Small Tale by hitchh1k3r 2013-04-30T10:08:00
The stand-alone version works, hitch! Also, I'm interested to hear how people interpreting the story.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Solifuge
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | O-Inari Origami | jam | 4.36 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Nomads | compo | Mood | 4.55 | |
| 🥇 | 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | O-Inari Origami | jam | Innovation | 4.77 | |
| 🥉 | 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | O-Inari Origami | jam | Graphics | 4.73 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | Seven Seconds to Midnight | extra | ||||||||||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Ages of New Earth | jam | 614 | 3.75 | 3.25 | 3.68 | 3.68 | 4.14 | 3.14 | 2.08 | 3.41 | |
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | Unwritten | jam | 68 | 4.11 | 3.83 | 4.42 | 3.90 | 4.18 | 3.60 | 3.76 | ||
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Signal | jam | 94 | 3.96 | 3.93 | 3.21 | 3.66 | 4.08 | 3.87 | 3.24 | 3.65 | |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | 👥 | Sacrificial Sam | jam | 125 | 3.93 | 4.00 | 3.56 | 3.20 | 3.45 | 3.83 | 3.19 | 3.62 | |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Gel Break | jam | 8 | 4.35 | 4.11 | 4.20 | 4.48 | 4.34 | 4.02 | 3.20 | 3.86 | |
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Nomads | compo | 35 | 4.07 | 3.56 | 4.23 | 4.19 | 4.36 | 3.76 | 4.55 | 71 | ||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | There are Tourists in my Castle | jam | 43 | 4.05 | 3.98 | 3.63 | 4.17 | 4.39 | 4.08 | 3.92 | 3.89 | 58 | |
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | O-Inari Origami | jam | 3 | 4.36 | 4.07 | 4.77 | 3.97 | 4.73 | 3.28 | 4.16 | 100 | ||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Crece-above-Clouds | jam | 104 | 3.68 | 3.39 | 3.46 | 3.36 | 4.29 | 3.74 | 3.00 | 3.49 | 100 | |
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Wireside | jam | 92 | 3.70 | 3.31 | 3.58 | 3.66 | 3.93 | 3.65 | 2.89 | 3.45 | 100 | |
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Time Surge | jam | 17 | 3.96 | 3.62 | 3.75 | 4.12 | 4.23 | 3.92 | 3.37 | 3.67 | 100 |
The stand-alone version works, hitch! Also, I'm interested to hear how people interpreting the story.
This not only evoked the sense of growing anxiety, but actual physical symptoms. My heart rate rose, and even felt a tiny bit ill for a minute.
Masterfully done!
Very clean, stylish, and interesting puzzle game.
I'd have liked to see more use for the Breaker or Remote Hacking abilities; otherwise, the game was very dependent on chaining Free Rez grabs in the first few turns, and blocking off territory. Perhaps if the AI had abilities similar to your own, it would be more challenging. That said, very fun and interesting concept. I enjoyed it a great deal!
What a neat concept for a tactical dungeon crawler! I always loitered around as Geoff for the Bard Buff, just before turning into someone combat-savvy.
As areas for improvement, the movement was pretty tedious. It'd be nice if arrow keys were integrated into the controls, and the movement between tiles was a bit faster. That aside, I had a great time. thanks for putting this together!
I really really want to play this, but I'm running the Windows version, and it doesn't seem to recognize my X-Box Controller.
If nothing else, the title theme is Super Catchy. I'd love to see a post-compo version of this, possibly one with mouse and arrow-key support in lieu of dual analogue.
A simple, cute, and pretty fun minimalist RPG. Thanks for putting it together!
P.S. I really like the sound sample used for the lead instrument in that song. Is it part of a soundfont, and/or do you know where I could get it?
Nice, short, silly platformer. I liked the time-manipulation puzzles. I'd like to see something like this in a complete game. Thanks for putting it together!
Very clever incorporation of the theme into the setting and puzzle/platformer mechanics. The art and sounds work together to create a very beautiful, calming puzzle game. Easily one of my favorites of the jam, and I'm going on 100 played so far. Very, very, very well done.
I agree that it seems only loosely-related to the theme, but it's very pretty, and fun in its own right. I love this style of dungeon crawler. The controls could have been better, but for being coded only in logic blocks, it's not bad at all.
Nice work, and thanks for putting this together! I had fun.
Fantastic platformer, with great art and sound. I love the puzzle and planning elements, and this is easily one of the most complete-feeling entries I've played. As critiques, here are some Game Design type things to consider for the future:
1) The player has no way to predict what powers they'll need for the level. Also, there seems to be only one "Solution" to the levels. As a result, the game plays as more of a Trial And Error/Guessing Game. Offering multiple paths, and being able to scroll across the level during the planning stage would boost the strategic/puzzle gameplay considerably. Alternatively, let players pause and activate their powers as they go through the level, so they don't have to keep on restarting. That gets frustrating after a while.
2) Ease into the difficulty. Try to construct levels in such a way as to teach the gameplay and uses of abilities over time, in an organic way.
3) Consistency: sometimes the background ledges could be stood on. Sometimes they couldn't. Breaking consistency like that is frustrating; players are basically learning the rules the game operates on as they play it... but when things like that change with no reason to it, it's like the game is "breaking the rules" on players.
Fantastic work, I had a blast playing this. Polish it up and sell it on Steam or something; it's definitely good enough!
This is hilarious and entirely too fun. I'd love to see this as a full game, with slightly tighter controls. I love the Everything Is Cubes aesthetic too; the transparent rotating cubes effect is surprisingly pretty when used well! Probably one of my favorite games of the jam.
Fun, simple game. I enjoyed it a lot! Thanks for putting this together!
I like how the car drove, but some skidding, and slower acceleration might be a nice way to make the driving more strategic. Also, it was tough to dodge the projectiles; much easier to just avoid the tanks entirely. Perhaps they could spawn pre-aggroed after a number of successful runs? Or perhaps avoiding the enemies could be a strategic element of choosing the route you drive to get to a place (if so, there should be a way to shake them, and they should probably be a bit more dangerous)
Magnificent. Bummed that I beat 21, but while the clock hand was resetting, meaning I was stuck at the start, and instantly lost. Beautiful art (I love the patterns!) and choice in music. What a fantastic 48 hour game!
Really interesting concept, though I think the execution left it really hard to figure out a good strategy. I wasn't able to beat any of the levels, as I kept seeing myselves, tripping alarms, etc. Still, very cool concept. I'd like to see something like this become a full game.
Neat take on the theme, and highly silly. Good work!
I was secretly hoping to have a scene at the end, where all the successful dates wound up in the same place at the same time, and exploded the same way they do when you screw up.
GAME VOOOOOOOOOOOOOTE.
*ehem*
This was highly silly, and I've always appreciated silly. I also liked the clever twist on 10 Seconds (as in Second Helpings of food). Gameplay was pretty sorely lacking, though. With no way to predict and jump the projectiles at point blank range, and no way to use skill to evade enemies, it was really just a button-mashing fest.
To illustrate: I was pretty proud of sliding under one table, leaping over a spoon to just land on another table, and chaining it into another jump as I attempted to leap over a waiter... only to find that I was stopped by an invisible wall. Instead, I slid down to the floor, mashed spacebar for a bit, took a few unavoidable spoons to the face, died, and had to try again.
Gameplay critiques aside, congrats on putting together a game, and good luck in your future endeavors!
Hah! Our project went with a Space Janitor hero too. Secret Theme time?
Very well done aesthetically, with solid art and music. Nice way to mix up platformer mechanics with the Zero Gravity sections. Very cool! The 10 seconds thing seemed like a bit of an afterthought, though, like this might have been planned for a different theme. Excellent work nevertheless!
That voice will give me nightmares.
Fun, smooth, stylish, and just as silly as some of my favorite classic Japanese shmups. Reminds me a bit of Fantasy Zone... just with sea critters. Oh, and the super catchy short music loops kept things fresh.
My favorite build; DBZ Scouter + Cannon + Fishbowl + Rapid Fire. Took me all the way to level 16, at 5000 points. Couldn't figure out what Doughnuts For Dinner got me... but perhaps it shall remain a mystery. Thanks for putting this together though!
P.S. Do you do game music professionally? Because I would totally pay you for that stuff.
Loved the color choice on the background; all smog and haze, with skeletal-looking birch trees. It would all be very broody, were it not for the cheerful children's book framing. Though it was a pretty generic platformer, it was beautiful, in a cute and sad sort of way. Thanks for putting this together!
Nice choice of ending music. I like your interpretation of the theme, but I wonder about the story itself... that was pretty surreal.
Also, with earphones in, that static sound seriously wrecked my eardrums. Definitely unsettling!
It's fairly Wario Ware, but I dug the referential humor. Some of these are really fiendishly difficult; I could never beat the Mario levels, and the Pokemon one took me a while to figure out.
I think you need more than 10 seconds in these games, or more consistent/explicit controls to get the feel of them. Still, very fun. Excellent work!
Excellent puzzle platformer, with a truly unique set of mechanics. I finally won, after lots of experimentation. Excellent work on this, and thanks for sharing it!
The knight's animation was relatively rough, but every other sprite was entirely excellent. Never cared for Endless Run games, but I enjoyed the experience. Thanks for putting this together!
The ability to demolish facilities could be nice; otherwise, you can paint yourself into a corner, if you get proportions or spacing wrong (adding new facilities and employees has actually decreased my production time, because I can't control AI pathing.)
That aside, this is a nice, simple, fun production line game, with some very polished artwork. I could see something like this debuting on Facebook. Good work!
Cute maze game. One thing you might want to consider; when making a game, you have a lot more than just words at your disposal, to tell a story. For instance, instead of having the protagonist say "I hear a ringing sound, and it's getting louder." Play a sound effect.
Anyway, good work on completing your entry!
That was cool, if a bit short and simple. I like time dilation as a game mechanic, and the controls being contained to the mouse made the interface simple and elegant. Thanks for putting this together!
A hell of a challenging platformer with a really charming style. I really enjoyed this! The execution was a bit rough from a design standpoint, though; the 2nd level of Hell was about as hard as the last levels... a smoother difficulty curve would help. Also, I understand why the level reset from start if you hit Time Over, but it would have really reduced the frustration if you went back to the last checkpoint even on Time Over, but had the option to reset from the beginning if you'd run the clock down too much to win. My last critique, and perhaps the most important one; the game didn't Convey its rules and mechanics well, and runs opposite to gamer instincts. The tutorial tells you to avoid enemies and lava as a foundational rule, yet the goalpoint in the next level is inside the lava, and the only way to get there in time involves ignoring and walking through every enemy (to wait for the claws and shooters wastes too much precious time). That sort of inconsistency comes across more as frustrating than challenging. That said, great entry, and fantastic work for the 48 hour compo!
Controls were a bit floaty, and it seems like it was made for another theme (Parallel Worlds). That said, the graphics were beautiful, and you did a good job putting together a nice, simple, fun platformer game.
That was a neat little roguelike. I explored the entire map, and only had 3 of 4 keys, though. It was impossible to defeat the more powerful enemies, with HP in the 100s, as well. Is it possible to win the game, or does it depend on whether I randomly generate a possible map?
That said, good work on completing your entry. Congrats!
Interesting take on the 10 second theme! I couldn't find him/her in hell (kept getting freeze errors during the Pre-Hell stage), but I thought it was a clever premise. Good work!
Love the audio style, the graphics, and the smoothness of the jumping animation. Great presentation! The illusionary blocks and changing mechanics were cool too. Bugs notwithstanding, I very much enjoyed this. Thanks for putting it together!
Seemed like a weak adherence to the theme... but I like the idea of a story told in 10-second-long scenes. The ending was a nice surprise too.
good work on putting this together!
Agreed! Excellent work on this, and congrats!
There are some hints in the Computer Consoles, and others in the Gameplay Guide section of the above post too. Hopefully that helps!
I was falling asleep by the time I got to designing the Fuse Puzzle. That was unintentional as heck, but good work!
I like the feeling of speed. Fun!
Highly innovative, but I think the execution was messy. The timer kept counting even while blocks were traveling up, which made it pretty much impossible to make any progress; I think remaking this at a much more frantic pace, but without any timer (you'd need to introduce a new Loss mechanic), could be interesting. Also, fewer colors would help too, I think; some of those were tough to distinguish!
A very stylish and beautiful game, but it's a bit clunky and buggy. I walked right through a door without a weapon, and fell through an empty background. got juggled by enemies a lot too.
That said, I like the Platformer On A Time Crunch feel. Reminds me of the Escape The Self-Destructing Base areas in Metroid.
Cute racing game. Wasn't able to try out LAN mode, but I had fun. Back in elementary school, I would have preferred competing against my classmates with this, instead of doing that "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" stuff.
I enjoyed this game.
I liked the graphics, music/sfx, and gameplay. It was a bit hard at first but once the right spot was found it became easy.
I would have liked to see an overall objective such as collect X pompom souls. Or stay alive for X days.
More levels could have prolonged the fun (but then there's the time constraints).
Played on Firefox 23 with no apparent problems.
Overall it was much fun.
Very simple, but emotionally evocative game (headphones highly recommended). I generally like a bit more gameplay in my games, and think that you could have done more with this mechanic. Maybe an exploration game with this mechanic tied to it to drive off enemies, while stumbling around with your eyes shut. Maybe a clock in the background that ticked irregularly to throw your internal clock off. Something to build on this.
For what it is, I think you did very well. Nice work!
Innovative, aesthetically nice, and innovative mechanics. I didn't read the tutorial, and solved the first 2 levels by pushing the enemies into the pit (it's easier than navigating to finish sometimes). Thank you for putting this together!
Was a decent, simple shooter game, and I liked the idea of powerups that can be negative or positive. Losing your engines is pretty much a sure way to die, though... and since I had to go out of my way to get them, I started to just avoid them and concentrate on dodging enemies. The controls were a bit unintuitive, and movement made it tough to last very long (only made it 3 waves in on my best playthrough)
There were some minor glitches. I was able to fly and strafe partially out of the screen, which trapped me partway into the rightmost edge of the screen, and made me a sitting duck. If a second powerup is picked up before the first one resolves, the first one's countdown timer is paused until the new one reaches 0, at which point it resumes. Also, the No Engine debuff's countdown timer appeared to count down twice as fast, though the effect still lasted for the full 10 seconds.
A few places to improve. The movement felt sluggish, and with the limited screen size it was tough to avoid enemies. The controls were a bit unintuitive too; though forward/backward movement was relative to where the mouse was pointing, Left/Right strafing was done relative to the screen, not the mouse. This meant that, if you were heading forward with the mouse pointed toward the right, and trying to strafe left, the force would cancel each other out, and you would stop. I'd suggest either sticking with pure arrow controls, or making sure the controls are consistent.
Thanks for putting this together, and congrats on completing your entry!
A fun and pretty silly game. I like how all of the characters actually had slightly different properties... and pulling off kickflips to send the ball flying was cool. Changing the game effects every 10 seconds was a pretty neat touch! Thanks for putting this together!
I'd like to try it, but I'm not up for registering.
Might I suggest looking into Dropbox for hosting? That's what we've used, and it works well: http://db.tt/9AQ6MUOl
I thought I recognized Arne's art style! <3
Most of my suggestions have been mentioned, so I'll stick to congratulating you guys on putting together a pretty cool take on the traditional sidescrolling shmup. I enjoyed it!
Great crafting of mood, with the textures, lighting, and music. Reminds me a bit of Little Big Planet. Interesting node-based movement system as well; it's like a turn-based-strategy platformer. Very fresh!
I couldn't get past the pit with the face. I tried to jump it a few times, and jumped and returned to the platform, but nothing seemed to help. I also couldn't figure out the point of the Stop Node.
Well done, nevertheless. Thanks for putting this together!
Absolutely stunning visual style, and I loved the simple, ambient music loop. As others have said, it could definitely use more Gameplay.
Also, sorry about Marmalade; I'd suggest sticking with something you know, which won't cover your game in proprietary advertisements next time.
Thanks for putting this together! I had fun.
What a simple, pretty, and cleverly made game! It wasn't very difficult (I've won every play-through) but the concept of a strategy game that combines the micromanagement and action of real-time strategy, with the strategic thinking and planning of turn-based strategy games, is very cool. Nice work!
I like it. A very ambitious and impressive project for the 48-hour time frame. Also, you sound a lot younger than I expected. Good work on this!
I've been looking for a finished game that was something like this for a long time, with player-built hulls, the ability to fly and fight ships in a semi-tactical way, etc. Add in some more detailed ship physics, the ability to zoom out and actually have to aim at enemy vessels, and so on, and this could be a really neat finished game. Thanks for putting it together!
Your skill with wordplay exceeds my own, well done! Simple point-and-click timing game, though the story and gameplay seemed really disjointed. Still, thanks for putting this together!
I think I stretched my lungs in ways they haven't been stretched since I played a woodwind instrument. Not really a game, but a pleasant experience. Thanks for putting it together!
Challenging, and for a text-based game I rather liked the graphics! Thanks for putting this together.
Good work on completing your game entry! As a critique, I think having to let up on movement just to jump is really frustrating and unintuitive; I think allowing the player to jump and move at the same time would help a lot. (PS. the NES remix of the Firefly Theme made me pretty happy. :3)
Pretty, moody, dystopian-feeling running game. I like it! Sadly, my monitor is getting old, and it was impossible to see black platforms against a black background. The collisions on platforms seemed a little off too; a bit more airtime on the jumps might have helped stick some of the landings.
Good job. I enjoyed it!
What a gorgeous game. I kept trying again to get just a bit farther, and see what was over the next hill. Loved the desert, but a lot of those paths were tricky to spot!
Thank you for sharing that. This is one of my favorite games of LD27.
What a gorgeous game. I kept trying again to get just a bit farther, and see what was over the next hill. Loved the desert, but a lot of those paths were tricky to spot!
Thank you for sharing that. Even if flying through rings made me go into a cold sweat from memories of Superman64, this is easily one of my favorite games of LD27.
Seems like a weak use of the theme, like it was designed more for "Space" than "10 Seconds", it was a very pretty shmup. The controls could have been a bit tighter, and the Shots Remaining counter a bit more obvious, but otherwise it was nice. Good work!
Fun little game, that looks like it'd be great with other players. The captions remind me of that old Tank Game whose name escapes me right now. I wonder; are those big crates reachable? I enjoyed myself, so thank you for putting this together.
Incredibly crisp graphics and sounds, game mechanics I have never seen anything like, and incredibly challenging gameplay. Sell this thing on Steam. I'd pay a not insignificant amount of money to play this.
By far the most detailed toilet-use simulator I have seen. And I've seen many.
Took me a while to get the interface; I think some simple mouse controls would help immensely with navigation. I ran into a few bugs here and there too; I ended my last playthrough trapped on a toilet forever.
Very silly, and very well done. I approve.
If you're delivering pizza, why T.A.C.O.S.? The mystery compels me.
Anyway, some great art, catchy music, and pretty solid platformer mechanics (I like the ice floors!) spamming arrows is more effective than the shotgun. Also, I can't help but think this was built with another theme in mind (Parallel Worlds? :3), as the 10 seconds thing seems like an afterthought. But still, it's quite nice! Excellent work.
Very cool! I like the highly customizable movement and controls; I almost finished a shift+arrow strafing system before time ran out. Might be neat to see in a space combat game!
Least user-friendly game ever.
...by which I mean, I have never played a game that I felt hated me to the point of open hostility, until this one. Rock on.
Very pretty, I like the frantic music and particles and all that. Nice game!
I liked the game, particularly the challenge. As a major balance consideration, though, consider that you lose 1 health every second, and it takes longer than 10 seconds on average to find a health potion to restore that lost HP. All I kept getting were mana potions I couldn't use because I rarely made it far enough to find a spell.
Unless you're extremely lucky, this game seems almost unbeatable. That said, I like it. With some balancing, I think it could be really fun to play.
A fun, well-executed Frozen Synapse demake. This could be really fun to play with other people, especially if it went multiple rounds. Thanks for putting this together!
Not my favorite game of LD27, but it was a funny premise, and the programmer art was charming. :3
One thing to remember when designing a game; always save some time at the end to do a few rounds of bug testing, and try to iron those out. Good luck in your future endeavors.
Great little platformer, with great artwork and a fun twist. Music was nice too (sounded very much like a clunky space ship). I enjoyed it!
Were those little cat-looking things with eyepatches, which you could see in some of the side rooms, a reference to something? Seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it.
Loved the vocals in the theme song, the zap sound effect, and the art direction with the tiles. The gameplay itself was a little uninspiring; it took me minutes of actively trying to lose to finally lose. Enemies just kept shooting one another, and dropping health packs on me!
It was very aesthetically pleasing experience. Thanks for putting this together!
Thank you for the game! I played through to the very end. Graphical work and atmospherics were good, the concept of a "slow platformer" was fun and appropriate, and the audio was superb. However, I was not able to get into the story at all--the combination of Edgar Allen Poe and "Lost," along with what seemed to be homages to Metal Gear (maybe not? the voice on the walkie-talkie, along with the first names of the protagonists, the suit, etc. made me think of it), with other such dramatics, did not seem to mix very well. High melodrama requires, I think, a little bit more poetry to it--not merely borrowed, but invented, and the soul of poetry is restraint. There is an awful lot of game for not so much story to go with it, and in context of the identity of the voice on the radio, its dialogue seems unusually exasperated and uncaring. You can create a similar disconnect between the speaker and the context by forming a bond that seems too personal, for example, rather than too distant.
And furthermore--why did the pink jellyfish appear just then? Surely Lenore had some sort of purpose for being there, or was responding to some call--but I do not remember any particular emotional context for it.
Story aside, the game featured some nice jumping puzzles and the overall mechanics were extremely innovative. Good work.
First, a couple of bugs/technical issues:
The voiceover at the beginning seemed like some sort of processing needed to be done to it, or the microphone was low-quality--though the VA was speaking very distinctly and gave a good performance, the sounds themselves blurred together a little and sounded "fuzzy" even though my speakers were cranked pretty high.
I was playing the web version, as well, and despite building my computer recently and having a decent connection, it froze up quite a few times when I was by the edge of the screen and catching a memory. That threw me a bit on mood, but as I would have given you 6 stars (that voice acting! those graphics!) you're doing well anyway.
Otherwise, great game. I especially enjoyed the beginning voiceover, which added a lot to the game--it was short, to the point, emotive, and a nuanced performance... and there were some moments, when I would pick up a lot of positive and negative memories at the same time, which were very emotionally striking. A quick succession of images, flickering one after another, and then one would stay longer, like a burning imprint.
I liked that there was no way to attack--just to defend. Great job.
that voice acting OwO
The stills, the cutscenes, and all of the graphics... wow, this is a great little game. Short and sweet. The in-level sound design could have used a little work, I think--maybe some music or ambience? I kept thinking I heard someone saying something, or some sort of higher-pitched sound, but relative to the narrating volume it was too quiet to hear. Other than that, though, a real gem.
Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Thank you for your entry! This was actually a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the dadaist humor (and your essay on blank-screen game design, LOL). It's probably better-classified as a work of interactive fiction, though. Still, thanks! The tunes were well-chosen and I often paused just to listen. It was great to play ->_<-
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This was a pretty well put-together experience all around! I can see that you've already gotten lots of reviews, so I'll keep it short and simple: your interpretation of the theme was the best part of this game. I laughed at the end and enjoyed a lot of the dialogue... the graphics were cute, too.
I guess what I'd ask is, given the number of mask-switching games following a generally similar mechanical idea, do you think you could challenge yourself to turn this concept into an interactive game with win and loss conditions? Clearly the rest of your approach is pretty good, so it seems like a strong next step.
Thanks for the experience! I enjoyed myself.
Oh.... this is fun! I loved the hidden mechanics, the art, the use of the audio, the unusually realistic hand/face... everything! It was actually difficult enough that I had trouble at first to figure out what to do, and felt very proud of myself after I'd thought it through and could complete the levels.
With that in mind, the only improvement I can mention on this short and sweet game is some kind of change in the "1 2 3 4" passageway so that you can see you've finished the level! I think it improve satisfaction a little bit.
Thank you for the experience. This was really cute.
This is beautiful! As a concept it's great, but in practice it's more like an interactive story (building anticipation as you wonder how you're going to kill the next scout) than a game. There wasn't a failure mode other than "inefficient play," and wandering back and forth over the distance was pretty tedious.
All of the assets here are wonderful. The story is cute, the slowly quieting scouts are adorable, the deaths fun to watch... but rather than expanding this particular gameplay concept, it might be better to invent a new one that invites more exploration and innovation on the part of the player.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
SPOILERS:
I solved that particular first bit by inspecting, running, and jumping away from the walk cycle... then continuing to meddle.
This was such a cool idea! I couldn't get past the second bit with the pole, though. You have to meddle with the spikes, then go down into the pit, but it's impossible to jump out of there... I have to say that the controls were also really unintuitive, which made the little bits of the game I could play take longer than they should have. I would really like to see an expanded version of this game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is interesting. I like the lighting, which sort of implies that the protagonist is glowing--what's up with that? I'd like to see a version of this game where punching 30 zombies at a time is a more fully-developed mechanic.
