Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → sisuisa
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Space of No Space | compo | 347 | 2.66 | 2.24 | 2.92 | 3.25 | 3.29 |
I liked the different enemies and them having names. I have previously played some games where succeeding gives you extra playtime, such as some rally games for example, and this was a fitting mechanic in this game. I appreciated the different levels and enemy movement styles, although they were a little simple, it added some variation. A cool little game!
Love the atmosphere of the game. The sounds are nice, effects as well, and it creates an otherworld-y mood. I liked the sound for coin pickup. I played twice - on my first try, I brought all keys from areas to the center even when a door was unlocked. I also thought the darkness might spawn ghosts so I kept carrying my torch and dropping/swapping with key every few metres, so it was slow going.
Spoiler about gameplay:
!> The second try was much more fun - I ran in the darkness, progressed faster, and even got to the graveyard. I hand't used any of the health potions yet so I was feeling real confident I could make it. I gathered all the keys from the graveyard by swapping with the torch, I had them all in the first room ready to go, about to go back the spikey corridor. But then, a ghost spawned very close to me, I got spooked and ran into it multiple times and died. Sad life for the rat.
I might not have it in me to make a third attempt. I'll perhaps give it another go after work.
Removing keys after they've been tried to all doors and found wrong, with a little sound effect, would make it more satisfying to carry those wrong keys too.
But, overall, the game feels solid, the light mechanics are interesting and little frustrating without being too overwhelming - as if you take it slow, you can definitely progress with patience - and the spikes are a good deterrent of just running head first to darkness. A really good game!
As a player, it was a bit tedious to go through all the options to find the right choices. The solutions don't seem very obvious and there's a lot of repetition involved. I think the strongest point is the art, there is pretty strong sense of perspective and realism in the artwork. I also liked how when you remove a log, the view updates to the path without the log.
It is hard to create an interesting story in a short time, or to imagine how someone else will experience the game. In this case the multi option was not very fun. I wanted to get to the ending. And, to guess again, I needed to go through all the same steps again, which makes the story less impactful and removes immersion. I personally made a list of the options for the bridge & the mud, and I don't think I ever found out what you need for the mud. And every failed ending is the same - as a player, it would be a more enjoyable game if there was less options and less dangers, but all of them had unique texts of what happens.
In my case when I finally got to the commander of the city (?) or the end, there was probably a bug because I got this:
ending.png
Of course it's easy to critizise. It's a short time to get all working and you definitely have art that sets the scene nicely and a submitted game, which is itself a nice achievement. I see you have also participated many times, I hope you keep it up and keep making games!
I played it through, and the length was good for the amount of variations and to get a sense of the gameplay with the mechanics. It was overall very complete and well-rounded experience.
There's always more to add like different enemies and so on, maybe an endless mode where you try to survive as long as possible, or so on. I bought lots of volcano kits and didn't really have time to click on the mountains to clear space to place a turret, so allowing player to keep playing after winning would allow for that. But, anyway, it was very clear how to play and I didn't encounter any bugs. UI was also very clear and informative!
Looking so cool! Love the tactile feel & sound design. Feels very realistic clickety with ASMR vibes. If you wanted to expand the idea, I think having multiple levels with different handhelds could be nice, there is not really much complexity to the gameplay itself. But there doesn't need to be - it's still very cool and perhaps the most polished version of the core idea of very-simple-shoot-aliens-game. Nice job!
There is a sense of urgency in the game. I really felt like a very overworked employee with all the requests coming in! It was fun and challenging to navigate in tight spaces and the narrow warehouse fit the theme well.
I only tried speed upgrades on my first try. Nice that you also had option & pause menus. On my second try I got stuck in the shop menu unfortunately. I only reached score 800 but it was fun!
2023-10-03 07_15_32-Forklift Frenzy_ Limited Space Edition by denvil — Mozilla Firefox.png
Animations are cute and lively, I like the sounds & music that are in the top of the ladder, (not the loop that plays when solving the sudoku). Love the sounds and effects when the areas are solved, very satisfying. I also liked the purple blocks. There is definitely win-or-lose early game possibility to lose. I ended up playing this for longer than I was planning, even though I don't usually like doing sudokus.
I think it would be more rewarding if you had level progression, like a half-solved sudoku for the first playthrough and harder and harder after that. The game is otherwise so polished that it feels like it would make sense having some easier tutorial-difficulty levels first. It is a very nice experience and a fresh take on sudoku.
I started the game with the expectation that it would be too hard - I have hard time remembering spatial distances and so on - but in the end I liked it very much! It was definitely interesting and very strange to see that I did form some kind of a mental map of the level. Long corridors felt long. I first tried with my eyes closed but it was somehow easier with my eyes open?? Weird. Very near the end, my wireless earset notified that battery is running out, so I almost missed the ending because it was not written down - I think it would be nice to have that as text as well, in case someone is playing without a headset or is deaf. Other than that, it was perfectly sized and a very complete game, which I enjoyed!
