation with custom easings, particle effects, shaders. Lots of *playable* examples at https://labs.phaser.io (which is super important).

The only gripe I have with it is that, although the documentation is comprehensive, it is not well organized. For example if you want to find all the properties you can animate, or a list of events that get emitted from some subsystem like physics or audio, you might have to troll through several different documents and it rarely feels satisfying.

Jumpcoins by Shawn Moore 2019-05-06T07:23:32Z

@freedompotatoes play the game however makes you happiest :) :) using invulnerability like you describe was intentional, but if I had more time, I would have polished the level design more to support more optional challenges for experts

Suicide Slime Arena by Abitscared 2019-04-29T06:02:42Z

Hi abitscared, when I try to launch your game on itch.io I get the error "abort(114). Build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 for more info." I'm using Safari on a Mac if that helps!

Delta Fighter by LiauJ 2019-05-06T05:44:48Z

That's some satisfying screenshake! :)

Escape from Hell by Becher 2019-05-05T04:50:03Z

I found it difficult to understand what I was supposed to do after I died. It wasn't clear that I was supposed to do something at the gap to fill it in. I also wasn't sure how many souls I was supposed to collect, and even though I got 20 I couldn't seem to respawn. I liked both the idea and your implementation of farming souls to get resurrected though! Supporting d-pad on gamepads would be helpful :)

Sharkbait by Jimbly 2020-04-24T00:48:52Z

This is a really relaxing game. I was getting some Ecco the Dolphin vibes.

Also what-up JS buddy :) The cutout shader looks really good too!

Magic Garden by MaggardJosh 2020-04-22T23:29:45Z

This was a cute little game! I thought the graphics, music, and sound effects all worked well together, and the progression got surprisingly deep. The ascent at the end was a good start to the finish, but maybe fireworks or something would really enhance the ending. The only other thing I felt might be missing was being able to attack while in mid-air, particularly for the bats or for the jellies that are on a ledge.

Dunkman by congusbongus 2020-04-26T03:17:58Z

This is what the mood category was invented for

Substitute DJ by jayprog 2020-04-23T00:23:37Z

The polish here is amazing!! I for one am glad the original DJ died

Solais by dragonxvi 2020-04-26T03:34:55Z

This is the most amazing compo game I've seen in any Ludum Dare. I'll absolutely be studying the cart source!!

Meteorite Pig by appix 2020-04-24T01:08:31Z

The itch.io link seems broken. If you make it work, please @ mention me so I can try it!

Cloudy With A Chance Of Pain by ProdigalSon 2020-04-23T01:04:59Z

I'm on a Mac so unfortunately I wasn't able to get the rain action to work - maybe you could have the game listen for shift or control click too? (In any case I was able to get a sense of the game from watching marcmagus's stream though, so no worries!). It's funny and looks well balanced!

Cloudy With A Chance Of Pain by ProdigalSon 2020-04-23T23:45:56Z

@prodigalson amazing!! it works beautifully now. thank you! :D

LD46: The Lighthouse at the End of the Universe by LMB 2020-04-23T00:26:59Z

You had me at the name, I wonder if the restaurant is nearby? I think polishing the ship movements (e.g. with some lerp) would really add a lot to the game!

Robot Battery Dig by devharts 2020-04-26T02:43:52Z

Nice puzzle game! My best is 36 seconds, 6150 points :)

Lively by CJGladback 2020-04-23T23:49:41Z

I'm interested in trying this, but I'm on a Mac, so right click is always a perilous situation :) Could you support left click to start, or if left-vs-right click is fundamental, perhaps allowing any modifier key (shift, ctrl, alt, whatever) to also transform a left click into a right click? If you do, please mention me in a comment so I can give this a try! :)

Survive: eat or be eaten by jondkoon 2020-04-23T00:42:59Z

This was neat! I really like how the enemies eat eachother to grow too, it subtly adds some time pressure. (I wasn't very good though, I made it to level 2 a bunch but died quickly after each time). Also shout out for pico-8 <3

Coronary Flypass by squirmonkey 2020-04-24T00:09:43Z

Well shit, that went about as well as my real life drone experiences go.

I love it when an absolutely absurd game takes itself seriously. The snipers were a brilliant touch.

The only constructive feedback I can offer is that it'd be better if the R key worked to advance past the "try again" screen, so you don't have to switch between the keyboard and the mouse just for that. Everything was just great. Very clever idea!

Boids of Prey by Shawn Moore 2020-04-20T01:37:13Z

Oh my gosh you all played before it was done! haha. I didn't realize that was a thing that people did. If you could try it again it's at least fully fleshed out @arcus @owl-skip @cagibi

Boids of Prey by Shawn Moore 2020-04-23T00:34:04Z

I really appreciate the constructive feedback @jondkoon! Yeah I think just showing how many chickens are currently alive in a HUD, and at the end of the level, would go a long way toward communicating and motivating the goal.