PS: Think I found another bug! The inventory doesn't open with E, and it has to be closed with the escape key.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Ohhhhh man, I thought I had a good thing going and then I ended up making exactly the same pose as in the photo ._.
For what it is, this a really nice execution. The frog added a nice touch.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow, this is a really excellent entry. At the end of the day you're just sorting triangles, but the audio style you used, the color schemes, the vaguely surreal image of the game fading into static all work together beautifully.
The only thing I'd say is that I was constantly confused by how the poles at the bottom would move if I pressed left or right. I'm not sure how to fix that, either, or if it's something other people would have trouble with--just thought I'd let you know. Great game!
(End score: 69)
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is really beautiful. The aesthetic, the colors, all of that. I didn't get far enough for the music to wear on me. The one thing I'd say is that it didn't seem to incorporate much skill... I really felt like what I was doing was a crapshoot. This may just be an issue of conveyance and game balance rather than the general concept, though!
This is fun! I love your character design and concept. It seems like the most important change to make is to either have the transformation not be random--which cuts down a little bit on the "uncontrollable transformation" feeling, which I generally think is cool and explains why the mob is chasing the girl--or, alternatively, to make the game more about managing whatever state you currently happen to be in. Rolling with the transformations, as it were.
That said, I probably played about 20 or more times before I got too frustrated, so good job. It's an addictive little piece.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is cute! I really liked the little animation stings you put in as the game progressed, and the characters were cute. Same thing for the general idea--it was a nice story, well-executed, with a good feeling.
Unfortunately... the gameplay. It didn't even behave as I expected, since it said something about digging up three spots? I could just click on each square in turn, so it was kind of just a "click up to x times" game. Since you're participating in a jam, you might want to consider pairing up with a dedicated designer... as-is, I felt like what I was receiving was a really nice flash comic with a great interactive portion, more than a game.
I... really liked this. I thought the main character was just transgendered and severely depressed at first, and then... that twist *_* I actually don't have much of anything to add as far as concrit--the game looks great, with good color design and well-chosen images. It may be tiny, but I think it was just the right size for the scope, the twist, and the ideas at hand. A nice game, and I appreciated that you put in multiple endings for such a small project.
Now I want to go take a look at your work for the other competitions! Thank you. This was a nice breather in-between everything else.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Oh heavens, what a creepy game ._. Great graphics, really stylish, and the backing audio doesn't hurt either. It's interesting trying to balance the mutual, incompatible desires of slapping the devil out of your friend and keeping him alive--though I do end up asking myself if there's a mathematical ceiling on possible scores. Is there a zone where I can slap him without doing any damage, but still protect him from the transformation? I just don't know!
Anyway, this was great. Thanks for the game!
(High score: 2280)
Wow. Just wow. I couldn't get too far--only managed to get four people to drown themselves--but everything that was there was great. The characters are adorable, and you've done a wonderful job ensuring that every one has their own unique voice (especially the sea monster, who's a great combination of creepy, abusive, and cute). Backgrounds are great and clear, and the facial expressions in particular of the shadow people. In terms of feel, it reminds me a little bit of The Curse of Monkey Island.
As for critiques, there's a few things. Obviously, the first one is "Finish the game and let me play it!" But after that, there is a problem with text getting cut off--or the zoom going out far enough that it's hard to read. You should probably add a note mentioning that you can move your critter around, since I thought it was a point-and-click game and didn't go underwater until I saw your screenshot up there indicating that you could. And, finally, the swimming itself seems like it's pitched slightly too slow. You've got a great scrunchy swimming movement, but it doesn't seem to completely match the pace that the character is moving through the water.
Obviously, great game. I'm so glad you're doing a post-compo version!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Really nice graphics and UI give a good feeling to this game. I think the hordes of enemies constantly spawning fore and aft was kind of unfair, though, and it also seemed pretty cheap that they could camp around on top of spike pits while I had to platform over them and try not to get jumped into. What little I played was fun, though, and I appreciated the target-shooting puzzle bit--that was new for me!
The graphics for this are gorgeous! You've got some fantastic visual direction here. I especially like the combat animation of the squids--they have a real flair to them. Unfortunately I was disappointed by my EXP surpassing the limits of the level-up bar and ended up quitting after picking up the sailing upgrade.
Text was a bit dense, though--you might consider breaking it up into multiple windows, and perhaps having more brightly-colored portraits. As it is right now it looks a bit like a wanted poster aesthetic, which is cool but at this point pretty difficult to read.
There's a lot of original mechanics here, as well. It somehow feels different from your typical combat RPG. I'm not quite sure how you'll be able to balance picking up gold from both combats and the world map, but it's interesting and new. I'd love to see a full game with these characters, mechanics, and visuals--they're awesome.
Thanks for the experience! Good luck with your post-compo upgrades :]
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a neat idea, and the gameplay is pretty good! Something kind of odd happened on the second stage, though, where my health bar was half way through, the enemy was half-way down, and I was informed I'd failed.
Honestly, I think that if you really focused on this, you could have an amazing post-compo version that was really amazing. It's a great concept... hope you embellish it.
"Let me tell you about my mother."
First off, I really like the graphics and collision detection for this. The graphics style is new and fresh, and the concept is a great interpretation of the theme--combining psychology and the sea, but from the sea's perspective rather than a human one? Really smart!
Like some other reviewers, the wavy/swimming text didn't work so well for me... maybe a smaller amplitude of oscillation would have given the desired effect without being quite so difficult to read. The water plants going by so fast in the background gave a feeling of frenetic high speed, which I wasn't sure I liked at first--but then I realized it was probably a pretty good representation of anxiety. I liked the four score counts at the top of the screen, too--based presumably on how the goldfish's self-esteem is feeling X3 (though my pseudo-fish [?] points leaped up past the fixed high amount pretty quickly).
As you continue to develop the concept, there's a game in a similar vein, which you might want to look at if you haven't already: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=25325
Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Unfortunately, I had too much trouble understanding how the controls were supposed to work to get much out of this, though I probably tried five times or so. I think it would have been easier to figure out with a larger play area, since the one provided in the web version is a bit too small to even see what I'm doing most of the time (the dolphin goes off-screen). Still, the graphics are really great and the general gameplay concept--when I could figure out how to get it to work--is neat. Good job!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really like the jumpy/bouncing movement of the fish, and in this case the dark screen made for a really oppressive atmosphere. However, I ended up dying for reasons I didn't understand, and gaining points for reasons I didn't understand, either. The game might have been easier to process if the entire playing field were available onscreen at a time, rather than panning with the movement of the fish.
You know, I was actually pretty unimpressed with the game until the last level, which spoke to me. I think it seemed a bit... cheap, in the bad ending, though. The mood seemed to contradict itself between very simple gameplay, a very simple message, and this kill 'em all statement that kind of alienated me from the protagonist (who I'd been identifying with just a moment before).
On the other hand, this contrast between melodrama and understatement may have been the point... I'm not sure. In any case, I really felt that such a violent reaction should have been... beneath him (hoho).
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is really beautiful! I wasn't able to get to the end, possibly because my platforming skills are rubbish, but I love the concept... it's not just underwater, but also on the reverse side of a mirror! That's too cool.
I'm not sure what critique I can offer from the audio direction, since I'm not sure if adding music and more sound effects would add or detract from the mood. Either way, this was a really nice entry. Good luck on the jam!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is cute! As you said--not amazing gameplay, so I won't cover that, but I liked the audio and it was overall a sort of positive, emotionally enriching experience. Really well-done mood, nice job melding audio, graphics, gameplay experience, and story. It was a nice break from some of the darker titles featured in the jam.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Oh, sweet! I'm excited that someone did a dating sim for this. My character (Lucario) did not successfully romance the narrator voice in the sky, nor any of the other ladies. Bad endings one and two.
To be honest, the dialogue was kind of all over the place, with "random" humor that occasionally verged on the misogynistic. Characterization was also pulled straight from anime, to the point of using set phrases and scenes. I played a couple of times but I didn't get the sense that most of my choices were meaningful, or even that I could in any way predict the outcome of my actions. Getting the bad endings, which told me to work harder to see what's beneath the surface, kind of shocked me because I felt like the outcomes in the game were not really something I could accurately anticipate (the first time the twist happened, I actually startled out of my seat, the noise was such a surprise).
I really liked your art and character design, though. It looked good, I do commend you for submitting a dating sim, and I look forward to seeing other entries from you in the future.
I really like your character's walk cycle. It's smooth and kind of fussy, which helps with characterization.
Dashing and jumping sent me through the roof, and I couldn't get down. There were also a few times when I ended up in a loop based on whether I platformed up or not--seemed a bit cheap. You could put a wall there and get the same result.
And then... I thought that dashing through enemies would kill them, but instead it just drained my health, and there seemed to be no reason for the dash other than being able to move quickly (which wasn't necessary since the game was so short and the character moved fast enough). Since it wasn't one-hit-kill, though, it would have really helped to have had a health bar.
I got to the end, though. It was interesting that the player character moves from one anonymous city to another, and I actually walked up to monsters a few times, wondering if they were the friends I was supposed to find ._. This was a nice effect, and a nice driving premise! Good job.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is fun, with a nice twist in your night missions! Because of the font you used, I didn't actually notice the numbers showing my available stockpile going down in the fridge until the fourth day or so, so at first I was left wondering: "Why am I shooting these animals? I understand it from a narrative perspective, but not from a gameplay one."
Honestly, this is a brilliant execution of the theme, and a pretty good cooking game to boot. However, there's some stuff I think you could tune to make it a bit better:
1. Why not just have the ingredients gathered on the chopping block become a prepared meal, rather than needing to stack the items together? If there's a worry about incorrectly mixing the meal, well,
2. Most restaurant games have a convention where you can give plates to the wrong customer and waste your work--that might be an appropriate thing to consider.
3. I played for four days or so, with 100% approval rating after the first game, but the difficulty curve never really got tough, and there wasn't a need to cook the beef stroganoff at any point. My expectation was that I'd need to start preparing dishes and ingredients ahead of time in order to be able to serve customer needs, thus possibly making me waste ingredients in an attempt to plan--but the difficulty curve didn't do the thing, and I ended up getting bored in the end since it really wasn't getting any harder.
4. I expected that when my "meat" stores ran out I'd be unable to prepare a dish--instead I just bought cockroaches, apparently. Since I wasn't in any danger of running out of money at any point, this kind of undermined the hunting portion of the game.
Make a full version? I'd love the opportunity to steal vegetables from my neighbors' gardens. Choosing between that and hunting could keep the pacing fresh.
Goes to show that even in space, even as an astronaut, they still tell you to get them a sandwich ._.
I, too, would like to see this game expanded some to have more risk, reward, and variety. I enjoyed the surrealism of it--the experience, for example, of cracking the planet's surface and finding a moose. Controls were good and I got a lot of pleasure out of walking in little circles over the planet. Physics were nice and I appreciated the graphical overlay showing where the center of gravity for a given planet began.
The placement and content of the text bubbles seemed that it could have used a bit of work, though. It seemed inappropriate to tell me to drill every time, and the UI design was just generally awkward.
Thanks for the awesome concept! I hope that you expand on this further.
Man... this was GREAT. I literally wondered for a minute if it was from a member of the La-Mulana team, though, LOL. Great, unique characters with good color balance, nice death effects, a really exciting and challenging boss... man, I was so impressed with the quality of every single animation, from the doors swinging, to the jump effect, to the cane strike, to the jumping on the guy in room 666. Having only one HP made it that much more satisfying to finally win, and the challenges were fair, but incrementally more challenging, in every room. Not just that, but I love how Grandpa can jump to slightly break the "panel" of the environment--reminds me of some similar design I've seen in manga, and adds just a bit more excitement.
This is far and away one of my favorite games I've played this jam. Thank you.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I was looking forward to this since RPGs are my favorite genre, but it crashed on opening...
You know, I got four out of five endings (True, Normal, Bloody, Bed) and I have to say that none of them explained how Jack's dream is supposed to make sense. I had a hard time understanding how the narrative structure fit together... there were too many pieces that didn't fit with the main plot, and I had little sense of agency or involvement with proceedings. What does the shooting range guy have to do with anything? And so on, and so forth.
I appreciated that you diverged from the standard VN plots--that's great. The concept is solid. Still, I think that some more focus on how you're going to tell your story would help you out.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Man, I really dug this art style, and of the "mask" games I've played so far this jam, this one is definitely my favorite. It's cute and memorable. It gets the "attract and repel through showing different faces" thing down, while adding a fresh twist. So, great job there.
One thing you might do for a post-compo version would to be a little bit clearer about how lives are lost--I found myself confused the first couple times I played as to why that had happened, since I was so busy keeping track of the screen I couldn't associate my actions with the lost health.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is neat, though due to the nature of the graphics I had a pretty hard time figuring out what to do and how well I was doing it. I really like the design of the player character, though I think that the game could generally feel more "featured" with either smaller rooms or a quicker walking pace. I wasn't actually able to get much of anywhere.
However, I really liked the way the different textures of ground made me move in different ways, and the combination of running from monsters aboveground and below was pretty new! Thanks for the entry, and good luck~
Wow, this was nice! The graphics with their white outlines have a distinctive look, the lighting is great, and the level design is really nice, too! I had trouble a few times and had to think it through and plan things out, which is always a good sign.
Two minor tuneups I'd recommend: the SFX were a little aggravating, especially the "weapon-swinging" sound in combination with the enemy death noises--you can especially hear this on the last level, when you're constantly swinging your weapon and stuff is constantly dying. Also, the jumping's a little bit fluffy. It's workable, don't get me wrong--pretty good, but the ratio of time up to time down didn't quite do it for me, and would have helped the mood/feel of the game a little.
Thanks for the game! I enjoyed beating it--a good experience overall.
First of all, congratulations on going outside of your comfort zone. Seriously, props to you.
The dungeon elements, though repetitive, worked well with the claustrophobic atmosphere you created. However, possibly due to this being the first story game you've done, I feel like there was too much text telling me how I was supposed to feel. In this case I didn't think I was controlling some sort of in-game personality, like you do when you're playing as a character in a Final Fantasy or Tales series game, for example. I felt, essentially, that I was supposed to be playing as myself, since the game was first-person and there weren't much in the way of markers for the narrative voice.
But then, I was told how I should feel upon finally coming across the yellow cube--and each crest of the terrain--rather than simply getting to feel it.
And the thing is, without the narrative cues telling me how I'm supposed to feel and react, there's not much game here. Yes, I'd feel all the things you wrote out: "Okay, can't get through this door, got to go down. Great. It's a cube." But, I guess the question is... if you're just telling the player how they already likely feel about the mechanics of the game they're playing, what are you as a game creator adding to the experience?
This was GREAT. I played the decaf version and managed to get through to the end. I actually don't think it changed the core gameplay very much, unless one normally plays asteroids with an unusually cerebral approach. I just waited in the middle and shot
a. Oncoming traffic, if it existed
b. Traffic on the verge of grazing me, if it existed
c. The largest thing on-screen
This algorithm pretty much did the job, as I wasn't worrying very much about the edges of the screen, or about what was coming out where. It was fine with one bullet and being slow, since I have more ability to aim than I do twitch reflexes.
I found moving around much too difficult as there was no way to stop, and then suddenly everything on the surface would be moving about and it was a more difficult physics problem than I really wanted to solve or think about.
You might want to consider having the shapes, rather than disappearing shortly when they reach the edge, displayed partially as they move over the edge (so that the whole shape never goes out of view, but is seen in two places at once); this would be more interesting if some shapes were not regular, because then we would have a better sense of when they are "flipped over" on the mobius strip.
Thanks for the game! I enjoyed it quite a bit.
A cute, enjoyable game. Remeniscent of The Little Prince, which was nice. I liked the idea of turning an asteroid into a self-sustaining garden or ecosystem; asteroid grows flowers, flowers provide energy, energy makes goats, goats eat flowers and build up more asteroid, etc.
The asteroids always come too fast and heavily for me, and I wish I had more direct control over protecting my asteroid... perhaps the ability to move it out of the way, or rotate it to make sure they impact away from my flowers. I feel terrible when my goats get blown up! It might also be nice to have more time to grow your home and flowers (and time to get used to the controls) before the asteroids come. Actually, I think the game would really benefit from a slower pace in general. Gardening is a slow, thoughtful exercise, so it would fit the feel well.
Thanks for putting this together, and sharing it!
Good job.
This is a really fantastic entry. The art is crisp and functional, and you've hit upon a unique way to turn exposition into a game. Also, the last boss... wow. Not something I'd been expecting, and I kept on wondering what was "beneath the surface" until the very end. It's a nice smooth difficulty curve, too.
Very fitting audio and SFX. The only thing that I'd look to changing is the beam animation--watching it going past the enemy as they complain about how much it hurts damages the immersion a little bit.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the continuation!
This is a lovely, minimalistic game. I've played a few times but been unable to beat it at any point... there's something great about how you can see the roots coming, but you can't necessarily keep track of them. It feels inevitable, and your weapon is larger than you, but the enemy is so much larger than it... you've done a really excellent job of making a simple game with a complex emotion attached. Great work!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This was an interesting game! I really like what you did with the graphics, and the animation for the "steal byte" effect was really nice.
The thing is, though, that the fundamental loss state for a clicker game is "inefficiency in reaching my goal," i.e. spending a longer time playing than one wants to. When you don't have any apparent goal (I got all the way down to purchasing the code injection feat), this subverts the entire aim of the genre. Additionally, new items are usually unveiled in order to create a feeling of excitement, rather than letting the player see the entire echelon of powerups straight off the bat.
However, your balance is pretty good, and though I personally don't like clicker games that much (as you have probably guessed by now ._.), this one was a lot less tedious than most of the others I've played previously.
Extremely short and without win conditions--what's here is very good, but unfortunately there simply isn't enough to really rate it on. Beautiful art direction and an interesting-looking character. I think you might get more out of controlling with the keyboard than the mouse?
This game nicely executes the common narrative of "a nice young man chases a more lively counterpart and, inspired by her, builds a more energetic life for himself." I've played a number of interactive fiction pieces in this vein, and this is one of the best-executed that I've seen--great job.
I feel, however, that given the well-trodden path of the narrative, you might have taken a few more chances. The writing for this piece is polished, but I would have liked to have seen more variation and subtlety from standard tropes--why is it always foreign travel? And ironically, yes, the main character DOES need money to do that (I ended up just walking off of the screen in the end, BTW--I don't know if that's a bug; I just wanted to know if something would happen if I bypassed the tickets).
Unfortunately, I cannot say too much more. The audio, the visuals, the execution, all of these things are very nice. It was well-tuned. However, a game about agency that ends in a lack of player agency, and a subversion of its own money plot, seems like it could use some tweaking in order to resonate better for itself.
Thanks for the game, and good luck in the compo!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This concept seemed like it could be pretty great! It was spooky and I like the painterly graphics. However, with the player's jump being so limited, and the sprite getting caught so often on the edge of ledges, it was a bit too hard. I easily got the 2nd log twice (and one of the endings), but it was really frustrating to try to jump those gaps over and over again (and I never got far enough to understand what the stat increases and decreases did).
I'd really love to play again if some of the level design were spruced up, though. It's a neat concept!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a pretty cool idea--a rhythm game with story attached! I felt it was a bit easy though, and the zaniness of the story made it difficult for the mood to come together.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is really cool! The enemy design is good, the level progression is nice, and the sound effects give a really satisfying feedback when you're playing. Honestly, I have nothing bad to say... just that maybe a backing audio track that crossfades when you're in the air vs. underwater would be cool? It'd also be nice if the two regions were somewhat differentiated mechanically, though obviously of course this is just a 72-hour game jam.
Anyway, nice shooter, nice UI! Thanks for the experience.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really like this game! There's not much gameplay here, but the graphics and just... general... weirdness is really nice. I especially enjoy the understated responses to situations that are clearly grievous, which reminds me a lot of how a lot of people respond to psychological injury. So, I think the writing is definitely something keep and focus on.
I don't know if you've seen this game, but it might make a good study for gameplay mechanics in the future?
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2004/07/the_asylum.php
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I love this concept! You've done a great job with graphics, mood, and the soundtrack is really great, too. Unfortunately I got stuck at the zone with the green code--I tried the jump maybe twenty times but I couldn't figure out how to make it work.
I wish I could critique and play the rest of the game, since it looks amazing--but as-is, all I can say is that there's a weird pause right after the data decrypts that slows the game down and is a bit frustrating. Needing to wait twice is a bit weird, and I kept wondering if there was a key I needed to press or whatnot.
Good luck with the compo! It's a great entry.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow, I really admire your graphics and scene-setting for this one! You have some great characters, too, and the music works well to create a good ambiance. However, the narrative's a bit random, and it only superficially seems to match the theme. I hope you submit more visual novels next time! I get more and more excited with every one I find to review.
This is interesting! SFX are appropriate and satisfying, and digging up prehistoric animals was fun. Graphics look good, too!
If you do a post-compo version, you might want to look at game balance/diversification. It was a good move to be able to uncover things that did you damage, since I had an almost unusably large store of clicks; however, if they actually become dangerous to the player, you'll probably want to give the player some sort of direction so that their fate isn't effectively random.
That said, you've done some great work with some really clean graphics and a nice user interface! Thanks for the game.
That end-of-game screen *_* Oh man. So emotional~ Great monster design, and an awesome interpretation of the theme!
I really liked this game. It was hard, but I eventually was able to get the hang of the rhythm of it; I particularly liked how you added a couple of confusing inputs, so I didn't just run around eating absolutely everything without thinking about it (I tried licking the bombs, the helicopters, the dragons, the bombs walking around on the ground...)
Pretty much the only thing missing is a soundtrack, though at this point I feel like that might be something of a genre convention... ? I feel like there's a lot of these games involving monsters and killing things (albeit generally not from the perspective of the monster) that are SFX only. So, iffy on it.
Anyway, thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a neat idea! I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to control, though--my fish kept on getting stuck in the sand and not moving, and there's no explanation at any point for the numbers at the top of the screen (which, I suspect, would help me figure out how to keep from dying all the time).
The background audio also quickly became actively irritating, and was probably, more than the sticky controls, the push that made me quit.
However, I really like the way you interpreted the theme, and your main character had a good feeling to it. Thanks!
Congratulations on achieving all of your stated goals! Building a reasonable scope and implementing it all is really tough for an LD, so great job.
Your graphics look good. I always like a nice parallax effect in a shooter, and the color choices against the gray-black background have a certain luminosity to them--I particularly appreciated the marbled coloring on the player ship.
I played a few times and what I winded up feeling was that although it generally has a decent look and feel, the really sudden crash from screwing up in the game to the game-over screen was jarring and made it hard for me to learn how far I actually needed to be from the enemy bullets. The collision detection was a bit poor, but what made it difficult for me to learn to play around it was the zero-tick timing of that transition.
I had a good few minutes with it, though! Thanks for the game.
I agree that the difficulty level was really strange--for this kind of game, it's much easier to use the Binding of Isaac approach and steer with the keyboard, aim with the mouse. There were two levels with two enemies apiece, after which I was immediately plunged into two much more difficult levels... before then I'd been able to literally just sit in front of the enemies and hit them without dodging, chumping the damage.
A powerup system would have helped out a lot, I think, to break up the monotony a little. Or some kind of audio, or a slightly less removed camera angle.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Great graphics... I was surprised and impressed by how much the ending, well, surprised me. In a single moment I suddenly understood the entirety of the alien scene on the hill, which had previously seemed merely unusual. Though I read all of the texts and thought I had gotten a hold of the situation, it soon became clear that I truly hadn't understood them.
That said, in a post-compo version it would be wonderful to see a more polished game with failure states and the like. I'm not sure I'm in agreement with the other users that full sound is necessary, but maybe some sound effects would do it? I remember that the lack of music in Myst really enhanced the isolating effect.
Anyway, great game, and thanks for the polished experience.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is interesting, but I feel like we're often not left with any meaningful choices--and though that can be done to make a point, there was a definite goal here, not an inevitable outcome. Furthermore, each of the vignettes was simple enough that I really didn't have to think about them.
Rather than a happiness meter, you might consider shifts in atmospheric effects to cue the change in mood.
And, on a writing note: the protagonist doesn't know or understand why he holds the hand and kisses the forehead of his own dying, suffering mother? Is he a sociopath? Is he disconnected from his own emotions? The choice you made is valid, but without any other context it's hard to see it as anything other than a contradictory callousness on the part of the protagonist.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really love the graphics on this! They're crisp and clean with beautiful animations, and that fade-in gives an awesome feel. The character design is also the best I've seen so far this jam, so great job! Unfortunately, crossing Mario with Braid when Braid was already based on Mario to begin with doesn't make much sense. I also had a lot of trouble with jumping over some platforms due to placement, and I initially thought that "series of choices" meant I was supposed to run left instead of right, or something like that (instead of a rewind mechanic). Still, good job on the mood and audio. If you brush up on your mechanical design a bit, I think you could make some really adorable old-school platformers >w<
You have some great models and animations here--I'm thinking in particular of the grinning black stumpy dudes (henceforth "Gengars") and the way the ones that look like Haunter swipe at you. Good on you as well on adding enough player feedback that we could have a good idea of when we were being attacked, and how much damage we had taken. The system was effective, but unlike a lot of the "bloody the edges of the screen" effects we see in games to indicate HP, you did a good job of keeping the middle of the screen clear so that it's still possible to navigate.
