Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Slashee the Cow
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | The Life of a Corporate Drone | compo | 330 | 3.19 | 3.05 | 3.12 | 3.42 | 3.14 | 3.06 | 3.06 | |||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | DragTypist | compo | 240 | 3.55 | 3.58 | 3.28 | 3.38 | 3.38 | 3.39 | 3.30 | |||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Wonky Ship | compo | 372 | 3.37 | 3.22 | 3.48 | 4.11 | 2.70 | 2.77 | 2.04 | 2.67 | 50 | |
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | A Series Of Totally Legit Events | compo | 336 | 3.27 | 3.08 | 2.66 | 2.89 | 3.38 | 3.13 | 100 | |||
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Stop! In The Name Of The Law! | compo | |||||||||||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | The Floor is Lava | compo | 314 | 3.44 | 3.61 | 3.25 | 3.69 | 2.97 | 3.03 | 2.63 | 3.15 | 52 | |
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Streets of Shooting | compo | 1136 | 2.50 | 2.35 | 2.13 | 2.00 | 2.90 | 2.66 | 2.00 | 3.20 | 49 |
I realise real kelp probably can't swim up, but... it would be nice if mimic kelp could :).
Looks good (if a bit small). Sometimes I couldn't go up/down layers? Plus, you need to make going from dying to playing again quicker - if that didn't take so long I might have played a few more games.
Can't seem to run in broswer. Collisions seem inconsistent. Would prefer if I could mash punch to become unstoppable worm-killing machine :)
Thanks for all the kind words!
Sorry if you're finding it too dark, it looks alright on my monitor (which obviously means my monitor is too bright :) ). I'd fix it, but I think there's only bug fixes allowed after the the time ends. I'd have tested it on other computers, but I ran out of time :(.
So, as I put in the update at the top of the entry, the post-comp version is brighter, and that's the only difference. Please play that (although if you want to see what I managed strictly in the 48 hours, that's fine, just get ready to squint). I hope I'm not coming off desperate here.
Had no idea what to do. Movement too slow. Gave me motion sickness. And that menu music, WTF? Nice dark dungeon though.
Fun... but snake is always fun.
Two suggestions: make it more obvious that the top row you can crawl through is actually there (it's hard to see, the first few tries I kept poking my head up and dying) and make it so that you can eat any part of leaves, it's not so obvious you can only eat the middle.
But regardless of those, pretty good!
I kept getting killed between the second and third keys. And yet I kept trying!
I wanted MORE!!!! which is always a good sign. Graphics are really good (with a death effect like that, you totally need a Super Meat Boy style montage of all your attempts at a level after each level) and difficulty is spot on.
It's a little quiet though. The sound there is good, but it isn't enough.
Still, pleeeeeease add more levels post-compo.
A nice relaxed counterpart to all the stuff I've been rating lately.
Score: 1170.
Downloaded JAR. Closes as soon as I open it (Win 7 x64).
Still doesn't work:
Exception in thread "LWJGL Application" com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.Math.floorDiv(II)I
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplication.java:120)
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.Math.floorDiv(II)I
at com.clockwise.energy.ext.maps.TileData.setTile(TileData.java:72)
at com.clockwise.energy.ext.maps.TileData.generateMap(TileData.java:114)
at com.clockwise.energy.MainScreen.Init(MainScreen.java:81)
at com.clockwise.energy.ext.screens.ScreenManager.Init(ScreenManager.java:67)
at com.clockwise.energy.Game.create(Game.java:24)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.mainLoop(LwjglApplication.java:136)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplication.java:114)
Just thought of that, after checking what version I had (7). Works now!
Thanks for the kind words everyone!
I didn't realise the lack of height information was a problem - I must have just gotten used to it testing it every few minutes for two days.
I've thought of some things that could help but unfortunately I don't think it's the kind of thing I'm allowed to fix after the 48 hours are up.
That music was starting to get on my nerves after a few retries. Also I think the poopsickles should give you more poop, given how much poop you have to use getting to them sometimes.
I liked the graphics though, it's a great style and the gameplay is pretty good.
Gets a bit boring - there's no element of danger. The graphics look good, but I'm marking them down because it was making me seasick (also, on a more minor note, it can be hard to see your ship on the darket parts of the world).
Some things seemed to require a few too many shots.
And then it froze.
I thought it was a bit hard - I couldn't even get past the first level. Those sheep just move around with a mind of their own and I can't keep all of them away from all the flowers.
It's a fun little diversion. The car physics are a bit off, but I've never driven on snow, so maybe they're not.
Fun going around and shooting, but I think it'd be nice if it took a little longer for each quadrant to change - in the end I just started doing laps shooting straight in front of me trying to keep up.
Great concept! But I think the hitboxes on platforms are a bit big sometimes.
That's the second game I've seen this LD with the exact same idea, so I'm going to have to mark you down on innovation. Sorry.
You did it better though.
Really great! One of the best I've seen (and definitely one of the most original).
Graphics and sound are amazing. At first I thought the aiming was broken though, since wherever I was facing/looking at, the rockets always went the same way (and too high to hit the enemies). Then I got close to them (which took a while, since all all the enemies did was run to one corner of the map) and I saw a lock on crosshair appear on them.
Ohhhhhh, that explains it.
So I stayed around for a while getting close enough to blast the bad guys, then blasting them. Then that got a boring. I guess that's where it's not finished (don't worry, not having enough time to finish is something I understand really well). Great job on what's there though.
I'm just going to come out and say it: why can't the menus work like normal menus? Even with the warning at the start, I found the menus very confusing. And then I found the gameplay confusing, since I didn't know what button was for shooting (turns out all of them).
I found it slightly annoying that sometimes rabbits would spawn and take a carrot before the crosshair went over them. Also, why do they only spawn on the right?
This might sound like I hated it, but I didn't. It was fun! I'm just better at expressing negativity than positivity (not a good way to make friends, but that's a story for another day).
Graphics and sound were really good for a compo entry. I never have enough time to make my games look or sound that good.
Not bad. Seems a little trial and error for my taste though. But it's good for what it is, and very well implemented.
A lot of the time it seemed to come down to just spamming my guys but a nice idea, haven't really seen this one before.
Pretty good, especially for only nine hours! Main thing I'd change is photographers not flashing as soon as they spawn, doesn't seem fair when you eat a fish and a photographer who wasn't there before immediately flashes you.
Also I have to disagree with your theming: Nessie's not a monster, she's just misunderstood!
I wish you used the Unity input manager rather than hard coding the controls. WASD + space is much easier than arrows + space (when you also need the mouse).
Other than that (minor) nitpick, really great! A whole lot of art (that looks good), and fun gameplay. I just wish it was longer (that's a good thing though, means I was having fun).
Seems a bit hard when you get to the janitor stage, since you can't defend yourself from the turned scientists (which you need to turn to actually get to that stage since they're in the way).
Definitely good for a first entry though. One of the more original ideas I've seen.
Can't download it or run the web version. I just get a timeout trying to connect to your server.
After I'd been back to the cave a couple of times (and kidnapped about 150 of the people) I went back outside and it was just teeming with green guys. I died pretty quickly (and then the game over screen said sorry, you only got 744 of 500... wait, what?).
The writing is good, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere? You just get to go in a loop and address a couple of issues?
Seems like a fun little board game (which I'd never even heard of before). Not sure I'm as much a fan of ignoring the theme completely though.
Graphics and music are good, and while I don't mind that there's no ending (since almost every game I've done for LD has been endless) it gets sort of boring when you can't lose.
I love the gameplay! And the art style! Just wish it was a bit longer. Spawns seem a bit buggy, though. First time through I killed the wolves in about twenty seconds, then about twenty seconds later the birds started spawning (they killed me with about a minute left). Second time I killed the wolves in about ten seconds, but the birds didn't spawn for over a minute after that (I didn't kill them all before the timer ran out). Third time I killed the wolves in about ten seconds again, but the birds never spawned.
Great game! I don't know why you're worried about the graphics, I wish I could do pixel art that good.
Took a little while to understand it at first.
It's a bit confusing. Once I figured it out it's pretty good though. Like Pantoufle said, it could really use a restart level button though.
Graphics were great! Although I couldn't find the place where I was supposed to take the kids to.
It seems like it should be good but the random level generator seems to be against me! Every time I spawned near a bunch of enemies that killed me in < 10 seconds!
Great! I think it'd just be nice if it wasn't over so quickly, I barely have time to think. Unless that's the idea, in which case ignore that.
Seems like a a fun idea. Controls are a little confusing (at first I thought they were REALLY confusing, then I figured out they're relative to whatever planet you're orbiting, but what planet that is isn't always clear). Also the tank things seemed to do a bit too much damage - I played a bunch of times and was only able to kill all the ones on another planet a couple of times. They're also a bit hard to hit - maybe your shots could be a bit bigger?
As I said, fun game though. Like most LD games, it could just use a bit of tuning.
That jumping sound, it was just... brutal. Had to turn off my speakers.
A little easy for me. But I love the mechanics, the graphics and sound are awesome and most importantly, it's fun! Maybe you should keep working on it and add more levels.
I was also able to fall off the right edge of the second level. Pretty gun though, maybe a bit easy. Was really nice to see another compo entry though, I'm sick of all the jam entries making me feel bad about what little I can accomplish in two days.
Oh, your own bullets can kill you, that explains a lot! Definitely doesn't fit in with the theme, but it's good for what it is!
At first I had no idea how to start. Then I looked at the first screenshot here and saw the black boxes on the tombstones were supposed to be buttons (but I just saw black boxes).
As for the gameplay, I... don't get it? I moved around the grid a few times until it told me I ran out of time?
Very cool. You're right, the manipulation controls while in the dream are a bit confusing. I just wish it was more of a game, like we had to figure out what the kid was afraid of and then got a rating for how scary the shadow is or something - but I digress. What you've done is awesome for two days' work (and I wish I could do this much in two days).
Seems like I can't close the options screen. Had to restart. It looks cool, but I couldn't see any sticks or anything to do any crafting with. Had a nice wander round picking up rocks though.
I guess it's just not for me? I couldn't kill more than a couple of humans before I ran out of DNA and had to watch them slowly destroy my base. Graphics are good though.
Wow that's fun! Sort of reminded me of TowerFall, at least in how competitive it is (or would be, with multiplayer). On that subject, it'd be awesome if you did a post-compo version with multiplayer!
Got the following area when trying to plant a bit of web (or maybe it's cause I got a bit too hungry):
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object oSpider:
Unable to find any instance for object index '100186' name '<undefined>'
at gml_Script_splitLineByPoint
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_splitLineByPoint (line 0)
gml_Script_spiderConnectString
gml_Object_oSpider_Step_0
Before then I didn't really know what I was doing. I placed several web strands but only caught one fly. Other flies went straight through. Not sure exactly what you do to catch them.
Nothing really wrong with it. Just boring clicking on buildings constantly.
Nice! Would be awesome if it had more levels (don't worry, I know what it's like to not have enough time to do them though)
Once it loaded and I got through the tutorial, I tried clicking everywhere, the only thing which seemed to do anything was the pause button. The cutscene was good though, I don't think I've seen any other LD game put as much effort into one.
Would probably be good on mobile. On my desktop it just seems like Mouse Breaking Simulator 2015.
Nice!
I think you unload sections behind the player a bit too soon - there were a few times I went back a bit fell into an abyss (good thing I could dash my way back up).
Pretty good! The whole thing moves a bit slow though. You walk around really slowly during the build stage, and attacking during the defense phase is pretty slow. I was hoping for more of a clickclickclickclick rather than click-recharge-click-recharge.
Took me a few tries before I could complete it on normal. Got a bit boring by the end though. Sometimes it just seems unfairly hard to avoid all the lasers.
Not sure how this fits in with the theme of "you are the monster" if you're catching the monster, but pretty good!
Hard to look at the screen and the bar at the same time.
