Lonely Spaceman by bloodyaugust 2017-08-02T11:27:30Z
Very nice and simple game, well done :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Simon Millard
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Star Power | compo | 320 | 3.34 | 3.20 | 3.86 | 3.95 | 3.06 | 2.75 | 1.94 | 2.74 |
Very nice and simple game, well done :)
There is so much to like about this game! It fits the theme extremely well. The graphics, mood and sound/music are very well done. The game is easy to understand (complimented by an excellent UI). And of top of that it has a super interesting and unique gimmick.
Unfortunately the game is very slow paced, and it just isn't that fun to play (for me). Overall I'm giving it a good score however, since the theme, atmosphere and twist is top notch. Great job; an excellent entry!
Very neat game! The graphics are awesome, and it's fun to play! I have to subtract a little bit from the otherwise excellent overall score because the theme isn't very strong, and it's quite a generic game without much innovation. But there is no doubt that this is a little gem - well done :)
Agree with Mad_Fizban that the game is lacking sound. I really liked the simple way the game explained itself however (with text in the actual world), easy and effective! Good job :)
You didn't put a link for the game! Or am i missing something? :o
Cool little game. Unfortunately it's missing sound and music which is always a bummer, and I'm not sure the theme fits that well. Is the idea that you have run out of power and now you only have power at the way-points?
The game-play is great, the only thing that annoyed me a little bit was that it was very difficult to see if you were close to leaving a way-point, which meant that I died many times from trying to position myself correctly, and accidentally floating out of the way-point! Only a minor thing though. Otherwise the game mechanic is cool and the game is fun to play. Great job!
I loved this game! It took me 3-4 attempts to beat all the levels and both bosses. I think the difficulty is well balanced, I love that it has an intro, I like the humor, sounds and music. Graphics are not super, but programmer art is always cool to see, and the UI worked fine. Above everything else the game was super fun to play. Very well done, this was one of my favourite games so far :)
Very cool game! The concept is sweet and fits the theme really well. It took me some time to understand how exactly the off/on mechanic on machines worked. Also, it's very unfortunate that there is no sound or music.
All in all it's a very cool and fun little game though. Very well done!
Really neat game! Polished, well balanced difficulty and some interesting puzzles. I enjoyed it a lot, and I did manage to find Harvey's Heart! Great game, well done!
The pixel art is very nice and the movement works fine. The sound is a bit annoying, but at least it has some sound :). I'll give you a good graphics and mode rating, but I can't really give you a high overall score since there isn't really much of a game here. Still a fun little experiment though, well done.
Thanks for the feedback guys!
@hhsaez: the cards do in fact all execute at the same time. I thought about adding an execution order or something like that, but didn't have time to really test how that would work or how to show the order to the player.
@geeitsomelaldy: in most cases it's actually possible to recover even if you messed up early, because you can repair power drain and refill your power by collecting power ups. However, it's true that the game is quite slow.
@skyr: I was hesitant to set the boost (forward and turns) too high, because once the player presses ENGAGE he/she has no control, and I felt it was important to be able to make small delicate maneuvers to navigate the asteroid field. Having two different forward boost actions might have been a good solution; one with a small boost and one with a large boost. The enemy turrets might indeed be a bit too deadly; if you get too close to them having a Stabilizer card ready is a must, but avoiding them entirely or shooting them from afar is often the best strategy. They were the last thing I added to the game, in order to spice it up a bit, so I didn't have much time to fine-tune them unfortunately :)
@Hilvon: I tried to balance the drag to get a good feel. I found that it was much easier to control the ship with a relatively high drag, but given more time to balance / try different setups I'm sure it could have been a lot better. I'm not sure how to display the velocity in a way that would actually help the player. A number wouldn't help much I think. Perhaps an arrow displaying the velocity vector? I think watching the ships movement is the easiest way to judge the velocity, but obviously it requires a bit of time to get used to it. Anyway, thanks for the feedback :)
@Nordtraveller: actually some cards are more likely to show up than others, and the forward card is the most likely to show up! So I guess you were just unlucky. However, the point of the game (as with any card game) is the randomness of the card draw (and trying to plan around that to optimize your success-rate as a player), so I don't really feel like I can reduce the randomness there. You can always discard your entire hand if you don't like it and hope to get the cards you need next round.