However, it's very hard to figure out what to do here. I didn't feel I had any control over whether I won or lost, or any real ability to strategize. Was I supposed to shine my flashlight on the ghosts? I guess the enemy AI problem was that the Haunters kept on going after me even though I lit them up?
The voice acting got repetitive very quickly and didn't sound like the same VA, while the pentacles didn't really seem to make sense and there was a mismatch between the environment, the story, and the creatures occupying them.
But the moment when I first saw the black stumpy ones scurrying around, just vaguely outside of my vision, was fantastic. More of this, please.
This is beautiful! The mood's great and it's truly adorable. That said, the platforming controls were so slidy and floaty that I pretty much couldn't get anywhere with it... and, if you'd had any more time, I would have really appreciated an animation of the pooch going up the vines in the underworld. As-is, the transitions were really harsh and kind of disorienting.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Hi! This is cool. I dig the graphics, the interpretation of the theme, and all that... I've got to say, though, that there not only doesn't seem to be any win/loss state, but I'm clicking on things frenetically and the only change in difficulty is based on a. how fast I click and b. how much stuff I have. There's no difficulty curve... there's a difficulty slump.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a cool idea, and your graphics are really neat! Their animations are quite freaky, LOL, which fits with the theme. Still, I unfortunately couldn't find any way to differentiate humans from demons, so it becomes a completely deterministic exercise. I may have "won," but I didn't feel like I actually did anything!
PS: Love that splash image, it's quite intriguing
Final score: 11935!
This is a great game, especially the beautiful crispness of the sound and visual design. The bright "Ping!" of pieces disappearing is satisfying, along with the movement of the columns towards the center as you clear them. I found it meditative, easily accessible, and a good rendition in general of the mechanic (though it had been previously familiar to me). However, in this case having the difficulty increase based on your own skill level was quite welcome.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Congratulations on your first entry! I didn't get very far because I found it hard to navigate with such a limited field of view, but the concept is cute. Great job!
... That was a nice twist, and helps explain my extreme incompetence in this game ._. I think you're fine in terms of typos, but there was a bit too much information to comb through, and none of it seemed to give me anything really meaningful--it was all surface questions and the things I would have liked to have probed deeper into could only be superficially addressed.
The audio was all right--a bit stale and wearing, and didn't quite seem to fit the subject. However, the graphics were very suitable and I enjoyed the characters' different personalities--I thought it was especially cute to have the characters represented by accessories.
There's another game in this vein which I think you might get something out of reviewing: http://jayisgames.com/archives/2004/07/the_asylum.php
It's a different approach, but has some similarities.
Tense and gorgeous, with beautiful visual and audio design! I especially appreciated your decision to have the flashlight obscure the character--so that it's really unclear as to what's happening to him.
As someone largely unfamiliar with Lovecraft's works, I had a really hard time following the story at all, let alone figuring out who was who, and what was happening. It seemed like it was pretty grim and dark (and at the end, it turned out that someone on the phone was dead?), but otherwise I could not figure out the gist of what the actual *action* was. I am not sure how to fix this--again, being unfamiliar with the source material--but it might be something to keep in mind.
I'd also, of course, like to see more interactivity--it's a game, after all ;] It's especially important for a property that's already based on something entirely linear and choice-free!
This game was neat! I like that in the first levels, the only enemy you face is your own poor time management skills (they got me a few times, LOL). Overall, an interesting, fun mechanic that was well-tuned, so great job. I wound up playing quite a few times before giving up! The graphics and audio combine to make a fun and relaxing experience, no matter how harrowing the gameplay is.
A couple of things, though--in the shop, you've got a blend of prices put on the products, and above the products. It's difficult to tell what's really going on because of this, and I feel it would probably make more sense to have them arranged by price or type rather than at random, as it seems to be now.
The other thing is that there seems to be a couple of strange bugs--I've managed to warp through a cave wall before, and one time after I bought the harpoons and indebted myself to death, the game immediately told me I'd lost upon starting the level. It seems like debt/research funding from the last game carries over to some degree if you don't close the window?
Anyway, this is awesome and I truly enjoyed myself. Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a really cute idea, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing or where I was supposed to be going, or even really where I was in the level. There's a reason why Snake has a Soliton Radar system!
Thanks for the entry, though! I had a really good laugh.
The shooting and movement in this game feel really good, as does the music and visuals. However, the non-standard controls are pretty difficult to use, and more than that, your charge-up bar for mana is too short for the regions that you're exploring. Given how the game works, it effectively serves as a timer for how long you get to play before you have to stop and sit still for a while--since ideally, the player wants to have it on all the time. But this seems contrary to the well-established tone of the rest of the game, where you're running around using your powers to blast everything. It also makes the last boss frustratingly difficult.
Strobe warning, please ._.
This is polished and well-put together, but something about it really turned me off. It was a bit too fast, a bit too bright, a bit too unclear about what was being asked of me or why I would want to do it. Serial killers are fascinating, sure, but that means that the genre is fairly glutted. I didn't really feel like I'd "gained access to a deranged mind" or whatnot. It's an infinite runner with a couple of tweaks, right? Focusing on that core gameplay might make a bit more sense, since the narrative is actively coloring the gameplay in ways that it probably shouldn't.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is really cute! I'm always a sucker for growing-stuff themed games. It's slick, the interface is easy to use, and I really like the art. Only a couple of criticisms, though:
1. I think the timing may be a little bit off. The early waves seem to take a bit too much time spent sitting around and doing nothing; I also won my first game planting plants on grassy patches only (i.e. I had 3 tomatoes and 1 corn plant, since I thought you could only plant on grass).
2. You kind of undercut your initial absurd humor by going "aw, whatever" at the end of the story! You made a strong choice, and you'll have better results by sticking to it.
Thanks for the game! I enjoyed playing to the end, and look forward to seeing your polished final product.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow, this is a REALLY good short VN. I think I managed to get all the endings. Great atmosphere, great characters and art, and it's the best interpretation of "beneath the surface" as subtext that I've seen thus far.
If there's one thing I'd change, it's the humorous take on the scene where the officer nearly gets killed... there's places for humor in your game, but I really think that destroys a lot of the tension you've been building up. The other thing is--as you probably know--the image of the random policeman really doesn't fit the style of the rest of your characters.
Great job. Thanks for the experience! I'd love to see a full-length VN from you guys.
54 pts. I'd also like to see this expanded upon! The graphics were clean and your rocks actually looked quite good and diverse--but I agree that there's a frequent sense of inevitability (a longer field of vision might help?). On the bright side, your collision detection is excellent! I tried some pretty risky maneuvers to test it out. Well done.
Got to the end! This was great. It's probably the most innovative game mechanics I've seen so far this jam. You did a great job tying story and gameplay together, too! I appreciate your exhortations not to give up as well, haha. Some parts were pretty frustrating, but eventually I figured them out. You also did a good job choosing a "game over" sound that was evocative and yet not irritating, which I can tell you because I heard it a lot, LOL.
There were a few lasting things you might want to work on for a post-compo version.
1. A health bar/health pips would really help.
2. I never actually saw any of my lovers destroy anything--I pretty much just exploded every last enemy. So, for that reason, though I liked having them along for atmospheric purposes their in-game functionality seemed kind of lacking.
Great job with the mechanics, though. I've never played anything even vaguely like this, and it was definitely a good experience.
The controls are smooth, and the character design is interesting. I imagine you already know that this is pretty tasteless.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I like this concept--and wow, doing an FPS for LD is impressive! I think the star-shaped alien designs are pretty cool, too.
Probably the main thing I'd say is that it's not really clear you have to be within a certain range of an enemy to scan them, so I wound up wasting a lot of time. Good tuning on the shots, though. I actually died a couple of times.
If you can, something to do might be having undetected aliens come grab you if you've turned your back on them. It would add another dimension to play, rather than just letting you charge your view indefinitely as long as you sit there.
Even though it's incomplete and you can't do much yet, this proof of concept made me smile. Raising your pet pickle to compete in some kind of competition--should the game move in the direction that the stat bars seem to suggest--crosses the tamagotchi and "state fair" genres of game admirably and shows the interesting conflict between pet and display object off well. You know, like a brine-soaked sort of Monster Rancher.
Your visuals are very nice, with a certain old-timey charm, and this was a very unique take on the theme. Good luck with your post-compo update!
Nice art and effects, particularly the look of the fire pillars. I also appreciated the small room sizes--you didn't make big bloated rooms when you didn't have enough content to fill them, they were just the right size.
Unfortunately there's not much else to say about it. It wasn't long enough to be boring, nor deep enough to be interesting. Though I followed your updates quite eagerly throughout the jam, I'd hoped that there'd be a bit more here.
Another note is that use of the z key is awkward. I'd hope that there'd be a better way to deliver messages--and perhaps that you cut down on messages as much as possible, to focus on the core experience. As-is they were pretty distracting.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Shmups are my second-favorite genre, so I was really glad to get to play this! For a first game, this is wonderful >< I really like your ship designs and the music is pretty good! I was also pretty impressed with how you did the shot patterns/wave formations of the enemy fighters--looked good!
One concrete game design thing I can say would be that in general, especially with the buggy collision mechanics and small size of the initial enemies, it kind of makes sense for them to have only one HP, right? It's really satisfying to have your first experience be KABOOM, especially since you have multiple enemy types and the stronger ones would show up soon!
Keep it up! I hope I see you next compo :]
Vector again!
PS: Forgot to say I totally dig the little engine flares. They helped a lot so that the sprites didn't just look totally static and slidey.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is interesting, but it seems kind of naive in its approach. What makes this character Mr. Perfect? That's something we never see, or understand. You've successfully depicted a depressed, extrinsically motivated character but I wasn't able to empathize with him very well. He's surprised that the world is dangerous and yet he spends a lot of time on Facebook getting likes... there's a cohesion in narrative that's missing here, that would help your admittedly interesting idea get some traction.
The premise is nicely introduced and I'm impressed with the variety and quality of levels and assets! The look and feel are well-established, and the quick pace is really nice.
However, without any checkpoints, there's something of an issue--in a section dense with net-throwers, I need to rocket through or I'll get caught. But then I can't see where the scientists are, I end up literally directly adjacent to them--so close that I can be immediately captured while unable to move and the net animation doesn't even play, which felt a little bit unfair. Still, I liked the game well enough that I played to that point quite a few times, so thank you!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow, what a neat idea! A typing game with a story... I've never seen anything quite like it!
One thing you might want to check--I had a success in every dialogue, and yet my character says he "gave in" to his evil side. Otherwise, I think you could cut down on repetitive text or make the characterization a little bit more complex, and it'd make the game somewhat less tedious and more emotionally complicated... you've got a neat story, so you might as well run with it as far as you can.
Great music, neat visuals, excellent concept. Good job!
This game is difficult for me to score well, since there's a lot of different aspects to it to consider. Simply as a game, the difficulty of recovering from certain feedback loops--like if none of your leaves function and you have no store of sunlight to grow more--is frustrating, particularly because the player can tell that they've finished playing, with no ability to "retire" the game at that point. At the same time, as an educational tool, this is really neat. The graphics are glossy and clean, and all of the SFX are textbook.
The other thing is that, looking at the point of view, the player is simultaneously portraying farmer and pumpkin. I think I would have preferred a pumpkin trying to get large for different reasons--to become the pumpking?--and purchasing various evolutionary effects to aid its own advancement would be more interesting. For example, plants evolved caffeine content as a natural insecticide, so you could do something like that. This would also differentiate your game a little bit thematically--I don't mean relative to the LD theme, just in general.
A couple of bugs, too, with the weed killer not functioning, and I've never been able to buy resources like water or nitrogen and have them actually show up in my stores.
Finally, the past few times I've played, I didn't actually notice the buttons in the top right corner allowed you to scroll up and down. I just saw your twitter key and my eyes glazed over, thinking it was yet another one of those "share on social media!!" button panels. Doing something to set these keys apart visually would help a lot with that.
Still, this is a very polished, well-constructed game! Thank you.
A funny sort of take on the theme! I unfortunately didn't enjoy myself too much; what's pleasurable in gothic literature is the mood, right? And though you did an absolutely amazing job getting that down for the title screen, I had a hard time connecting that with my goofy, gray-clad character in-game. In-game music would have helped rather a lot, too, and I agree with the comments on the controls.
The idea, though, and the general character design were quite good; I liked that it was procedurally generated so that I could play a few times after beating it, and the strategy changed some as well.
Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Note--I'm only reviewing based on the first level, since I got kind of bored. I think this is a really neat idea, somewhat hurt by the lack of animations to show incompleted actions where you currently have a countdown (but that's to be expected in a jam!). Also, explaining based on colors, rather than going to each piece of information where it is on the screen and explaining how it works, made it hard to take things in.
If you do a good job conveying your concept early on, you can add some pressure in the first level so that it will be a challenge, and more fun for everyone. Still, the concept is really nice and I wish more games would do a growing theme.
Beautiful art! It's got a style a bit like the games from the Homestuck comment. Love that armless jostle. That said, I played a couple of times and both times, even with coming back to the altar pretty frequently and spamming my speed potions (and having most of the items equipped), there was an issue with the altar being too mucked up while I was gone, with no way to protect or restore it. I never lost a life or much HP, but it was just about impossible to keep that altar protected. So, perhaps a little bit more balance is in order.
Thanks! The game was cute and fun to play.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Oh man, if I could copy Muramasa's entire review right here I would. The mugshot art was great, though it clashes pretty badly with the in-battle art. Having gold and EXP pop-ups when they're meaningless, and most of the battles finished by using the special attack (while the one in the cloud place told me that my target was dead--then they killed me)... and the long dialogues... all of it taken together was pretty messy.
Also, please consider not passing domestic violence off as humor, or at least put up a warning for it? It'd be helpful. Thanks...
Good luck, and thanks for the game.
A really nice, relaxing entry! The art is crisp, the contemplative music furthers the mood, and I felt motivated to finish the garden. Some more guidance on the goal right off the bat as to the goal would have been helpful, as well a (togglable?) indicator as to the fewest number of moves in which a puzzle could be solved--just getting through was a bit easy after a while, after realizing where the cart could and couldn't be retrieved from. More levels with increased mechanical depth would be great :D
I don't know if you've seen this other entry, but they have somewhat similar mechanics--might be interesting to take a look: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=26919
The black and white graphics--those that are completed--are really lovely, and I adore the animation of the sailing boat. At the moment your text is cut off on the screen in both French and English versions, and it would be helpful to have a button to advance rather than merely waiting (as there are no visuals attached, so nothing is lost by this approach). I also could embark in the diving bell in only one position--and when I got to the bottom, the game ended. There wasn't very much here game-play-wise, though there were certainly some very beautiful assets and a well-crafted mood. I look forward to seeing what you do with this idea in the future.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This game was interesting... and also surprisingly difficult! I was kind of frustrated that I lost the ability to open up to miners as they died, but I guess it kind of makes sense... in order to keep the player character's sanity stable, you have to maintain the health of the crew.
I'd say that maybe it should be rebalanced a bit, but I think that keeping it hard and moody is the right way to go. Something you could do is perhaps adjust the graphics a little bit--this is great given the time you had to put it together, but the plain user interface along with the miners perched at the top of the screen seemed a bit bare-bones.
Really, really nice interpretation of the theme, and fun to play. Good work!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
(My rating's based on the windows version--it loaded, but the controls were completely wonkus and the guide to gameplay only made it more apparent how unsuited it was to Windows)
This is neat in concept and the art is pretty, but the audio gets dull really quickly and it doesn't seem to suit the theme at all.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Like the other reviewers, I also didn't get any farther than the dark room... I expected that I'd use my gun to blow a hole in the wall and progress (like last time, where the way out was denoted with white), but that didn't seem to work...
Still, nice character design. Thanks for the game!
The mood, the graphics, the audio--all of these work together well. I like the small character under the oppressively enormous sky, as it gives a sense of their weakness, fragility, and the meaninglessness of the mission; and similarly, the remnant of a stone statue seen in a single, enormous foot.
I'm fine with no-checkpoint, one-hit-kill combat, but I think that for it to work you'll need to balance the combat some in order to add depth and give the player agency. As-is, I felt it was entirely random as to whether I killed a skeleton or not. I couldn't tell if I had one hitpoint or more, since I could seemingly randomly cancel out of the death animation sometimes, and the skeleton's attack had so little preface that I couldn't dodge effectively.
The enemies jumping out of dark places seemed fair enough--level design seemed fair enough--but I'd like to see the combat tuned a bit. You might like to look into Nidhogg, which has somewhat similar fencing mechanics: http://www.nidhogggame.com/
Neato game, with nice graphics (especially the backs of those cards! Hot damn) and a novel interpretation of the theme. I like the feeling of the world you've developed--sort of Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh-ish, where complex problems can be resolved by a card game. And man, the ending was kind of scary! I was worried I was going to be wiped out by something horrible.
There's a couple of things that you might like to change in the future. First of all, having me choose 3/5 cards and keeping no duplicates at random got really frustrating quickly, because it seemed like I was playing a role that the computer should have been taking care of. Mathematically, what I was doing was pretty much equivalent to drawing three cards and then discarding the next two in the deck--it makes much better sense to draw three cards and then discard down to a unique hand.
Then, being unable to see the opponents' cards meant that the portion of the game when I was choosing which card would be played first was yet another randomization exercise. I didn't really have much in the way of agency as a player, especially because I never understood what the blue cards really did. I got some kind of bonus reflected on the RHS of the screen, but I couldn't see what impact that had, or lacked, on the game at all.
Finally, I really liked your gauge on the LHS of the screen to show how close my opponent and I had gotten to the top, but it seemed like there needed to be some way to distinguish the two bars--I couldn't tell which indicator was mine for quite a while, and hence how well I was doing.
It's an ambitious idea, and the only TCG I've played so far this Dare. You've done a pretty good job in general with the user interface, and it plays smoothly--with an opening vignette that got me fired up to see the game through to the end.
Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Quick note--it says that the flashlight bug is fixed, but I'm still having trouble with it in the web version.
This was interesting! I managed to escape up until the flimsy wooden box, when I ended up getting a bit too excited about playing with all my toys, stabbed myself in the neck with a pen, and died.
I think it was a bit too easy to figure out what to do most of the time--after a bit there was kind of a rhythm to finding the right object. However, the first couple of playthroughs were very moody and tense, thanks in particular to the excellently chosen backing audio.
I kind of liked that attempting to calm down had no effect. I was hoping it would do something to calm *my* nerves, but instead--nothing, LOL.
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman
The surface being different from the interior doesn't make the surface somehow false.
This is hilarious.
Unfortunately, I can't offer any critique that you don't know about already, but I enjoyed it a lot and appreciate how much you went with your theme and subject.
This was a great game! I loved how heavy the character felt--really gave a sense of an alien planet with a different sort of gravity--and the difference between traveling on the surface, and underwater. Everything was very nicely polished, and I felt some real tension trying to get back after my missions. It felt good, though, since I thought I was going to have to lose some hitpoints--and in the end I didn't take any damage whatsoever.
Also, that is one nicely-drawn damaged spaceship.
The only thing I'd change would be to add a little bit of background audio--something ambient. The lack of it was noticeable.
All in all, a great game, well-polished, and a joy to play. Thank you!
You did a really good job setting the mood in this piece, and I like the use of breath weapons--that's pretty innovative, and new for me! It was *cool*.
The gameplay is pretty rudimentary and the platforming is pretty much functional at best, with a short length, but for me the main thing that bothered me about this game was the lack of audiovisual feedback for attacks. It was difficult to figure out that I was being damaged, or damaging anything, except when enemies disappeared or my pentacle points dropped. In such a short game that was pretty inconsequential, but with any greater challenge it would have posed a real problem.
I really liked the changing powerups mechanic, which was very new and really changed the way in which I accessed the levels. Also, when I got my new legs and needed to wait for a platform, I enjoyed standing there moving incrementally from side to side--because the animation looked like the creature was dancing. The cackling devils are hilarious!
However, the platforming and collision detection on the spikes are pretty bad, and the immediate snap back to the save point with no frames in-between--and the unusually loud SFX along with it--was quite stressful. I'm pretty sure I tried a certain section--the one pit right after picking up the shooty tentacle--twenty, thirty times without being able to get anywhere, and though I'm not the greatest at platformers, I'm certainly not *that* bad.
As someone else here said, keep evolving! This is a cool idea with a cute execution.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This game was nice! I also experienced the city-not-loading bug, which made my experience pretty tense with the inability to figure out whether I was winning or losing. It'd also help to let us know what makes the flags in the Bund move in the first place, since I was trying to maximize my gains and didn't even know the direction I should be taking (rather than the flag problem, which would tell me how well I was doing it).
Still, I had a fraught couple of minutes of fun out of this, which is impressive for a game with one of its most important assets missing. Great job!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Aw man! I really, really wanted to play this since it's the cleverest implementation of the theme I've seen so far and the graphics look amazing, but without a smartphone I'm going to have to pass : /
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a cute idea! The controls and general goals reminded me of a really neat cannon game I used to play, so good job there. However, there was a pretty bad bug--I started on an underground level, and even after clearing all of the blocks, the tree didn't gain enough air for it to take off. It just kind of slid sideways and intersected the unbreakable portion of the ceiling, and stayed there.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really appreciated getting to play this entry! It's a different interpretation of the theme, and it's nice to have a different setting, too. Also--pretty graphics, for sure!
Some things to keep in mind for next time are that the camera height can make it kind of hard to even see the pigs, they're so far away, and that also it'd be easier to control if you didn't have to click over again (if you could just hold your mouse down and Onca would move in that direction, that would have been easier for me, I think). However, in the context of a jam, there's always things you can do better, right? Great job!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I unfortunately didn't get very far--I had similar issues with the level panning for no apparent reason and the sluggish movement of the character. My second time I tried going outside the path, just to find out whether I could or not, and wound up walking through the rock wall (a unidirectional process).
The other thing I'd say is that if your questions are randomized, it's difficult for them to provide a narrative. I don't learn much from looking at binary questions of whether "wealth or fame" are more important, when the game tells me to gather wealth but the only gold dust I saw was deemed "worthless." It seems like a contradiction in terms.
The graphics--the look of the background and the art assets in general--were great (those sparkling blocks! the parchment-colored white background against the stark black!). The pulsing light circle and slippery controls were not so great, because I ended up getting nauseated and had to quit very quickly.
Same situation with me and everyone else. I like the core idea and wow, the controls are generally really sharp and smooth--with enough feedback to really figure out what you're doing, but I feel like the level design didn't quite address how the controls actually work (rather than how one would like them to theoretically work). Having a more difficult wall jump to do along with the first mirrored mechanics makes that third level just a bit too hard.
I dig the monochromatics though, and the controls are frankly great for having been pounded out in 48 hours.
Ignoring other people's boundaries: the simulator
Or perhaps:
Street harassment: the simulator
I disliked how random the woman's responses were. Playing the game, I'd make the same choice multiple times and we'd have completely different conversations, often where one moment she was fine (or furious) and the next moment she would completely change mood.
For such a sensitive subject, this only serves to vindicate people who play off women's responses to harassment as irrational, hysterical, etc. Social anxiety is a pain in the bum. Social anxiety does not force you to repeatedly escalate your pickup lines to someone who has shown they're not interested in your attentions, lest you be overcome by doubts.
Feedback: I ran into situations where it was really tough to guess what I was supposed to say (I didn't know what to say when I was supposed to Be Myself, etc). Also, when she was interested in hearing about interesting facts (hottest Spring day), I was surprised that talking about the Library got me called a Nerd... it didn't seem like I was talking to a human being, and lacked consistency that would make it easier to play.
It's tough to simulate the complexities of conversations between people, but I really liked the way the conversation bubbles worked... interesting way to simulate avoiding intrusive thoughts, or finding the right way to word something. It'd have been funny to say what was in a black bubble you rolled over... blurting out "My fly is unzipped" or "Will you marry me?" to someone you are barely acquainted with, and maybe a steeper penalty for the black bubbles could be brilliant.
In a longer game, I'd like to see more hints about personality, maybe the ability to pick who you talk to from among a crowd; take coercing a stranger into a date by telling her what she wants to hear, and expand it into a simulation of how to talk to and get to know strangers on a subway. Let them talk to get an idea of who they are, and talk about things you think they might be interested in, maybe make a friend, whatever. Interesting and pretty well-made jam game, nonetheless!
I fell off the edge of the world D:
This is a good tech demo! The colors are well-chosen (nice sky!), controls are smooth, and I was intrigued by the pagoda-like structures in the background. Good work on your story/framing narrative, too. When the game started up I was worried it was going to be sort of cheesy, but there was something really nice about that dichotomy--being on the surface of the planet, and beneath the surface of the acid clouds.