Pretty good, but difficulty seems to be mostly based on what items you can find near the start.
Also I think it was a bug where David would get down to 0 health and wouldn't die. Ever. Made things a bit easier though.
I like the retro style graphics and sound. And the gameplay is fun! But I found I could just sit at the left side of the stage and and spam ranged attacks to win (and I seemed to get more more powerful than the bros), got up to wave 50 that way and got bored.
Not sure it's even possible to make it to the end. Those human bullets hurt.
@plusultra: D'oh! Looks like I missed a $ before a variable (and I think that made it impossible to get to one of the endings). Blame the fact that my fingers don't type (or do several other things) as well as I'd like them to at 1 AM. It's fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out.
Everyone else: thanks! I haven't done this before so I was afraid people wouldn't like it. But it's nice to know people are having fun with it.
@kruemelkeksfan: Yes, it should. But that part was probably written at about midnight and by 3AM when I uploaded it, I was barely awake enough to run a spell check, let alone proofread it properly. Thanks for pointing that out. (I'm not going to fix it, at least not in the compo version, since it's probably the equivalent of a non-game breaking bug.)
@glerikud & patvanmackelberg: I definitely would have liked to add some art or sound, but I'd never used Twine before, so I didn't really know how (and I spent all my time working on the story, as it turned out). If I end up doing another Twine game it's definitely something I'll see if I can do, even if it's just a few minutes' worth.
@Everyone else: Thanks for playing! Glad you had fun :)
I like the idea. Graphics are awesome. The music is nice (but some SFX would be even nicer). My point is is that it's really good.
It's just really easy to exploit. Just block right and get the one furthest to the left (or block left and get the one furthest to the right) each time, and you'll never be seen. I was able to complete the hardest difficulty easily by doing that (with 96 points... not sure if that's good or not).
Cool that you managed to implement so much of an RTS in two days (I don't think I could). I didn't seem to have much luck killing the other guys though, my guys just seemed to die instead.
Nice graphics, too.
Disclaimer: I played the post-jam version.
Firstly: I loved the old-style film filter on the graphics.
However, the main problem was that it was impossible to win! Hypnotising people seemed to take so long as to be impossible to complete in one night! I even tried leveling up first to see if that would speed it up enough (it didn't). I just didn't seem to be able to make enough progress to hypnotise someone in a single night! (Actually, I barely made any progress). That meant I had nobody to defend my castle during the day, so I always lost on the first day.
Also: I'm sorry, but IMO rapid clicking is _never_ a good gameplay mechanic, especially when you have to do it for as long as you do in this.
Jump seems sorta slow. And it just seems sort of unfair that it's impossible to avoid everything when it gets harder.
A fun distraction. Seems a bit easy to just rapidly click to create a whole bunch of minions but otherwise it's pretty fun!
Graphics are great! But I couldn't find a way to unlock the door at the top of the stairs. I walked around clicking on everything I could but I never seemed to be able to interact with more than the body outside, the doorman outside and the bartender and glasses at the bar. At some point I got a letter in my inventory (I'm still not sure how) but couldn't seem to do anything with it.
Download link doesn't seem to work. Nothing loads, just a white page.
Wish I could do graphics that good in two days, let alone ten hours. It just seemed a bit frustrating to me that sometimes it looked like I was just pushing the other birds out of the way, and sometimes I ate them, when it didn't seem like I was doing anything different.
Crashes as soon I try to play. Error is
[RouterClient]: Error: Could not connect to connection router using mode Connect: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:31244
...which I think might be the game and Windows' firewall not getting along.
Pretty fun. Although it doesn't help that the controls screen is wrong (unless maybe you're left handed) and doesn't mention that you can use the scroll wheel to zoom. Also I killed them all with over 30 seconds left and had to sit there doing nothing.
Nice game, but it gets a bit boring by the end when you're just waiting for them to come into each room so you can press the buttons (which could be a bit easier, it kept thinking I was trying to scroll). Would be nice if different people were scared by different things.
I had a lot of trouble from the introduction figuring out just what I was supposed to be doing. Then after I killed(?) the monster(?) in the first bit, and the monster(?) went into the next room with the program(?) it just stopped moving forward and the graphics kept shuddering. I left it for a little while and it didn't seem to go any further.
And the music. Sounded cool at first. Thirty seconds later, not so much.
Pretty good! Hunting down the stragglers got pretty annoying (and time consuming), and it didn't seem that hard (I only went below 20 health once) - but aside from those minor complaints, it was probably the most fun one I've played so far.
Maybe if you had more time you could do a different graphics/sound theme for each level? They were good but they got a bit repetitive.
Seems to have a lot more polish than most of the other games I've played (except for some spelling/grammar errors). It all seems to go a bit slow though? Heroes seem to take aaaaages to come. And I couldn't seem to rebuy soldiers at a barracks if they'd been killed.
That's a few small problems though. Overall a pretty good 2D tower defense/base management sort of thing.
Graphics are great! But it's a bit hard to dodge missiles when you're not even given any warning they're coming, and it takes so long to change lanes (if you're already mid-jump when they first appear, they're basically unavoidable).
No mic connected. Couldn't play.
If that's your first game ever I have to say it's very good for a first try, but I hope for your sake Disney's lawyers don't find this page :)
Fighting seemed to be the only thing that ever worked for me. Wasn't really clear what attaching or eating other body parts did.
First the graphics: the eggs are well done, the arms are well done (but the swipe animation is a bit feeble) and the knights look awesome. But the whole cave is blurry. Also is that a topless woman? Shouldn't there be a content warning on that?
Also, in windowed mode the game doesn't capture the mouse cursor, which makes it pretty much impossible to play windowed (since it'll leave the window and focus on other windows when you click).
It's definitely a good start, but it gets a little boring. Why do I have a health bar? The knights never attacked me. That makes it a game of "wait for knights to come to you and then kill them", which is... sorta boring.
Don't get me wrong, the work that's already been done is good, but like most LD games, it probably needed a bit more time to be great :)
That's awesome! One of the best games I've played this LD. Graphics are great, and music was spot on but the chainsaw sound got a little annoying after a little while (which I guess makes it like a real chainsaw, so appropriate at least). But yeah could use a goal and with the spin attack it's a bit easy (should put that on a cooldown or something).
It's a cool idea, I think, but it's a bit confusing. I could never survive more than a day or two. Like most games made for Ludum Dare, I think with a bit more work, it could be awesome.
Every time I got to a point where there were just two or three green squares left, diagonally next to each other, moving back and forth. Shooting them did nothing, and if I moved into them, I lost.
I think something sort of like that but turn based would work pretty well though.
It's fun! Would be nice if the missiles didn't cause quite so much damage (first time I died, I had no idea how, since I thought I still had plenty of health left) and different types of tanks would be nice, but running out of time to add all the features you want is something I understand all to well.
Seems a bit boring. Would probably help if they spawned faster. Graphics were nice other than where I could see seams in the background texture. Audio was... a lot of laser squees and that's about it. Not sure I could have done too much better in two days myself though, so not bad overall.
I think you die a little too quick, but other than that, great job!
Same problems as everyone else. Click top play button, character panel covers the whole screen. Can't play fullscreen, any click takes it back to the iframe.
An explanation controls would go a long way! It took me a couple of tries before I figured out what I was supposed to be doing.
Once I figured out what I was doing it was good though. Playing with the gravity physics was fun.
Definitely a different take on the theme. I had to mute the sound though cause that stepping noise was giving me a headache.
I couldn't seem to do anything? I could go to the map screen with the production and reconquer buttons, and I could get to the production screen, click the buttons to get money and buy tanks, go back to the map scree, the red country highlighted when I moused over it but I still couldn't seem to do anything but go back to the production screen.
Seems fun to start. But unless I'm missing something, after you get the bazooka, the next ledge is too high to jump on to. And I think I lost all my health but didn't die?
Good game! Like most games I've seen in LD, there's just a few things that would it make it great.
That "can't kill me" gets pretty annoying, the jump seems to go up/down too quickly, it's hard to jump on top of the chip and not have it count as the sides and you lose, when you restart it doesn't reset your score, it takes too long to eat the sweets, and I encountered a bug where the mobs spawned halfway in the floor.
That might seem like a long list of complaints. But the game is good! Solid idea, nice graphics. Just a couple of steps away from being great (but so is pretty much every game, so don't feel bad)
Really great! This is one of those times I think "how did they do all that in two days!?!?".
Aiming the teleport was a bit hard, and controls were a bit floaty, but I'm just nitpicking there. One of the best ones I've seen.
Would be nice if there was a way to quickly advance the dialogue (or if there was, if I knew what it was).
Great graphics! Although I found it a little hard to keep the monster going.
Nice! Just a bit hard to begin with. And then only slightly less hard.
I'm not sure what those rocks are doing there, but at first I thought you had to jump over them (which caused me to get hit by a few pitchforks I thought were unavoidable). Could use a bit more depth (most LD games could though) but definitely a good start!
At first I thought it was unwinnable. I was about to post here complaining as such. Then I had an epiphany, and set my monitor to 60hz. (I have a 120hz gaming monitor).
It works! In that the hero now moves slow enough that it is actually possible to win.
This isn't the first game I've seen with this problem, but it's still really annoying. I shouldn't have to compromise my monitor's refresh rate just to get a game to work (so sorry, but you lose a point for that).
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, pretty good! Graphics need some work, but I can totally see this working as a mobile game. Just come up with enough levels to sell in packs.
@Jelinib: Download the example map file. That worked for me.
If I click the up or down arrows on the help screen, it just gives me an error! It's not really clear how the items work (I mean, the descriptions are fine, but even after playing it a couple of times I'm only somewhat sure that you click the button and it increases your stats... right?). I didn't get any meat (which means my plays were rather short) and the movement speed is way too slow.
Still, the graphics work perfectly, the battle theme is awesome and OMG THAT BUNNY IS HEADED RIGHT AT ME WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
It's pretty buggy. I only found out that pressing "B" did something by reading the comments here. And that was even more buggy.
And while I appreciate the warning about flashing lights when you open it, I think it's funny that in a warning to people with epilepsy you misspelled "epilepsy".
Is it supposed to run that fast? I mean, it was pretty much unplayable. Things moving side to side up the top, couldn't see what they were, no way my feeble human reaction time could keep up with them.
(And if it isn't supposed to run that fast: could it have anything to do with me having a 120hz monitor?)
Seems pretty hard to start with. And really confusing.
Pretty fun! Reminds me of the original Zelda. I hope that was the idea. You move around soooooo slow though.
Good party game!
(Just an aside: you might want to use vsync on the computer version. The coil whine from my graphics card of running at >6000fps isn't exactly kind to the ears)
Doesn't seem that hard. I didn't have any problem eating all the villagers and killing all the knights. Just took me a little while to realise that's what I was supposed to be doing (the health bars helped once I'd realised that though).
The basic gameplay is good, but it gets a bit boring (I gave up and just let them win, I was at 350 points). Art style is great, sound gets a little annoying (but you have it, which is more than can be said for a lot of entries).
Main problem I have is the theme. I mean sure, you literally play as a monster, but you could replace the monster you play as with the child's parent or a talking can of soup and it wouldn't change the rest of the game one bit.
Really nice! Seems a bit hard to not die really quickly (and to kill the guys attacking you at range).
I don't get it? I moved around clicking on stuff and the descriptions come up. If I'm supposed to put together a story based on all the different things or something, sorry, but my attention span just isn't up for that.
I like the graphics and the gameplay. But things move a bit too slow! It takes aaages for the people to start coming in any significant number!
(It's also slightly annoying to just ram an invisible wall and stop completely... maybe next time put up some barricades or something)
Wow, I'm surprised to see how complete this is. I don't think I could do a basic RTS like this in two days.
Everything seemed to go way too fast. Could that be because I'm using a 120hz monitor?