Boids of Prey by Shawn Moore 2020-04-23T00:47:31Z

Aww thanks for all the kind words everyone!

@ryanman56 the stun effect is a shader that basically just changes the position of pixels :)

Boids of Prey by Shawn Moore 2020-04-23T04:17:48Z

PHASER BROS. I thought I was the only one!

Hungy Hungy Dwagons by cheesepencil 2020-04-22T23:59:24Z

The baby dragon voices were certainly an interesting stylistic choice :) I agree that music and sound is more important than score - you still had win/loss conditions. I think the only tweak I'd make is if you lose, start over from the current wave rather than the first one. It's kind a bummer to lose so much progress on the final wave. Nicely done!

CAMPFIRE by PROJECTaroid 2020-04-24T01:14:36Z

Love the particle effect. It was a real nailbiter in the end since adding a log didn't seem to add much fuel to the fire, but I made it til sunrise.

Coffee Beast by KneehatGames 2020-04-24T01:03:45Z

I am a beast if I haven't had my coffee yet either.

Lighthouse Keeper and the Shadow Pirates by cagibi 2020-04-22T23:37:12Z

Great game! I had fun playing it, and the mechanics and story worked well for the theme. The intro and outro scenes are surprisingly polished for a compo entry. I also appreciated secretly being able to use the keyboard :)

Dog Feeder by plantleaf 2020-04-24T01:16:45Z

That dog was really ruining the neighborhood. Good riddance.

GA GAME ME by Jezzamon 2021-05-04T01:40:04Z

Great take on the theme. I'm so pleased you designed the game around careful use of going in and out of games, it would have been easy to phone that in but I'm stoked you nailed it!! I also always appreciate a diagetic win screen :D Super good job!

Deep Freeze Café by brian-mayberry 2021-04-27T03:38:14Z

Nice game! I served about ten customers. The freezer particle systems looked really slick. I think it's actually kind of charming that everyone is stuck in the T-pose and you carry the drinks on your head :) Calling the freezer procedurally generated might be a liiiitle bit of a stretch :)

I think the most important thing for improving this entry would be to flesh out the core game loop. For example it's a bit hard to notice that customers leave because they're angry at how long it's taking, so some kind of timer would help communicate that, and your score could be tips, so you're incentivized to deliver the right drink quickly.

Deeper and Deeper by minibobbo 2021-05-04T00:55:02Z

I love the art style and the fire particles, they're ​so polished for a compo game! The "oh yeah water kills you also" moment was great.

I somehow got stuck here on the first level - the camera lagged behind me, and so when I proceeded any further to the right, I walked offscreen:

Untitled.png

I restarted by refreshing the page and it didn't happen again. (edit: I realize after finishing that I accidentally threw my torch here without realizing. I was trying to to use X to jump on a keyboard, because it wasn't obvious that "X to jump" was meant for gamepads)

Honestly, the only concrete polish that I can think of to improve this game would be to animate pulling the fire back to you rather than snapping the camera instantly. And for content, I would've liked to see a level 9 that synthesizes the mechanics I've learned. Some of the levels, especially 5 and 8, felt a little underwhelming in that regard.

I really enjoyed playing through. Bravo! I'll be following you to see what you come up with next :)

Also yay Phaser! I see your IH abstraction, I've got a similar one I call [CommandManager]( https://github.com/sartak/jet-janitor/blob/master/src/scaffolding/CommandManager.js) :D

Robed Bird Reckoning by alexrose 2021-04-27T03:28:04Z

edit: we're in business! the new build works, disregard all this vvvv

Enjoyed catching your stream, I commiserated a lot with your atan issue! I loaded up the game and got past the title screen, but it doesn't seem to advance past this initial gameplay screen for me, using either the keyboard controls or a dualshock 4. Seems like the main character isn't here?

Untitled.png

Pretty eager to give this a shot though - I love a solid platformer - please @ message me if you upload another build.

Robed Bird Reckoning by alexrose 2021-05-04T03:13:31Z

A very satisfying platformer, I appreciated the air dodge mechanic especially. Though I gotta agree that unlimited time slowdown is too overpowered. Sick art and music, also impressed that it transitioned seamlessly and quickly after beating the boss.

Holey Hell by managore 2021-05-04T01:55:12Z

I love creative game ideas like this, it's really Ludum Dare at its best. Definitely eager to learn how you did the wobble effect!

Nuclear blaze by deepnight 2021-04-28T03:33:45Z

The fire and water effects are worth every minute you spent on them!! I'm blown away. I think the only feedback I can give (besides sound) is the communication here could've been a little clearer - it took me longer than I'm willing to admit to figure out what to do. :) Excellent entry!!

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Infinity Dive by keepee 2021-05-04T02:48:25Z

Ohhh so that's what pixels are made of!

Descentris by PhilStrahl 2021-04-27T02:52:34Z

I really enjoyed the menacing music. The game mechanic reminds me of the board game Blokus. A solid game, nicely done!