I was a little bit distracted by all of the particle effects, though. Their being so synchronized and rhythmic was kind of irritating. I'm having an unusually difficult time explaining why, though. If it's necessary for the game, maybe you could change up the rhythm a little bit? The overall contrast between the very blocky terrain, and the very smooth and rounded, almost bubbly particle effects, clashed.
Thank you for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
The second game I've finished until the end! The graphic direction was a bit uncohesive, but the general idea was really funny. I only got damaged once, though, so maybe you want to rebalance the room difficulty (please note: I am not very good at Binding of Isaac).
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Thanks for the game! I dug the graphics, the monsters, the whole strange surrealism of it. I think you could make the love letters a bit more intense--I don't mean "graphic," just that you could work on developing them so as to add a bit more of an arc to the story. Character design is excellent and I enjoyed the bizarre French existentialist bend (and metamorphosis of lover into a chain-smoking beetle...).
I did find a kind of weird bug, though--sometimes you'll teleport through solid walls when you stand close to them and hit z. I would often find myself trapped in a box on a level, think I was about to lose, and then warp out of it.
Another thing is that due to the very simple visual design, which is lovely and striking most of the time, I had a lot of trouble finding my character at the beginning of the level sometimes, and there was a fear that I would end up getting killed because the starting position was unsafe. So, that might be something else to consider.
All-in-all, a solid entry. Thank you!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Same thing as TyrusPeace for me--it's a really cool idea, making a game about fracking and getting the word out--but going from the top-down and merely placing the not-straight-up-and-down pipes without connecting them to anything at all (so I could cheese the randomizer and grab straight pipes only) meant contamination pretty much didn't happen, and so I didn't wind up doing much of anything even though I got up to the 40-barrel version to see if any new missions would appear. I didn't even see the clean water part of it!
P.S.: Cute name :]
This platformer has a really excellent sense of physics to it--a real heaviness that most slip-slidey platformers don't have, let alone those made in 72 hours. It was fun and felt good just to run around as the character. That said, that's where I found most of my enjoyment. The world was drab and fairly featureless, and since the zoom didn't cover the entire stage, I often found myself disoriented and struggling to figure out where to go next.
I've seen the world switching mechanic a lot of places--Guacamelee, Eversion, Giana Sisters, countless others--but this is the first time I've seen it with a time limit, which effectively controls the amount of time the player has to complete a particular platforming segment. This was a clever touch, and one which I think, if it were carefully designed to, could produce a very interesting and crafted experience.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This was interestingly surreal with great art (love that walk cycle on the main character), but next time please give an epilepsy warning.
Also, I don't know if there were multiple endings? The one I got really didn't seem to make much sense.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow... these are legitimately the best graphics I've seen so far this jam. The mood is fantastic. Had to give up after a couple of times, though--the sudden mass spider spawning when you get to the first mage got me both times.
I'd like to see a full version of this game... I'm interested in what you could do with more time. Thanks for the experience!
Interesting topic.
Your level design is excellent with nice graphics and a good gameplay mechanic, but the writing was ham-handed and it's irresponsible to ask the audience to empathize with the abuser. Domestic violence does not generally consist of "A person is abusive [the woman talking to her husband like a dog; she is not being *annoying*, she is being *demeaning*], and then the abused party escalates [the husband drops her into a pit], and then the new abused party escalates further [the wife turns the tables on the husband and locks him in the cave]." If you had indeed chosen the husband to be the abused party, having the player arrive at a sequence in which she "needed" to drop him down a pit in order to progress, at which point perspective switches--then you might have had something. As-is, please continue to refine your narrative style and read more accounts written by survivors.
Your audio choices also somewhat detracted from the feeling of the game, being kind of sappy.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I managed to complete the first stage after a lot of tries, but I couldn't quite figure out how to advance to the next level--was there one?
Overall, it's a cute name with nice graphics and pretty smooth play. However, needing to restart so many times was frustrating, and I found that I tended to avoid the powerups for maneuverability, since the game was uncompleteable otherwise. It'd be nice to see some longer levels.
Haha, 2/13 fish ._.
Group control is neat, since each individual fish is like its own hitpoint. At the same time as one wants to keep as many fish as possible, in this game the more fish you lose the easier it is to play...
The apparently charcoal graphics worked well, as did the music. If I had any recommendation to make, it would be to try to work on game balance so that there are fewer stationary enemies, i.e. make it slightly more active. As-is it was a certain kind of exciting to squeak past a shark and wonder if I had managed to move the group in time, or if they were going to be eaten. The time gap made it feel like their safety was both in, and out, of my hands.
Great entry for your first jam! Hope to see you next time.
Finished! Great, functional execution of the concept. Your musical loop is a little bit off, and it's repetitive but that's all right for such a short game. A longer version that maintains this one's simplicity while adding more style and visual feedback would be great--in particular, the hitboxes on the spikes make some portions unnecessarily punishing. I'd like to see level design that focused more on planning than difficulty with execution, too.
Still, this is really original for a 48-hour effort. Thanks for the experience!
Is the endless deep ocean perhaps made of LCL ._. I saw that empty uniform!
Not bad at all for 24 hours. Like the other posters, I'd like to see this fleshed out and polished a little bit more, with more sound and gameplay added.
Something you might want to pay attention to: when you just press the right or left key, you don't go in a circle. Instead, it's an oval... It looks like you might want to go under the hood of your physics engine a little bit more.
Thanks for the game!
An interesting game, but there didn't seem to be any loss condition--so it falls more under the purview of interactive storytelling. I think a smaller number of interactions could have made it clear that the player character is the robot (... if I read that correctly?). As-is, if it's a game, then it probably needs to be more forgiving--as there's no apparent way to learn a character other than restarting the game; and if it's simply a narrative, it should likely be a little bit less repetitive.
All-in-all I enjoyed the humor and was reminded far too much of my own experience in office environments, so thank you for the flashbacks ._.
... Are the characters in some kind of blackface? I don't know if that's your intention or not, but, um... it kind of looks that way.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
The art for this is great, and I like the way it controls--it's really smooth and feels like a boat. I played a couple times, though, so it would be nice if the game-over screen gave you your score and let you start a new game (rather than just giving a splash image). Also--I know it says you have techno music, but I couldn't hear anything despite having the volume cranked up really loud. That's a technical issue you might want to look into.
Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really like the look of this game! The crowd scenes look great, and honestly watching people being knocked about like bowling pins by the cars is a treat. You've got a couple of bugs, though:
1. I was hit by a car a few times and went offscreen, or was able to keep running while prone (this was hilarious, by the way)
2. In my second run, the bomb went off early.
3. The WASD controls seem not to work. The guy moves his legs, but he stays in place. I'm not sure if they're not supported or not--but since Unity told me I should use them as my primary movement method, I thought I'd let you know.
In any case, great job and good luck with your next competition!
A lovely starting page and nice graphics; however, there's some issues with use of screen real estate. You have all that nice space between bowl and ingredients which doesn't seem to be used for anything, but the ingredients are placed just at the bottom border of the screen--where clicking and dragging is at a maximum likelihood to just deselect the window. I also couldn't understand why I lost the game when I did, so some information on the loss condition would be helpful.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really like the character you presented--the graphics are wonderful (dig that elephant! or mammoth, I was kind of busy running away), and that screen at the end is very cute--but I have to say that I felt that the initial promise of the game (a resolved mystery) somewhat fell through. Great music. Probably the best thing you could do to improve the game, in my opinion, is put some kind of screen in-between levels to give the player something to look at (so that they won't think that the game has somehow frozen and is having terrible trouble).
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Unlike the others, I somehow had no trouble with getting stuck on the walls. I like this concept--seems like I could get addicted to it pretty easily as a flash game, for example--but I found the level design a bit too samey, and the difficulty didn't really seem to increase too much. Sure, there were more bubbles on later levels, but the number and placement of kelp remained about the same, and I didn't have to go out of my way to get the pearls--it was really a "dodge the bubbles as you try to get to the end of the level" game, more than a collection game. I got to level 4 without losing any lives or even really worrying about it.
However, I think that the basic concept, applied to some more careful (perhaps non-procedural) level design, could really be a lot of fun.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I love the psychedelic graphics! Like the other people here, though, I really couldn't figure out what to do. What is the probe for? Why am I clicking? How do I make the poor manspider smile?
Cool model, though. It was fun to play with!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Man, I love a cute danmaku game. The idea is great, it's adorable, I like the pace. Touhou controls are fine, though the penguin rotates in a way that's difficult to maneuver. Music and SFX are a bit unbalanced, too, while the backing track didn't quite seem to suit your mood.
Thing is, though, I can't really understand why I was collecting fish--I got to 46/25 and nothing in particular happened (I'm looking at the comments below--it seems that you're supposed to feed the penguin on the surface, but there's no indicator that you'd be able to do that).
Pre-post edit:
Okay, I went back and played a bit longer, getting to the baby penguin level, which I probably played about 5 times. Most of the jellyfish are clustered on the edge of the screen, hence most of the fish and powerups they spit out, and a hell of a lot of bullets. However, you have an ocean current there. Getting blown into danmaku over and over again was really frustrating, so I'd say the number one thing is, for this adorable game--do something else about the edges, perhaps? Otherwise, I love the theme, the general setup, the concept. I got pretty involved in playing! So, thank you for the experience.
This game has a nice, contemplative mood! I was able to finish mid-flip, framed perfectly over the sun, hehe. Really polished and light to play, and the undersea bubbles helped figure out acceleration.
This is great for a 48-hour entry, but if you decide to expand on it, I think that some gentle sea movement would probably be the most helpful thing to set the mood. As-is, the utterly and persistently placid sky and sea had a static behavior that broke my association with the game a little.
Thanks for this! I enjoyed relaxing with it.
I'm in agreement with Mental Atrophy.
Good job for a first attempt! An innovative concept. Cubes falling so infrequently and there being gaps I couldn't traverse without a megajump meant that I spent a whole lot of time sitting around waiting, rather than playing. You might also want to tweak the controls, since having regular movement and megajump on one hand, with the regular jump on the other hand, doesn't make much sense. It would be easier to play if you swapped the two kinds of jump.
Thanks for the game!
Despite being a big fan of Tetris Attack, there were some bits and pieces here and there that detracted from your presentation. Being unable to move the cursor through the blocks was necessary for one puzzle, but for all the rest it just made things more tedious. More time after a failed puzzle to look at what was done incorrectly, and a shorter pause in the audio loop, would have helped as well.
However, serious props for writing all of the scene changes in rhyme, and for adding a narrative to the game. It helped tie it all together. Meter next? :D
Combining drilling with a dating game... not something I would have ever expected! It was fun, though I think probably my main objection was the simplicity of the routes. It got to be pretty clear which answers were the good ones and which ones were bad--which was in no way dependent on the presented planets' personalities (or so it seemed)--and so I lost immersion pretty quickly.
Still, this is really original and I laughed for quite a bit. Well done!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This was a neat concept, and I liked the background art a lot, the general concept, and so on. At this point, I think there's a few things you might want to make clearer:
1. How much food you need to gather
2. That the world doesn't wrap
Since the plants seem to regenerate, I ended up going really, really far out of my way, picking up 100 food, and then getting too bored to actually return home.
The other thing is that your excellent graphical talent should probably also be extended to the user interface. As others have noted, the "you have died" screen at the end while you're still able to run around is pretty anti-climactic. However, the unfeatured bars in the upper-left corner also cut down on the established mood a bit, while they could be used to great effect to help set it.
Still, this is a nice concept. I like the idea of a sneaking game that doesn't present any enemies whatsoever until the moment of being caught.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really wanted to play this game, but I could not for the life of me figure out the controls. Do you think you could post them? The sound is great, the interpretation of the theme is great, it looks absolutely adorable... but without controls posted, it's really hard to rate you...
Anyway, thanks for the entry!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really, really liked this entry. There's something very... turtle ballet about it. Just navigating on the planet surface gives you enough time to get used to the controls, being more humorous than boring... and the floaty jumping gave a really good sense of a low-gravity region this time. Short, sweet, and fun. Thanks for the experience : D
This was an interesting entry. It's nice to have a stealth game that's not all about Spying Stealthy Action, and the art was really clean and easy to interpret. I was a little bit sad that my loot wasn't represented in the kitchen underworld, since it would have added to my satisfaction as I squirreled it all off.
That said, it was kind of prohibitively difficult, even though I played probably ten times. Once the cook literally spotted me stealing an apple through the back of her head. It's hard to figure out just where she can see, and even harder to steal items within a short time frame before the cook can use them when I need to be sure I'm hanging out on the tallest cupboard until the right moment (you might want to expand those time frames just a little bit). Some sort of ability to peer through the holes, or more feedback on how far away she is, would be really helpful in terms of navigation. If you want to make it be more ratlike, you could do increasing and decreasing sounds of footsteps to help determine distance.
I also think that theming it in terms of psychological depth is a little bit misguided. It's a fun game about a rat stealing stuff, as far as I'm able to tell thus far (does she freak out that her ingredients are disappearing at random? I never got to a part of the game where I could see that).
Anyway, good job. The idea's fresh and I had a pretty good time!
Found a few bugs--the tire swing can smack you into a position where you seem to be intersecting with the wall, since you can't move afterwards, and running into the top of the screen also halts your forward progress.
Jumping was a bit too springy relative to the size of your enemies, removing a lot of the threat from them, and I bounced into the ceiling a lot. You might want to change the size of the player character and jump height relative to the enemies, or add some more headspace on the screen.
However, I liked the way that the background assets had a different function than in traditional platformers. You could go between stands of trees, be shot far by a cannon, or struck about by a tire swing--all static, unkillable objects that you had to learn to navigate anyway, and were outside the usual platformer fare.
The components of this game are all pretty good, but the way that they fit together doesn't work too well for me. The assets, although individually effective (I love that centurion), don't look like they all came from the same game. The triumphant part of the background music suits the general feeling and I had a few pretty exciting moments listening to it, but the xylophone portion cheapened the experience and made things feel a bit too cutesy.
Then, your game has two stages, corresponding with filling one bar at the top of the screen, and then depleting the other. The actual gameplay, although requiring basically no strategy but figuring out how to do things efficiently, was fun and exciting (It reminded me of Dust: An Elysian Tail) until it became tedious. There didn't really seem to be any way to lose. Simultaneously, since you had bars for both states up at the same time, I kept wondering how I was supposed to be taking care of the HIV when nothing but immunity was being influenced.
Finally, having an exhaustion mechanic without any sort of indicator for that--other than not being able to do what you want--doesn't give the player enough feedback for them to know if it's that they're playing the game incorrectly, or that something is going on within the system itself.
It's a great interpretation of the theme, though, and there were some really enjoyable moments.
2,000 points! The swimming controls were really good, but the ones on land were a bit too slidy in the horizontal axis (seems like the same controls with a vertical vs. horizontal sprite orientation?). In general, I didn't keep trying all the way to the 5,000 since I realized the grails respawned in the upper area (with fewer sharks), which lowered the challenge pretty significantly. The deep underwater effect was good--the first time I died was down there, and I was pretty startled by the, uh, amount of aquatic wildlife covering the screen.
Your sound samples were also quite nice, but the death SFX seemed both inappropriately loud and a strange choice of instrumentation.
Nice graphics and the unusually clean underwater movement makes this a solid entry overall.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Oh wow, you're only eleven?! It's great that you're already entering game jams! I'm impressed!
I could clear the first two levels, but the third one got a little bit too hard too fast. The first level was good--it was pretty easy, so I didn't have to work too hard and could figure out the game. The next level I thought, "Hm, I can do this okay!" But on the third one, I ended up thinking: "Could anyone alive click that fast?!"
I hope you come and submit a game in August, too :] See you then!
What a cute kid's story! I unfortunately can't comment very much on the writing or art, because I don't know much about the standards for that demographic--but they seemed pretty good to me, and I liked the bear-stag (?) that appeared at the end of the story.
My main gripe is that the user interface is kind of difficult to use--you have text-only option points, and images of varying sizes. Snapping between these things means that I have to keep on looking away from the region I focus as the center of the story--the pictures. And, it seems like to keep kids' attention, you'd want to have the images remain central, so there's not A Picture Part And A Word Part.
I hear that this is hard to do in Twine (I'm not really familiar with it), so you might be interested in this other compo entry, that apparently figured out a workaround:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=6609
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I really liked this entry. The movement was smooth, no bugs, sound was to great effect, and I did my best my first runthrough and still really couldn't get out in time. This was fortunate, since I got to see the chilling ending line. Clean screens, good controls, good animations. Honestly, this was really great. Thanks for the experience!
(Also, thanks for the review >< Much appreciated)
I enjoyed playing this entry a lot! The mechanics were nice, and the SFX did a good job of creating a feeling of "heaviness." I also enjoyed the difficulty of platforming through my own past shadows, and in the final level really felt they created a cute image (with all five trailing close behind). Good puzzles, excellent conveyance, and fun to boot. Thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I had a lot of fun, though I actually wasn't able to hear anything. The reloading harpoons mechanic is really nice! One thing you might work on is putting the game in a window rather than fullscreen (it'll help the low-res graphics look better) and adapting the level design a bit to give the players more time to learn the game before throwing quite so many sea creatures at you.
Otherwise, it was a tense, fun experience for me. Thanks!
Excellent work with the art style, the music, and the atmosphere! I don't usually like auto-runners very much, but I felt motivated to finish this one.
I agree with your other critiques that the tentacles should not get closer to you if you are doing well; similarly, I did have trouble with a lot of the hitboxes, not being sure where to jump, and the like. There were other times when I would pass multiple obstacles and only THEN get caught, so that there really seemed to be no relationship between how I played and whether or not I was trapped. The tentacles moving up weren't just a visual effect; they also meant that I could have already lost the game without knowing it, which is inappropriate for this genre.
Finally, I have some qualms about the end of the game. It's unfair to the player to have such a sudden, substantive change in the controls (much higher jump and much longer slide) without any warning, or apparent reason for it. I agree that it's nice to change things up a little and that having different-sized stuff to jump over was fun, but it seemed really unfair, and I felt like I had to relearn the game. Then, when I got to finding my little sister, the "the end" screen made her disappear... this also seemed unfair ._. If you're going to have reaching a quest object be the end of the game, then it makes sense to see that object on the ending screen, right?
And, it seemed strange that the tentacles would suddenly stop at the final obstacle. Why couldn't all the other obstacles stop the tentacles? From a narrative perspective, it just doesn't make sense.
I really enjoyed this game, though. It was harrowing to play, and all of the animations on the main character were cute and helped with characterization. I liked his tangly legs!
Thanks for the game, and good luck with the post-compo version!
This is a difficult entry to score. Since it was incomplete, I played both characters myself on a single keyboard, just to see what the game looked like. The character design isn't really common for jam games, so good job there, and the idea for a co-op game that plays differently for each player--rather than having one player "toggle between the worlds," as the idea is typically executed--was nicely fresh.
However, there's a lot of difficulty with the design. The two characters can push each other around a bit too easily, and the jump mechanic seemed floaty and loose. I couldn't tell if you were going for realism or just made another unusual design choice, but it's something you'll probably want to work on for the post-compo version.
Still, thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I don't know what went on, but I actually didn't run into any traps or invisible walls the whole time I was in the maze. I also didn't realize that the warps would keep sending me back and forth between the worlds, so I wound up in the maze quite a few times, hehe.
The free-runner on top of the roof would have been a lot more fun with longer ramps and smaller jumps--as-is it was a bit more like a tilted "pixel-perfect" first-person platformer, which is a rough combination.
Excellent mood. To fix your audio problem, usually folks make some kind of loop. Might be difficult if you're using open-source music, but it'd also help your entry a lot.
Thanks for the experience! Those beast roars in the background freaked me out, haha.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is a neat idea, and the graphics are great! I guess the main thing I'd ask is why you'd have the bar need to be filled up by repeatedly using different machines, instead of putting a person in a machine and having the bar fill automatically.
Maybe consider leaving out the racism and other such things (you know what I'm talking about) next time. You can make a great game without them.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This is really neat! I dig the art style. It's a weird balance between chiaroscuro and blocky pixels, which has its own sort of flair. The sincerely great voice acting and sound direction are what really sells it for me... I was genuinely relieved to see my character get out of that place.
Obviously the level design and length needs work, but you already know that. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you folks!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Note: SPOILERS AHOY
I was really impressed with this entry. Since the theme of clicker games is "click more to get more stuff and accomplish goals," with the goal to minimize one's time investment on the way, your game furnishes an excellent deconstruction. Though at first memories and experiences provide a functional value (when the goal is growing), they soon stop providing a means to an end and are merely extraneous (when the goal is to decay).
I can actually remember, quite clearly, the moment when I chose to stop gathering memories and experiences, since I had learned that they were pointless and I was tired of clicking on things. I'd become disheartened in my attempts to enjoy formative experiences and gave up. I didn't really want to buy things or advance in my career anymore--I wanted to find out if more stuff would happen if I kept trying to fall in love, make projects, and play--but before too long I decided to just progress and get it over with. It's a game that makes you choose to kill yourself, because you'd rather do that than keep playing it.
But in theory, you could spend the rest of your life in the real world "solving" these "problems." It's just that the goal is to limit time investment. Right?
I found the experience of waiting to be forgotten exhausting. It seemingly took forever for the timer to run out, and I tabbed away because I didn't want to watch anymore--didn't want to assist at my own funeral.
And then, because I really had lost my hope somewhere along the lines that I could keep playing and something would be different, I closed the browser window and didn't try again.
Thanks for this experience. It's really... top notch ;]
Missing some MSVCR dlls...
Gorgeous graphics and really crisp movement, especially well-done given your further time constraints. I think there may be a minor bug in the collision detection for the above-ice attack--I've had a lot of creatures seem to be close enough that I'd be able to kill them, i.e. be within the strike range, and then take me out a moment later--and sometimes the slash attack seems a little bit underreactive. I enjoyed my time with this piece, though. The general mechanics are quite solid--might just need a little tune-up.
I am pretty sure I played this one game alone for about an hour. It was helpful how you created locks in some areas, to cut down on the amount of shuffling around players could do when they were trying to finish a given puzzle. Trying to navigate through the dark was annoying, but as soon as I realized it was an exercise in memory, rather than in, well, navigation, it got a lot easier. I also didn't mind all the backtracking so much, since it was over a small area.
My only complaint is that the SFX and music seems a bit out of balance, and the noise when you don't have a light gem to place is actively grating. Otherwise, a great little game that was enjoyable and feels complete.
It took a couple of tries, but I was eventually able to get to the end. The new mechanic was intriguing, adding both an avoidance and sword-fighting mechanism within the same game and level, though on a conceptual level I was a bit confused as to why collecting seashells--in a forest--would help my sword function. Am I a shellmancer? Is my swing so aggressive that it would damage the fragile archaelogical treasures beneath the surface if I attacked too soon?
The level progression was smooth and the stage sizes perfect for the mechanic. I appreciated the surprise of the new opponent coming at the end! From a conveyance perspective, I felt like a little bit more feedback when I hit the enemies would have been helpful--not just the knockback--or perhaps having them flash before disappearing. I had a little bit of trouble keeping track of how many folks I'd managed to defeat on that one level with 4 bad guys. The sword movement was also a bit odd. It seemed strangely smooth in comparison to the rest of the game, and a little bit artificial.
All-in-all, it was a neat new concept backed up with old-school graphics that, themselves, taught me some of what to expect in terms of gameplay. Great job, and thanks for the game!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Wow, this was a really cool concept! The mood was great, and the system you use where you can't quite tell who's speaking is a really interesting narrative choice, especially in the final room. That warbly, ghost-like clarinet solo and chants in the background gave a certain pizzaz! However, I didn't feel like there was much game in your game, if you know what I mean. There was a lot of concept, but I would have enjoyed more of a challenge.
I always wondered if a tetris attack game that allowed you to flip both vertically and horizontally was possible, but in this case it takes away all the challenge and leaves things feeling a bit dull. The interpretation of the theme was novel and I like your image of the city, whose simplicity. I would have felt better if the goal was to light the buildings within a certain amount of time or something like that, creating an interactivity with image and gameplay--rather than simply trying to minimize the number of moves relative to the points earned, which is a tall order for a game with no loss or completion condition.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
This was really adorable, with a novel interpretation of the theme! I felt like the level design needed to be worked on, though. The central puzzle of "pull out the tacks to progress" didn't seem to be really designed around, and the level progression didn't make sense--a level that caused some difficulty could be flanked on either side with lots of easier ones, with no explanation for it thematically.
Still, it was cute and I enjoyed myself playing. Good job!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
I think everyone's pretty well covered the gameplay situation (in particular the tiling and difficulty level), so I'll say first--sweet audio, which actually meshed pretty well with the chill feeling of the game, and I really like your monster designs, too! The main character could be similarly made a bit more individualistic, however.
As for the narrative, I think you could improve it some by cutting text. It's a game, not a novel... though it's seriously awesome that you could include this much story in your entry, the job of the writer in these games is to set the scene and let everything else speak for itself, sort of. And, in this case, I think there was a bit too much text. Not too many ideas... just that you could cut some verbiage and have a shorter, sweeter story.