Don't really see what it has to do with the theme. You could be Sam Fisher sneaking through there instead of a monster and it wouldn't really make much difference. Still was a good stealth game, the AI was about as intelligent as you'd expect in a stealth game (without the advantage of having so much time to work on it, so good). Two things I would change are I'd add audible footsteps so you can hear how much noise you're making, and just to make the game a little easier I'd make the guards more alert for a second when they notice you, and if you can hide in that time they go back to their patrol. But that's just what I'd do, overall pretty good.
I realise this has the content warning, but I think it's sort of sending the wrong message to have a game where girls exist only for you to hit them until they're on the ground and then... well I'm assuming anyone who hasn't played the game can tell by the name what happens next.
And from a gameplay perspective, it just seems too hard.
I played the Jam version. Definitely a good start to a game (despite the placeholder graphics, missing audio, and err... lack of levels, it's fun), and I think you should work on it a bit more... oh wait, you have!
It seemed pretty hard to kill the enemies even though I'm pretty sure I was clicking right on them. Might be good though with a few bug fixes.
Highscore: 4500 points.
Keyboard: doesn't know how close it got to being snapped in half.
Nice! It just sucks that I can't play for even a minute at a time because of all the long times with nobody to eat.
Well that was... weird.
It's not a bad idea. The controls are confusing though (it'd be fine if you inverted either left/right or up/down, at least to me, might be subjective). And the music gave me a headache. And... well it's just weird. I like the weird though!
Download link is in a private Google Drive folder. I only get the option to sign in then request access.
Not a bad idea for an arcade style game. And I can see you've already fixed the two biggest problems I have with the compo version (the collision detection and there's only one level). Not sure why, but the graphics were really fuzzy. And I know there's a proud tradition of using sfxr in Ludum Dare, but that jump sound... I had to mute my speakers.
Like a lot of games made for LD though, seems like it could be good with a bit more work, so keep at it!
All I can do is catch one mouse, then the other cat comes and a few seconds later it either hits me and the game restarts or I go up to the other floor, I avoid it and the game restarts.
It seems a bit hard for me. I couldn't last more than about twenty seconds!
The graphics were great (though the text stuck out because it didn't have a black outline). The SFX were also good but the music got a bit grating after not too long.
Gameplay was fun, but a little boring after a little while (nothing seemed to pose that much of a threat). Attacking the helicopters was a bit weird because you need to have the cursor well above them to punch at their height.
(Windows version) I think there's a bug where movement speed is based on your FPS? One push of the button send my ship flying to one side of the screen and sets off the alert for too much noise. Makes it unplayable, at least for me (OC 2600k/OC 780Ti = >1000fps).
Tried the WebGL version, just got this:
An error occured running the Unity content on this page. See your browser's JavaScript console for more info. The error was:
uncaught exception: abort(139) at jsStackTrace@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:1:22020
stackTrace@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:1:22203
abort@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:36:45947
O5l@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:29:109874
MZb@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:11:340028
OZb@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:11:340870
NZb@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:11:340613
w4d@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:10:703197
sTc@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:14:788385
.func@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:1:30436
callRuntimeCallbacks@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:1:24476
ensureInitRuntime@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:1:24976
doRun@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:36:44694
run/<@http://www.pixelstuff.fr/undercowver/Release/opengl.js:36:45116
If this abort() is unexpected, build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 which can give more information.
I liked where it was going. The graphics are good, the sound is great, and the writing is spot on. Then it became like the most boring fetch quest I've ever done.
Interesting idea. You see to move left/right a bit slow though.
One of the best ones I've played so far! I love the parallax scrolling effect on the starfield, I've never been able to get that right.
The graphics are awesome. I think it's a bit hard though, the villagers throwing rocks seems unnecessary. And sometimes to jump over the rocks on the ground I have to jump into a bat :(
Maybe I just like games a bit easy though?
Not bad. Sorry, but I have to make a couple of nitpicks: the barrels are a bit hard to avoid and the houses disappear way too quickly.
Pretty good graphics and sound though. It's a good start, just like most games made for LD, a bit of tweaking and it could be a great game.
Firstly: the Windows download doesn't include the data folder you need to play! I had to use the web version. I love the graphics though! Hit detection could be a bit more generous (sometimes I swung slightly to the side of them), and there never seemed to be enough time to sleep between enemis.
The instructions aren't really clear about how to play the game (fortunately, it's a bit more clear once the game actually starts, but I never found myself actually needing to use bricks).
Also, those fairies don't seem very smart. A lot of the time while I was just sitting in the corner waiting for them to repopulate they'd just run into me.
I don't get what it has to do with the theme either. Also the download link didn't seem to work in Firefox.
Well that was, um, interesting! Nice to see another Twine game here (good to know I'm not the only one). And you took quite a different approach to how I went (considering this compo was my first Twine game, I still have a lot to learn about Twine, so it's nice to see the different things that can be done!)
Did I miss something? The second level seems unbeatable. Whether or not I possess someone in the group of ghost detectors, the red wall comes and kills me.
I like where you're going with the mechanics though. There's just not enough content (at least, content which appears to be beatable).
One of the better ones I've seen this time. But even with the text instructions at the start, it's really confusing. If you're going to work on it more, I'd really suggest an interactive tutorial.
Got REALLY slow with a whole bunch of the enemies on screen (for reference, got up to 77 points). If you'll allow me to get defensive for a second, it's definitely not my PC (OC 2600k/OC 780Ti). The music quickly got grating (so much so I had to mute it). It might sound like I'm full of complaints, but it was a fun simple little game, and pretty good for less than a day's work. Especially the particle effects, I'm not sure I could pull that off in such a short time.
Seems to be about reading the middle card and guessing which stats you need based on what it says, then just picking the cards at the top that give you those stats. At least, I think that was the idea. It's what seemed to get me ahead.
A good start, would be better with more work. Although I found that I could just go to the right of the screen, face left and kill them as they spawned indefinitely.
Definitely a good start! I know, sometimes it's hard to finish, but hopefully you've learned something for next time.
Pretty good for a first timer! I'm with everyone else though, would be great if vomiting wasn't in the direction you're facing. And there's probably a few too many bad guys at once, which is why it's a good thing they seem to get stuck on the loot. And the entrance. And each other. Also I think it finally bugged from me when there was (at least one, but probably two or more) enemies stuck at the entrance in a way that they couldn't get out, but I couldn't shoot them.
Don't take all that to say I hated it though; I actually rated it pretty highly. It could just, like most LD entries, use a bit more polish.
I don't really feel like I am the monster if I'm killing monsters that are worse than me. Plus it's really annoying to be killed by a little monster sneaking up behind me. Seems a bit hard with the big ones that seem to spawn out of nowhere (including places I've just been or places I'm looking directly at) seem to be immune to my attacks and can clip through walls.
On the plus side, graphics were good (other than some stretched textures) and audio was good, if a little repetitive.
I like it, it just seemed like as long as I kept attacking stuff I could never die.
Also, if anyone's having trouble with the big guys, just jump at the flying things on their shoulders until you kill them, then jump at the big guy and keep pushing towards them - you'll stay off the ground and just keep attacking.
I found it a bit hard to not get killed by the bad guys when they rushed at me.
Can't run.
---------------------------
boblar_ascension.exe - Application Error
---------------------------
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b). Click OK to close the application.
That was good! I just wish there was more of it.
Nice idea. My main problem is that in the boss fights, the hero just ran from one side of the area to the other and back, so I just stayed behind him and flamed him to death.
Pretty impressive that you're able to make a new engine to get all that done, but yeah, next time you should probably worry about the game :).
Also you might want to mention that you need to install the x86 version of the VC2015 redist, not the x64 version.
Great game. Sometimes it seemed a bit hard to snatch bodies (not sure why). Would be nice if the different monsters were a little more different but I understand if there wasn't time for that :)
It seemed really hard to kill the good guys (without getting killed myself). They really need a health bar or something so I can see that my attacks are actually doing damage, since a lot of the time it seemed like I was just clicking and it wasn't really doing anything.
Graphics are good though. Could use more sound effects.
Great game! Seems to take too long to kill anyone with the basic laser though (which I had to play twice to unlock, since it crashed before I get there the first time). I actually had to restart in fun mode and use some of the more powerful weapons to make sure I could blow up the other ships. The weapons are cool though and except when it crashes it's fun.
Didn't seem to work for me? I started in the classroom, there's some kids there, some emote speech bubbles appear above their heads, a couple of seconds later (seriously, there's 0:27 left on the clock, for whatever that's worth), they rush me, I go bouncing around classroom, and I get a message saying I lost. Tried WASD, arrows and clicking on stuff. Nothing seems to do anything.
That was cool, a pretty good shump. The only problems I had were that it could use some sound effects and it's a bit hard to hit the enemies with the black balls.
I couldn't play this for too long. The screen rumbling when I shoot made me feel sick.
Good writing, and the art was great! Music got a little grating by the time I got to the end, but I'm not sure I've heard anything on repeat for that long and not gotten sick of it, so don't take it personally.
I don't think I get it.
Definitely a good start, just a shame you didn't have time to finish it.
Pretty good! But sometimes I wasn't punching or shooting fireballs and it wasn't clear why. But the basic gameplay is good and I loved the graphics!
I loved the art! The gameplay got a bit repetitive though by the later levels (and it could use more enemy types, adding more cops didn't make it that much harder since they just grouped up anyway).
I loved all of it! The graphics, the story, the theme, all of it.
...except the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I can see where you were going with it. It's just not my cup of tea. I just found it frustrating trying to get the monsters into the right place, and I've never really liked timing based challenges (which is basically all this is).
Plus more than once I pressed enter trying to advance text and had to do the level again. Oops.
Gets a little boring. After a couple of minutes all I was doing was using the minimap to find each "sacrifice" to increase the awakening.
Simple fun. And it seems like you already fixed most of the things I was going to complain about in the post jam version :).
Loved the graphics. Not really sure what was going on. Just waited for villagers to appear then jumped out and ate them (if that's not what I'm supposed to be doing, some more explanation would be nice). Audio didn't really suit (but as someone who uses sfxr for my LD games, I'm not necessarily one to talk on that subject).
Definitely needs some more instructions. First couple of tries, I wasn't even aware I could move. And even then I wondered why I died so quickly.
Then I figured it out (I think). Is it even possible to destroy the blue planet? I shot it a bunch, and nothing happened to it. Also, it'd be nice if your size changed in line with the size text (this also discourages the player from getting too big, which makes things too easy, since you can take a bunch of hits).
Graphics: the backgrounds and planets are good (even if the seam where the background changes is obvious). The rocks and pickups look like they were done in MS Paint (not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, it just really doesn't fit in with the planets and backgrounds).
Audio: the SFX was pretty good! I think the music would be better if you used a synth that was a bit more "out there", a bit less electric piano, but other than that, definitely the highlight for me.
I loved the graphics. And I'm sort of jealous of how people can walk through fires, but I can't. But it's good! I just wish it went somewhere.
I'm with bigbuggames and Jerre. No idea what's going on.
Also the Web link just goes to a Dropbox download page for the HTML file. And it loads in the iframe here, but you can't right click to move without bringing up the menu.
Fun! But I found it pretty easy to get to 10 or higher just by covering the field with the green guys and waiting for the princess to walk into one.
Great game! Nice, original idea (at least as far as I'm aware). Graphics and sound suit it quite well. Just wish there were more levels.
I was able to play by downloading the files from the Dropbox link then running it on my computer.
It could use a bit more instructions. Wasn't really clear what I was doing when I pressed a button and dropped a brown thing or some white squares on the ground.
In case the screenshot isn't obvious, this isn't in English. I had no idea what was going on.
I just moved side to side mashing spin attack. I'm not sure how well it worked, I still lost :(
Downloaded the Windows version, unzipped, ran "PLAY Lifes Decisions.exe". Got error "Could not load module [email protected]_env__1".
Flash version works though. I think your game is better written than mine. And considering I just did something in Twine, that's either something you should be proud of or something I should be ashamed of. Maybe a little bit of both.