It's very nice! I got greedy and tried to drag a piece below the Reset button and when I released the button, the Reset triggered. That's what you get for flying too close to the sun I guess.
Really great atmosphere and very fun to play multiple times. Lovely, delicate, inspiring. I like it a lot ⭐
Wow, this is a really deep game with lot of replayability! It feels more substantial than a jam game. But, I also struggle with the difficulty as it's so hard to estimate the costs and values of the wares, I guess if you're good with numbers it helps. In this aspect it really does nail the business part, as you need a good sense of profit to be profitable. I think I usually made net loss on my floppies sold and only realized it on my second playthrough when I experimented with floppies with just a single item on them. The option of setting prices manually (so if it doesn't sell at a profit, you could rewrite the floppy) and a separate inventory by floppy type would make it easier for casual players like me to advance to the next month.
I am not sure if there is supposed to be audio, I connected my headphones midway and didn't hear anything, neither in first few minutes of starting a new game.
The premise and the feeling of the game is really atmospheric and nostalgic, I like it and it fits the LD theme nicely. It feels like a very polished and well thought out game.
Really nice idea with the book & story-theme! I didn't play it through as I'm not very good with platformers, and died constantly to falling & archers. And it was very hard for me to hit the enemies with the bombs. The style was very nice and I liked the atmosphere and writing.
I agree with most comments - edges are hard zones - and sound design is nice, except the sharp sound on click is bit loud. I also had one case where the explosion was off screen and in that case it felt a bit unfair. Maybe having a few more lives would allow more players to get to the gas giant stage (I only reached it once). I also think the controls feel more intuitive after a few rounds - I tried dragging to the wrong direction at first. But it never felt quite right. Maybe I just don't think about it the same way and keep trying to work against it instead of with it.
I liked the gravity mechanic too, it added some depth in a very theme/setting -fitting way.
After a few tries, I managed to get a pretty good strategy of pausing the game as soon as I saw something, and then clicking it and unpausing and flicking it back the same way it came. U-turns everywhere. The best crossing guard there is. Love it. hiscore.png
A really solid game! I tried the web version first and the improvement in the exe is really big. I think there is still a little too many cannonballs around for my taste but it's much more enjoyable. The sounds are very very nice, pleasant even, and fit the pirate ship theme without being too obnoxious. Art is nice too, and I like that there are lots of animations. The variety of collectables is nice but could also be a bit more generous, for example barrels that fill the shooting ammo completely. But it indeed is hard and that is also a valid choice - it doesn't go on forever. I think most my runs were way less than a minute which is very short.
I played about ten runs before I went trying to find the list of powerups I remembered seeing somewhere (in itch.io page) and also found the left mouse button speedup. It was a literal gamechanger! It was much more fun and the powerups were easier to gather. The duration allowed outside the buyous is perfect to go for one trip to left or right side, so when I was being too greedy the Ruinik got me. Great work on that timing.
The art style is very good and polished for the sprites, love the birds flying over.
One small thing that as a player I would like, is that when I lose a run, I could still see how long I traveled. Now usually I would go overboard in such a situation that I was intensely looking at the gameplay so I have no idea how far I got on my tries.
I liked the game very much, nice work!
I don't think there's a victory condition, but I feel like I won - behold my factory area and park-neighbourhood. It is indeed quite tiny but there is certain charm in the icons and the idea. For example, I added all the parks close to houses because it felt nice.
2023-10-03 19_11_13-Tiny Town _ ldjam.com _ Ludum Dare game jam — Mozilla Firefox.png
Edit: I noticed the 45 happiness goal, and that seems very hard! I managed to get to 38. It takes a lot of trial and error. Edit: I have the happiest town <3 In the end I played more than 10 rounds to get there. More depth to this than I thought at first. It was satisfying to reach the successful town. Maybe adding "give it another go?" style button if the player doesn't win, that way more people would notice it. In the end, finding this goal and trying to reach it gave the gameplay a lot more meaning. The balance was good and not too obvious. It is actually pretty well balanced but I was just approaching it hastily. I hope other raters also take the time to appreciate it.
Wow, there's already a lot of comments on this game. It's a really solid game with good graphics and interesting gameplay. I managed to get to the last wave on my second playthrough and one key factor was that I went for all the upgrades and replaced tiles as necessary. It was challenging but not too much so. Rotating the area of sight was interesting and makes sense as restricting player's spread of buildings, as well as the limited available area in general.
Personally I'd have liked it more if the end state would allow for expanding the gaze to cover the entire area, it would feel complete and satisfying, but also defeat the limitations you set for the gameplay.
A very nice and entertaining game, great job!