@Loktor: Thanks for the feedback! I'm really glad you liked it. Showing the power on the ship itself is a great idea! I will definitely steal that! :D
I spent very little time on the music, and I think that is probably the weakest part of the game; as you say it is way too repetitive. However, I spent a fare amount of time getting the sound effects right, so I'm glad you liked those :)
@Agecaf: Thanks for the feedback! I really like your ideas for new cards, and also the idea of letting the player customize each card that is used (modify the power, or turning direction, etc.). I guess it will be a difficult balance of not making the cards overly complex, but still allowing for many different uses and fine tuning.
@Incobalt: I thought about that too (that in space there is no drag/resistance). At first I tried without any drag, but controlling the ship was nearly impossible. Control became much easier when I added some drag, so I decided to go with good game-play over "reality". I was also sort of imagining that the spaceship probably has some built-in systems which help slow it down so it doesn't just drift around forever (but that isn't explained in the game of course). I can imagine it's a bit annoying if you never get the cards you need of course. I can recommend discarding all your unwanted cards every turn, to increase the chance of drawing what you need. Actually "boost forward" is the card with the highest draw chance, so I guess you got a bit unlucky!
Thanks everyone for the excellent feedback! :)
Thanks for the feedback guys!
@wh05herlock: I like your ideas! Showing the velocity would require some experimentation, but I think it would be a very nice addition. The lasers system can definitely be improved, with different types of weapons and such, perhaps a rapid fire / spread attack, or as you say a homing attack. A deck building element would be awesome. It was a bit out of scope for 48 hours, but it would be a very nice addition for the future :)
@GistNoesis: You can right-click cards (mark them red) to discard them. Without taking advantage of discarding cards the game is indeed very difficult/random :)
Very nice and ambitious game! I got to day 94 before my entire country was invaded! Dialogue repeated quite a lot (in fact in the end it seemed like only a few different dialogues were repeating over and over until I lost). Of course I can imagine writing dialogue for a game like this takes some time, so that's understandable :)
A bit unfortunate that there is no sounds or music; I feel like that's very important for any kind of game, although this might be the type of game that suffers the least from not having it.
Overall the game was a lot of fun. It was very ambitious for a game jam, but I feel like you spent your time on the right things (except a little sound/music would have been nice). You didn't try to jam (pun intended!) too many features into the game, and instead focused on just a single aspect of managing your kingdom, and you pulled that of very well. Great job!
Pixel art / animations are awesome. Unfortunately the controls are weird, the goal is difficult to understand (you run out of energy and then what?), and the game is way too difficult. However, I gave you a high score for graphics. Very well done on that part :)
Such an awesome little game! A very interesting mechanic that fits the theme perfectly and is quite humorous as well! Easy to understand and fun to play; works perfectly for a game jam entry. I enjoyed it a lot, well done sir!
Awesome game! Very innovative and fun to play! The tempo was quite slow, and actually I found that I was running out of scrap much more than I was running out of power. Perhaps starting with a bit more scrap so you could build more than just a power generator (or two hull) in the beginning would have been nice, because it takes some time to get going.
Overall a really sweet game however. Too bad it doesn't have any sound or music, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Well done!
Wow! A lot of work was clearly put into this game. There's a lot of things to do, and once you've played for a bit you will start to realize some pretty neat combos with the tools, which opens up a lot of strategy. It would have been great with an option to clear your building cards and get a new "hand"; at one point I was stuck with 4 fields in my hand, and I had already placed plenty of fields! Also, as mentioned in some other comments the screen resolution is a little weird, and it seems that some parts of the UI is often cut by the screen borders. Other than that the UI is great, good looking and clean. The help screen is nice to have, although a bit more information would have been nice (actually took me some time to realize how to move around, etc.!) Overall I voted this game the highest of the games I've played so far. Great job - I love it! :D
Nice game. The music is pretty neat!
Interesting game. I would have liked to be able to see easily how much power and protection each ship provided when clicking on them, without having to go back and forward between Rules all the time. Short and simple, but overall a decent little game, well done :)
Not my favourite game I have to say; too repetitive, and I didn't really understand why I kept not being able to refill the coffee machine despite working to earn money; not sure what I was doing wrong. Tried it a few times, but it didn't really work for me, sorry. Lack of sound and music really hurts the game as well (since it's so repetitive you really need some music and sound to get in the rhythm of the game I think).