Had to dig out a gamepad to play (seriously, add some keyboard controls though). Even with a gamepad, the controls (mainly moving around) were a bit confusing. I think it would be better if it was just move left/right instead of moving the analog stick in the direction of the part of the planet you want to go? See, it's so confusing I can't even explain it. Also a bit annoying that you can't jump on the enemies when they're spinning up (I lost a lot of health that way). Also it took a lot of random jumping before I found out that there were actually other planets I could go to.
Took a little while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Once I had that figured out, pretty good.
And I thought I did a lot of writing for my Twine game! There's tons in yours. The problem I had is, it wasn't really clear to me what effect the choices I was making were having on the long (or short) term progression of the story. Unless that's a subtle commentary on how little effect your actions have on your life (unlike mine, your story has layers... mine is a bunch of stuff that happens).
It does make me think about other things I might like to do in Twine though (and my game for this LD is the first time I used Twine, so I didn't really have any ideas before).
Pretty good! Loved the art style.
Was there supposed to be sound? I couldn't hear any. I like the graphics, but the gameplay gets a bit repetitive... and it seems sort of unfair when the humans shooting you keep you up in the air so you can't even squish them.
Looks pretty cool! Unfortunately I don't have any friends nearby to play this with. I just had to check this out when I saw it had the same name as the game I did for LD31: http://www.slasheethecow.com/ld/lava/
(The games are completely different, for what it's worth)
Good for a first time! Could use a bit more work but don't worry, I understand running out of time.
Definitely a good start! Gets a little boring crawling along the ceiling then dropping down on people, but the hearing thing is a nice mechanic and I bet with a bit more time you could make a great game out of this (which applies to most LD entries I play, so that's not a bad thing)
The cat looks pretty good. I'm usually not a cat person, but destroying a city helps.
Could do with a bit more polish (although so could almost every game here) but definitely the start of a decent TD game.
That was... disturbing. There should probably be a content warning on this. And I think it would work better on a touchscreen. It's just not all the fun though.
Graphics are good (and I sort of like the untextured look). Controls are a little unwieldy and sometimes the camera puts buildings in the way - but I've been able to level those complaints against platformers that have been in development for months, so good job for three days.
P.S. The opening text crawl would be good if you ever wanted to make "Puberty - The Game"
I can totally see that as a minigame in some collection. That is one slow conveyor belt, though.
Wow! Really great. One of the best I've seen so far. Hard but not so frustrating that I gave up (although a couple of the levels took me a few tries).
Didn't really seem to fit in with theme though (if I have to read the description to see how it fits in with the theme, it probably doesn't fit in with the theme enough... although when the theme was "beneath the surface" I made a mafia shooter, so I'm hardly one to talk).
It wasn't always clear what was going on. There's some text that flashes but it's too quick to read? And when I click a button it doesn't seem to do anything, but stuff happens a few seconds later?
Graphics were good though (to nitpick, some of the UI assets seemed a bit blurry, but that would be about my only complaint). SFX were nice, music wasn't bad but didn't really seem to fit in.
Nice game. It's a bit too difficult though. And it took me a little while to realise that the yellow bars in the chest are health. I died far too quickly :(. Graphics were really good though. I wish I could do pixel art that good.
What everyone else said. All I get is a Dropbox download page for the HTML file.
I couldn't play it too much. Still recovering from Clicker Heroes addiction.
Really impressive to see that done in three days! The intro dragged on a little (I only saw just before I finished it the text saying you can skip it - that needs a bit more contrast). Love the art style, what audio there is is nice but the whole game's a little quiet, but overall lots of fun.
I think I must be missing something? I'm a slime ball on another slime ball. I can move left and right., When I move the camera zooms in.
Goes really slowly. But it's a nice little... uhhh, experiment?
Seems a bit too hard not to just get pushed up against the back wall. Pretty good idea though and I love the art style.
I'm not a huge fan of having to pull out a 360 pad to play a PC game. Still, nice idea. Calming music. Got a little repetitive, maybe you could have different kinds of good/bad guys or powerups or something?
I felt movement was a little awkward with only being able to move a square at a time and no diagonals. But overall pretty good!
Really good! Bit annoying when some of my bits get stuck on walls but a nice concept and great level design.
This looks to me like one of those times where your ambition was bigger than your timeframe.
Graphics and sound are pretty good though.
Text got a bit hard to read and I'm not sure I ever really figured out what planting seeds and shooting water at them really did.
Graphics were good though. And was there sound? There's a volume control on the main menu but I turned it up all the way and I couldn't hear anything.
Had to fish a 360 controller out from my big pile 'o' stuff. Not really sure it was worth it. Could never get more than about three seconds in before the wall caught up to me. Not really sure what it has to do with two button controls, even though you say it uses that theme.
Oh, and the music gets grating by the second run, so yeah... about three seconds in.
I loved the art and music. But you move painfully slow as the first guy and right after I got control of the next character the game ended.
First: game ran impossibly fast until I set my monitor to 60hz. 120hz (or faster) monitors might still be a bit of a luxury, but especially among gamers, they're far from unheard of these days.
Once I got it down to a speed I could actually control, fun little game. Bit hard to not crash into some of the things while shooting them, but I guess that's the challenge :)
Solid idea. Bit easy (I finished with over 5 minutes to spare) but I can totally see this being turned into an awesome mobile game.
Really well done graphics and sound, and the game is pretty good too, once you wrap your head around it.
Great game! Reminded me of Train Conductor (that's a good thing)
Fun game. I can definitely see that being turned into an accelerometer-controlled mobile game.
I don't see why anybody would find that offensive or anything. A bit dull in single player, would probably be better in multiplayer. Also might help if the AI didn't get stuck on walls occasionally.
Like Llama said, would be good if the characters physically grew as they ate more (so you could see who was winning without looking at the health bars out of the way). Also would be nice if there was an icon somewhere showing you what ability you had ready to use.
Definitely a good start to a town building game. Needs a lot more depth, but I'm not sure I could do any better in three days, so good work!
I loved the art and sound. Not so sure I could figure out the game part though.
It has a nice variety of effects that can get added to it - although it can get sorta crazy by the end. One minor problem I had with it was that sometimes the choice came up so quickly on death that I was still holding a direction from when I was moving so it picked whichever was in that direction before I could let go.
That was great! I loved the graphics and sound (sorta makes me ashamed of my efforts) and while a tutorial might not hurt, I was more than able to figure everything out based on the informative tooltips.
A great text adventure. Much better presented than the one I did a couple of LDs ago. Reading a few of the comments, I see some people are happy with the speed the text appears, but it was a bit slow for me, I found myself holding the mouse button on every screen to hurry it up. Maybe an option would be nice.
(Don't worry, I understand... you never have time to put in options, I sure didn't)
One of the most polished games I've seen this compo, the gameplay, music, sound, graphics are all great... where the heck did you find the time?
One minor, minor, **minor** quibble is that it can be hard to read the white tutorial text at the bottom of the screen against the bricks sometime - doesn't detract from the game at all, just thought I'd mention it so you know to look out for it.
Reading the story, I think you tried to bite off a bit more than you (or anyone) could chew in 48 hours (I try to aim low, and then still rarely manage to do everything I want to).
It's an interesting game though. I like puzzles so I certainly didn't mind having to find my way through mazes. Might have been more interesting if there were more mechanics (like locked doors you need to find keys for, for example) but I understand you probably ran out of time.
So I'll say what I say on a lot of games (which is good for both you personally and LD in general if so many people are turning out games that meet this kind of quality standard): it's a good start, could be great with a bit more tweaking, could be excellent if you wanted to put more time in and develop it further.
Seemed to go waaaaaay too slowly for me - I actually left it running in the background while I tested other games (it doesn't help that like everyone else, it took me a bit to realise that crops don't grow while you sleep).
Other than that, it's a pretty good farming game, especially for 48 hours work. Graphics, sound and music all go well together.
If I were to nitpick (sorry, it's what I'm good at, but it doesn't mean your game isn't good), it would be nice if you could use tools on a square you click on (at least within a small radius of your character) rather than just the square you're standing on, that one kept on getting me (I kept trying to do something to the crop next to where I was standing).
It's a great idea. There were a couple of things that bugged me (one which stopped me playing, unfortunately): Firstly your character seems to move really slowly, especially compared to some of the other shoppers. There was more than one case of someone grabbing something off me and running away faster than I could catch them.
The major one was that the crosshair was flickering a lot, and it gave me a headache (so bad I stopped playing, lest it get worse). Is it being rendered as part of the game world instead of as a screen overlay or something?
That was a great game - about my only minor complaint would be that it gets pretty hard scrolling through all the sets of points on the last level - some mouse control would really come in handy there.
I loved the graphics and sound, especially the music - what did you use to make that?
I had the same confusion as @slash (I swear we're not related), and at first I thought I just had to destroy all the mines before I restarted and figured out what I was doing. I don't know if you meant to do something where there's just gaps in the ground, but it looks weird for stuff to just jump from one side to the other and I had problems with my tanks getting bunched up on those edges.
I don't care about the lack of levels, I still want to know how you managed that in two days. Pretty damn good.
Two minor (and I do mean minor) issues: firstly, when I opened the game it triggered SteamVR to open (not a problem, just closed SteamVR), and in the last level, I found it sort of annoying that holding down a direction didn't keep Liam moving in a straight line as the camera rotated (I can adjust, just prefer he'd keep moving straight as long as I'm holding down a direction) but that may just be me.
Loved the graphics and sound!
Personally I didn't think it was a great implementation of the theme because you don't really have a choice about whether to sacrifice the innocent people or not, they're just unavoidable collateral damage. It may have been better if it wasn't nearly as crowded so you had the choice of killing them quickly (and therefore killing more targets but with more collateral damage) or following them until they get to a quiet area (so less collateral damage, but fewer targets killed overall). It might also be worth counting the number of shots where you miss you target and the collateral damage from just them, or the number of innocents killed per target killed.
@linky439 Yeah I guess it's just how people can interpret the theme differently, IMO to make a sacrifice you have to make a choice, whereas in your game the only way to actually play the game is by killing innocents so it isn't really a choice.
I got 200 points. I didn't realise for a little while the text at the top telling you what item you need (turns out the first few items I went for were just the right ones). I did have a problem (may be intended, not sure) running over objects sending me into the air (and falling veeeeery slowly - I think this guy's rotund body acts as a built in parachute) and not being able to interact with objects while in midiar.
I'm also not sure it fits in with the theme that well - you could just as easily be wandering a farm collecting things for your kleptomaniac brother-in-law (N.B. None of my relatives are kleptomaniacs *...that I know of*).
I'll say to you what I've said several times this LD (and many times in other ones): you've done pretty good for two days work, and it's definitely something you could build on later if you wanted to.
@Genpaku Yeah the way you did it definitely fits in with the theme, what I was trying to say was you could change a few of the graphics and it wouldn't. The games that fit the theme best, you could change what the game looks like completely and it would still fit the theme.
@genpaku I don't want to get into an argument about this but I also hate to think I'm being misunderstood, so I'll try to explain my position better.
The collecting of items and sacrificing them on the altar is only a sacrifice because the thing you're taking them to looks like an altar and you say it's a sacrifice.
If you changed nothing about the gameplay mechanics but replaced the various items with baked goods (donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, cakes) and the altar with an oven, you could say it's a game about running a bakery. Or if you replaced the various items with medicinal items (pills, syringes, band-aids, eyedroppers, stethoscopes, etc.) and the altar with a sick person in a bed, you could say it's a game about healing sick people.
Those are just a couple of examples but I've played plenty of games (mostly mascot platformers) over the years where you've had to collect a bunch of [MacGuffins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin) and they never tried to say they were about sacrifice.