This has nice graphics and visuals put together, and I liked the diversity of the endings. The captain's voice was also nice--not narratively obtrusive, but still well-defined.
However, I didn't really feel emotionally invested in any of the outcomes, and I could occasionally tell that there was no possible answer that would answer the challenge before me well, which was frustrating and eroded my sense of agency.
Solid entry! I didn't personally have any trouble with glitches, but I did stand on top of the sideways-facing button in order to keep it pressed down (the level was too difficult for me otherwise ._.). With the name, I had expected it to be a game about psychology, but instead... it was a mirror platformer! I like your game design. I hadn't seen any of these types of games using buttons, and it made for some interesting puzzling before long.
This is a nice entry, with good polish and level design! It's well-tuned, and I had some very exciting moments when I was trying to kill the creatures on successively smaller platforms. That said, the character and gameplay right now, other than the crystals mechanic, feel a bit too much like Cave Story and other such platformers--visually and mechanically--for me to get really enthusiastic about it. You've got great level design skills, so I hope you keep running with these concepts and bring in a newer visual direction.
(Also, add some music in a post-compo version? I think this is one of those games that it would really help out!)
This was a neat entry! The color palette and audio work well together, and the concept is interesting. Towards the end of the game, though, I didn't really feel like I had learned anything. Maybe this is because I got all the right answers the first time through; in any case, a second ending for a post-compo version might help the story make a bit more sense.
I also wish I understood why the protagonist is talking to this mysterious voice, giving him masks! Who are they?! It's an interesting mystery ><
Thanks for the game~ This is really nicely done for a compo game.
This had a nice feeling, and I enjoyed the simple puzzles... needing to switch mid-way, and the like.
Did you mean to have it end at the "fall into hopelessness" part? To the best of my knowledge you can't get any farther than that (since what I expected, that I'd be able to swap between hard and soft shells and figure out how to float between the spikes, did not work)... but it looked like there was more levels.
Still, I appreciated the message before it became so nihilistic, and the movement and ambiance were good. Also, it was a nice interpretation of the theme... each shell is in a way "beneath" the other, rather than having the usual representation with a single surface. A solid entry.
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
Your atmospherics are great! I love the peppy atmosphere, the bouncing trees, the... well, the whole psychodelic mushroom samba schtick. It'd be fun to play a completed game with these visuals for sure!
Hi, this is Vector from the Victory Garden team! (posting under Solifuge's account)
49 pineapples! I had some trouble starting the game at first--no many how many times I clicked, it wouldn't load. This one was neat in its interpretation of the theme for sure with a nice mood and relaxing audio, though I wish there had been some more strategy or variation in the gameplay.
The game is interesting with excellent graphics. Please forgive me: You've received a lot of praise, so this post is going to be mostly critique. I felt that it was overwritten in places. The art is gorgeous as always, but when you describe facial expressions we can interpret for ourselves with text, it really weakens the strength of our perceptions. With the simplicity of the image: a young woman, a closed room, the mountains, I wish that we had been more able to access it for ourselves.
Next, the game needed more of a narrative arc, I suppose. I didn't get a sense that anything was changing, or becoming. Often I'd pick a dialogue option and then the character would say that line, and then the other... so why did I choose? Yes, Wilma becomes closer to Leos, but who are these people? Wilma describes herself as delicate, but that's, well, a very common way to describe women that doesn't tell you much about her in particular. A poetic intellect to be sure, possibly consumptive or hysterical if she *whimpers* on discussion of her writer's block. A young woman sent off into the mountains entirely alone, in *that* era? It's highly unlikely... there should be something about that in there. Talking alone, unintroduced, unchaperoned, to an unknown man on the telephone would be the site of high scandal--in England, at least; it may well have been different in Austria, but from my understanding, not so entirely different.
I wish I had gotten a better sense of the burden of the passage of time, perhaps through some sort of rain SFX or the like. Making a silent game about musical composition is a very interesting choice.
Thank you for all of the food for thought, and for the game. Best of luck in the competition!
Hey Leafthief... I actually didn't think you had written a review of your own game, it's just that I'm trying to run about giving constructive criticism on writing since I see very few people giving substantive advice one could actually do anything with in that category. I apologize--it seems that you took it the wrong way. This is obviously a top-notch entry, and I was offering that level of critique out of respect. Take care...
Really neat idea! Not so much my thing, but the polish and care taken with this is incredible. Thank you for the game!
Gorgeous! I liked the music and SFX. I did keep having issues because I swapped worlds when I meant to jump, but that is probably just too much training from other platformers ._. Really polished and complete! I'd like to see some more difficult levels... maybe some with more moving parts and whatnot :D
I liked the graphics! It sort of felt like an "Oregon Trail of the Sea." I got down to zero food and then somehow won anyway at the last minute, which was cool. I was kind of wondering if my extra crew members would help out with that situation.
Anyway, I think the main thing I'd say is that the intro text could use a bit of a cleanup. "You'll curry my favor if you curry my food" is a great line, but we could use without three screens of info in a difficult font.
Wow, this game is absolutely gorgeous! I loved the bobbing of the boat, the slow movement, the sound of other people as you pull into port... it's really sad that with all that festivity, you still have the goal to trade and rack up money until you die.
More than anything I'd like to see a gameplay boost, because I don't feel like the chosen elements--though each beautiful in its own way--really meshed together. You forsake company for money, but then the things you buy don't really need to be eaten, thanks to the lighthouses. The feel of simultaneous isolation, through the lighthouses, and company at the markets... well, simply put, it seems to be a bit slow and contemplative to really match with the goal, if you know what I mean.
That said, this was *extremely* graphically impressive. Great job!
Reminded me of Star Fox! The only thing I missed was being able to do a barrel roll... Excellent music and graphics.
Hey, I enjoyed this! You've got a great soundtrack and concept, the graphics are actually pretty creepy, and I had some fun playing!
I felt like initial enemies had a bit too much HP, and their bullets were too hard to see--I couldn't figure out what I was getting killed by and where to go, and most of the time I couldn't get any pickups because I was moving too slowly and was too far away when they spawned, even if I started heading towards them right way. I think I also may have shot one to death at one point o_O
Thanks for the game! I had fun.
This was a neat game! I especially liked how you let us figure out what we were supposed to do and how we were supposed to do it on our own. The whole doge thing seemed a little out of place and I couldn't figure out the end goal was once I'd gone about upgrading everything. However, it was really fun and fast-paced, and I thought you did a wonderful job overall on getting the balance polished. Thanks for the game!
No music, not even for post-compo ver.? Aww :< I like this idea, especially the choice to stay connected or not. It's pretty clever! Thank you for the game.
Wow, this game looks great! I had a very hard time getting past the initial level, though. The character moves really slowly and because I can't go very far from my body, it's difficult to develop a defensible position while I'm killing stuff. I was really looking forward to getting farther in the game, too, because your monster in the screenshot looks super-scary! Great character design.
This was a great entry! Unfortunately, the graphics flickering gave me a pretty bad headache--and I'm pretty sure it wasn't my computer, since I built it less than a year ago. Everything else has already been said... other than that it might be neat to have the *base* state of the game be to play with your "eyes closed" and the screen black. You might be unable to walk while playing guitar or something like that. Then I think that the opportunity to see would be even more exciting!
This is neat! The addition of the rising water to the basic Lemmings gameplay was a good idea. I'd appreciate more complicated level design, though, and maybe levels that could be solved in multiple ways. I also had a bear of a time using the ladders. Characters would get stuck on them or ignore them quite frequently--like in the 3rd or 4th level, when they had to jump onto the ladder and ended up just getting stuck there like flies and not moving. I tested this multiple times... just didn't work.
Thank you for the game!
I wish I could give more stars for mood. That was fucking terrifying. The story didn't make much sense to me, though, and sometimes Alex's big head was in the way of stuff :< I want to know... was there more than one ending?
Neat concept! Your graphics are great, especially those you see in the combat scenes. I love that you could get an animation done that wasn't just numbers popping up over someone's head. Music is also pretty good, but the mixing needs some help--the difference between BGM and victory theme volumes is way too high. Solid SFX work.
In a general design perspective, I'd like to see more interactions between virtual and real worlds, because as-is outside of the one lever in Shannon's room the computer terminal just functions as another door--it's purely aesthetic, not functional, and doesn't do anything for the gameplay itself at all. There just isn't much game here right now. I kind of expected a series of puzzle rooms in houses--think it might have worked better.
Writing also needs work, as there's a lot of basic spelling and mechanical errors in what you have there--which is ok for most games, but for something as text-heavy as an RPG, it's a serious problem. I usually noticed one or more per dialogue. The humor also fell flat for me--you sure as hell earned your reference to Scubabear, but the rest of the meme insertion doesn't give you much by way of freshness.
A roleplaying game is based on, well, playing a particular role, and your characterization wants some examination. Who is Shannon? What does she want? What's going on? Why's she so good at punching rats? What is the objective? We've got no idea--just that we're interacting with various objects because that's what you *do* in a game. I mean, sure, it's incomplete--but I feel like there were a lot of opportunities untaken, just from what there was to see.
I have to apologize for being so hard on you. Combat RPGs as a genre are kind of tired, and I feel like you have a lot of potential to do some really amazing work. Thank you for the game, and I do sincerely hope you finish it. I look forward to playing more.
Wow, this was a really cool idea! It wasn't *too* hard, though I wished that I could buy permanent upgrades for my ship instead of just temporary bullet and r.o.f. boosts. The constant degradation of my stuff was really frustrating :< I would have also liked the left hand of the viewer to be larger... it didn't feel like there was quite enough flying room for a shmup, if you know what I mean. Would have liked it to be juicier, too; I think we needed more of a reward for doing well, since this is a goddamn taxing game.
Still, I'm being hard on you because I really like this--bullet hells and tower defense are some of my favorite genres, and I would buy a polished version of this commercially in a hot second. Thank you for the game!
This is the best game I have played this jam.
By far.
Thank you. This is basically "crossed the line twice" humor at its finest. Great gameplay, too... I couldn't beat the goddamn final boss because it kept on one-shotting the whole party, no matter what kind of strategy I tried, but damn... this was fun, and very well-balanced.
Cute little game! It would have helped to have had some music to give you the feel of things too, as well as maybe a less abrupt level transition (I was confused at the beginning when the menu screen didn't just let me start playing, and instead plopped me down at a level beginning without fanfare). I would have also liked the little droplet to feel heavier as it splats around, rather than being so floaty--to contrast with the feel of the cloud mechanic, which should be really freeing. I really liked the water cycle mechanic and the cheerful little level-end sting.
Thanks!
I spent a lot of time playing this... it was frustrating that nothing much was resolved at the end. I didn't really feel like I'd gotten anywhere. However, I did appreciate that you gave us the answer to the Greenhouse puzzle up there... reminded me of Metal Gear where you're supposed to "look on the back of the box" to get Meryl's codec. Good writing in general, and it brought be back to the good old days of playing Zork :D Thanks for the game!
Unfortunately it has been a long time since I have written anything in French, but I can read it just fine ;]
This is a neat game! I hadn't thought you could make anything like this in RPG maker. It's kind of like a RPG X-Com game. I didn't get too far because the gameplay felt a little bit padded--I have lost my tolerance for grinding through combat after combat, and because the gameplay seemed like there wasn't going to be any end to the game, I stopped when I felt like I understood what I was supposed to do.
Thank you for the game!
Only got 19 or so. I loved this, especially the explosive decompression the second circle seems to undergo at the end o.o Music is a little loud, I think, but relaxing and good to listen to. I think there may need to be a bit more feedback of some kind (audiovisual, I mean) in order to make the game really addictive. Agree with other posters that the controls could use some tweaking.
It used to be called "Curvy Companion," right? I think that name was a bit more eye-catching. Thank you for the game! It's really good.
This was a really neat entry, and I admire you for trying out a tactical game! Our team tried out a strategy game last time and found it was a real challenge to balance, so good on you for even trying.
I got kind of engrossed in the game, but the user interface was too hard to use and I had to quit. You can't exactly tell what pieces are yours unless you're looking at the minimap, and because you can't really seem to be able to move the map around, I had to skip a lot of my turn because of where the camera had gotten fixed. It would have also been nice for the pieces to have moved a bit faster, since watching three other players, all marked as the same color and all using the same pieces, got a bit boring.
Otherwise, the graphics are *really really nice*, and I thought the ambience felt good. Thanks for the game!
A nice little platformer! The graphics are very impressive and the mood is really well-done--really epic. I found myself wondering what he was doing with his staff, why there were no enemies, and making up the story that he was some kind of great warrior dragging himself up the cliffs to defeat a horrible monster--no other souls since they were already dead... well, what can I say, it was inspiring :] I would have liked more oomph to the platforming, but a sort of Shadow of the Colossus platformer spirit works really well here (lots of travel, combat at the end maybe). Had some frustration at the level transitions--you might want to fade to black at the end to smooth them out, rather than letting the game freeze. Enjoyed the enormous moons and parallax scrolling, especially in the waterfall level!
Thanks for the game!
Everyone seems to be having issues with Chrome reacting poorly to EXEs from this site. Zipping it is a good idea; hope this fixes the issue.
Hi everyone, thanks so much for your comments and criticism! We're taking them all into account to make the final build the best that it can be. Thank you for playing our game!
Font is an open-source dyslexia-friendly one we found :]
As for, ah, boss enemies............................ :D
Just you wait.
Really gorgeous graphics, and well laid-out... but I kept hammering the alt key and it wouldn't let me attack! I tried jumping over the enemies and pressing alt, going up to them, just standing there... nothing :< And I got to that hole in the tree and the game played Toccata and Fugue and ended! More, please!
This game has so much going for it, but it feels like the components don't exactly match each other. Sprites look good, and music is good but it doesn't really match the tone of the game. It wasn't hard for me--didn't lose a single HP--but I had to concentrate with each attack creating another problem. I would have liked it if the waves actually needed to be completed to progress to the next level, as I would have had a better sense of what was happening... I agree with the other posters. More juiciness all 'round to add to the succulent gameplay!
There kept on being a problem where the RHS turret would get stuck shooting in a particular direction... I was willing to stick it out for a pretty long time, but when it got to the boss it was just too many monsters and too little control over the situation. I liked the music and SFX, though the SFX were too loud in comparison. Really nice, meditative experience, especially when the shuriken came into it, and innovative, too--loved the experience of *trying* to be shot at. Just remove the bugs and tweak the audio balance, and you'll be sterling. Thanks for the game!
Man... please fix the collision detection. I had to walk over each wormhole like a billion times. Also, your UI doesn't need four boxes, if you can only hold one item at the time! You could declutter the screen pretty easily, I think. SFX are good.
A nice, short game! I got to the end. I liked the controls, and the waves were just the right length. The only thing I'd change is that enemies spawn on top of you without warning, which didn't seem exactly fair; most of the damage I took was completely out of my control. Maybe the game was tuned that way and it was supposed to feel like that for the experience, but I found it really frustrating.
Thanks for the game!
Level nine SERIOUSLY kicked my ass. No trouble with platform connectors here, but I did kind of feel that one level was too hard--I sat there, memorized the patterns, and no matter how much I spammed the movement keys I couldn't get anywhere :< SFX-wise that one slide flute sound was both way too loud and, well, annoying. It was fun, though, and I thought playing as a beetle protagonist was a really cool idea. Thanks for the game!
I wish I could give more stars for graphics. Great job! The mechanic where you could pull items between worlds was really cool. I also liked the glide-jump... it added a lot to the feel of the character, who had a certain sense to him despite there being no dialogue or communicated goal of any kind.
I think that in a more completed version I would have liked to have somehow seen a bit less hand-holding with the level design. As-is I often felt like I was following directions, not independently choosing what to do. It's hard, though, when the penalty is falling... so I can understand that what you have right now is an attempt at frustration-proofing, which is totally valid :S Cool concept. Thanks for the game!
I really wish that you had had a more unified "look" for graphics. It's a cute idea, but it seems kind of an unfortunate treatment of autism when there's that whole "people not puzzles" campaign going on and whatnot. My favorite part was probably the maze--it was almost unbearable to play through, but I felt a real sense of accomplishment at the end.
I really liked that one tarantaraaa~ SFX. Cutscenes drag some and are unskippable, which I found frustrating when I went back to replay a few times. Information on controls would have been helpful. I felt genuinely horrified at the idea, though, which was very... well-thought-out. Thank you for the game!
Hey, this is neat! I couldn't figure out when to use most of the powers, though, and I think it could have really used some music to back my cathartic rampage of revenge. I liked the graphics and the concept a lot, and your UI is pretty damn good. Thanks for the game!
Dear god that's hard. Great level design. I got stuck on level 2 of the lava region :< Love the animations, but especially the little sections where enemies are just screwing around on the bouncy boxes or whatnot. It's good that the death animation is really funny, because I sure saw it a lot. It looks like he's about to cry: "O Tempora! O Mores!" Great job :D
Sweet and simple, but at times deceptively hard... I liked it! Your SFX could use a little work, I think, and I also had difficulty with the controls--mouse might have worked a bit better? Click to interact, mouse wheel to swap animals, right click to initiate follow mode? Space to jump?
Still, it was a really relaxing few minutes, and I loved the idea. Thanks for the game!
Agreed with GAFblizzard and hundredhundred on all counts... it's pretty, but I didn't feel adequately motivated by the long "walking through story" section to continue past the first level.
In particular, the fact that fireballs can hit you before you have a chance to even spawn is really frustrating and anti-fun.
As soon as the Jam ended, I rushed over here to find out what you'd made, haha! Despite being pretty short and not introducing the difficulty your last entry did, I really liked this. Character design is great as always, and you've really captured that "VN Feel" in your new setting. Great choices made with music and mood.
Favorite character: Probably Manuel. He's got the best outfit ;]
Wow, this game looks really good! The mechanics are solid, too. I felt like it was a bit too easy with no skill involvement, though, and had a lot of trouble sitting through the same level over and over at the same slow pace. There's also some issues where buildings can really obscure the view, so I couldn't figure out what items I could even look at. The overall look of the graphics is great, though, and the atmosphere had a lot of character.
Thanks for the game!
I gave up pretty quickly... the story moves too slowly, and the second level really needs some checkpointing if you're going to have the snow slip you around, disappearing platforms, whatever. Not so much a difficulty curve as a difficulty cliff (a Souzou Cliff?). I really wanted to like this, but I feel like it's somewhat overwritten as well. Cute characters who don't get much chance to develop, but do get a lot of dialogue...
Anyway, I liked the concept and you've got some really pretty graphics. Great character portraits! It takes a lot of time to get multiple consistent expressions down. Props to you.
Oh, wow. I normally hate exploration games but this was such a perfect combination of low quality assets, weirdness, and skilled procedural world generation that I enjoyed screwing around in it. I've got nothing to add--loved the walking animation and the blood-squirting mushrooms, this was brilliant.
Wow, neat idea! This is so innovative. I found myself really disappointed that there weren't any more levels to play through, haha. I loved the handpainted graphics, too.
Two things you might want to tune up: first of all, the SFX riffs are a bit sour (some vibrato would really help, if I have it right and you're recording live). The other thing is that the movement is a bit difficult to plan on the platformer--almost too responsive, maybe? I found myself jumping to the top of the L-shaped pieces by accident, running off ledges, etc.
Thank you for the game!
Really neat idea! I agree on the comments about collision detection. The first time I played I died before I could get to any houses... then the second time, I hung about picking up survivors, taking zero damage, and filling my HP bar past 100% (???). An option to make the game feel more desperate without creating unfair gameplay is to write dialogue stings that play intermittently, short little messages from the people you're rescuing and so on. Check out our entry for details if you like...
Presumably it's mostly comments, not actual ratings :]
Anyway, I concur! The pic looks cool and I'm really curious to see what the gameplay will be like.
I got to the end--I think. I like your art and the general idea of exploring a tomb with the souls of other adventurers visiting from their afterlife, having died there, is pretty neat. Good music, too, from what I heard of it. Also, there's an awful lot of good level design for a Ludum Dare game! Thanks for the checkpoints and the fun!
The main thing I'd change is very slightly modifying the timing/programming on the platform drops, because I'd often brush my head against one and then have it drop, making the second-to-last puzzle impossible to complete (that's where I spent the most time by far, and felt like I was fighting the game, not struggling with it), or similar areas. I also got confused in the difference between checkpoint-torches and regular-torches... might be helpful to distinguish them visually.
Thank you for the game!
Wow, this is actually really fun! I have nothing to recommend, other than that maybe you should make the controls a little bit clearer. I lost my first game because I didn't understand the relationship between what the crew were saying and doing and what was happening, that there was going to be a cooldown time on instruments rather than just straight-up having them find me and make me lose... but the second time I was much more devious and I managed to toss three crewmembers out an airlock all in one go \o/ That was extremely satisfying.
Thank you for the game!
I played for a while, but I don't think I really got it. Connect the domes and apple trees, don't connect volcanoes... is that all there is to it? More feedback from the game on what was happening and how I was influencing it may have been necessary. I liked the graphics, but the short drum loop gave me a headache :/
I couldn't do Under Pressure either, which made me sad because I wanted to do more of the game... maybe if you made it so you could access the first door of each sequence at any time? This is so cool and I really wanted to get to all of the genres you put in. I played the two notes in time with the blank spot in the music, but... nothing... :/
This looks really neat, but I had similar problems with the laser not firing on level 2 (and if I left the narrow space corridor, then I'd lose the level without knowing why--there was no apparent danger). On another note, the music is great, but I think your guitar is a bit out of tune. I liked the graphics, and the idea... it's really great to see space shooters. Thank you for the game!
This was a neat game with gorgeous graphics, and I actually didn't find it too hard to figure out (too much time spent playing The Sims as a child, perhaps?); I think I figured out what was going on with both characters on my first run. The gameplay was very frustrating though since I felt I couldn't actually control the topic of conversation on my end. I also got distracted and lost a lot of time with the "arrange your inner world" thing, since I thought it was going to have a gameplay impact... like, do I put the flower on my head to make it be "on my mind" so I can talk about it? Or what?
I like the idea of having an aesthetic choice like that--it was a really nice touch in a jam that is so severely limited by time constraints--but I think that when you don't have control over the main gameplay mechanic in a game with time constraints, the player will assume that control has to be earned somehow (and thus waste even more precious time rearranging the inner world...) So, I would say that an update in UI next time while keeping everything else the same would really improve it.
Thank you for the game!
I DL'd it twice, but each time I get a message saying that the zipped file can't be extracted... A pity, too, since this looks awesome!
A quick, sweet game! I, too, liked the ability to move the travel point, though I ended up feeling like the controls were a little bit confusing/stressful to use because of it. I'm not sure what you could have done differently, but there were some moments that were difficult to coordinate. Serviceable graphics and a nice use of the theme. The lack of audio didn't bother me much! Maybe you should grab a music friend for your NEXT jam, though ;] Thanks for the game!
I really respect your degree of commitment to this idea! Next time it would be nice to see more gameplay stuff in general. I felt like I was playing Binding of Isaac minus all of the Binding of Isaac thingamabobs.
I didn't expect myself to get too affected by anything, but the part where I was desperately talking about the same party everyone threw up at to my increasingly disaffected and balding school friends kind of got to me. I thought I might be able to hold onto my last friend for a while, but it wasn't long before he was gone, too, and I was kind of sitting there staring at a screen of blacked-out faces.
It was depressing how the way the characters looked on the menu remained the same, even as every time we caught up they had clearly gotten much older and moved on. I didn't feel like we could "do nothing but reminisce"... it seemed more like the character I was playing was trapped in the past, decked out with albums no one cared about anymore and concerns about the weather.
Love the Scott Pilgrim-style art. Thank you for the game!
HOHOHOHOHO! I won! I played three times and managed to get it on the third try in three turns. If the game had been more abstracted/minimalistic I'm sure I would have obsessively tried to find the minimum number of moves :> This was fun. Thank you!
This game was fantastic! I'm sorry you don't have more reviews yet. I actually liked this well enough that I could see myself dropping a dollar on it for a mobile version. I actually found you by searching for the keyword "bullet hell," haha. The RPG skill tree really sold it and made this game for me; at the end of the game I found myself having completed a couple of branches but really wishing there were just one more boss so I could get that much-desired HP Regen perk. It was very well-balanced, especially in the later game, with cool bosses and frenetic gameplay even after having leveled up a lot. Great job!
Oh wow, this was fun! I think I died like 58 times trying to get to the end ._. This is amazingly complete for a compo game. I really liked the ongoing dialogue, though I feel like in a post-compo version you might want to clean up the plotline a little (as the ending feels a little bit sudden, and there's a few passages that are kind of overwritten/themes that are introduced and then left off). I really wanted to see the city at the end... !
But hey, those are literally my only complaints. I loved the dual-character control, the difficulty curve is perfect, and it's a really sweet story *_* Thank you for the game!