Dream of the Glowing Umbrella by ristoretto 2021-04-27T04:09:11Z

Love the cute art style and the ethereal music. Gravity seemed like it was turned to 11 though, at some moments I fell so fast I completely left the camera, even with the umbrella open. I think one incremental bit of polish that would help a lot is flipping the sprite around when you move left. Nice entry!

Goldf by Antti Tiihonen 2021-05-04T02:05:40Z

I feel vaguely uncomfortable after that. I'm not sure why, maybe the uncanny valley character, the unsettling music, the emanating darkness I am smashing golf balls into, or what. Also there's not much "real golf" about flying around with a jetpack trying to juggle a golden nugget ;)

Deepest Sword by Strega 2021-05-04T00:38:01Z

This game is extremely polished, and I love the unique mechanic of having an oversized sword. The only fault I can find is in communicating intent to the player. I hit a roadblock here where visually and even experimentally, either the way to progress is too high:

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or too narrow:

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So it's not clear to me how to proceed here. Relatedly, since the game introduced movement as "WASD keys", I also keep trying to use the "W" and "S" keys to jump or crouch, but it looks like they do nothing.

God's Arteries by Gunturtle 2021-05-04T02:16:22Z

Very satisfying and polished lo-rez graphics like Celeste! Especially the death animation. I had to give up at the second level due to the difficulty.

Chuck Challenger: The Hunt for Malpractice Mole by Phlip45 2021-04-28T01:27:21Z

Heyyy we're "Chuck" buddies this jam :)

I loved the beat and the goofy sound effects. The damage zoom/blur effect is nicely polished too! One issue I had was the boss somehow clipped into the floor, so I had to restart.

Untitled.png

Jupiter II by Wheffle 2021-04-27T04:00:43Z

I really enjoyed this slow-paced deep dive. The art is clean and you better believe that I scanned the heck outta everything. I appreciate that you trusted the player to discover the mechanic of using the flashlight to drive away enemies.

Your post and another commenter mentioned music but I didn't hear any on the itch.io web build - I only heard some (slightly harsh) tones when my partner gave me the next bit of information, so I'm not sure what happened there.

Nicely done!

Jupiter II by Wheffle 2021-04-28T01:10:33Z

I gave it another shot with the Windows build - the music syncing up with gameplay moments definitely made a huge difference! :D

Dig Frenzy by Boon 2021-05-04T01:47:19Z

Nice twist on the tower defense genre! The game had trouble loading for me in Chrome but ran fine in Firefox. I think adding sound and music would add a lot more than you'd think to the experience (I personally am not audially skilled at all, but ChipTone and Abundant have served me well!).

Bunny Bunny Dig Dig by ZakAmana 2021-04-28T03:16:29Z

The fact that you delivered such an amazingly polished, beautiful, fun, and interesting game in 48 hours is a marvel.

Savestate by Monkosum 2021-05-04T02:28:31Z

I love the play on save states as a game mechanic! I think a bit more polish would go a long way, especially on the art -- although I did think the visual effects like motion blur were charming. But, I can appreciate that exploring the mechanic as you did took up the bulk of the 48 hours. Great job!

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-26T05:28:53Z

@cammin Oh no! I don't have a fast refresh monitor to test with. (it was much easier to test at ~20fps which worked well enough that I assumed I had frame-rate independence). Sorry about that!

Thank you for the kind words and the fair shake despite the issues!

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-26T05:39:39Z

@valid I'm afraid I just can't help myself with the screenshake 😆 I look forward to trying your Phaser game too!

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-28T05:07:24Z

@phobos001 yeah :/ I think the engine I’m using might have issues with >60hz displays since the display framerate is faster than the physics timestep. Hard for me to test unfortunately. Though it does seem to be fine when I intentionally slow down the game. Sorry about that but I’m glad you still had fun. Can’t even imagine playing at 4x speed though haha, I feel like even 1x was probably a little too fast!

Thanks all for the kind words! <3

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-28T05:56:28Z

oh my god XD

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-29T00:34:02Z

@andrewkennedy Thank you so much for your thoughtful and thorough feedback! Not sure what went wrong with Firefox ("it works on my machine" 😂) - I wonder if you were using a gamepad or something that I didn't catch in my testing. (The only browser-specific issue I encountered was Safari specifically has a lot of trouble playing sounds)

Tweaking the control parameters per ship would definitely be a really nice addition! But sadly yeah I had to deprioritize it due to jam constraints: dev time, but also playability. Players will spend only a few minutes with the game, so I thought it was important to give them as much time as possible to build a mental model of exactly one set of controls, since it's difficult enough to get the hang of even just that. In a longer game though, with progression and whatnot, we would have the luxury to not let the player get too comfortable, and maybe give them the opportunity to choose their upgrades and deal with the consequences (which is what my primary inspiration for this game, Luftrausers, does). In any case, I definitely hear you that it causes levels to feel pretty samey, especially for that last level where all seven ships are at play. I suppose slightly more complicated/larger levels, and putting ships in more different areas of the levels, probably would have been a good enough solution for the jam ... next time! 😄

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-04-30T02:46:20Z

@Ariorick that’s certainly fair, but I wanted to try trusting players to figure it out. You did! 😄 I haven’t heard yet of anyone completely bouncing off the game without figuring out the win condition. Yet, anyway! There could be a silent majority I suppose. You’re right though, something for me to improve on for next time!