On the flip side I really like the graphical representation, so good job on that :)
Nice animations and colors. HP / Ammo bar looked cool too. A little lacking regarding sound / music though, and sometimes the wait times between waves felt too long. Neat little game though, well done.
HTML5 link doesn't work for me (using Chrome) :(
The mechanics are quite interesting, but a little confusing (glad you cleared it up in the comment above, regarding how money is generated). Graphics and sounds aren't great, but that's not really the point of this game. I found the game a little too simplistic to really get into it, but for a game jam entry it's pretty good, and it definitely has potential. Well done :)
Very well made game! It's super hard though (I also got stuck on the screen posted above!). The game is cute, polished and challenging; I'm giving this a high vote, well done :)
Edit: oh yeah, just wanted to mention the only thing that confused me at first; I kept thinking the back of the robot was actually the front, so I was pressing forward and the robot seemed to move backwards, resulting in a lot of lost power :( -- I don't know why but to me it just looks like the front is the back intuitively :)
I really liked the graphics / lighting in this game. The atmosphere is quite nice, but unfortunately the limited sounds and lack of music is a bit of a hindrance to the atmosphere being superb. Game-play is decent but not too original. Overall it's a pretty nice little game for your second LD entry, well done :)
Nice game with some interesting mechanics. Only thing I would change is the position of the power meter; it is very small and far away from the character - it actually took me some time before I noticed it!
I managed to complete the game, and I had fun. Very well done :)
Very neat tower defense game. I agree with zee, that more options for building would have been nice (different types of towers for example, and perhaps a "power area" for generators so you had to be more strategic about their placement. Also, in-game help / instructions would have been nice. And a last thing: it would have been great with more building spots on the map; for example some spots that are not next to the "road", since generators don't need to be placed there. I almost ran out of building spots in the end! Overall the power management idea is a neat twist on the tower defense genre, and the game is fun despite lacking some variety. Well done!
Wow, such a difficult game! I agree with Gurvan that shooting takes up too much power (or the enemies should have less hit points). I'm not sure if you have to kill all the aliens (the game displays remaining aliens, so I guess you have too?), but there are very few batteries to pick up, so you have to skip a lot of aliens and never get damaged to not run out of power!
However, I really liked the old-school style of the game. The graphics, sounds and music worked well together, and actually the game was pretty fun to play. A great little game. Well done :)
Difficult game, but very fun! Innovation category is the only one where I cannot give you a good score. I really love the music, sounds and graphics. The game is very polished and plays well. A minor thing that was mentioned in another comment: I think the power meter should be following the hero around (or at least placed closer and be more visible) - I didn't even realize it in my first attempt!. All-in-all the game is super sweet, well done :)
This game looks very nice, and I have to agree with kalibrated that it's quite sweet to watch the city evolve as you progress. Only problem was that I pretty quickly ran out of space, which meant I had to build my production buildings very close to each other, which then resulted in very rapid breakdown. As mentioned above I also found it quite tedious when I reached that stage to spam-click repairs everywhere!
However, I think I completed the game, because I suddenly got a screen saying "Thanks for playing my game" and I entered my name! :D
All around neat and good looking game. Very well done :)
Fun idea and an interesting game. I think it would have been nice with some information about the effect of each policy before you enact it, because currently it's pretty much just a random guess, and it doesn't feel like there is much skill involved with playing the game. It's a neat and different idea however, with some obvious political references ;) Overall it's a cool little game - well done!
Only for Mac? Link for Windows and Mac lead to the same place, and the zip only seems to contain mac build.
Neat game! You clearly put a lot of effort into the graphics, and I really liked how the game looked. However, it was very unfortunate that the game had absolutely no sound or music; it detracts so much from the overall experience. The game-play was a bit too repetitive for my taste as well.