A solid entry! High-quality graphics and music really helped support the game. My main issue was with the gameplay: needing to do a sliding tile puzzle over and over again in order to click on stuff really fast didn't work well for me, and I felt like the three possible rows of hourglasses were kind of mocking ._. I would have liked it if there were more skill involvement than speed-clicking--like combos being unnecessary to advance, but somehow helping you out, something like that. As-is there was only that one gameplay element where you could actually do any better or worse, and though I made it to the end I wanted to give up when I realized that the tractors were bulldozing my work and there was pretty much nothing I could do about it :S
I agree with the other commentors, though. Polished up, this is definitely something I'd play on mobile. Really relaxing.
Oh wow, this reminds me of those old cup and ball games I used to play as a kid. Really, really cool. My only complaint is that a lot of the graphics seem of very, er... variable quality. It's not that any of them are bad. They're ALL good. They just don't match each other very well :/ I loved the jostling and om-nom-nomming and the stacking of the aliens on earth. It was all adorable.
Anyway, this was really fun and innovative. Thanks for the game!
Really nice character design! She looks like she's from Team Rocket, haha. I want stuff to shoot and more fluid platformer controls :< Writing needs some proofreading. I really liked how you had different facepic sprites for when she had different amounts of damage, though, and the pixel art backgrounds pop nicely.
Pretty tricky with the fast moving bullets and the slow fall-time, but fun game. I had some issues with the interface; the Next Round button sometimes didn't want to register my mouse clicks, and I had to try multiple times. It could use more audio effects to give feedback to the player when avoiding shots too. Good work on your entry! Something like this could be used for a local multiplayer game too.
Solid game! I actually had a lot more fun than I anticipated placing planets and watching them orbit around. One feature I would have liked to have seen was maybe a three-strike system or something like that... as-is, the most fun I had was on one run where I built a system that ended up chain-destroying a bunch of planets. So maybe another mode where the goal's not to keep as many planets as possible orbiting, but rather to destroy as many planets at the same time, would also be fun!
Thanks for the game.
Loved the character design and the general look of the game (cel-shaded portal is excellent!). The wubbing soundtrack gave a good approximation of the sound you'd expect from a dimensional portal. Gameplay feels good, but I felt it was a little boring... I've seen this enough times in recent games (Braid, The Adventures of Shuggy, etc.) that you need to add a bit more to be really innovative!
The shooter segment was unintuitive, but I got the hang of it. There seemed to be an issue where one asteroid got by me, and suddenly that same asteroid kept respawning in the driving segment. In general, once a single asteroid gets past, the player really can't recover.
I enjoyed the concept and take on the theme, and I loved the Atari-style rectangular pixels in the middle panel too. Good work on your entry!
This is a hard entry to rate! As a story, I really enjoyed its simplicity and elegant construction, and it's hard for me to call it just a walking simulator when walking about really added to the characterization. More like a visual novel with walking included, if you ask me. I'm glad that there wasn't any skill-based lock-and-key level design for this one, frankly. The animations were really cute. I liked the waving grass and how spare everything was, though I wasn't sure why you put the guy with just his bed in there. I think it would have been really cool if his whole place was filled with yellow dudes when you come back -><- Because he made space for them, right?
Anyway, thanks for the game!
Gorgeous graphics... the game is, well, playable, but I think I played it in not much more time than it took to finish watching the intro text scroll. More punctuation there, maybe a few less sentences? I felt like you spent a lot of time telling us that what we were doing was really important, but then with no obstacles--I died exactly once while I was getting used to the floaty jump--we don't exactly feel like we've earned anything.
Hey, maybe flesh it out more? You really just need to work on your level design some and you'd have a decent platformer here. Good luck... and thanks for the game!
Well, that was... strangely disturbing... One of your scarecrow graphics, the 2nd one, throws an error, and when I tried to get the pendant, ladder, and key out of order (thinking I had a choice which one to get) the game crashed and looped me back to an earlier point. Really good writing and general mood. The fox looked pretty off-model and I felt like the SFX when doing the puzzle games was kind of detracting, since it showed up only after the mood had started to change.
The thing I liked best was the lotus-eaters puzzle, since I already knew the answer from experience but had to replay the first couple days a few times to remember the library-ghost's advice. I felt like this might be intentional, and it again gave a really hallucinatory feeling to the game. I'd also like a little bit more responsiveness on the text input, though--specifically, that it ignore case, since I inputted the answer a number of times in what were apparently unaccepted formats.
Really neat idea to have the puzzle-solving mechanic. I really enjoyed this entry... thanks for the game!
Unable to find file: battlebacks cliff on third screen. Was playing the dropbox link.
:<
I really liked this game idea/theme and wanted to play more. You've got me hooked. . . . . . . Also, no battle theme?! you gotta have a battle theme :3
Thanks for the game!
I'm currently unable to access any of the uploaded materials... I checked all three. It's a pity, too, because this one really caught my eye! It looks interestingly fairytaleish.
This game is GORGEOUS!! Please add a scoring system and difficulty setting as suggested previously... right now I'm just driven to play because I want to watch the snake-ship move around, but some sort of progression would have done wonders.
I especially would like it if you could add lots more pieces to your ship, like if the goal were to continuously upgrade it and lengthen it, or something. With such great visuals, I think that would really motivate the player well.
Thank you for the game!
Wow... wow, I really liked this. Go review some more games so you get more coverage! The writing is excellent, with an atmosphere of real tension. Yes, it was a tiny game with only one decision in it, but I was engrossed in the scene, the horror, all of it. The lack of music really worked. It was sparse, centralized, minimalistic. I would like it if the bad end had been fleshed out a little bit more--really scare the pants off us!--but all the rest of it was wonderful. Thank you for the game!
Man, that Gif at the title screen and in your post got me all excited for a different sort of game... I want to play a flight sim like that.
The "real world in a reflection" thing is a clever take on the theme (and another beautiful graphical effect), and made for a challenging platformer. It's a little frustrating, but It feels like that sort of platformer. Good work on your entry!
Now, this brings an entirely new meaning to "bullet hell"... I love the concept. As they said below: now let's have some more weapons and enemies :D With the current lineup, I just sat there pew pewing and made it to the end. Couldn't move fast enough to get to any of the skulls that weren't directly in my path, and they weren't going to go after me anyway.
High score: 3520! This was fun. Good graphics and neat ship design. For a post-compo entry, I'd like to see a game with either different seeding or a different time limit... I found that I very consistently couldn't get my ship to upgrade without the first half of play being over, which was frustrating because I spent most of that time running through space seeing nothing much of interest. Then, since objects would disappear from the map at the edges, or suddenly spawn at the corners of the screen, I couldn't exactly go back to grab something I'd missed. Those big juicy planets were not, in fact, big juicy planets but rather just outsize obstacles. That's a lot of the fun of Katamari gone... the anticipation of rolling that damn thing that was in your way up.
I think you could also use a tune-up on audio. The wub wub wub spaceship noises were great, but a crash sound for when you run into something and an improvement to the song would help.
Thank you for the game! I look forward to seeing the post-compo version.
This game is graphically amazing, but playing through it really feels more like a technical demo than an actual game. I was really curious about the Jackal character (love the model!), but the first time I played I jumped off the bridge in order to be sneaky, and... promptly ran into invisible walls with no way to get back up or restart the game. Then I went off to the houses and was unable to get them to cough up any refugees. This may have been because I was having a really hard time remembering the controls, having seen them only the one time on the starting screen with nowhere to look them up. So, all in all, it's a neat idea, if seemingly unrelated to the theme, with some needed tweaks to the execution.
Finished it. Really liked the circular ship! I'd also have liked multiple endings and more, well, oomph so it wasn't just a collection game with very, very basic platforming (needing to get used to this rotation with more difficult jumping puzzles: yes please!). The mystery at the end was also kind of shortlived... I thought I'd screwed something up, not experienced a twist :/
Thank you for the game!
The mood is very pleasantly dismal, but the SFX contrast terribly with the soft piano music and minimalistic monochrome backgrounds. I am choosing to imagine that it was intentional to make it impossible to carry on after realizing that your father is the real problem, as it makes the game more interesting. Good concept.
Using Yggdrasil was an inspired touch! I liked the writing, too. The end cutscenes went on a little bit too long--moving limited player control all the way down to zero player control kind of stung--but it was nicely played out. I almost would have preferred the nihilistic ending in which the gods win, but I imagine that would not make the most satisfying game... ah well.
I also thought that you might be able to characterize the player avatar a bit better by upgrading the jump and movement animations in the post-compo version, as they're a bit stiff and don't seem too Norse Warriorish.
Anyway, the parallax scrolling worked really well. I've done some studying of Norse mythology myself and liked how much effort you put into making things accurate. Gorgeous scenery!
This is a really solid entry! I liked the variety of enemies. You didn't waste a moment of our time doing something we'd already done before, and the fight with the shadow monster (where I lost and, sadly, didn't continue due to lack of checkpointing) was extremely novel. Controls were really, really sticky. My movement would get stuck and I could dash usually only about 10% of the time when I hit the key, which was frustrating because I felt like I kept unfairly taking damage. Really liked the world design and the multi-level environments, with a satisfying lock-and-key design system. Thank you for the game!
Art style is great! It reminds me in ways of The Little Prince, which gives a pleasant, nostalgic feeling. Every time I get to the "free the other dream smuggler" event though, the game just goes back to menu. I was also really, really confused by the initial cutscene. I think that if you worked hard to develop more of a unified feel for this game, it could work substantially better. You've got good stuff to start with... looking forward to what you end up creating! Good luck!
This is really neat! Really cute graphics with good music and amazing level design. As someone who is apparently not good enough at platformers, though, I was really frustrated :< After trying over and over to beat a level, I found out that I got to keep on playing the levels I'd worked so hard at... I got to play them again, until I got good enough at them in some unspecified way that I could progress? If it was "good end" and "bad end" based on getting all the apples, or something, I think that would have been a lot more motivating. I'm happy to rise to a good challenge, but it's the lack of specificity in what I was supposed to do in order to be doing "well enough" that kind of did my interest in.
Anyway, thanks for the game. This was a really need idea, with an excellent, polished execution :]
This was a really brilliant game! I stopped after I had ensured that my entire line of descendants would be perfect sugarcane farmers (CORN NO MORE!! *shakes fist*) and have no trouble whatsoever grabbing as much land as they needed. I was surprised, actually, that it took about five generations (47 years) to cement my dynasty. The grow time on the sugarcane was just perfect. Multiple times, I found myself wondering whether I should harvest a crop, plant, or let the fields lie fallow in order to make sure that my descendant was as well as, or better off than I (I'd really screwed up the second generation of planters by going for cane too early). I even found myself thinking about having no corn- or wheat-planting skills as a vanity. "Yeah, *I* plant corn, but my SON would never TOUCH that stuff." Really... this was amazing. Yeah, it was more of a simulation than a game, and the UI was a bit tedious, but it's definitely the best entry I've played so far this LD by a very wide margin.
Great job. Thanks for the game!
Good idea to use Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity at the end, though it should really be attributed. I expected more levels given that there is plenty more to The Planets, LOL. The writing in the feed provided a solid framing device. I wish it had corresponded to what was happening in-game a little bit more. Overall... neat idea, but perhaps add some more gameplay to go with your writing?
Hi! Congratulations, first of all, on your very first Ludum Dare game jam! I hope to see you again in December :]
I went looking for Visual Novels and was happy to find yours! I really like your character designs, and the music you chose was cute. Did you compose it yourself? You've clearly put a LOT of effort into this!
The only thing I would say is that I think the player might like some decision points sooner in the dialogue! When you're writing for games, you don't have as much opportunity to give lots of character exposition. The goal is to engage *interactivity*, so the player has to feel like they're taking an active part in the narrative, if only in interpreting it to make good choices later!
Thank you for the game!
Really nice nature sounds! I appreciated the multiple stages of destruction that showed up as I whacked things with my shovel.
I would have liked for the gameplay to have been a little bit more consistent. I felt like the impacts of my choices were effectively random, and that I was punished for solving problems. The structure of the game was I think kind of hamfisted (Maybe write in your native language and get a translator on the team?), but still, kudos for you for trying the topic!
So, I played the updated version... the opportunity to walk into literal invisible walls does not a choice make! I'm fully willing to admit that I may just be too stupid to get the plotline--a guy who loves VNs tries to avoid VN cliches to find his perfect girl, then gets stuck in a maze that he doesn't actually have to navigate, and then meets her in a platformer, kisses her, and realizes that he's ascended to godhood and ended a war? It just seems kind of incoherent, which is why I assume I must not have understood...
Graphically beautiful! I agree that a little bit more gameplay depth would help, but even something like a kill counter at the top or a little more juice would have been motivating... as-is your bullets were perhaps a bit too long and a bit too hard to see when coming from the other world's layer (they blended in with the background). It looks like an infinite game, so some indicator of progress would help the player. Additionally, being able to hold down space to autofire... it's a bullet hell, please let us shoot things ._.
Good mood, though. Reminds me of the movie 'What dreams may come,' sort of. Really gives a vibe of all those classical paintings. Thank you for the game!
Kudos to you for the procedural generation! I liked being able to play as many puzzles as I wanted at a given level, and had to think quite a bit for some of the maps. Didn't even get to level 3 :3 Great graphics, too, and nice, simple gameplay. I agree with the other commenters that a backing track would have been helpful, but the SFX alone wasn't exactly annoying. Good on you!
Wow, a board game... ! That takes a lot of guts! It's so damn hard to program AIs for these things. We tried to design one once outside of LD and it went pretty horribly even then, haha. I played against myself and actually, even alone it was pretty interesting. I was a bit confused because it seemed like often, pieces could move a LOT farther than I would expect when you said "adjacent" squares, and that the last two squares of enemy territory were the goal (not just the box that you can't leave once you enter it).
Hey, thanks for the game! This was neat and seems like just the right thing for kids on a long car trip, haha ;]
Wow, this was amazing. I really killed my hand trying to beat that last boss! It took a while to understand what I was supposed to do on the first level, but once I got it... wow. My favorite was definitely the asteroids level. Right when I started feeling really cocky and confident about my skills, the game would wipe the floor with me and make me work a lot harder. Awesome.
Beautiful graphics... I could get somewhere, but I just couldn't figure out what was supposed to go where, or really determine how I was influencing the scenes. I think a game with more stages or something might have worked better... as-is I felt like there was a solution, but that I was being punished for not wanting to sit down and go through the tedium of graph paper. Plus, any time I managed to do anything, it would all reset... !! It was just a bit too much.
Thank you for the game! I'm looking forward to seeing you next Ludum Dare :]
This is a very pretty technical demo, but the repeated requests to ignore what has been done and rather rate you for what the game might have become seems rather unfair. Sure, it's a neat idea. You've also got really good sound and a well-established tone. However, the writing, which seems to be your selling point, could use a runthrough with an editor. Best of luck with the finished product!
Man... I had no idea what to do in this, possibly due to my lack of experience with pool in general. It wasn't just a "little" baffling, I had no idea what was going on ._. I think that if the controls had been a little bit more sensitive or I'd had a UI to fool with, more feedback, I might've had more fun. Really liked the zooming SFX on the 8-balls, that was actually pretty damn funny and almost made getting wrecked by them forgivable ;]
Seems like a neat concept, though. Thank you for the game!
This is a neat idea! I love that map graphic in the background, and the jostle is cute. There's a couple things that limited my interaction with it--first of all, that without being able to get a sense of the rules of immigration, or cultural conversion, etc., I didn't feel like my actions had much of an impact. I would open a door and often travel would happen in only one direction--and I wouldn't know why. And then, even with flags marked it was difficult to understand which doors controlled travel between which continents. It'd make more sense, I think, to have them lie on some kind of line between the islands, just for the sake of helping the player make quick decisions.
Thank you for the game!
High score: 63!
This is a fantastic entry on all levels. I'm bookmarking so I can keep playing on slow days post-jam. I've reviewed close to 100 games personally and this one is an outstanding favorite. The only thing I'd change is the menu theme, which doesn't really fit with the rest of the game well. Still--definitely one of my favorites. Thank you for the game!
Really neat idea! The graphics are clean and there's a horrible sense of inevitability as the sky islands come closer... and closer... The melancholy music really helps. I stank at it, though. I had such a hard time just trying to keep my chunk of island from being blown up, and the one time I thought I'd managed to get a group of people disconnected... well, they kersploded along with the piece of rock I'd removed. It's really difficult to snare new islands without building out a lot, and then while your back is turned some cluster you'd been nurturing gets messed up... I realize that it's probably symbolic, but I didn't feel it made for much fun :<
Thank you for the innovative game!
Neat game! I liked the pixel-art outline look. Some transition between playing and the game-over/ship selection screens would have been welcome, though, and when you don't have any limitations on "special" weaponry, they no longer feel really special.
The MMO version of this sounds like it would have been really cool! No problems with the controls for me; unorthodox, but not hard to use.
I got moderately addicted to this game and will be checking back again in the next few days ._. I think I played it for, like, 2 hours. Congrats to Kwak, Garlik, and kill0u, whose armies I could not kill without being massively overleveled o.0
I initially put in two white mages so they could heal each other (not really realizing that your front dudes stay in front and your back dudes stay in back; Final Fantasy this is not), but I found out in the end that that was a poor strategy and I should have swapped one out for an archer in order to have more long-range dakka. Would have appreciated the ability to kill a team member without losing all progress :<
Thank you for the game! I am really looking forward to the post-compo version.
Wow, this is neat! I would have liked a more skill-based challenge for the "lens of truth" section. I really dug the graphics and SFX, though, and I think it's cool that you took on a challenge like this for LD. Good writing, too... definitely some of the best I've seen for the RPG games I've played with this Dare.
I, too, would LOVE to see a post-compo version of this. All that voice acting... man, I bet it'd be fun. Please?
This is neat! I was especially drawn by that very powerful first section--the "making of a world," as it were. It reminded me of that section of Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan is... er... assembled. Later prose could, I think, stand to be a little sparser because what you have feels monotone and inflexible as the writing wears on. Of course, if we are talking pretension then there's always the possibility that this was intentional--but I felt specifically *unimpressed* rather than experiencing an immersive emotion, and I can't see how alienation from the player avatar and the story itself at that juncture would serve your purposes.
All those things being said, though, I enjoyed the time I spent with it enough to go find 3 or 4 endings, and really dug the audio and graphics. Thank you for the game!
This was a neat entry. Short and sweet. The graphics are *great,* and the music is really well-done--especially that first tune, which reminded me of some sort of German Opera sung by a cat. Glorious, laugh-out-loud weltschmerz. I loved the way that the dialogue was written. I did actually have so much trouble with the final room that I almost had to give up on the game, though, because first I had no idea why pressing the red switch would make the scientist grab the ham (it wasn't clear that it was falling or suchlike, and second I didn't guess that the radio would have multiple stations I could turn it to--I thought I was supposed to do the radio and then look for something else to interact with it. In retrospect this was kinda dumb of me, but from there straight to a sort of non-sequitur ending I was a bit disappointed.
Your assets are amazing, the stealth sections were fun, and I loved the idea of astral-projecting yourself into the electrical socket. Thank you for the game!
Really innovative concept and novel interpretation of the theme! I would have liked to have been able to move about a bit more quickly, and to the right of Samantha/Candy--where the rest of the game is supposed to be happening--my character just disappeared and I couldn't progress. I would really like to see more of this concept, more gameplay of it, so please do continue!
I love the image. . . very nice. Please do continue? I'm excited to learn what this is all about!
Cute cards with a good sense of humor and accurate mythological references... I really liked the look of it! Despite your instructions, though, I still really couldn't tell what to do. I seem to have ended up in some kind of stalemate after the very first turn, and couldn't manage to buy the special upgrade cards at all. Thematically, it was all there... I was very eager to play, but some sort of idea of how to play a good hand would be helpful.
I played for a while, but ended up quitting because I had no idea where I was getting set back to when I died, and because the 2.5D graphics made it hard to figure out what my hitbox was--I had no idea where I needed to be in order to not be hit. Really good job on the graphics and mood, though, with hallucinatory audio. Your animations are nice and the character looks like she was made from a paper cutting. Thanks for the game!
Dear lord, 16 children? LOL. I liked all of the space puns, and you had great writing! The results felt a little beyond my control, but I guess that's the point of those kinds of shows, right? Babbies are up to you, a good match is up to the host. Thanks for the creative game!
Brilliant. Top-notch mood and feel. Shooting was satisfying. Dying even had a great animation... really, really juicy game with great feedback and gameplay. It got a bit tedious to have to do the whole thing in one run--I played maybe 5 times, got to the second-to-the last room, and then ended up giving up because I didn't want to do the first two levels again. I'm not sure if you could have really implemented a functional checkpointing system with this gameplay style, though. If I had more time to review games I definitely would have struggled it through to the very end. Thank you!
Wowwwwwww... gorgeous, gorgeous audio with a cute ending. I think this may be my first 5-star for mood. I agree with the other posters who say that the targeting around the table and levels could use some work, though :/ Most of my difficulty playing really felt like I was fighting the controls, not learning a puzzle. Thank you for the game!
Oh my gosh, YES, let's be friends. Followed you on Twitter, let's keep in touch!
Wow, what a cute way to reconsider the god game! Through this viewpoint, it all seems awfully arbitrary... :] I didn't find any bugs or even anything that really needs a change, especially given the limited scope of these competitions--it's a very easy game to understand, and your conveyance is great--but if you have some more time next time, adding multiple SFX variants per effect would help a bit with the experience, I think.
Very satisfying experience. Thank you for the game!
Great music choice! Pulling the cows in is a little bit stiff--I don't know if it was some kind of collision detection or the cows just *wanted* to get blasted off into the icy reaches offscreen, but I'd click on them sometimes with no response.
This is a nice entry! I like the sort of... small-town provincialism of the blobs' dialogue. The rock-smashing animation reminded me a lot of Harvest Moon 64, LOL. In general I really enjoyed myself, manipulating and crushing my way into outer space--just one thing I'd change would be that keeping the character movement on a fixed tile-based grid actually seems kind of an odd choice when you have such large sprites. We expect more granularity from the movement at this scale, so the gameplay can be frustrating. I also found a minor bug--some blocks can't be smashed, and sometimes there's no SFX when I crush stuff with my hammer.
Thank you for the game! It looks great, and I enjoyed my chuckles.
This is so pretty... and congratulations! I really loved the look and feel of the game at the end, when the busyness of it really looked like the choreography of that portion of Swan Lake. Getting to dance with the corps de ballet was fun :>
Thank you for the game!
I liked this interpretation of the theme! The stand up/sit down element was nice, though it'd have been nice if it was incorporated into the gameplay mechanics somehow instead of just being aesthetic... say you had to shoot down some things only your eyes could spot, or maybe there was a second first-person defense mechanic apart from missiles. Even so, it was nice to see an environment around the Missile Defense monitor, to create a sense of place that was lacking from those old games.
Also, the end was very, very cleverly done. Good work, and bravo on this entry!
Ah, this is sooo cute! I loved the experience of farming on a sky island. All of the ambience and graphical design are right on point (and THANK you for letting us set our own key bindings). I'm not really into straight simulators, sadly, so I sort of got to a point where I felt like I was supposed to be landscaping to my heart's content and didn't quite manage to engage with that goal, but everything you've developed here was great and I really enjoyed the opportunity to relax.
Thank you for the game!
Gosh, I love the art direction for this... and the depicted relationship ;3. Really good character design and I actually liked the single-frame animation for the punches, since they seemed to provide some characterization. The one thing I'd say other than the obvious "complete the game!! I want more snow ladies!!" is that the coin sound is tuned a bit too loud relative to all of the other SFX and music. An audio retuning would help the feel of the experience as it is right now a lot.
Thank you for the game!
Oooh, an origami game! Ours is about origami too. You should come check it out :>
I really like the way you did the transitions to keep the game "All on one screen" for this. Very clever! The SFX work really well together, too. The volume's well-tuned and all that. I also enjoyed the writing a lot... honestly, it reminds me a lot of Fez, and that's a good thing. The only thing I wish is that the walk cycle was a little bit faster, since backtracking to you-know-which area took a while.
Overall, a solid entry. Thank you for the game!
A minor bug... I killed a dude who was up to attack next, and then it froze *forever*.... The character design for this is great, and I love the Fire Emblem-style attack animations. Given that it's, as you've said, unfinished, I think the only meaningful change you could make is to have the characters slide in slightly faster when the attack animations are starting.
I hope you keep going and keep adding some more juice! What you have so far is really cute. Thanks for the demo!
Haha, I bet this game is even more effective for those of us still living with our parents and being called to do chores... while being called to do chores... while playing a simple snowman game. I love the artwork, the protagonist's little bow-legged shuffle, and the horrible scowl on his face. The entire organization of the house reminds me of some sort of horrible blend of the witch's mansion in Spirited Away, Homestuck, and my grandmother's house/assortment of memorabilia. Very funny. Thank you for the game!
I liked how you used the single-screen theme to create a closed-room story... that's quite clever! Graphics and sound are pretty good, too. I agree with the other reviewers who have said that the mood falls a bit flat. You've sort of produced a "daily grind" aesthetic, which makes the pathos of the death scene--the death of a person we've never met before--sort of fall flat. You also need more to characterize someone than a speech pattern... I was a little bit shocked by the Irish guy whose accent carries over to IRC.