Chuck Yeager's Jet Janitor by Shawn Moore 2021-05-04T02:21:03Z

@gorethumb thanks! I enjoyed catching your stream of it :D

Bus Crawl by Valid 2021-04-27T04:34:25Z

I enjoyed this game, right up there with Mini Metro. A lot of people here are complaining that the buses break down frequently, clearly they are not public transit users ;) You already joked about audio but yeah, that would definitely take this to the next level. (I recommend ChipTone for sfx, Abundant for music - you don't need any musical or audio-engineering talent). Great job on your entry!

Throneless by AdamCYounis 2021-04-27T02:40:20Z

The graphics are amazing. But one thing I have to ask - what's going on with the arrows in Throneless? ;)

I think the idea very much has potential, I hope to watch you continue developing this game on twitch!

STARPOON by RedSPINE 2021-05-04T02:36:25Z

Very chill, especially with the soft music, bright colors, and slow-paced vibe (towards the beginning at least!). I feel like this could use one or two more mechanics or objectives to make the gameplay a little more fleshed out and compelling. Nicely done!

Deep Sea Trip by Pomo 2021-04-27T00:43:15Z

I absolutely love the surfey music!! I think adding a bit more complexity to the game mechanics would make it more engaging and memorable. It's also a bit hard to read when enemies are "at" your depth and become interactive, so maybe a secondary indicator (like having them overshoot their scaling up to like 110%, at which point they become damageable, then they scale back down to 100% before they can damage you, or something simpler like set alpha to 0.5 until they're interactable). Nice job on this game! I appreciate the polish throughout, especially for things like having a leaderboard.

Buried Deep by Paroxysmal 2021-04-27T01:26:27Z

I really dig the art and the visual polish here! The dust kickup, the way the coins rotate and the hearts sparkle, it all feels really engaging. I found the basic jump sound to get kind of annoying pretty quickly though. One trick I've found that helps a surprising amount is to have a few minor variations and pick one randomly each time. That's especially important for the primary action of any game :)

I hadn't seen TIC-80 before, I'll check it out! Great job on this doggovania game!

Dive & Dig by andrewkennedy 2021-04-28T02:59:59Z

The visuals were really attractive, I think the soft bloom shader punches wayyyy above its weight in effect! I liked that this really felt like two games mashed into one. I think my only suggestion for improvement would be that it's easy to miss dialog due to the controls, so make it so the dialog ignores your input for a second. Great job on this game!

Jawbreaker by arya-s 2021-05-04T01:11:44Z

Nice game! The damage popups are quite polished. And wow do I feel like I'm a walking stereotype now :D Great riff on the theme.

I think it would have helped to force the player to select a story branch rather than giving a default one, since I got to the "as the years go by" three-way branch without realizing I was even making any choices.

Congratulations shipping your first complete game!

STONEHOLD by teamscripta 2022-04-07T00:12:45Z

This game came up on @marcmagus's stream so I picked it up and really enjoyed it! The art style is clean and attractive, the music is perfectly menacing, and I'm always impressed to see a networked game come up in a weekend jam. Also glad to see another Phaser entry :D Great work!

Stallar by Wendel Scardua 2022-04-06T01:46:49Z

I'm so impressed you were able to put together some Assembly for Ludum Dare! (It seems like the web emulator is broken in Safari too, but Firefox did work.)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-05T00:11:04Z

Thank you both so much for the kind feedback! :) I’m glad you enjoyed the game! Definitely hear you with the gothic aesthetic - that’d be the first thing to improve if I had a few more hours :)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-06T00:01:07Z

Thanks again for all the feedback, and I enjoyed your stream Marc! Sorry the game didn't work well for you jcmonkey :(

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-06T05:14:08Z

Gosh, thank you @clemonades and @zack-hd ! In jitspoe’s steam when you saw the last level you said “oh my god” and that one comment made my day :)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-08T06:25:31Z

@jcg Bummer the lights slowed down for you! Illuminated definitely has the best looking shadows, and it worked well enough on my development machine. It wasn't until I tried it on an another computer that I realized I needed some optimization :) And yeah, I couldn't just use the lighting system from the game engine I was using, since the shadows needed to be extremely pronounced and overexaggerated for the game mechanic to work at all.

@dae-udain Heck yeah! 12 deaths is the lowest I've seen so far!

@milq hehe I am absolutely rubbish at composing and playing music, you caught me ;) Glad the gameplay made up for it!