So while your game might be about sacrifice, I don't think the mechanics are, particularly, whereas plenty of the other games I've tried, if you changed all the graphics and sound the games would still have an element of sacrifice in them (usually by making you choose to benefit something to the detriment of something else).
Of course this is just my opinion. Nobody's perfect, I could be wrong, but this is just the way I see it.
@genpaku One game I rated this LD was [Riddles of Sacrifice](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/riddles-of-sacrifice), honestly the theme in that is a bit of a mishmash, your ship looks sci-fi-ish, the enemies are swirling vortexes, the gates you have to go through are just blue lines, the things you have to pick up are just coloured circles with sparkles, and honestly the background and walls look to me like they're sandy and in the middle of a pyramid. I suspect the developer ran out of time to do more with the graphics (we all put our priorities somewhere) so that's why they did that.
But the sacrifice mechanic in it is that to open the gates, you have to sacrifice part of your stats, making your armour lower or your weapon fire slower or less accurately, for example (there are some others).
But if you changed the graphics to be fully sci-fi, flying your ship around a starfield, the enemies being other ships, the gates being broken space stations and the pickups being abandoned crew members, the sacrifice mechanic getting through the gates is still there, you could explain it as having to fix the abandoned space stations using parts from your own ship.
Or you could change it to be a medieval theme, instead of you moving a ship around, you have an archer, instead of going through a tan building? Pyramid? Whatever it is, replace those graphics so that it looks like you're going through a castle. Replace the swirling vortexes for enemies with other knights. Replace the gates with literal gates (or the big wooden doors in castles or something), and the pickups with a crown, or a maiden most fair, or something like that. The sacrifice mechanic can still be there - making you less powerful to go through the gates, just explain it as having to give whoever runs the gate some of your equipment to let you through, or say you barely get through and you don't have time to take everything with you, so you have to leave something behind.
Both of those would leave the sacrifice part of the game in-tact while completely changing the graphics. There's nothing saying the sacrifice has to be literally sacrificing something to a deity.
P.S. When it comes to programming, honestly I probably should have used Unity or Game Maker or something - pygame is very flexible but doesn't do a lot for you by itself, so I spent a lot of time just getting stuff to display on screen, which I wouldn't have had to do with something else.
P.P.S. I tried your game again and only noticed that time that you can rotate the camera by moving the mouse - since all the other controls are on the keyboard I didn't even have my hand on the mouse first time I played it. Maybe you should mention that.
Yeah I know Unity is plenty flexible (last LD I entered I also used Python with pygame, but the one before that I used Unity for 2D, and I can't remember before that off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure it involves a lot of Unity). When I said pygame was flexible I meant the bad kind of flexible, in that it can do almost anything but it doesn't really do anything for you, whereas in Unity it's easy to just drop stuff straight into it, not like you need code to get stuff on screen since it handles all that for you.
Also I just thought I'd say it's not just you whose game I think is only about sacrifice on the surface, for example [Manik Hungers](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/manik-hungers) is a 3D platformer where you have to collect a sword and shield to perform a sacrifice ceremony, but you could change the sword and shield to a cheeseburger and fries and it's a game about getting lunch, or you could change them to exam papers and it's a game about going to school.
If you look through the comments on that you'll see I wasn't nearly so nitpicky - sorry about that. I might be nitpicky in general but your game came up a lot later in the queue and I was getting tired, which tends to bring out the... less cordial side of me, to put it politely,
@genpaku Not hungry so much, me and food have a complicated relationship. But it's something everybody understands, which makes it easy to use it as a comparison. Happy I could give you an insight though.
Great music (What did you use to make it? And can you point someone who'd love to be able to make music but has no idea where to start a point in the right direction?). Like everyone's saying, I really wish you didn't have to start from the start of the whole game (sorry, but I have other games to review, I can't spend all day on yours). Simple graphics (that's alright, not everyone has time for everything - I didn't have time for sound at all) but with the effects on them (and in conjunction with the music) they sorta work.
After reading the description I was a little intimidated but then I loaded it up and realised "oh hang on, this isn't complicated at all". Watching the village get destroyed is hilarious (does thinking that make me a terrible person?) and the graphics are pretty good (the sound is basic but it works, which puts you above the sound in my game, which is non-existent).
The main problem I had was those little idiots kept running around circles when their time came to go downstairs (I don't blame them for stalling for time) and so I couldn't sacrifice them fast enough.
I'll third what @marc-garcia-penche and @andrea said - I wish the explosions were a bit smaller, I kept getting caught in them. Other than that it was a great entry.
Definitely something you could build on if you wanted to. I think the enemies take a few too many shots to be killed though, once I had the gun I just stood still shooting at them (which also made it sort of easy - maybe when you shoot them once they should get aggro'd at come at you?).
One of the more fun games I've tested this compo. First time I played through I think I had the same problem as @bartosz - I heard a couple of enemies hit the lava without ever seeing them, then no more would spawn, but I played through again and it worked fine after that.
Pretty fun though, sort of easy in that the enemies don't push you nearly as much as you push them so you just have to avoid getting close enough to the edges (although it did take me a couple of tries to finish, so maybe not a bit easy).
Fun game. I liked the retro style graphics and the spacemen's cries were certainly right in the funny department (though I got a _little_ annoyed hearing them over and over again, but since I didn't find time for any sound in my game, I certainly don't think I get to complain about not enough different sounds in someone else's).
One thing I'd like to see is to be able to switch between abilities quicker - scroll wheel maybe?
Pretty good, but I found it pretty easy to cheese it:
- You can shoot enemies from offscreen (so even before I replayed a level, I could make sure the next area was relatively clear - The power downgrades are randomly selected each time you hit a gate, so if I hit a gate and didn't see something I wanted to lose (I'll get to that in a second) I could just cancel it, move back and then activate it again.
So basically I spent the whole game reducing my armour effectiveness and blind firing my way through levels to make sure nothing was actually going to hit me.
Don't take that to mean I didn't like it or it was a bad game - I did and it wasn't (and if the comments people have left on mine is anything to go by, I didn't close all the exploitable holes in my game either).
The graphics are a little bland but they're entirely functional (I do like the particles on enemy death), in the sound it would have been nice to hear a bit more variety in shooting/explosion effects but what's there was good. These aren't bad things, I'm just a major nitpicker (sorry).
One thing I would have liked was a minimap, but I'm not sure whether you were going for the maze feel. Maybe one that gets revealed as you explore the level? Even after worming my way around a level I was having trouble finding my way to the things I was trying to find. Also in a game that seems somewhat designed for speedrunning (that's why you're making such a big deal of the times, right?) it's a pain to have to constantly mash space/right mouse button to dash to get the best time - I'd remove that or make it a toggle if it was me (and I had lots of time to think about it, don't worry, I've already thought of plenty of things I could have done better for my game).
So although this might seem overly long and critical I hope you don't get the wrong idea - it was a good entry that I had fun playing (even as I was cheesing it).
@matthew-roelle Thanks! Instructions were one of the things I didn't really have time for, so I can understand the confusion (but these things just seem **so** obvious to you... when you've been working on it for two days straight).
To answer your question, no you can't restore them - letting some things go so you can keep the rest going is a sacrifice you have to make. I should probably have made them affect your mood a bit more because if you let the real time consumers (sleep and work) die, it's probably a lot easier to maintain the rest.
@anfaas1618 Well I try to make people laugh whenever I can but I'm not sure it's quite what I was trying here, always happy to have given people a laugh though.
@loligxp Thanks!
@BloodyOrchidDC I agree! It's so much easier to spend all your time there once you're a superhuman who doesn't need to sleep or eat, too.
@khaotom There's just that **_one spot_** you can't get out, isn't there?
@jeremy-ryan That's what more people need. A positive atitude!
@Pukami I'm surprised they didn't kick you out! Don't blame me though, I just created the bar, I don't run it.
@vilix64 Is it maybe disturbing because of the uncanny valley? You know it isn't real, but it's just *so close* to real life.
@tomdeal Good thing you kept a diary, I'm sure someone from your old family might want to know what happened. But as a gamer, I can't really think of a better way to go.
@chinmay-yagnik Thanks!
@blodyavenger Would that make you a vampire? I think it depends on whether your chores involve working at a blood bank. Although if you've lost your ability to work, I guess you don't, but... I suppose you could just vampire for the fun of it. (Is vampire a verb?)
@morriss As a glutton I can't really condone that approach, but if those are what you feel you can give up...
@isaque-picao-sanches Thanks!
@jhell Yeah there was a lot more I could have done but it nearly killed me doing what I did... my RL bars were pretty much empty, other than work and sleep maybe had a little bit left. I considered putting the bars next to the room they apply to but I was worried they'd get a bit lost visually with all the pretty colourful things around them and I wanted to make sure they were easy to stay on top of.
@mruniverse Good to hear you're in a groove that works for you. One of the things I've thought of since I finished is keeping track of money, after all how could you shop if you don't have a job any more?
@s4m4di Thanks for that! My ego (is that a bar I have to add in the post-compo version?) gets a nice boost from people who like my work.
@bingdom I didn't have time to run through (or even think of) all the different options for what you could have left. If you only have one left it forces it to go down faster than you can bring it back up, and with a low mood if you have either of the big tasks (sleep, work) left you shouldn't be able to manage those with how low your mood will be, but you can handle a couple of the little ones. With what I've seen people have left though if I were to update it I'd probably make it automatically adjust how much you need of each task depending on how many you have left (I mean if all you have left is shopping and chores, they must be _pretty_ important to you, right?).
@jamesdude At first I programmed it so that the bars would go down 24 hours worth every day, but then I found that was a little easy to maintain if you kept your mood up, so then I made them go down a bit faster, I wanted to tune them more but I ran out of time.
@itsjustjord Thank for that!
@danilo-freire I didn't want to leave out Mac users, it's just that I don't own a Mac and AFAIK there's no tool I can use to compile Python code into a Mac program from a Windows computer, likewise I don't know of anything that will convert it into HTML5 (especially with the libraries like pygame). If you download [a version of Python 3](https://www.python.org/downloads/mac-osx/) then install pygame by opening up a terminal and running `pip install pygame`, you can run the game by downloading the source code, extracting it into a folder and running **CorporateDrone.py**. If anyone knows a way I can create a native Mac or web version from a Windows computer, let me know and I'll be happy to do it.
@call-me-nutty Thanks for the feedback. TBH the bars dropping a bit quick... well I was testing it just before time was up and I was thinking "okay, this seems a bit easy" so I went back and increased the numbers but wasn't really able to test it.
I also didn't have time for a tutorial. I was hoping the bars going completely red was going to be obvious (since it covers up the meter at the bottom that shows you what zone it's in was supposed to indicate something different was happening) but *everything* is obvious to you when you've been working on something for two days straight and are sleep deprived because of it.
@fishbrain Thanks!
@stepan-shabalin Thanks for the suggestion - I looked at pipenv but unless I'm missing something it doesn't seem to be quite what I'm looking for (I'm looking for a tool that can create standalone executables for various platforms - preferably ones I'm not running myself, cause I don't have a Mac, and as far as I can tell that just packages up the Python packages you use to make it easy to run on another machine with Python already installed) - although if I'm wrong about that feel free to correct me.
@tanis Remind me next time to include instructions, even if it's just a screen you have to read before you start playing (obviously an interactive tutorial is better, but that takes longer). If you lose the really time consuming bars (work and sleep) it's really easy to juggle the rest so if I make an updated version I'd want to make it automatically rebalance what you have left so that it does fill up your time.
@benburgh Thanks for the suggestion. I'd already thought of having money (gotta work for money, gotta have money to shop, go to the arcade, etc., although to make it not impossible if you lost your job I'd have to make it so you could get poor quality food which doesn't fill you up as much for free). As for the not sleeping, that already sort of exists, if any of the bars are still active but in their lowest zone that makes your mood lower, which makes bars go up slower, but I understand how having a bit more of an effect for things like sleeping would make sense.
@shiqichuan Thanks!