I loved drifting with the rocket fuel! Controls feel very lawn-mowery. I don't like reversing a car in real life and this captured the feeling well. Showing fuel location with the arrows was a nice touch. I still ran out of fuel twice very close to the can, after circling the can multiple times, just because it was hard to hit - in a good way!
So close: mower.png
Possible bug report: memory use spikes heavily and took all available memory after some time in the start-new-game waiting stage. Windows 10 + Firefox. But I didn't encounter any bugs while playing.
I will remember this fish party it will live in my head rent free
It was a refreshing experience and very enjoyable.
Also I wanted a hat as well
I tried it out, and I can see it's not finished, sure. But the art is so cute and nice and there's huge potential! I would have loved to see it finished. I especially like the large shape's expression and the small bright shape. You also made music which I didn't even attempt. And, the loop, even though it's short is more pleasant than some of the longer ones I've heard, so kudos for that! Thanks for sharing the game, it might be sometimes intimidating to publish unfinished work.
I also tried your Space Autumn and I can see you have a good sense of style - it was really interesting, surprising and also had great distinct sound and theme. Also tried Death with the heart. It's really great for such a small clicking thing. I could see it in some art museum as an interactive piece. Very meditative also.
I made it through on the first try. Loved the intro polaroid & intro divided to steps. Very cute concept and the panda looks very round. Nice animations & effects, the fire and smokes and sparks. Overall it's very polished, nice and balanced game and I liked it!
I like the variety of sprites, very detailed and beautiful! The gameplay is simple to understand (if you read the instructions - I read them after my first playthrough) and surprisingly deep. There is also some luck involved, so my score in my second game was only a little better than my first. (At first I didn't realize you cannot place two savory/sweet items next to each other). And overall I liked the food theme, made me a bit hungry though!
I was drawn in by the artstyle and mood of the game. I didn't mind the slow pace. The spiky shrubs look very good.
The whole experience was interesting and artful, even though it was simple - but simple can also be good. Very finished and complete narrative-based interactive experience. I particularly found the ending very beautiful.
It was different and unusual, but I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't read the texts as well, but enjoyed exploring the area. There was overall a lot of places of interest to see. I also made a Roblox account for trying out this game, never played it before.
Following contains spoilers: !> The labyrinth was nice, not too long to get to the other side. The bodies and other horror stuff were pretty mild given the roblox style blockiness, but conveyed a feeling. My favourite part was the forest with the floating arms and eyes, it was creepy but in a distinct way. Hitting enemies with the weapon felt laggy.
Overall I'd say the imagination in level design is great, and it was fun to play as an exploratory experience of walking around and looking at stuff. Game mechanics, such as picking up the cards, I probably misunderstood because I couldn't read the instructions(?) or otherwise didn't figure it out. But it was a very atmospheric experience!
This was an awesome game! The gameplay was addictive, very well balanced, and a lot of fun. The amount of upgrades is impressive, and also it's great that there's upgrades such as the seagull friend that are not simple variations on existing things, but a completely new thing. The sounds are very good, especially I enjoyed the whooshing of the enemies. Picking things up could have made a little louder sound and it felt also like it was on a slight delay? But it's very hard to think of anything to critique, as everything works so well and is very polished.
Harvesting resources and dragging them felt perfect. It was great that you didn't need to drag them all the distance to the lighthouse, it was fun that they went the rest of the way automatically. This made resource gathering fun and rewarding. Really good work.
If you added longer progression this would make an excellent mobile game as the controls feel very friendly for adapting to touch screen. And another would have been to add difficulty levels, for example on hard, the monster eats more and more area to make it very difficult. I played the game twice and both times won, second time easily, so I might have played more if a higher difficulty setting was available. Of course balancing multiple different difficulty levels would be also more work. And, extra difficulty options are not as important as the very well made gameplay loop you already have.
The cutscenes and animations really set the tone, and I like the whole idea and concept of the game. For example the fountain area in the map. The contrast between the lava and the lush green makes it pop.
But it was pretty hard to explore as the movement was very fast when I picked her up. I did get to the end and it was very nice that there was also a cutscene. I can see if there was more time and you keep working on the game it has a lot of potential, it feels very fresh and imaginative.
Nice and simple perfectly complete game! There is the element of being too greedy and it fits the theme very well. I didn't encounter any bugs. It was easy to understand and a cool little game.
It was a fun game! Very fast paced once you get the first few levels done. I would have loved to have a fast-forward button, so you could try to get to the hard part faster. For example, clicking left mouse button to snap all the forks to the end. But the main idea of reaching the safe spot is working well with the LD theme, and concept is easy to understand and play. It is somewhat zen like except for the difficulty level increasing. Experimenting with stuff like collectable powerups, level progression (start again from the same difficulty if you lose), different control schemes, different levels which have different ways of the walls moving - for example slow at first and then snap, or each wall staggered more, etc would make it more interesting, there's always stuff to add. But the core idea is engaging as it is now already.