@kimberly thanks for the constructive feedback! I shouldn't have put in any one-tile-wide platforms, yeah, I didn't really intend for that ever to be part of the solution. I just needed to completely block the sun at the beginnings and ends of most levels :) The little health bar is from me overcommunicating the game mechanic, but yeah maybe not needed since the rest of the sounds and visuals communicate it pretty effectively as well! And I agree, I do think the single biggest improvement would be to all-in on the vampire aesthetic throughout the art. That one's mostly due to poor time management. :) The M key is a debug feature I left in for showing a meteor shooting star sort of effect, no impact on gameplay! I wasn't entirely satisfied with the visual of it so I'd meant to come back to it and never did. You're the only one who's found the M key so far.　Anyways, thanks again for the thoughtful suggestions!!

@payaosito hehe yeah having a level indicator and maybe level select would be a good idea. There are 13 levels in the game. If you feel like it was that one particular level that made you give up, you can use the `n` key to skip levels. But either way glad you enjoyed what the game was going for!

@pcarl anti-platformer is a good way to put it! :) A similar dynamic is the players I've watched often immediately rush to get to the other side of the level for no particular reason, only to get caught in direct sunlight. Usually the better plan is to wait for the right timing. So it's also maybe a little anti-speedrun too! Gosh I didn't realize I created a commentary on platformers lol

@initialposition aww I'm really sorry about the framerate :( if you feel inspired, maybe another browser would work better. For example I was surprised Chrome seems to be a little bit more laggy than Edge. Anyway your reference to SMB3 is making me blush. :)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-09T03:11:19Z

Thanks for the kind comments :heart:

@forgin-bits @dingledorf sorry the game was laggy for you! :( If you feel inspired to give it another shot, trying a different browser *might* help. Having a smooth frame rate also does make the controls a lot easier to manage.

And yeah I geek out on Quantified Self so it's always fun to figure out how I'm spending my time and how I might better allocate my time next jam! Like this one clearly proves I could spend less time on coding and more time on art :)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-10T02:40:46Z

@dans17 glad you enjoyed it! \m/

@diego-escalante Yeah this is secretly a puzzle platformer disguised as an action platformer! :) That's a great point about the shadows. Having a diffused edge to them looks visually better but yeah, it does come at the pretty steep cost of muddying the core mechanic. In case you're curious, here's a comparison of the difference:

shadows.png

Actually, you know what... just for you I snuck in a secret hotkey: if you press `c` during the game it toggles between crisp shadows and diffuse ones. Enjoy! :)

@black-flag thanks for very kind words! 25 deaths is really well played!! Glad you enjoyed the spinning platforms and what I called the drawbridges... those were the two twists I added to open up the design space: automatically-moving platforms that cast shadows, and manually-moving platforms that cast shadows. :) And yeah for the font I like your idea, I wonder if I could find a gothic-looking pixel art font to make a more consistent experience :D It didn't even cross my mind haha. That last level was intended to be a challenge, but I think you're right that it was more "incidental challenge because the UI is a bit hard to read" rather than the puzzle I was going for with the rest of the game.

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-04-10T15:23:27Z

@tigerj thanks for playing my game! I’m sorry I missed your stream but I did watch the vod last night. I’m glad you enjoyed it!! You were wondering what the white dotted line was that showed up toward the end - it’s meant to be a shooting star :)

Nighty Night, Nosferatu by Shawn Moore 2022-05-12T00:24:32Z

@lee-reilly so cool! thank you!! 😄

Lumber Tracks by Black Flag 2022-04-09T02:49:09Z

Hi @black-flag, thanks for inviting feedback on your game!

This is a solid compo game! Nice music and sound, excellent execution of the theme, the graphics are nice and evocative. I also haven't played a game with this set of mechanics before, but it totally makes sense! I really like the polish of the motion blur effect when you're moving very quickly. By the way is the axe throwing sound you just blowing into the microphone? lol it works though!

I have some thoughts on what might your game even better. Take them all with a grain of salt though, I know all too well how much scope and ambition we have to cut at that 48 hour mark!

- To help the player get started, I'd integrate the tutorial into the game. I appreciate that you put it in as an option, but tutorials are almost always boring, so I skip them when I can, and I bet a majority of players do. So I jumped right in and was extremely confused about the controls, objective, and even what I was seeing on the screen. After dying I went back and looked at the tutorial and now I see it was just a single screen of explanation. So, to avoid dummies like me bouncing right off your game, switching the main menu to be just a "Play" button that shows a tutorial, and when you click starts the game, gives players a better chance of success :) To go even farther, you can introduce the game mechanics gradually and use in-world explanation (like that sign of "innocent villagers"... but the arrow on it is pointing the wrong way :sweat_smile:). That way it doesn't even feel like a tutorial, and players don't feel like they want to skip it. - The tutorial talks about things you can do, but it's not immediately obvious why you want to do them. Probably best to clearly state the objective - stop the runaway train *to give the village time to evacuate*. Then it makes sense why you want to chop down trees or push boxes onto the tracks. (I see now you did that on the Ludum Dare page for your game, but I didn't see that until I came back after playing) - It's easy to permanently(?) lose the axe which kind of ruins that playthrough, so I wonder if using a trick (I'm thinking like Thor and Mjollnir) where it automatically comes back to you after a few seconds. That would help keep the player in the game rather than punishing them for a mistake. Another way this failure mode _could've_ happened is falling too far behind the train, but you thought of that and added the strawberries to catch back up! Nice. :) - The boxes didn't move quite the way I'd expect... might be simpler to make it so they move in the direction, especially since you put in the trouble to make trees take into account the player's momentum.