@nekonyo The -2 days in the results is a bug from how the in game time is handled, it starts at day 1, hour 9 but that's when no time has passed in game so I had to subtract 1 day, 9 hours from all the times at the results screen, but sometimes it bugs out and says -2 days (in my case it was usually -2 days, 15 hours) - I noticed it but didn't have time to fix it, the problem is probably that I made my own class and functions to handle that time (always a good idea, just search [The Daily WTF](https://thedailywtf.com/) for date functions). I did hope to add an "in memoriam" screen at the end that went through things one by one saying when you lost them but I just ran out of time.
@vasco-freitas Yeah, those are great ideas, and I probably would have thought of them if I hadn't been too busy thinking of all the other ideas I didn't have time to do :smile:
@smilewood Thanks! The bars rising and falling at different rates was one of the things I made sure I implemented first - we might like to have to game as much as we have to work and sleep but I don't think that would be making much of a sacrifice :wink:
@linky439 Thanks! A few other people have reported that bug, I don't think I ever experienced it myself but testing time was sort of limited due to having too much "brute force coding till it works" time. I did get around to forcing it so that if you have one bar left it'll always go down faster than it goes up but I didn't have time for extending that to two or more (which is a little more complicated than just setting the bar increasing rate to like 90 percent of the bar decreasing rate for one bar).
@rjhelms Thanks! Yep, as I've said in most of my comment replies here, balance was something I didn't have time for... plus when you're that sleep deprived and hungry (look after yourself folks, I didn't, as much as I should anyway) your silly brain keeps telling you "I came up with these numbers, *how could they be wrong?*"
@justcamh The problem with giving up sleeping, eating and doing chores is that playing games is a lot less fun when you're tired, hungry, and... nope, can't think of a downside for that third one.
I understand the spirits are supposed to be your friends, but sacrificing them seemed like the only viable option, it seems impossible to melee the enemies without the immediately turning and hitting you (and with the spirit loss from ranged attacks, you can't just do that constantly).
Still a pretty good idea, probably the most polished one I've seen so far. Great graphics and sound.
It's cthulhu-tastic! I'm a sucker for good retro-style graphics and sound, and that delivered in spades. The gameplay is a little simple but still ends up having a bit of difficulty (I hate to admit it, but I did have to try more than once) and it's fun, which is the important part. I'd love to see what you could have done with more time.
I wasn't able to complete level 5 - whenever I got past the first blue slime (not easy to begin with) when I hit the first green one my slime just disappeared and I couldn't go any further (like @sodaro said, a restart button would be nice but at least you added a level select so I didn't have to go through the thing again).
Thanks for including the FPS counter though, now I know I was justified spending what I did on my computer to get over 6000 FPS.
It's an interesting idea, but as implemented I don't think it works that well. I started by just randomly shooting (and killing civilians) until I realised that the inspection tool was there, then it become a slow game of click on person, wait for inspection (some audio feedback on the inspect would be nice - even if you don't want to do a different sound for positive/negative you could at least have a sound for when it's running or when it's finished, so you know to look over there, although reading the comments the attention split may have been what you had intended, but I found it more annoying than difficult).
It also may have been your idea to make you try and keep track of people yourself after you've inspected them, but even if they weren't clones that would be basically impossible - so some indicator that they're a civilian would be nice.
Errr but anyway yeah the couple of times I played it, it was basically four minutes of inspecting followed by thirty seconds of shooting civilians (bombs are a bit hard to use with how people walk around randomly), and I didn't manage to beat it. I think you've got a pretty good concept to start with, just needs to be made a bit more user friendly.
Definitely an interesting theme. I loved the music (what did you use to make it?) and the graphics were pretty good, even if there wasn't a huge variety of them (but I like what you did with the character development). Like @benburgh I got stuck on the alternate path level, I couldn't seem to find a way out of it. I also found some of the way the meats just appeared out of nowhere was frustrating more than it was sending a message (I mean, I get the message, but I was too busy being frustrated to appreciate it).
I don't know if I was doing something wrong but I couldn't get past the second room - you move left from the start, the room where the door closes with a speech bubble and there's two enemies in that room. I killed the enemies but nothing opened up, I tried moving through all the doors but I couldn't get through any of them.
A couple of things I think could be improved a bit (that I could get to at least) - I think the jump is **waaaaaaaaaay** too floaty, I spent so much time just waiting to get back down to the ground. Also I thought the platforms should have a bit more contrast from the background - I found them a bit hard to see.
I managed to save 15 teddies. I found I didn't have to sacrifice any though, they'd just expire without me doing anything (while I was attending to other bears, because I'm not a *monster*), I think it would definitely help fit the theme if you had to manually trash the ones you didn't save.
Some more tools would have nice too, but I get the feeling you ran out of time (I sure did on my game). Likewise, a bit more graphics (like a background of a teddy hospital ward) and sound (maybe some background music) but I also can't hold those against you since I didn't have time for any sound on mine.
As @mahalis said, I love how morbid and adorable (and morbidly adorable, if that's a thing) it is though, so great work and I think it'd be interesting to see how you could expand this in the future if you wanted to.
I'm going to second @theyellowgreninja and say that the music looping after you die can be a bit cacophonous. The only other little problem I had was that after you press down to split your soul you keep controlling the white one, I just kept having trouble with the fact you don't switch to the black one when it's created (that could just be my lousy brain though).
Other than those it's definitely an interesting idea and it was fun to play through the few levels that were there.
I found this one almost impossible to play - as soon as I started the ball just flew left at high speed, none of my inputs seemed to greatly affect what was happening. I restarted a few times and a couple of times it seemed like I was having an effect but my inputs were having the opposite effect to what I'd expect. I tried a few times but could never get very far.
I think I get what you were going for though and it's a great way to do the theme, and the graphics are quite pretty, I wanted to play it more but it almost seemed to go better if I just took my hands off the keyboard and let it all happen.
I agree with what @tomdeal said and I'd do it in the most uneconomical way possible: by largely repeating it in my own words.
It's a great concept that fits well with theme (it more than passes the test of **"WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT ARGHGHGHGHGH!!!!!!!"** and you should probably allow some of the other categories to be voted on (I didn't get to sound at all for example, so yours is infinitely better than that, and while I did objectively more graphics than yours I think I like yours better; they're very minimal but they completely work).
And yeah, I had problems jumping. My guess (other than ground detection) would be that I couldn't jump if the key velocity on any of the movement keys was more than 0? It's not that I had to not be pressing them to be able to jump, I had to have not pressed them for a little bit. But I mostly got around that by building bridges of volunteers.
I won on my first try with a score of 430 and 2 health left - it would have been nice if one of the sacrifice options between levels was to get some health back (at the expense of something else obviously). By the end I was just dashing round the edge of the level firing big bursts of bullets that went everywhere - it was fun!
I don't know if this is true, but it seemed like the faces that appear have more to do with my success than my ability to pick them. First I got 4 generations. Then 2. Then 112. Shame you didn't get around to sound effects (it's alright, neither did I) but it's a great concept and a good job if this is only your second game jam.
Main problem I had was that I thought the game had hung at the title screen until I came back here and read down to @vasco-freitas' comment and thought "crap, that's a play button?"; I'd been trying pressing different keys (since nothing by that point tells you it's mouse only) and tried clicking on the blob thing and nothing happened.
I know nobody ever has time to do a tutorial in a compo game, but I feel one could have been really useful here - I felt really like I was just dropped in at the deep end and I died quickly a few times before I figured out what was going on.
Gameplay gets a little boring, once it gets fast enough I'm just mashing one key trying to keep it in the middle, but the graphics and sound are pretty good for making it in two days and you could add things later to fill it out a bit (I was actually going to suggest a couple but looking at the last comment you wrote it looks like you already have those things in mind).
My high score was 16396. I think the jumping is a bit too precise, even at the start, you have to be *very* exact with your timing or else you'll miss it (either hit the front of a pink block or any part of a red one). And I realise it's procedural but more than once I came across jumps I'm pretty sure were impossible (jumping off a pink block in a gap then running into the front of a pink block on a platform before I could jump again).
But I'm not sure I can hold those against you, since it's like a great many of the games I've come across (and almost certainly mine): a good beginning, which could be great with a bit more tweaking, and could be excellent if you wanted to develop it further (maybe make a faster twitchier version for controllers since they don't have so many buttons and your hands should always be in the right place).
P.S. Yes I found it very magenta, but it didn't bother me too much because I try to live my life highly saturated anyway.
Great effort, especially if you did it in a day (makes me sort of ashamed of what I did in two). I'd love to spend more time figuring out the best way to run my farm but I've got other games to rate.
Seems like a most excellent badass action movie simulator! Not sure it's the best fit for the theme but it's the most fun I've had of the games I've played so far.
I couldn't get past the second level :frowning2: - I realise I have to jump onto the bottom mine on the right to make it send me high enough to hit the top one, but either I couldn't get it to send me high enough to hit the other one or when I could, I couldn't line it up right to get the top one to send me onto the altar.
You might also want to include a brief description in game of the goal - we don't all read the description first (I mean, we _should_, but we don't). I died a few times on the first level before I came back here, read it and realised "hang on...".
The sound effects were nice but a bit more variety would have been nice (usually when I do sound effects I make a few slightly different noises for each effect and play one at random) and some background music would have helped set the scene, but I didn't have time for any sound so I won't hold that against you.
One thing about the graphics is that it didn't seem to me like the player fit in to the world because he was the only thing with an outline.
Not the most complex game I've tested thus far, but also one of the more fun. I like having to choose at the end of each round (I'll be honest, I usually went for pride) and the graphics were pretty effective at setting the mood (although it was a bit hard to read the font you used, on the title screen I first clicked "thy eternal burden" and my eyes just sort of glazed over).
I lasted 33 days (I'll admit that was my bad, I killed a telepsychopath without thinking about it... I was right that he was skimming off the top, but the thief trait was a dead giveaway). A great choose your own adventure sort of thing.
I'm just wondering: I seemed to attract a lot of racist narcissists. Are you trying to tell me something?
Pretty good overall. Takes a little bit of play to figure out what's going on but after that it's fairly smooth to move around the arena and start new waves. The graphics and sound were pretty fitting and about the only bug I noticed was that sometimes enemies got themselves stuck in corners.
P.S. I can't speak for everyone else but I'd prefer a zip file I can just unzip (that way I can keep the files for all the games I've played together) rather than an installer (which I then have to go around and hunt down the uninstaller for). Not that that will affect my score obviously.
I found it **so. much. easier.** after I reread the description and saw you could use the middle mouse button to control the camera (although at least with the mouse, you have the y axis inverted from what is *objectively* the right way) in that I literally tried for a few minutes to complete the left room and failed before I quit and saw that in the description.
One thing regardless of camera angle is that with the exact same texture everywhere it can still be difficult to see platforms and such against the walls (and other platforms, etc.). Other than that I was a fan of the retro-style graphics (although I'd probably make the player part of the world, not an overlay on the camera, tilt it high enough and you lose your head in the wall, and it'd be like the other character on the shrine).
Like so many others I liked the funky music (making decent music is something which is still beyond me - if anyone can point me in the direction of something that might teach me how, I'd appreciate it) and the sound effects fit in with the mood you're going for.
Pretty solid effort overall though.
I love the graphics/sound, certainly hit the feeling you were going for (unless you were trying to make a modern AAA shooter). I found the gameplay a bit... fiddly for lack of a better term. It was a bit annoying that I could push the cats off and a lot of the time I was trying to collect them before they were even over the platform (cause, you know, gotta catch em all). But those are just things I would have done differently, you did great!
It's a nice idea but it could use some more content (which I think end up being the theme of every LD Compo). Is it possible to defeat the bard level? I can't kill the second enemy without my whole party dying).
But yeah, it's a great concept and I think you could do a lot with it if you had more time, obviously adding some graphics/sound but just experimenting with different level layouts, parties and enemy layouts.