Still, bravo for coming out with a visual novel for a theme like this! Thank you for the game.
Oh my god, you have to do the "store in a database" thing. There was a while when I was having a wonderful time hammering on the keyboard, saying nothing, and then I discovered that the "return" key actually worked and started doing some pithy one-liners. I wanted to try to do some poetry or haiku or something, just to make it worth it (I remember once when I skipped the prompt and wrote something like:
"What was the prompt?
I missed it.
I think it might have been about ducks.
But I like ducks...
I should write a poem.")
Love the concept, love the game, great mood, great fun. Thank you so much for sharing!
This is just great. I was worried it was going to be a tic-tac-toe simulator (LOL), but this is the best hacking simulator I've played in a very long time--to the point where I kept on accidentally inputting UNIX commands rather than using the file system you put in here ._. Great all around--loved the SFX (I think adding music would have sort of ruined the mood), loved the depth and difficulty to it. Really fun. Thank you for the game!
I quite liked this entry! I've never seen that sort of single-point perspective on a shmup in my life, and I really thought it added something special to the feel. Same thing for the cute candy-cane-colored Sierpinski Gaskets. The mood is really rather cheery!
One thing to work on for future iterations or games would be the hitboxes, since that's the main thing making the game difficult to play right now. I really liked that the elves changed color rather than exploding or something, honestly. It gave a better, more Christmassy feeling to the visuals.
Thank you very much for the game!
(Oh my god, just saw that you did a minimalist danmaku game. Bookmarking that to play later...)
Clever interpretation of the theme, and I really enjoyed the main gameplay mechanic; the frog skirts a line between user input and enemy... it's really cool! I also love the synths you used for the music stings... they were all kinds of nostalgic to me. Good work on this!
Neat game! I really loved the idea of promoting balance, rather than unilateral conquest. This is really cool! It took me too long to figure out that clicking the buttons on the bottom turns on and off production (rather than that I needed to click them a lot--oh well, my error), and I agree with some of the other posters that gold probably went up a bit too fast. It seems like maybe needing to balance things so two wizards come out at the same time would have worked better?
Still, I honestly enjoyed myself and played through a few times, trying to beat my previous score. Thank you for the game!
This is so much fun! I love the flavor and playing this brought me back (I played in a bluegrass band when I was younger). I wasn't able to progress after the bit where the shotgun is unlocked, though. Is there more? Also, with every call for the snowman fight, I lost health even if I responded correctly...
I'd love to see a full, polished RPG in this style. Thank you for the game!
Neat game! I really liked your subversion of the usual heroic narrative in video games, and the sound direction is just right. Volume on SFX, especially the chickens, needed to be tuned a little bit to match the music volume, though, and I felt that the campaign was a little bit underwhelming. I took very little damage and didn't understand why I was collecting rupees and maps if I was never going to use them... I expected the Happy Mask Seller to come by, heh.
Still, a solid entry. Thank you for the game!
Well, if there's one thing you can say about me, it's that I certainly love rain... ! I played this with a storm outside. The audio sampling for the rain and footstep SFX is really nice, and the graphics are really clean. The story was kind of spotty, though. When the character said the rain made him fall in love, I thought the gaunt guy was going to be the target... I guess I ended up feeling a bit like no meaningful choices were available, and that events were totally random--even sometimes thematically inappropriate.
Still, as an aesthetic vignette, this is very pleasant. You did a great job of the design! Thank you.
I so badly want to play this, because I was an absolute Bomberman addict in early elementary school, but I'm windows-only... ;~;
This is such an aesthetically gorgeous game! I didn't find it too hard, though I did have to start over to read the rules. The sound design is so nice and the SFX fit perfectly. I even found myself wishing for more levels... great job.
Thanks for the game!
I really enjoyed your menu music and animation, it got me pumped to play. I got kind of confused because there doesn't seem to be a loss state, though. My portal got really, really large, to the point where enemies would just spawn and go right in, and there didn't seem to be any impact on the game. I'd just get the next wave. I also died a lot/drifted off the screen without any apparent impact. So, ending a death screen of some sort would probably help!
Thank you for the game!
... This is hilarious. I love your clever interpretation of the theme. Laughed my butt off the whole way through. Thank you for the game!
I really like this entry! It felt kind of impossible, which I suppose is part of the point--a bit depressing, but it had a certain charm to it. I loved the green absinthe effect and all the little details of the environment. Thank you for the game!
I was lucky enough to play with a group of 3 to 4; a one-screen multiplayer online game done for LD is really technically impressive! The platforming felt pretty good, the shiny particles were nice, and I thought the HP cost of attacking was interesting. Gameplay wise, it's actually better to find another player who's willing to heal you while you heal them, since you come out with more HP, and seem to get more points (skulls on the bottom). Good work!
Hm... there's a part after the "stairs down" area where you have to drop down lower than your runner can actually get just by coming off, and it seems like you need to jump right before collecting the preceding music note. It's not a hard game, but I feel like the flow's a bit off, it needs more telegraphing, something... I kept on trying to jump on the clouds at the beginning, because I didn't understand that the buildings were part of the level--and if there's bouncing clouds in the lower atmosphere, then Why Not?
I like what you did with the music, though. It's really good music to run to, and I probably tried close to ten times to get past that one frustrating bit. You've done a good job of giving the game a certain "attitude."
Thank you for the game!
"From the Inside," huh? You got me a good few times with the jump scares, especially the one where your wrist gets grabbed! I think the best tension-build was probably when the character looks inside the wardrobe but we don't actually get to see what's there--just that he's horrified--and then we're forced to go and interact with it in order to block the window.......
Art looks great, sound is great, and the experience is just short enough not to wear on you. For next time I agree with the other posters that some sort of SCUMM interface or something like that, rather than cycling options with right click, would have worked better--and maybe also a more unified story? I didn't understand why the game ended when I clicked the chest, or why the scary things were happening. Another thing to look at would be changing the font face a bit so that it sticks out better against the background. What you have but with a thick black outline would have worked, but I had a hard time reading the dialogues once or twice.
I really, really liked this entry, though. It was entertainingly frightening. Thank you for the game!
High Score 22! Took a while to get the hang of, but I enjoyed it. It reminds me of the simple fun of old arcade games. Some (tilt-sensitive?) level turning and non-obnoxious sounds would help a lot, in a mobile adaptation. This is the sort of thing I'd totally play in my downtime.
Hmmm... You know, everything you've put into this is really solid across the board. I remember playing those old Tamagotchi games back when I was in elementary school, and they look and sound JUST like this. Cute twist, etc.... I think the main thing to change, if anything, would be that though it IS an idle game and is therefore going to play like one, the player still needs some kind of choice to figure out which of their options would be best. Right now, because it's so clear what to do, it gives us a very linear game with no risk to it. So, if you add some way to generate eggs, or some other kind of thing, I think that would help a lot with the balance and the playability.
Thank you for the game! I really like your "challenger" designs :>
Made it through nine waves! This is a really solid entry and I love the monster design--the sheer surrealness of all of it. I struggled with a lot of the gameplay, though... my walls seemed really ineffective and slow to build. A balance where I could build a little bit more of a fortress each time, rather than having my defenses totally obliterated with each (increasingly large) wave, would have been nice. Another minor gameplay tweak would be changing the player character slightly so that the antenna shot comes from closer to the center of the tile, since as-is I found myself missing a lot--it's a great visual design decision, but because players are usually so accustomed to shooting from the center of mass rather than the edge of the tile, it's pretty disorienting in the beginning of the game.
Other stuff I liked--the VA, the horrible moment when I noticed the eyeballs all around me, the simultaneous attachment to and disdain for my own livestock.
Thank you for the game!
Hmm... this is a visually gorgeous entry with great audio design. I love the color choices, especially that little point of red from mom's flowers, and the character design is solid. All of the point-and-click is great, too (other than a bug I found where I had to use my book to get the clock down--my broom wouldn't animate correctly). I only wish that the puzzles had been a bit better-scaffolded, because I really felt in the end that I was playing a guessing game with no logical way to think through the proceedings :/ I so wanted to help Yuki and Snow get out of the room, and yet... !
Thank you for the game -><- I'm looking forward to seeing you next jam!
Wow! This game has so many elements I like in it. I've never seen a graphical clicker game before, and everything looks absolutely gorgeous. I think the game could use some balance, though, because there's not really steady progression along the cathedral parts. Many of the later parts are resource-intensive but they don't get you much, or vice-versa. I felt like the balance for the first part, and the hitboxes (though I did eventually win!!) for the second part needed some adjustment.
I really look forward to seeing you next jam! This was an innovative and beautifully made game.
Oh god, I played so many of these games in my teens... it's the first one I've ever seen posted for an LD, though! Kudos to you!
Something really nice would have been the ability to remove only *one* thing from my snowperson, without totally resetting everything. I wanted to find out what the candy cane did without necessarily being stuck with it! Facilitating choice and fantasy is pretty much the most important thing in these games...
Still, good job. I loved the touch where the character's eyes follow you around, and the audio voiceover was nice, too. Thank you for the game!
I BEAT IT!!
I really enjoyed playing this. Really good experience, required a lot of thinking towards the end, (especially the puzzles with asymmetric solutions, like the last one and third-from-the-last) and extremely relaxing. You also did a good job of letting us figure out the sandbox's rules ourselves. Thank you for the great game. I could have played this for hours.
Unplayable entry... :c
I really like the color palette you used for this entry. It reminds me of the old Anne McCaffrey book covers, and the choice of making the dragon a little bit too large for the space was really great. Large fish, small pond, and the looseness of the controls gave a great sense of freedom. I really wished that there had been some more sense of choice, though--I was honestly expecting some kind of hidden-object game or puzzle at the very least. Orb-chasing in this case left me with a piece of my soul flitting across the screen even after I'd been told I'd recovered everything, which really shattered the mood. The opening shot of the well, though... that was really solid, an evocative image of despair.
Thank you for the experience!
I think you could have maybe made the environment a little bit smaller and saved the player quite a bit of running time. I wish I could have played more! Reminded me a little bit of the Phantom of the Opera novel--murders on stage are always fascinating. Thank you for the game.
A cute little pool game! I really like the puzzles and how you developed the UI. Graphically, it's super-clean, and distinguishing the original white ball by its lack of shadow was super-fresh. I also liked how the "screen" moved without showing an obvious unity player window... very, very clever. Since pool's not my thing so I can't talk about the gameplay much, I'm just going to add that you could work slightly on the kerning for your font. I found that this tool really helped me with that sort of thing, take a look if you like: http://method.ac/
Thanks for the game! Good stuff.
Thank you for giving us the news! The mood for this jam is really good, and I liked the character designs. It was pretty fun, too, though I think your collision detection needs a little work. I would often tag a hacker, get the "+1 hacker" notification, and then immediately lose 3--or I would bump into someone, lose 3, and then lose 2. I wanted to keep playing, but I felt like being double-penalized for my little mistakes--and even for my successes--was a little bit too much! Really great choice in music, by the way. It really set the mood well.
Thank you for the game!
A cute game! It seems appropriate for kids. I love to see these sorts of games showing up in the jam as well. All of the art and music are very nicely done and professional, with a narrator to boot! If I was going to tweak anything, I would say chiefly that the level design and playing could use some refinement: most of the time, I felt like the controls and passages were sticky enough that I was struggling with them more than the puzzles itself.
However, it's just a minor amount of alteration that's necessary, I think, and then it would really be very nice. Thank you for the entry!
Awfully polished for a 72-hour Metroidvania. Excellent work! The tiny graphics let your eyes roam around the world without needing a mini-map, which I think really improves the process of exploration and picking a path.
I'd love to see a full game that plays with this idea, maybe with a series of worlds or missions each taking up a screen like this, full of small boss fights and lock-and-key powerups. Maybe even procedurally generated worlds ala Spelunky? I'd buy the heck out of that!
Hmm..... I really liked this (the feel of it, the music especially, the comments from the character while playing), but I felt like the checkpointing was regrettably unforgiving. I'm talking in particular about the game not saving after you pick up the yellow orb-- it doesn't seem fair given the way the rest of the game worked to have the objective change without saving progress. Jumping didn't feel too floaty or anything to me, though. It's a good, hard, fun platformer.
Thank you for the game!
I agree with indie4fun and some of the other commenters. Honestly, I had a really hard time figuring out what the weeds were that I was supposed to kill--just graphically, since I was expecting to start out the game with zero weeds. Some more feedback about when I was doing things correctly or incorrectly would have helped, as would have perhaps some mouse-and-keyboard controls.
In general the graphical direction is really nice, and even though I ended up getting a bit of a headache from the spinning at the end, I thought it was a novel mechanic. Thank you for the game!
Boy, this is hard. I replayed a few times, but the point where you can't read the waves anymore seems to really come in in the second stage. I think more feedback when I was getting hit would have helped instead of just having the knockback, because I kept thinking that I was at full HP and didn't even notice that the bar was going down.
Otherwise, I really wish I could rate you for the audio~ Really good sound choices. Thank you for the game!
Wow, this is neat! Really nice boss rush game--love your character designs and the closed-room feel of it. I do hope you keep updating, though. On my monitor the game field was so small it actually became very hard to play, especially because the color palette was so uniform. I kept trying for quite a while, though, just because I wanted to find out what the other monsters looked like. I really do hope you keep developing this--it's really good.
Thank you for the game!
An interesting game! I had a really hard time picking it up at first, particularly because I didn't know what the seed bin in the middle was--I thought the plants would just grow, haha. The game got a lot easier after I figured that one out! I really liked the "dull" graphical palette, though, which created a certain mood. It was really that--the dark mood you created--that kept me playing all the way to the end. Thank you for the game!
I clicked on this game because it had math in the title! The game runs really smoothly and your collision detection is very nice--it's over unusually quickly, but I felt that the movement was very well-paced. Thank you for the game!
2077! Not bad!
I really like the audio direction for this game, and how you've synced it up to the gameplay--and especially the long loop, and how it keeps changing intensity with the speedups... in the end, it ended up feeling like a little rhythm game. Quite fun! I would have appreciated a little bit more feedback, though, and maybe a slightly less dulled out color palette to make everything pop a little more? Thanks for the game!
Wow, this is a really solid entry. I could actually see using this program professionally, if you just made the hand positions a bit more clear--I played 3 or 4 times because I really wanted to learn more. It was only after I realized that I couldn't replicate the hand signs myself that I ended up giving up, because I felt like I couldn't really learn what the game was trying to teach me. Would have also appreciated an ability to re-attempt levels, because I got a bit frustrated having to go all the way back to start every time I couldn't tell between M and N.
Otherwise--lovely clean graphics, great unobtrusive audio, it all set a nice calm mood for learning and even in the short time I played, I felt like I picked some finger-spelling up. Thank you for the game!
oh my god, the little deluge at the end ._. This game concept is so nice and clean, and so juiced up! I especially love your placement of the hit bar. It makes it a lot easier to see your health, so you don't have to keep looking at the top of the screen like usual. I wish I were better at this... I felt like it gets a bit fast a bit quick, and the amount of force it takes to push a triangle back away from you, along with the lack of horizontal control, made it very hard for me to get anywhere at all even though I played four or five times. I get the feeling that I still don't really "get" this game, as much as I wanted to. Maybe a little bit more scaffolding near the beginning? Having the particles speed up a bit, too, as the game goes on, and starting slower, would probably help a lot. This is sort of an "active puzzle game" like Tetris, and I feel like future design should maybe follow the same principles.
Looks great, feels great, handles great, is great! Thank you for the great game!
Just completed it. Great little story packed into a solid platforming experience, with some interesting visual effects. The shader/filter this was put through had some interesting gameplay ramifications; suddenly, minimaps aren't necessary, and you can plot your route through the game (or look for macguffins you missed) by leaning in close. Also, having save/respawn points as something you buy with game resources was really interesting; suddenly, which respawns you wanted to unlock, and which ones you felt confident enough to skip, were meaningful game choices... very cool!
My only serious critique of the game would be that it was possible to get stuck without any sticks in that 1-way gauntlet near the middle-bottom; I had some serious "I wanna be the guy" moments there, where I just had to buckle down and perfect 3 save spots worth of precision platforming to get through. The ability to cycle between nests, say by hitting reset while on a nest, would have helped me try another challenge while I searched for other sticks.
Ahhhh, I too had to go through everything! This game is really fresh and cute. My only complaint is that sometimes trying to get the mouse to highlight someone wouldn't really work. Otherwise... man, the speeches sounded like talks I've actually given before ._. I liked that pretty much every option turns out well, it really made the game feel light and fun.
Thank you for the game!
Had a lot of issues with almost constantly dropping my hoe when I was trying to use it--had to keep picking it up over and over and over, with no indication as to whether I actually picked it up or not.... The music is good, though, and I like the plant animations a lot. Fun to watch them growing.
Thank you for the game!
Nice little cooking game. I liked that you could carry around multiple things at a time, and the graphics were pretty cute (as is the title!). As a general pointer, it doesn't make sense to have one-step recipes be worth the same thing as multi-step recipes; and I agree with the previous poster that some kind of simple timer or other sort of failure state would have really helped to add some urgency to the gameplay. Thank you for the game, and good luck next jam!
Oh... cute game! If there's a second stage, I can't get to it. I just cheered up the cyan face, but I couldn't manage to make myself happy... I got confused for a bit myself and thought that the power socket was another little person, but on my second playthrough I figured it out. Loved the music.
Thank you for the game!
Fantastic audio o_O +1 for good sound attitude
Neat game and a nice send-up to Death Note, but I really struggled with figuring out how to kill people--it seemed like at certain times it was easy to kill, and at other times no matter how many times I clicked with a 3/4 full bar I would be unable to kill anyone. I also wasn't sure what the auras, or the spectrum indicator and the lower right hand corner of the screen were supposed to be used for...
I think that with improved documentation, your game might be a lot easier to get a hang on. I'm intrigued and I'd like to play more--once I know how.
Really liked the visual style... and "Uh oh, you murdered someone!" is probably my favorite stage-setting line I've seen in a game. It reads like "it just happens sometimes, no big deal!"
Part of the challenge of the game was finding what to do with the evidence, or where to do it on the abstract floorplan. It felt a bit like a frantic race around the house, trying to think through a fog well enough to cover up your homicide, so good work! High points for style, mood, and originality from me.
The game might have benefited from maybe nixing the inventory window altogether, and just having the mouse pick up or use an item on something in the house... or even just a single-slot that requires bumping into things. I've found that the fewer systems the game has to use for control and input, the better and more intuitively it tends to play. It also leaves you more time to build and test gameplay where the players will notice most. Thanks for making this, and best of luck in your future endeavors!
Ooh... this is a great idea. I never quite got to the ending, though, because of a strange bug where the level would restart but a key would be pressed down, so I couldn't stop myself from running right or left. Also, my corpse bounced a lot >_< I liked the graphics and audio--really clear and easy to understand. Thank you for the game!
I suffered for 57 seconds, and really enjoyed myself. I liked the spacey synths and simple but effective pixels. Sprite 3D or no, it looked good. Some perspective on the bee sprite, and maybe some variety in collectables would have been a nice move... maybe even something that gets in the way or attacks? Space Wasps? Space Bears?
Nice work on your entry, and thank you for sharing it!
The music for this entry is fascinatingly atonal. At first I sort of disliked it, but after a while it grew on me. Really nice, smooth animations, especially on death (and the idle animation is cute, too!). I'm another one of the people who found they couldn't actually attack anything and kill it, though... I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, and thought it was a sort of interesting design choice.
Lack of checkpointing here is really frustrating. I wanted to play more, but couldn't bring myself to start the level more than 3 or 4 times in order to progress past the later sections.
Really love the solid feeling of the jump, it's very polished--and that's pretty much the hardest thing to get right of any platformer. Thank you for the game!
OP Sword Get!
Carpal Tunnel Get!
This game was very addictive (with cool music that helped me get into the trancey nature of Clicking Forever), but by the end it also became physically painful ;~; On the other hand, I did feel like I had played an entire grindfest RPG through the course of about an hour or so, so it was like... an RPG, just condensed. I appreciate that. I ended up getting to the end without using anything but equipment.
The one thing I'd change is that a lot of your descriptions of weapon costs and whatnot get cut off, so the grinding becomes kind of unbearably frustrating--I don't know how much I'm supposed to grind, or what I'm supposed to grind, and so in order to get the swords I needed to beat the final island I went and just ground all my metallic stuff up to 100, and hoped for the best.
This was a really fun entry. Thanks for the game!
This is really pretty and reminds me of the old Orsinal games in look and feel, so great job for that. I do wish that there were a little bit more challenge of some sort... it didn't make sense to have me collecting apples as the Aardvark and then lose the game if there wasn't any fruit left, when I could just sit there not eating anything and the game would keep going fine. A slightly steeper difficulty curve would have helped too, I think. Still, the graphics and audio are really lovely and work together to establish a mood, and I liked the way you split the gameplay segments in such a natural way. Thank you for the game!
Hm... It's hard to be sure what to say with this. I agree with what Taunia Sabanki said about player psychology. I had to play through two or three times in order to collect the first stone, since it was on a part of an object I didn't expect to be able to interact with. If you'd introduced the stones with the one in the piano or something like that, I think it would have been a lot clearer. Even a hidden-object game needs some care with its design ;]
I liked all the aesthetic choices you made, though, and I think that other than that one little thing, it was a good experience. Thank you for the game!
Thank you for the game! It's a really innovative setup, which I liked a lot. I had some trouble figuring out just when I was supposed to hit the keys, so some more feedback would have helped with that, but after I figured it out I was really impressed by the amount of effort you put into the graphics and creation of unique scenes. Cool concept.
My god, a kendo game. I don't have anyone to play with locally so I can't rate it, but just looking at the stills brings me back.
TSUKI!!
Wow, amazing graphics! I love the half-pixelated, half-painterly look of this entry. To be honest I gave up about halfway through because I've played so many of these puzzles before, but I really was curious to find out what was at the end--I'm expecting a rose, and given these graphics, I would have loved to have seen it. I agree with the other posters that some more motivation would have helped, though. Maybe a slow progression on the level appearance, so that the tones slowly become slightly warmer?
Thank you for the game!
Neat game concept! I liked the theming you used for the game. The level looks a little bit like something from F-Zero or the like; I especially like the model for the spacecraft. Pretty much any other comment I might have has been made by someone else, but I think that your SFX would have been less annoying if they'd been tuned a bit quieter relative to the background music. Another trick is recording multiple samples for things like the jumping noise and then choosing one randomly every time the player jumps. Blood explosions were a nice touch. Thanks for the game!
Wow, really cute logo! Hope to see a game to go with sometime ;3
Hmmm.... an interesting game concept. I like the graphics, and the mood is well-established. The pose that you chose for the client--reclining, and facing away--is interesting. It's not just the psychologist who is disengaged, but also his patient. He's distracting himself with his phone, and she's distracting herself with the wall... I was tempted at first to read it as a straight condemnation of psychology, but instead it seems like a portrait of disengagement and misattunement in general, which in turn develops disengagement in the player...
A nice little entry. Thank you for the game.
I got super-stuck on that last lava jump... phooey. Your checkpointing is good and I love the way you keep expanding the world, with great graphics. The animation for the disappearing blocks is especially satisfying--well done. The one thing I'd say is that it was really disorienting every time the level changed... maybe you could do something like keep Mr. Fish the same size while the level changes around him, and then shrink him down to size, just to give us some way to visually orient ourselves on the new screen? Otherwise, great game, and I'm very curious to find out how I was supposed to get across that lava portion X3 Thank you!
I've never seen a game quite like this. Strong showing for your first Ludum Dare, and kudos to you!
Unfortunately it ran slow on my compy unless I gave Java high priority via Task Manager, but I played through the first mission. It seemed like the fluids you got were random, so it was hard to do any long-term strategy; it'd be neat if you had a maximum number of drops (either total or for specific fluids) to use at the start of a level, or an objective-based system that rewarded you with points to buy fluid, or even a simple Tetris-esque "this fluid will be next" preview, so you'd be able to plan.
Very innovative, and the fuzzy, softly shifting pixel art was pretty too. Congrats on your first LD, and here's to many more!
Really nice digital painting, and I appreciate the subversion of the "Rescue the Princess" trope there. Enemies and such would probably have helped this entry out, but even just flying around was fun on its own. The slow speed of steering, and the fast background created an interesting sense of hard-to-control high-speed movement. Faster shots would probably help that too. Arrow keys as alternate input would've also been helpful, since I was on a QWERTY keyboard (I found the controls eventually, though).
Sorry to hear about your team problems; for next LD, it might help to use a tool anyone on your team could program in (there's no shame in using tools like Gamemaker), or learning a tool like Unity (it's free, easy to use, powerful, and has a lot of documentation for people with little to no prior programming experience).
Controls are really slidey, and the mechanics you proposed look a bit hard to remember (kind of complicated). I really like the idea, though. I wish we had more theatre-inspired games.