Anyway, I gave you some suggestions for improvement only because I promised you I would :) Most of all, you should feel proud that you finished a complete game - programming, art, sound, polish, etc - in one extremely short weekend! Looking forward to checking out your future games!!

Dungeon Dummies by Jozef 2022-04-07T01:19:48Z

I caught your game on a stream and immediately pulled it up to play too. The bassline is DOPE, love the clean art style, and the puzzle design has a great ramp, and is surprisingly deep and nuanced. I have no constructive criticism to offer, this game is a gem and the only thing missing is I would play through as many levels as you put out there.

Nelson's Nightmare: Remastered by clemonades 2022-04-06T01:21:42Z

Love to see action platformers! I think I found a small bug though. This is Safari on macOS. Please @ me if you have another build you want me to try!

nelson.gif

Rifthoppers by Kimberly 2022-04-08T06:58:25Z

Hey @kimberly, thanks for inviting feedback on how you might turn this into a full game!

First of all I can't help myself commenting what I love about what you've already got. The music is DOPE (seriously I'm tempted to just extract the mp3 and save it), the art style is exactly the kind I prefer, and the game loop is really fun. The upgrades seem well considered and interesting. I noticed a bunch of polish like the subtle light that always points to the rift orb you need to collect. I'm a real sucker for time dilation effects too.

I think to briefly sum up what's missing from the jam version of your game, here's a link to a 44 minute youtube video: [the art of screenshake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U).

lol. Just kidding. Unless...? Actually I do think it's practically essential that you watch it, because everything it talks about applies to your game as well. Sound effects, recoil, screenshake, give enemies some kind of death effects rather than instantaneously disappearing, etc etc. Each one of those is going to make your game more fun to play, and the sum of doing a lot of them is going to make a gigantic difference. Thinking about it, I'm actually surprised at how fun your game is _despite_ missing so many of those specific details (my best guess is that you have enough of them, like enemies getting knocked back by bullets, but maybe most of all the badass music is doing a whole lot of work here!!). Though I hear you, letting the programmer eat and sleep is important too. :) Communication-wise, it took me maybe two deaths before I figured out what the game actually wanted from me, until then I thought the grayscale/slowdown was just me dying from low HP. Also on communication I didn't read the game description until after I played so I didn't realize I could roar - making that evident in the HUD would have clued me in that I was missing part of the game mechanics (although.. thinking back, I did see an upgrade card for roars but didn't know what to make of it).

For a full game, I think the key is having multiple level layouts -- maybe even double down on that, making it into more of an adventure game, rather than an arena battler? That would get you beyond just "delaying the inevitable". After all, I think probably the most important part of an interesting game is having the player learn some new game mechanics, then challenge them with a bunch of different curated scenarios and variations that each test that they really "get" it. Then repeat. Some other smaller ideas: Have different weapon/bullet effects look visually different, and maybe allow switching between weapons or characters. Similarly have different enemies be more distinct (maybe some enemies explode on death, others hover around the rift orbs, that kind of thing). Boss fights. I feel like the rift could be more intrusive as you get closer to running out of power - maybe touching the edge of the stage immediately kills you, and the rift shrinks (in some sort of interesting way) as you get closer to losing your power. Multiplayer obviously!

The game that this most closely evokes for me is Nuclear Throne, so you might want to check that out both for inspiration, but also to make sure your game is clearly different from it.

Anyway thanks for the really fun game, and the unusual writing prompt! I focused on suggestions and critique since that seems to be what you're looking for... you already know you've got a gem here. :) Best of luck turning this into a real game, be sure to @ me when I can wishlist it on Steam :D

Carpe Diem by Pomo 2022-04-09T03:47:40Z

I don't smoke weed, but the music and visuals of this game make me feel like I'm missing out

Wormageddon by MatterLinx 2022-04-07T03:30:42Z

This is my favorite game this LD. Excellent work in every category.

CliffCart by Payaosito 2022-04-08T06:05:37Z

Hey Zack! Thanks for inviting feedback on your game. Firstly: welcome to Ludum Dare, and congrats on shipping your first game!! :smile:

I like how the art, music, and mechanics all work together in your game to give off a "frontier" kind of vibe. I think it's funny that you chose fire as the reason why the cart needs to slow down. You also must've intentionally tried to make this feel fast paced and frenetic, because I kept panicking about building more rail at the last second...