What's there is pretty good, I just think minigame compilations are a bit too much work for LD. I just had a couple of minor problems with the platforming stage 1. Is it even possible to jump on the bad guys or do you just have to avoid them? The Mario style to the platforming made me want to jump on them, but no matter how much I tried, I just died every time 2. One time when I went back to the platformer after a space battle I spawned in a bad guy and died immediately 3. The way the camera moves when I turn around is **really** disorienting - whenever I had to move left to try and not fall down a gap or avoid an enemy I almost always fell down or hit the enemy due to how the camera moved.
All that being said, I think it's a great start and I wish you'd had more time to work on your game (just like I wish I'd had more time to work on mine :smile:)
If I need to buy a new mouse soon, I'm sending you the bill! (Because I played it so much just to see all the zombies stumble around, that is)
Now that's my kind of crazy :grin: - the road can get pretty much covered in oil slicks when you get near the end, but like @Budaniel and @Pete said, drive backwards :smiley: - about the only improvement I can think of is an audio indicator for when my oil bomb is recharged so I don't have to take my attention away from my car to know when I can fire it again
Love the graphics. Wish I could do pixel art that well. The sound when you pick a card is **_harsh_** and I had to turn off my speakers. Also, it wasn't really clear what the discard card's icon meant (until I'd used it a few times).
Finally, I don't know whether I just suck at forethought or whether the game's randomness (is it random? I could never really tell) put me in a no-win situation, but I could never get that far.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who combined typing with another genre (and we used the same font!). I think the graphics and sound were great (and very appropriate for the mood you were going for), the only problem I had was the text telling me to press R to retry the level was in an aqua sort of colour that I could barely read against the background (pretty minor problem though).
Maybe I'm too good a typist, but once I figured out what I was doing I found it pretty easy - maybe a difficulty select would have been good if you'd had more time. On the last level, I didn't even need to bother with the invaders because the blue guy was KO'd long before they reached me.
I wish you hadn't required the click to convert resources - that just seems like pointless busy work (and I got tired of it - and my finger got sore - _real_ quick) - I'd have just set it so that while you're landed orange is converted slowly into yellow, that way you'd still have the genre combination of shooter/TD, and you'd be forcing people to make the tactical decision of how long to wait for resources vs. needing to be in the air to shoot stuff and place towers (which I think would be great if towers were built under your ship instead of where you click, it's sort of hard to keep track of the ship and the mouse cursor, plus I think it would force the TD into the shooter part more).
Also, is it that you can't land if you're not carrying a crate, or is it just really easy to take off in the same button press for when you land? Cause I was having a lot of trouble landing when I wasn't carrying a crate, and I needed to land to convert orange into yellow (because there only so much I could do at a time before thinking to myself "I'm sick of this").
Also, I think it would be better if you split up the instruction screen into more than one screen so it's not just a wall of text (my eyes just didn't know where to look and it was pretty hard to read).
All that being said - once I got the hang of it I did have a bit of fun, and it's certainly an interesting combination of genres, so excluding my complaints (which are mostly fairly minor, I'm just cursed with the innate ability to spend far more words on what I don't like about something than what I do, even when I generally like it overall, like in this case) it's a good entry.
I'm not sure if I'm crazy or what, but sometimes it seemed like my fuel was going down very slowly when I was doing stuff, and sometimes it seemed to be going down very quickly when I was barely doing anything (and not getting attacked). It's a fun little idea though, nice job.
I can't do slide puzzles at the best of times but the shump part was certainly solid, graphics and sound go together great for an awesome feel, and don't worry, I'm not letting my failings as a puzzle solver affect your score :wink:
I don't really see how it fits the theme myself, but it is a very nice short story.
Good thing I caught you after you fixed the bug with 120hz monitors :) It's pretty fun, I also think the difficulty ramps up a bit too quickly (44 is my high score) but other than that I think it's great! (And I'm sure with enough time to memorise each of the possible equations, I could probably beat you, but I have other games to rate, sorry)
I mean, I already *knew* I hated assignments, but I never knew I hated assignments __*this much*__ until now. Thanks for opening my eyes!
I personally don't think it fits in to the theme that well (I'd just call it a "dodge the forks" game), but holy hell those are the nicest graphics I've seen in a LD game for a while, and I did get a nice sense of self-satisfaction from being the last meatball left.
Couple of minor problems: like @Ajayajayaj said, the forks merged into one megafork at the end (but I actually found that made things a little easier on me since there was essentially only one I had to dodge), and for whatever reason (I wouldn't know, haven't tried any UE dev work in ages) it triggers SteamVR to open when I open the game (I don't even know what it would have rendered on the headset, I don't have it plugged in most of the time), but I could just close SteamVR and play as normal.
This didn't really fit in with the theme for me - seemed like a minigame compilation where you get to choose the minigames, the cards didn't really seem to have that much to do with it. Also, as @justinooncx noted, the physics can get a bit wonky at times.
The graphics fit with the retro theme you were going for - I understand you might not have had time, but some sounds (even just a few quick ones in sfxr) would have really helped that.
It might sound like I'm just complaining, but other than the things I've noted, it was actually pretty fun. Definitely something you could add to later if you wanted to.
I don't know if this says more about me or the game, but it actually took me a little while to realise you needed to shoot the gates multiple times to score them :confused:. I'd also like it if the numbers were a bit bigger, they can get hard to read when you're going fast (and eventually it seems like the game is going so fast it's impossible to shoot gates enough times in time. The sounds were good, the music was nice but I'm not sure how well it fit your theme.
A nice platformer, the sound effects are nice, just a few notes:
- On the third level (Natalie) it took me a few tries to get the second jump (from the platform above right of the spawn to hanging onto the ceiling above right of that), one time I seemed to grab on to an invisible wall jutting out from the corner, and another time I made it to the ceiling and heard the noise but it didn't grab on. Also once I got up to the top in my excitement I jumped along and suddenly I respawned back at the start... I think I might have gone off the top of the screen and died? - After you've completed a level, it would be nice to be able to just go back to the level select screen instead of having to mash space to get to it. - Speaking of the level select screen, I think it would help if there were pictures of the girls next to their buttons to help you remember which one's which, and give the screen a bit more personality. - Like @lameosine said, music would help with the mood. - I didn't like using up for jump, often it's space, and I think it would be great if there were separate buttons for holding on to a ceiling (I didn't mind that for up) and jumping (so I can jump exactly when I want to when I'm holding onto something)
I end a lot of my comments this way but I'd just like to repeat: I liked the game, I'm just really good at using a lot of words to express what I think are a few things that could be improved
I agree with @RaccoonLudos, definitely reminds me of SuperHot, and while this certainly isn't the first real-time turn based game I've rated in LD41, it's the best I've seen so far. Just two little things: I'm not 100% certain on this (I don't do much UE dev) but when I run your game, it triggers SteamVR to open on my computer - it looks like you've packaged the OpenVR DLL, and are probably calling something from it (when I tried deleting it or replacing it with an inert file, the game crashed on open, but I can close SteamVR and it doesn't seem to affect the game at all). And second - it'd be great if my bullets were a different colour to the enemies' so I could see which ones I'm trying to avoid when I'm planning a move. But other than those (neither of which is particularly important in the long run), great work!
I a bit confused at the start, but once I figured out how things were going I was... slightly less confused. I did eventually get a grasp on it though (though some extra instructions somewhere would *really* help, and it's definitely an interesting genre mashup. I (think) I found a bug where when I created a bunch of walls (which you can do in seemingly the same spot), that slowed it down (to the point where I had tor refresh the page to start again.
Definitely one of the more unique combinations I've seen so far, fortunately it's also one of the more fun! And an interactive tutorial is also really nice to see (even I only had time for a couple of screenshots with text on them you need to skip past to play :slight_frown:)
Like I do for most games, I'm just going to have a few comments for little bugs/ideas I think would make it better, please don't take this to think I didn't like your game (I did! It was great! I pinky swears!) but I'm just excellent at nitpicking: - This is the graphic designer in me talking (there's a lot of different things in me, but I don't always let them out), but the font you use for tutorial text is great for titles and such, but for larger amounts of text it's not the most readable - There were a few times I tried to build a tower but it said I was too close to an enemy pathing node - maybe you could show those visually as sandtraps or something so I know where I can't build just by looking - The music - maybe you shouldn't listen to me because plenty of people say they like it, but I actually found it so grating I had to turn off my speakers - seems to me like the sort of thing that would work great for an action stage in an 8-bit platformer, but doesn't really sound golf-y or medieval-y to me. (But as I said - other people liked it. So you should probably just ignore me.) - I was playing extra at the end, and either the gold display was wrong or I was getting a severe discount on my towers, because the number on the gold display only went down by 4 when I built the big ones - Just a thought, but maybe you could make it so if you hit a goblin with the golf ball, it hurts them? Could come in handy if your towers are getting a bit overwhelmed and you're just waiting for enough gold to build more
But like I said - those are just minor things, and I'm a major nitpicker. Overall, it was great!
Pretty impressive that you made a full tower defence game in two days, and it's mostly fun to play, just that some of the aliens (the ones that look like people walking) can be a bit hard to see on the background, and I'm not really sure what the earthquakes are there for, other than to piss me off, but aside from those it was great.
Nice idea - I'd find it easier to remember the number for each ability if they were presented in a row/column instead of in a grid, and then maybe if each car had a number, so I could press [ability number], [car number] instead of having to make sure I click the car (and don't miss it if it makes a sudden move or something).
But other than that, it was definitely a unique take on the genres, I just wish there was more of it (like I do of most good Ludum Dare games - nobody ever has the time to do all they'd want).
I probably would have started better if I knew the first thing about baseball (okay, the third thing, I know the first two things are that it involves bases and balls, I guess that's what I get for being Australian), but after a couple of games I got a pretty good grasp of what I was doing. There's just a couple of minor things I'd change - I'd make it so there's a way to advance turns using the mouse, so I don't have to keep switching between the mouse and keyboard, and I found the timing bar for the swing seemed a bit sensitive, and also seemed to be a bit out of place in a turned based game to rely on exact timing - one idea I thought of is maybe have buttons for a few different swing types with % chance of success (so a better hit is harder to do, depending on how well the pitcher throws it?).
But other than those I had a lot of fun playing a few games once I figured out what I was doing.
I agree with everyone else, the graphics are _soooooo_ pretty, my puny low res pixel graphics are exceedingly jealous, but I had the same problem of getting far too many bombs on the slots and no way I could find (at least not in the small part I could get up to before bombing myself to death) to recover health.
I can see from reading your comments that you're already aware of all of those things though, so I'll just add to the chorus saying it's a great idea with great graphics, just needs a little more time (like basically all of our games)
@colin-misbach - If you only got second and think you can do better, play again - the CPU cars pick a random speed each time so you might get a slow pack :wink:
@conrad-etherton - Glad somebody noticed. It is intentional, when I was testing I found there was nothing more annoying than missing a letter by *that* much, so now that each letter lasts *that* much longer, it's harder (I hope) to blame the game
@mrspeaker - Thanks for those instructions - I haven't really used Linux in a while (want to, never quite get around to it) so I didn't want to post any instructions (which I thought would be something like what you suggested, but not sure exactly) in case I was wrong. I think an indicator for how close you are to a cooldown would be a good idea (honestly didn't think of it, but since the cooldown was one of the last things to go in I'm not sure I would have had time anyway). If it helps, you need to hit 5 in a row without missing any to get a cooldown.
@conrad-etherton & @mrspeaker - Nice times! I don't think I could crack the 52 second barrier in my testing (and who likes to get beaten at their own game?)
Everyone: Thanks for the kind words! I haven't had a chance to try all your games yet but the ones I have have been pretty good.
For the people who think it's a bit too hard - I made an easier version.
**Please note that this is _not the compo version._** Rate me on that, then play this if you'd like to try it a bit easier.