However, the world you created, with the small characters and the madness when they were fighting with axes(?!) at the end, was fun and very well done. Neat little project, good job! :)
Fun little game! I agree that some music would have been cool. The sound effects are nice though. I like the idea of controlling by shooting, but I feel like it costs too much power to shoot and doesn't make you move much. I found myself just drifting around and only shooting when I absolutely had to, in order to save power. Perhaps moving shouldn't be quite so costly? However, the idea is very neat, and I enjoyed it. Well done :)
I agree with greysphere: the shark was really awesome. I like that you can sort of see it coming in the distance as this dark looming figure! It took me a bit of time to understand the mechanics of the game, and I always died by running out of energy, so that resource seemed to be the most important one to manage. Cool little game though, great job! :)
I have to agree with some of the other comments that the game is very confusing at first. There is very little feedback when you click on something; most of the time your character is just standing around, and it seems that the interaction had no effect. Also, it seems there was a problem with playing the game in the browser, because when I exited the bubble using the diving suit everything outside was just grey (which I assume is not intended?).
Despite the above I really love the art and animations, and the idea behind the game is excellent. A bit unfortunate that there is no sound or music, but the game definitely has its upsides. Well done :)
Cool little game, well done :)
Neat game, but it definitely lacks polish right now. It's also a bit too easy / slow paced I think. I stopped playing once I ran out of ammo, and the restock option didn't seem to give me more ammo (purchased it twice). However, the atmosphere is quite nice thanks to the sounds and aesthetics. The game reminded me of Killing Floor a bit (probably the sounds). Well done, and keep it up :)
Awesome puzzles, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. Easy to understand, but still challenging. Not much of the "running out of power" theme in the game however. Still, neat, fun and well made. Great job.
This game is a perfect example of a good game jam game! Simple, fun, low scope, easy to understand. It's not very innovative, but all games don't have to be that! The graphics are cute, music and sounds are awesome (and it even has different music for the different levels!). Well done sir/madam :)
Nice little game, despite a few frustrations. Level 5 was much harder for me than the following few levels, so I think the difficult wasn't balanced perfectly (only a minor problem though). Overall I enjoyed it, well done :)
Cool game! I really like that it's not only the "guitar hero" mechanic (even though that works very well). The fact that you have to do multiple different things is a cool idea (like a bunch of different mini games). The controls are a bit frustrating though. For example I didn't understand how to turn of the kettle, and my house just burned down! Also, I didn't understand how to stop doing something (coding, making coffee, etc.).
Graphics are neat, and overall the game is very well made. A little more polish on the controls and other small tweaks and this would have been a top entry in my opinion. Still; a very neat little game, well done :)
Very nice graphics and the music works quite well too. Agree with edmond00 that the gameplay is too repetitive though, but some people like this type of game I guess :) Neat little game over all, well done.
The game has no sound? That would have improved it a lot I think. Also everything is quite slow, and I'm not sure if there is a way to gain more power? Or is it just over after a limited amount of time when you run out of power?
A very simple game. I really like the idea of having a rear shield that can block everything, and a front shield you can activate.
You should put a download link for the game (I had to download Source code through github and find the game under Builds folder). Neat game though, but perhaps a little too easy and simple. The game's atmosphere was pretty nice however. Good job :)
It's a beautiful and atmospheric game, but despite dying and retrying up to 10 times I still have no idea what to do in the game. I can make some kind of ping (which seems to have no effect other than draining a large amount of my energy). I regenerate my energy at the point in the beginning, but after that I cannot find anywhere to regenerate energy, so I just die after walking as far as I can. There're some lights floating around which also seems to have no effect (my ping doesn't affect them either). I did find one object which seemed to react to my ping, but it didn't seem to do anything other than light up.
Just a short explanation of what to do in the game would have been great, because it's really hard to understand as it is now, and the main problem is that you die before you have any chance to try to find out what to do :(
As everyone else I really REALLY liked the graphics, sound, music and general atmosphere though, and I have a feeling that was your main goal. Definitely a great job on that :)
Many things to like here! Quite a funny concept, and I enjoyed reading about the different spuds! :)
I found the game a bit too slow / repetitive to really enjoy however, and unfortunately it took me a long time to understand how to play it (despite reading the "how to play section"). I even had to restart 3-4 times before I got it; and the only way to do that seemed to be alt+F4 and start the game again?! There also seems to be a UI bug where the marketplace recipes overlaps with the potato recipes, which confused me a lot.
However, the graphics (especially lighting) worked well, and the sounds / music were spot on and fit the gloomy concept of the game. Overall a very cute and inspiring little game. Well done sir/madam :)