Here are some ideas on how you might make the game better. Please take all of these with a grain of salt - doing everything you need to be able to finish a complete game in 48 hours is already a lot. :)

- By far the most important addition to your game is more sound effects. Every player action, and major event, should have a sound effect. (Tools like sfxr and chiptone make it really easy to generate a lot of high quality sounds quickly). There should be a rumbly boom when the cart falls off the track. When you build more rail, or cast a fire spell, it doesn't feel very _satisying_ because there's no audio feedback. Adding sound effects like a hammer hitting steel (which can be just a metallic), or a fire wooshing (or I guess anything vaguely magical sounding!) would go a long way to communicating to the player that their actions directly have a huge impact on the game world. Animation helps with that a lot too. Clicking a coin and having the only visible effect being a number going up in the UI doesn't feel like you're manipulating the game world. Animations help with that, like if you literally add the fire sprite to the button then animate it down to the cart, then the player feels that direct cause and effect, and that just feels a lot more fun. - I'm sure many players, myself included, jump right into each game they play. My experience with that here was that I was immediately thrown into a moving train, and before I could even process everything on the screen, a few seconds later I crashed. Since this is a clicker game, I don't think there's a huge rush to kill the player right at the start. :) Instead, start a little slower to let the player figure out what's going on. And taking that even further, making it so the game stands completely independently (as in no manual or other preparation required) is a good way to force you the designer to communicate the right things to the player: what actions they can take, how those actions interact with other game mechanics, what the objective is, etc. - I don't play clicker games very much so I can't speak to the specific game mechanics you chose. But I did find it a little surprising that there were two completely separate ways to collect coins. Maybe that's okay though. I did notice that if you click a randomly-appearing coin multiple times quickly you can rack up hundreds of coins each time. If that's intentional, I feel like it's important to communicate that to the player rather than having them wonder if it's a bug. Maybe leave the coin up for longer (but have each click give fewer coins) so the player has more of an opportunity to realize they can click multiple times. Might also be good to animate a handful of tiny coins you just collected from your click, so that the player can see that the coin is still there for clicking more times. - The web version has a fullscreen button at the bottom right, which covers up the number after "Per Click:". I worked around this by just playing fullscreen, so it wasn't a big deal. But, worth watching out for in future games. - When I clicked the button above "Per Click", it did increase the cost displayed on the button itself. But it didn't update the "Per Click" number immediately. I had to click the coin at the top right to get the "Per Click" number to update.

Anyway, I gave you some suggestions for improvement only because I promised you I would :) And because you have snacks. Most of all, you should feel proud that you finished a complete game in one extremely short weekend! Looking forward to checking out your future games!!

Buhanochka Z by gdesecrate 2022-04-06T02:12:23Z

I love the vibe of this game, who knew dodging zombies would slap so hard.

Wait For It ! by Forgin Bits 2022-04-09T03:06:34Z

@forgin-bits, thanks for inviting feedback on your game! Firstly welcome to Ludum Dare and congrats on shipping your first compo game!!

I honestly am having trouble coming up with any actual constructive feedback. You absolutely nailed what you set out to do, your art style is adorable, the game is proudly French, the music is pleasant and doesn't ever get monotonous, each of the minigames is interesting, and I always appreciate when a game that takes a silly concept seriously. The goal of each minigame, and the controls, were always very clear. Honestly the only suggestion I have is to make the "dodge the bananas" minigame just a little easier because I failed that one every time, and the "light the candles" one a little harder because I always had lots of time left. That said, having different difficulty levels is absolutely fair for a wario-ware style game, so even that is not really an objectively good improvement.

I just really loved your game.

BRAVO!

Earth's Last Stand by Junklab 2022-04-08T05:06:50Z

Hey @Junklab! Appreciate you inviting feedback for your game.

It's very well polished! The particle effects are attractive, the earth sprite is surprisingly detailed (the day and night sides look believable!), the screenshake is used tastefully. There's even a subtle muzzle flash. My only complaint about the music is I had to play well to hear more of it :) Overall I'm impressed that this a compo game.

The game mechanic is simple but effective. In particular having a massive recoil on the gun means that you can't just be shooting all the time, in fact there were a bunch of situations where shooting an asteroid coming at me would have launched me right towards another asteroid approaching from the other direction, so I had to be careful. Great mechanic. And I adore the absurdity of earth moving around at by firing a gigantic gun. It could have been a simple spaceship but you went all in on silly! Right on.