- Windows: http://www.slasheethecow.com/ld/drag/DragTypistEasy.zip - Linux/Other: Download the source zip above and http://www.slasheethecow.com/ld/drag/dragtypisteasy.py and run that instead of the dragtypist.py included with the source.
@zinkler @hexagore @themoonrise
@hexagore Oh, sorry - I can certainly make a harder version if you'd like :wink:
@linus Where it feels like the letters changed two times instead of one - could be if you got a letter a little late, that would go something like this: 1. First letter times out 1. New letter is picked (second letter) 1. Hit first letter during the short time after it times out where it's still valid, new letter is picked (third letter) which instantly replaces the one (second letter) that was there
Hmm... when I put it that way, probably shouldn't have made hitting a letter a little late draw a new letter, should have just had it continue the previous letter it picked.
Hope that helps, and thanks for the feedback!
I'm not sure if anybody asked for this but I felt like it, so I made a harder version. The changes aren't too many, but hopefully should make it suitably impossible: - The grace period you have to press a letter after it times out has been shortened significantly - The AI cars now go from "fast" to "really fast" instead of "that slow guy who always seems to be in front of you" to "sorta fast, on a slow day" - The heat bar display hasn't changed, but the warning now doesn't show up until you're closer to overheating - You no longer cool down completely when you overheat (but you'll still lose a fair amount of heat from losing all your speed) - __Probably most importantly, the key sets have changed - instead of starting with some letters, adding some more as you go faster and use all of them at top speed, you start with all the letters, then it adds numbers (number row only, not numpad), then adds punctuation.__ - A few fairly minor changes to the source code to support all that - Fixed a minor crash bug (minor as in if you quit the game by closing the window before the race, it crashed quit instead of smoothly, calmly quitting) - Oh, and I changed the title screen to show how hardcore you are. But if you want to mess with your friends, just replace it with the regular version, they're just PNGs in the game's folder
I will however repeat this just so nobody misses it: __*this is definitely not the compo version,*__ play that one first (the download links are at the end of the game's listing before the comments), rate my game, share your time, then download this one *only if you want to see how much of a cruel, vindictive person I can be*. There's an easier version a few comments before this if you'd rather go that way.
- Windows: http://www.slasheethecow.com/ld/drag/DragTypistHardcore.zip - Source/for other platforms: http://www.slasheethecow.com/ld/drag/DragTypistHardcoreSource.zip
**@vasco-freitas** Being able to hit the keys after they disappear isn't really something I wanted people to take into account as part of the valid time to hit the letter, I could just tell from my own testing that it's _really_ frustrating when it's a case of "I'm **sure** I hit that letter in time!" (which I did feel sometimes, even though if the timing system in the game lies, it's news to me).
**@ciaranw** While I agree the UI could use a little more work (not quite accurate to describe everything in an LD compo game as "last minute", but for me at least, everything is usually "how I'd do it if it really was the last minute, because if I take too long on any one thing, it will be"), having the UI (specifically the heat bar and the current letter) in different parts of the screen was a deliberate decision to try to force you to look away from the current letter. The overheat warning being more visible is a good idea though (I could make the background of the UI at the top flash or something) and doesn't really go against that principle because it has an audio warning too, so it's supposed to be something you notice whether or not you're looking at it... but I guess not everybody plays with sound (one of those "wait, people aren't testing it the same way I've been testing it for two days?" realisations).
**@shimapleleaf** Wow, that's a great time, especially for a first try (the best I could manage in testing before I uploaded it was about 52, I've since managed to crack the 50 second barrier, but not by much). The menu music and tutorial screens really were last minute things - the sounds were about the last thing to go in overall, so for the music I just did what I could that covered the criteria of: - "doesn't take too long" - "sounds retro enough" - "doesn't make my ears bleed", sorry if it didn't live up to that one
The tutorial screens were something I realised I'd need fairly early on (after I decided to implement the heat mechanic), but not something I could work on until near the end (the UI, other than the current letter, went in not long before the sound, and I needed that done to take the screenshots), so I didn't really have time to get my graphic design on. I wouldn't want to split it up into more screens (nobody wants to have to press enter five or six times just to get to the game) but I can definitely see how they're a wall of text with no indication of where to start (or continue), so I'll definitely try to see how I could do better next time.
**Finally, to mostly everyone:** something I probably should have made clear in the description (or possibly thought to mention in a comment before now) is that I tuned it so that going at maximum speed, other than overheating, is designed to be really really hard (basically hard enough as to be almost impossible), that's why the AI cars won't go faster than 8/10, so you can still beat them even if you can't go max speed - I made the game and even I can't keep up max speed for more than a single cooldown streak, two if I'm lucky.
** @bloodyaugust **Sorry, was so busy rating other games I forgot to check out your video, but I just did - I'm happy I could give you guys a laugh or two, next time I'll try and remember to make the AI hate everyone equally. And maybe put all the assets in a subfolder so you don't have to hunt for exe :smiley:
I think the upgrade screen really needs some labels - I still have no idea what some of them did. And like @TimBeaudet it took me a little bit to figure out the controls (but once I did they were good, just not what I'd expect from a racer). And one minor bug is that if I was stopped (or going really slow) other cars could pass through me.
But other than that it's definitely a good start and I had a couple of fun races, especially once I had a few upgrades, it'd be interesting to see what you'd have been able to do if you had more time.
I liked the graphics and the sound, and the basic idea of the gameplay, but I found it to be a bit hard - I could never get all of the towers going at once, and I couldn't seem to get enough turrets up while I went around to the other towers (do the turrets disappear over time, or just when there's too many of them?), not to mention I could only find tower 4 once or twice and never seemed to spot it again, so a minimap (or in my case, having a sense of direction) might help.
So I guess it's like a lot of the games I've played for LD: great work, just needs a bit of polishing (which always take about ten times as long as you expect it will).
It's definitely a good concept, but there were a few things I found confusing at first that next time you might want to explain better: - It actually took me a little while to figure out I needed 5 resources to upgrade the towers - I thought the # / 5 in the top left meant I could only hold 5, not that was how many I needed - The square towers that didn't seem to do anything until I upgraded them? Wasn't clear that they were towers which could be started by upgrading them - There are invisible walls on the side of the racing track (where the coins appear), but they look like grass like the bit you can drive over to get to the tower defence lanes, for a little while I wondered how I was supposed to get to the towers until I accidentally drove off the end of the track and realised you could do that - It seems like even if I'm at the start of the track when the resources appear, it's impossible to get them all before the time runs out, which makes it seem like the enemies are unfairly getting bonuses (since I don't seem to be able to stop them)
That might sound like a long list of complaints (which they aren't just things I think could be explained a bit better), but I actually liked the game, and we all run out of time to add all the explanation we'd want to to our games (plus after we've playtested them a million times over two days, we don't realise things that are blatantly obvious to us, other people don't get).
Can I suggest one thing I think might make it a bit more fun (albeit a little harder) though? I think it would be awesome if the car had momentum, instead of driving like a tank.
I'll be honest: when I first saw your game my thought was "how the **bleeeep** did they make this in two days?"
Said thought was borne out by playing it. It's a great concept, the graphics are gorgeous, the background music is whimsical and the sound effects fit perfectly.
I just have a few minor niggles (but *please* don't take these to think I don't like your game, it's quite possibly the best one I've rated so far, I'm just a world class nitpicker) - The controls: they seem to be a bit stiff when you're on the ground, but a bit floaty while you're in the air - The physics (I know physics are hard, so this is less "you did bad", more "you probably didn't have time to fix this one): a couple of times I got stuck on the edge of a bridge (both times it was the bottom (side closest to the camera) edge of the bridge between the bottom islands) - Instructions: I got that I was supposed to build a block that fit the hole, but I didn't get that after that I had to jump down (until I came back to this page to look at the video), since everywhere else in the game, jumping off the ledge is a :japanese_ogre: bad idea - Colours: it just seemed arbitrary that I had to activate the block spawners until my colour came up. Why not just let me build a block made out of multiple colours?
But as I said, please please *please* don't take those to think I didn't like it. I didn't like it - I :two_hearts: loved it.
Nice work. I found it a little hard having to split my attention - but I guess that's the idea. The graphics are good (animations is something I very rarely have time to do in my LD games).
The main problem I had was accuracy - on the right side it seemed like it was only checking the exact pixel the mouse was on for shooting the guys? There were a few times I was sure the middle part of the crosshair was over one of them and I shot but they didn't die. Also on the left side - though this seemed to my advantage - is I'm sure there were a few times that I was in the shadow of the bomb but it didn't hurt me. Other than that (and in the grand scheme of things, those are pretty minor complaints, I just like to suggest improvements where I can) it was good.
Definitely an interesting game, I certainly had fun figuring out the most efficient way to mow the field and plant/harvest stuff. Like @incobalt, I found I could just ignore the race and not use any fuel that way (maybe make it automatically race so you use fuel whether you want to or not - it's not like the race involves any skill from the player). Other than that, about the only thing I would have done is buttons to buy/sell/fuel like 10 of something at once so I don't have to click nearly so many times). But other than those fairly minor things, I had fun!
As others have said, pretty impressive that you managed to make a strategy game in 48 hours. I liked the music, too. The graphics were alright, I think it really would have helped if the ground (not just the path) had a bit of texture to it.
Like others, I was confused at first - I would show the help screen that's available from the pause menu before you start playing (I was wondering why the AI was getting crystals at a seemingly constant rate and I wasn't getting any).
Definitely a great interpretation of the theme (translation: I wish I'd thought of something this cool). I just wish it was maybe a *teensy* bit more forgiving - have the music's sound level bar decay a little slower maybe? The graphics, while certainly not complex, do their job well (translation: I used even lower res pixel art so I certainly couldn't object to yours, even if I wanted) and the music goes together great (translation: I wish I could do audio this cool). If it looks like I'm not speaking English, I'll summarise: great job! (just maybe make it a little easier)
Never encountered a HTML5 game I can't play in Firefox before. Turns out the latest ESR (52, there's some XUL extensions I haven't figured out how to live without yet) doesn't support WebAssembly. Worked fine in Chrome though, fun game, well designed levels, I just wish the player was a bit more... square, so it'd be easier to figure out exactly where you'll go off an edge, since I find some of the bits required to move every pixel I could manage to set me up for the next turn.
It sounds like a good idea (although I'm not really sure grabbing the enemies and throwing them in the pot really counts as a cooking game, it just seems like grabbing an objective item and taking it somewhere is something I've done in plenty of FPS's.
That I didn't mind so much, my main problem was the enemy spawns, yes, the game says they're random, but I played for about five minutes and only saw Dog-Os and whatever the green W things are (at first I thought they might be shooty-shoots, cause they shoot at me, but one of them was called for in the recipe and it wasn't that), so after that long without seeing anything else, I gave up (sorry!).
A couple of other minor problems: I managed to pick up a corpse in such way that I couldn't see it in front of me, and it seemed to be constantly pushing me backwards (I turned my view and I kept going backwards relative to my view), I didn't even think I was holding anything because I couldn't see it but I pressed F (at the "try everything" stage of problem solving) and I dropped it. Also, I pressed escape (assuming it was pause) and while it seemed to lock me in position and rotate my view slowly, the enemies still came at me.
But it's still a good start of a game (last time I tried to make an FPS for Ludum Dare I didn't make anywhere near as far as you did and ended up not submitting) and I think it could be great if you had a bit more time to work on it... which is what I say about a lot of the games I see because it's so often true!
Was a nice idea but seemed a little hard to play - I kept getting hurt and I had no idea why (are those little ball things in your screenshot the bullets? I never saw any of those). As others have said, the controls are a little clunky - I would do it so for each turn, you just click where you want to move to (or on the player if you don't want to move) then click where you want to attack (again, on the player if you don't want to attack - but why wouldn't you?), skip those buttons entirely (but maybe have the undo button for if you click in the wrong spot). The sound effects were good but some music would really help.