Here are some ideas, small and large, of potential improvements for your game. Absolutely take all of this with a grain of salt because putting together anything resembling a complete game in 48 hours is already a lot :)

- I think a more bass-heavy shooting sound effect works better. I feel that way about guns in games in general, but doubly so in the universe of this particular game. The gun is actually a rocket the size of the moon, and it's pushing the entire planet! It should feel like a frickin' freight train, not a yippy puppy. Another trick I like to do is, for the the primary sound you'll hear a thousand times in a playthrough (e.g. jumping in Mario), generate a few variations of it and randomly choose one each time. That way it doesn't feel quite as literally monotonous to the player. - It's worth emphasizing the planet exploding more than each and every meteor. They currently use the same puff of particles and sound effect, but the earth exploding is a much bigger deal, so it's important to emphasize that. It might be enough to use the same particle system but with the quantity and speed quadrupled or something. If you're feeling dark, maybe some scream sound effects that are cut off abruptly, like the music is. - The star field appears to only be about 2 screens tall by 1 screen wide. There's nothing constraining the player to that area... and furthermore the first strategy I tried was to blast off quickly in one direction... so I noticed it pretty immediately. Maybe have that image tile infinitely? (In my game, I used a particle system for the stars instead, which is less realistic but maybe visually more interesting, and the _emitter_ can trivially track the player's location without breaking the illusion) - It pains me to say this, but, given no other changes, I think removing the moon might actually be an improvement. I do appreciate you spent the time to add it, buuut communication-wise, it took me a moment to realize what it even was during the first play (especially given it's a similar size to the shattered bits of meteor). And then once I did see that it was the moon, I felt slightly distracted by the missed opportunity that it wasn't involved in the game mechanics at all. - The game is certainly challenging enough, but it doesn't really reward repeat play. As it stands, the five second gif on this page completely captures the game mechanics. If you had time (which.. yeah I totally get it! None of us did!), slowing the incoming meteors would allow you to explore the design space more. Maybe add in either a second command (to give the player more tools to master), or a secondary objective (e.g. gathering fuel/ammo, or something more whacky like delivering pizzas). Either one of those would give the game more of a skill ramp and keep it interesting for longer.

Finally... to reiterate, I left suggestions specifically because I promised you I would, but don't let any of that diminish my actual feedback: I am very impressed. This is an extremely polished compo entry. Great job!! I look forward to checking out your future games :)

plant. by badcop 2022-04-10T03:09:38Z

"Delay the inevitable" made me a little sad too, but your game made me less sad :heart:

SkyTimer by TheSerOT 2022-04-10T03:06:12Z

This game made me really happy, reminiscing of playing SNES PilotWings as a kid. You absolutely nailed the combination of nostalgia, adding a slick modern take on it, and making it very relevant for the theme. Thank you for your game :heart:

Kessler by jcg 2022-04-09T02:23:56Z

Hi @jcg, thanks for inviting feedback! First of all, welcome to Ludum Dare and congrats on shipping!!

As you could have predicted, I really appreciate the lighting effects in your game :) The bloom-ey low-key visual style you put in is perfect. Ordinarily I like having a star field in a game like this, but here it would have been way too cluttery and confusing with trash, so going with light and shadow instead was a great choice. Gameplay-wise, it feels like the only winning move is to not generate trash, which given the name of the game, feels extremely consistent with the message you're trying to convey :) I like how you tease the other star and yep, turns out you can destroy it, but it generates a lot of trash at you, because of course it does, which all felt super good. Having played a bunch of Kerbal, I see you really polished the orbital mechanics, which mustn't have been easy to do in a compo! Ditto the way a bomb pushes the nearby trash into a different path which looks visually interesting and impacts gameplay. And the menus and such feel extra polished - love it!

Here are some thoughts I had about how you might improve your game. Take it all with a grain of salt because shipping anything approximating a polished game in 48 hours is already a lot!

- The ding dong sound effects actually drove my dog a little crazy thinking it was the doorbell :) That was clearly an intentional artistic choice so I can't presume to say any other approach would be better… all I can really say is it's not one I'd've chosen :) - Some light music with classical instruments, a la 2001: A Space Odyssey, might further emphasize the vibe you're going for. - Communication-wise, as the player, I never felt confident I was doing the correct things. Especially because I could only survive like at most like 30 seconds. I ended up watching @marcmagus's playthrough just to see if I was missing something, and it turns out I wasn't. I wonder if slowing down the game loop just a little bit (generating fewer trash particles, smaller/slower bombs, etc) would help the player feel like they're getting the complete game, with the added benefit of adding more planning and strategy to the game. - Since you have precisely one in-game HUD element, I wonder if removing that health bar would be an improvement. Instead, is there a way to communicate "in the universe of the game" your health? The obvious ideas that come to mind are color/shape/texture of the planet, but maybe there's something else creative to do there. - For me, toggling fullscreen during the gameplay froze the game and I had to refresh. Might be specific to Chrome and/or MacOS.

Finally… to reiterate, I left suggestions specifically because I promised you I would, but don’t let any of that diminish my actual feedback: I am very impressed. This is an extremely polished compo entry with a strong, carefully-curated identity. Great job!! I look forward to checking out your future games :)

10 Second Wordle by Jezzamon 2022-10-03T03:52:20Z

Congrats on getting married!!