Ah... a magical girl show game! I like your adorable character designs, and was attracted to the splash image :> I would have liked a little bit more game depth and for Annika's controls to have been slightly more responsive, though. I didn't feel like there was a lot of game here for the Story Mode though, certainly not much strategizing on my part. The messages reminded me of the weird things that would come up on those old Tony Hawk games when you wiped out, so there was some nostalgia there.
Thank you for the game!
This is a nice little entry! Easy to pick up but the challenges are both appropriate and not tedious. You've got a good difficulty curve, here. I was frustrated by a few bugs, though. The ball gets caught on the shooting blocks a lot, and on the frames on the edges. I had to spam space to get it unstuck. I also am not sure if I won the game or not... I got to a point where the ball was going so fast I couldn't possibly click it, and then ended up giving up. Stopping before that point would probably be a good idea ><
It's a good game, though. Thank you!
REALLY great SFX work, and I loved the sword animations! I had a lot of trouble controlling, though--I didn't just get stuck on the trees, my dude would constantly walk in the wrong directions even if I wasn't pressing any keys. Might be a bug to look into?
Thank you for the game!
At this point--just a cutscene, but by gosh, the play you chose to represent was a great one, and the background music so well-chosen! Thank you for introducing me to them! Loved how you handled the perspective and lighting, and the actors' physicality. Thank you for the experience!
Oh, wow. I've played a lot of VNs in Ludum Dare over the past year or so, and this was definitely the one with the most intensive and polished writing. Neat. I must have played through four or five times, fooling with various variables.
Some way to help distinguish the characters would have helped a lot, though, because in the end I had five characters to deal with and all I could really remember is "Thatcher is me and Temperance is the girl." I agree with the other posters who suggested that some more definition on the art would have helped set mood, along with some more details in dialogue or image to help situate us temporally.
Thank you for the great story, and I hope to see you in another jam...
Oh man! I lost just 11 seconds from the end. I never quite understood the spell mapped to E, but otherwise I really enjoyed myself, and agree with Olive that this does seem like a sort of time-shifted Little Prince story. Very nice game. Thank you!
Exploring a fairly intricate one-screen environment was surprisingly fun... and the art and ambiance was fantastic! Honestly, gameplay was a bit on the tedious side (and some of those jumps were frustrating!), and it often wasn't really intuitive what I was supposed to be doing, or why. I think I explored all the rooms (it's hard to tell), got the big blue ball, broke the rocks and got the white ball, lit up all the $ Stones, and and started assembling what I bet is the Rockrocket, but I couldn't find the other parts, or what I needed to do to make them appear, after a good 20 minutes. In general, I never really knew why things were happening.
Note that Collect-All-The-Things games have never been my cup of tea, but I know people who really like them, and I still enjoyed the exploration and aesthetics a lot. Good work on your entry, and good luck in the future!
Neat game! The graphics really pop. The one thing I'd change is that the enemies don't go at the same pace as the drumbeat and the key commands, so I ended up buttonmashing my way to victory just because. There was also a problem with the final boss where the attacks would come so fast that I couldn't actually see what my new button to press was supposed to be, and I got hit a couple of times in quick succession because of that. Still, I won~ Hurray!
Thank you for the game!
I get the same "MSVCP120D.dll is missing" error, even after reinstalling directly from microsoft support. It looks like a great game, and I'd love to play it, though. For reference, I'm running 64-bit Windows 8.
Ah, this entry is fun! I admire your devotion to the Game&Watch look and style, at the same time as changing the vertical stretch gives it a certain je-ne-sais-quoi--it looks a bit like a framed digital painting, in a certain light. Great active poses on all of your art, BTW.
Thank you for the game!
High score of 220262. Silly fun game, with simple and effective graphics and sound. After all the Yolo/Swag/Salty word bubbles, I was pretty irritated at the InstiGator myself! As critique, I noticed after a time, people stopped chasing (I wasn't sure if this was a bug or intentional), and I also experienced a bit of slowdown when there were a large number of people after me. Some possible ways to build on this might be to create different pedestrian types with different abilities or movement patterns, and possibly some collectibles or terrain obstacles to mix up the obvious "run circles around them" play pattern. Good work, overall. I had fun!
I really like the color scheme on this little entry. The puffs of orange smoke against the teal sky look great!
It would be really, really helpful if you explained the controls somewhere, and if the stars and UI bar were bolder so that we could tell we were losing HP. As-is they just look like they're part of the background. I like the graphics... Santa's got a bit of a moonwalk. Pretty cute!
Bah, we need a writing category for situations like these... you did a good job of breaking up your story into bites, but feeling like the beginning--before I understand what I am and what I'm doing--is non-linear, and after I understand my character, it's linear, is a bit frustrating. Choices are great but an informed choice is even better. You don't have to give the whole reveal, but before we know anything our choices become effectively random.
This is a nice little slice of story. I got the dandelion ending--cute :] Thank you for the game!
I like this concept! Typing out words going in different directions--so that I was effectively reading backwards, or in a squiggle--actually pushed the envelope some and increased the challenge over your average typing game. I think that once you fix the overlapping and add some gnarly tunes, this could be quite fun! Thank you for the game!
Wow, this is a great entry! I loved how you used the checkpoint/level end system to create more levels in the same space, and the ambience was great. I really struggled trying to get to that second checkpoint, though. I'm not sure what it was, but I died something like 45 times trying to make the jump from the first pedestal to the next. Did I need to dash and THEN jump? Not sure... but in any case, it's a brilliantly done little platformer.
Thank you for the game!
Wow, what a brilliant game, with such a well-defined and fun mood! I managed to get all of the crystals except that one in the middle-bottom of the screen... I think you have to step on little patches of snow or something, but I couldn't figure out at all which path I was supposed to take and ended up getting stuck :< If I didn't have so many other games I need to rate I'd honestly go and play your 1.01 version just to get to the end. Thank you for the game!
Hey again bushmango--if you wanna do something next LD, pass me a message at e.wilsonegolf@gmail.com and we'll see if we can make some fun.
Died at 9 ;_; This is actually really scary! I think it's helped most by the audio, and your AI is very good. The bugs behave very realistically... sometimes you're chasing them, sometimes you're being chased... it's so dynamic! I expected the critters to just pop open when I flashed them, but the way they behave really kicks up the tension. I'm looking forward to story mode, perhaps with different creatures and powers... ?!
Thank you for the game! It's good :>
What a great game, and with online multiplayer too! Might have fit the ☃ theme a good bit better, but with the ability to zoom out to one screen, and the multiplayer "everyone plays on the same screen" interpretation, it works.
I loved the simple controls, the fast pace, the lively music, the silly art and character customization, and just the whole package. The controls were brilliantly simple... I think this could even be adapted for mobile, with a simple tap for jump and tilt for spinning!
I can't offer much critique, but I can offer some suggestions. I think it could benefit from tilt mapping to speed control while grounded, for some added control. Also, being able to safely stomp snowmen as long as your skis are facing them when you hit... maybe the skis even blocking shots? That all said, fantastic work!
Sincerely, Dudeist Snowman
God, this entry is depressing. It's beautiful, though. I got very confused at first because I can go both left and right, and getting through a few years going forwards didn't seem to do any good ._. I think you have it at a good resolution, personally. It seems just the right size for this tiny view into a search for meaning.
Thank you for the game...
Really like the bunny house with the... giant... robot? Cute design. Thanks for the game :]
Yay, I won!! I felt like movement was a little bit slow at first, but once I got the hang of it this short entry was really fun. Things got pretty crazy near the end. Thank you for the game!
Great art and sounds here, and overall excellent work in setting the mood and selling the scenario. A good, gritty flight sim is hard to find, and for a LD project this was very well done.
As an experience this was very cool, though it didn't feel quite like a game. Something more sandboxy, with more oportunities to misclick buttons, or do things wrong (maybe more complex or less direct orders), would have been nice, say deactivating the Radio and activating Orbital Radio when you needed orders from Mission Control, and if you didn't you'd miss a critical update on your trajectory. More options for failure due to precision or misinterpreted orders, less immediate failure (possibly your lack of precision cost you points?) and less "you took too long to hit the button" failures would have been nice ways to build on the experience, I think.
Excellent work on your entry!
Sheesh, seems like every LD you manage to make something I love. Any critiques I can offer feel like nit-picks. The only bump I encountered in gameplay was getting stuck between the walls on the terrain-destruction level, with the last dino outside, and no way to escape but awaiting merciful rocky oblivion from above. Doesn't feel right to dock points for that, though.
I really enjoyed the synths and the bouncy tunes; I have this absurd little soft spot for the Sega Genesis sound chip, so I can't thank you enough for citing that Yamaha emulator in your Post Mortem. The style of the title logo and terrain, bright colors, and cute sprites were charming and wonderful (though I maaaybe was a bit fonder of Nya's Big Hair phase <_< >_>). To top it all off, the gameplay was solid, simple platforming fun, with a clever set of mechanics and a well-executed difficulty curve. And it's refreshing to see a hero who isn't some Kick-In-The-Door-And-Wreck-'Em-All type too; gal just wants her peace and quiet. I can appreciate that.
Also, can I gush briefly about the ritual -feeling- of the dino-banishing ritual? The short string of game actions needed to banish the enemies? Brilliant work creating gameplay behaviors and mechanics that feel like and mirror the narrative. That's a rare quality in games, and a delight every time it happens.
This really was a fantastic entry, and I think it's going to place really well. Please do consider continuing to work on this; maybe add in some dino varieties with different movement types, some static hazards or terrain interaction, maybe even local cooperative mode with Nya's rival, and put it up on Steam or something. It'd totally be worth it.
Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to seeing your future work!
@Dahold
First!
Here's my High Score & Favorite Picture:
http://i.imgur.com/Ksb520C.png
Nice work on making it in time for the compo, and I appreciate the absurd humor! The gameplay was a simple and familiar numbers game like a lot of RPGs out there. A suggestion for the future; this seemed more like something to watch and get a chuckle out of the silly descriptions than a gameplay experience. It's -really- important, perhaps The Most Important Thing in game design and games as a medium, to let the player make choices that are meaningful when affecting the outcome of the game. So many items boosted my speed that voting "Nay" really wasn't a viable option. So yeah, make sure to support meaningful player choices, good work on your entry, and and good luck on your future projects!
This was a really cute take on the theme, and surprisingly well constructed and polished for a compo entry! Feels like something you'd see on a Flash Game arcade site. I managed to get out in 56 minutes thanks to a Speed and Crit Chance based weapon build. Thanks for the game!
Something in the music, visual style, and 2D/3D mix reminded me of Recettear. I liked the simplicity of the mechanics, though I think the E-to-activate button could be removed entirely and replaced by your blanket actions. The drop shadow makes a huge difference!
As game content goes, the third zone seemed impossible; the darkness was always right behind me, and even using some exploits I found (walking before the camera pan was done, hitting both turbines with a single gust, and wall-hopping), I was unable to beat it:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80372290/Blanket%20Girl%20Best%20Attempt.mp4
Charming and adorable character design, enjoyable music, and nice presentation overall. I think there's the makings of a fun 2D puzzle platformer here! Good work.
Fun, challenging platformer with an interesting powerup mechanic, a solid level worth of content, and a look lifted straight from Mega Man (I'm fond of the style, so you get a pass :P). The tutorial level didn't prepare me at all for the difficulty of the gameplay, though; it wasn't a difficulty curve so much as a difficulty cliff... particularly the gauntlet-run at the start of the second level. It got easier after the first checkpoint, but MAN what a sudden change.
Gameplay wise, I think it would have been nice to have more safe spaces to pause and get your bearings between jumps and plan what to do next to deal with turrets or spikes, (again, particularly the blind drops into spikes or point-blank turret fire at the start of the second level) and maybe some passive puzzles using specific disk powerups like the block-breaking one. Also, I'm not as fond of the blind leaps onto spike pits when I have no ability to see what I'm jumping toward until I do; it's unfair to the player, who doesn't know the level layout like you do. As bus go, the CRT effect seems to have distorted the hitbox on the disk-selection menu, since in order to click on the 4th and 5th slots I was clicking on empty space.
All that said, nice work on your entry, and thanks for the fun! Good luck carrying this idea forward too.
Solid arcade style game, and for the compo no less! Does your engine natively use Vector Graphics, because that's pretty swanky. The core mechanic and graphical effects felt good to use, though the recharge time made it pretty tough to really defend yourself, or kill drones, or whatever heinous thing I was doing. Maybe longer but individual recharges for each direction's bumper would be nice, so you could strategize and make more meaningful choices? Speaking of whatever heinous thing I was doing, I liked how In Media Res the game's framing/narrative was too; I had no idea if I was a good guy or a bad guy, and as a player felt like a robot mindlessly euthenizing other robots. Good stuff!
In response to those villagers complaining about your game: There's a lot of ways people have fun. You don't need crunchy gameplay or long-running content to bring players some joy. I always appreciate the aesthetics behind your games, and the music, colors, and character design were delightful.
I don't know how attached you are to solo entries, but if you wanted to do more than you had time for, you could trawl for some like-minded folks to collab with. Many hands make light work, and it might help you more-fully realize your inspiration. If you prefer to keep flying solo, you could try to structure your time or pare things down, or even build a flexible generic framework or code-base for the games you like to make ahead of time (it's in the Jam rules), with the knowledge that you're going to want to put energy into making things all stylish and charming during the competition.
Most of all, I hope you had fun making this. It certainly made me smile! Thank you for putting this together, and for sharing it.
Customer was complaining I was late with their pizza, so I trampled their house. No more complaints!
This game is brilliant. Seriously, I really appreciate a game that lets me subvert a goal like that, and -sort- of succeed, even if it's not "success" in the strictest sense. *cough cough*
I loved the chippy prehistoric-sounding music... the percussion sounds like thundering footsteps! I loved the story the gameplay told; poor dino just wants to deliver pizzas, and sometimes he has to trample a traffic-clogged intersection, or a whole street of apartment complexes to get to his customer's house. I loved the little touches too; how the cars stop if you're in the way. I can imagine them honking their little horns. Great take on the theme; you really ran with the ramifications of being a monster as a player-character, and I really appreciate that!
I generally like your games, but this is one of my top picks from this Ludum Dare, hands down. Thanks a ton!
Bummer that Dropbox won't let me download. Looks artsy and interesting. I'll be back!
I couldn't find a strategy that worked well enough to ever survive long; passive health loss plus loss for making grubs plus loss for attacking them made it seem impossible to break even, let alone come out positive if I was lucky.
The feel of the game was evocatively weird and gross. I felt pretty monstrous, like a vile, abusive parent or something. And what beautiful, nightmarish artwork!
Good stuff.
I have never seen a game like this before; it really is a great creative game, and a clever take on the theme. Also, props to whoever Mario was; that Koopa shadow puppet was excellent!
I really liked the low-poly models, and the simple ambient music chords in the BG were a nice touch; it helped fill the silence when getting my shadows turned around right.
I went back and made another for fun. For a post-compo or expanded version, it might be nice to have a rating system that let people tag or score their favorites, or flag the broken or empty entries; there's a fair number of shadows that seemed to be single objects or all defaults, and it'd be nice if the community of boogyfolks had a way to curate and clean up this Shadow Art Museum we're building together!
Dropbox's servers seem to be having some issues today. It might even be Ludum Dare related, being the first evening after, when everyone's downloading and playing games en masse. I'm setting up an itch.io link as an alternative, in case it doesn't clear up.
The hitboxes on most of the hazards are obnoxiously big. I couldn't keep playing after the 6th thing killed me from several pixels away... which is unfortunate, because I generally like these sorts of games, and I was curious how you were going to handle the "You are a stalker fish who doesn't know how to take no for an answer, and possibly collects other people's journal entries" angle.
Save spots would help, and some tighter hit-boxes would help. Groovy soundtrack. Thanks for putting this together!
Some critique; I couldn't get the embedded version to play, and it wouldn't fit on a non-widescreen monitor, so I had to use the downloaded version. When playing, the jump was too floaty, and always spaced such that jumping one obstacle would land you in the next. An ability to control jump height (maybe holding the button during ascent extends it), or a jump distance designed to clear an average obstacle would be ideal. Also, there didn't seem to be a way to fully avoid the vertical sawblade; I could never quite clear it.
It's hard to find the time during LD like this, but playtesting is really important! It lets you diagnose problems the average player is going to have, and helps you tidy up your work as the audience will see it.
Thanks for putting this together. The soundtrack was groovy, and the animation well done. Good work!
Monsters helping an incompetent auto-scroller hero is a really clever take on the theme, and I appreciate it a lot! Love the cute style, and the surprising variety you got out of just movement and jumping. Short and sweet, but a definite favorite from this LD!
Slow progression and add a bit more content, branching, chararcter development, etc. and this could be sold on Steam. Mirroring what everyone else is saying; absolutely excellent work.
At least Sproutic's Bark isn't worse than its Bite. I appreciated the messages for Developer POV too. The ability to button-mash for power was nice, but the damage values seemed highly random even when I hit 5 stars, so it was a let-down.
Neat take on the theme; this is a role-reversal I'd like to see more of. Thanks for putting this together!
You really ran with this theme, building a game around the experience of being an immortal soul-stealing monster, biding your time and growing stronger with each resurrection. The game mechanics perfectly support the narrative too, even down to the tactical feel of planning your next attack. It's simple to play, but has real strategic depth, which makes it fun to play. The lack of a timer, and the indicators over the character's heads let me plan where to move, so failures aren't as frustrating (though the markers could be a little brighter).
This is a really fun, excellently made game in any context, but to do it in 48 hours? I'm just amazed. You've earned my genuine admiration.
Very clever reversal of the shmup genre. I really appreciated what you were doing here, and the piloting AI seems surprisingly competent! Fun, nice tunes, and fairly challenging. The addition of a Game Over screen to the post-compo gave it a nice sense of completion.
A really solid entry. Thanks for sharing this!
The description said Dating Sim. The screenshots had yeti and lumberjacks. Imagine my disappointment when he didn't accept the offering of rabbit meat I left strewn around the tree he was hiding in. </3
Never before have I expected I would some day say this, but the skeleton king smelled SO dang sparkly. I just wanted to chase him through the woods forever. I loved the visual depiction of scent-tracking using drifting, fading particles; I might have to borrow this for a pet project of mine.
Thank you for this weird, wonderful survival sim. The Yeti Perseveres, fools! I'm out!
Really dig the art style, and a very satisfying sound effect. Critique-wise, it was hard to understand where walls/hitboxes for objects were sometimes, particularly with the over-layers.
I dig the spirit, even if the execution didn't get all the way there. Even if you're just kicking ninjas in the face, in my heart you will always be a monster, Pony.
Kinda grindy and button-mashy, but that's just part of being a hack-and-slash. Item pickups were cool, though I didn't get them all; ice cream cone and sunglasses were enough to see me through to the last boss; items applied their visual effect when picked up, but didn't apply their changes until I clicked.
I got bored of cutting through villages all the time (honestly, the combat was slow and repetitive, and with large clusters of buildings that got tedious fast) so I cut around them. A map would have been a HUGE help here, since it was hard to know where to go once I went off-trail. I feel like I might've missed 2 of 4 bosses in so doing? When I beat the last boss, the game didn't end, but that also might've been by design too!
I second that the music didn't feel terribly fitting for the game's narrative. That said, it was well made, groovy music! I loved the graphical style too; everything being a prop or a cardboard cutout was a fun satire on the artificial nature of this heroic adventure, and maybe RPGs in general? The text bubbles and bouncing text for italics/emphasis is a great touch, and something I might even borrow; it makes reading lively, and really conveys the emphasis, and different motion could even give the words a "tone". Very cool!
Don't let my critique say otherwise; great work on your entry, and I had a good time playing it.
P.S. Left the game running while writing the last comment, and this is what I came back to:
http://i.imgur.com/BSSNfo5.png
What if Katamari Damacy was made by Michael Bay. Explosions were nice, and the explosions were fun and visceral. The visuals look nice too. Could use a source of challenge; something that made you lose progress, or a puzzle to solve.
Thanks for putting this together!
Cute character design! Even though the jump wasn't used for anything, it was nice to be able to flip around while walking forward. I liked the use of classical music (Girl from Ipanema in particular made me happy), but you might want to mention when you borrow game assets in the description, so people don't consider them in your score.
The time-pressure of the last stage made it a nice boss, and I had to be careful of when to use my special attacks. It'd have been nice to have that pressure in all the levels, maybe faster in later levels; without that, there wasn't really anything providing a challenge, you know? Bug-wise, in full-screen mode the game didn't take my aspect ratio into account, and I couldn't see everything despite it being smaller-res than my monitor.
Nice work, and thanks for putting this together! I had fun.
The flight mechanics felt really fluid, and the graphics were great! I liked how the music faded as you flew up and away from the chaos. The ambiance and visuals did a great job of depicting a chaotic, burning village.
Nice work!
I actually was discussing a cave-painting story game something like this when deciding what to do for the Jam. Crazy! I appreciated the interactive storytelling direction you went in, the narration, the art style, all of it. Excellent work!
Such cheerful music for a slave farm sim. Probably helps to offset the heinousness! I do feel a little better about my strict policy of only employing enslaved Hitlers, though.
Interesting narrative, though I'm a bit confused still. I appreciate the use of graphics with the text; straight text adventures aren't really my thing, but I enjoyed this one.
Nice interpretation of the theme as well. Thanks for putting this together!
Pretty solid strategy gameplay. The music got a little repetitive, but it's not bad at all. Very Evil Disco; the Necrodancer would be proud.
There were a lot of clicks happening, and many of them missed; hitboxes for the UI seem kinda off. It'd really help to have visual feedback for if you've rolled over a button, and for what action is currently selected; I kept re-clicking the Attack/Defense Buff buttons every time, because I didn't figure out it stayed selected. Similarly, when the UI for doing things is visible all the time (and not greyed out) it's telling me as a player that I can do things; the game equivalent of confusing mixed signals. An improved UI design would make this a lot more fun.
It was a little frustrating how many actions I needed to take per turn, and how they were broken up into phases. I couldn't relocate my defenders during the preparation phase, when I badly needed to. Sometimes I couldn't explore either, because I had rooms full of 3 skeletons in the way, and no way to move them until the combat phase (I got into the habit of only putting 2 units in a room too, since you couldn't swap-move units between rooms that were full). It was almost easier to explore during combat too, since you could move once per turn instead of a limited number of times (I also managed to "explore" my necromancer into some grey territory during combat).
You might have been able to design this with a single phase, or no phases at all; just actions each unit could take in a turn, and a few turns down-time between waves. the player could choose whether to find new rooms, or summon, or buff, etc. It'd help the game-flow a lot, and would be quicker to learn/pick up.
I had fun making super-powered archers that could chew apart invaders, while tanky constructs blocked the way. Honestly, I think buffed archers with at least 7 attack were game-breaking, since invaders only moved one tile; if you knew where they were going, you could put them just out of reach, and kill every invader... unless you misclicked and sent them into the room to die. (Did that a few times, whoops!) If invaders automatically moved until the first room with a defender, or even had random attack/defense, it'd keep players from cheesing the game.
All that said, a pretty fun strategy game, and impressive work in 48 hours! Thanks for putting this together, and keep at it!
Short but interesting stealth action puzzler; I like the strategic element in choosing which character to possess. The clean aesthetics, and the feel from just a splash of color was really nice. I love that the characters have tiny little noses, too!
There were some difficulties caused by the camera angle in the second level; the melee guard after the door couldn't be targeted effectively when he was obscured behind that wall, and they moved faster than you could get far enough into the room to get a shot. I had to cheese his line of sight and retreated to finally get him.
Thanks for putting this together, even if it was short. I had fun! I wish you luck working on your future, more feature-complete version of the game too!
Neat idea! It didn't feel particularly game-ish, but the story and voice acting was funny. I appreciated it! It didn't resize to a non-widescreen aspect ratio, so I lost some of the dialogue, which was a bummer. Also, it seems you could keep clicking buttons after making a decision, which threw up some errors.
Solid artwork, and I liked that the music changed subtly when engaged in combat. Also didn't manage to stealth kill; they always faced me. Also, didn't really have to fight anyone, and wasn't ever hit by just running and jumping at top speed. Slower speed or faster enemy firing would accomplish the double-goal of giving people time to enjoy the scenery, while also making a cost to not attacking or attacking enemies; it becomes more of a meaningful choice, and meaningful choices are what's at the heart of games!
Loved the frenetic breakout-platformer action combined with the sound of various bricks chiming together in little arpeggios as they get popped by your pixelated tennis ball. Excellent design, sound, graphics, all the things!
Great work all around, though I particularly like the voice acting. Really solid use of two inputs to make unique mechanics and puzzles. I enjoyed this. Thanks for putting it together, and I hope you keep building on this; you've got a really solid foundation to build something on.
I broke the hearts of nearly every horse in that club trying to wrap around the DJ with the Imgur shirt. It was worth it.
Am I right in thinking the classic Snake game was an influence here? I thought it was neat that my tail ended up being an obstacle at one point, when it kept deflecting me upward mid-coil because I'd slithered around everywhere willy-nilly.
I liked how you used the simple control scheme, though I swiped left on a lot of horses accidentally when steering around things; part of the challenge, but it could have gotten frustrating over time.
The design on the dancing horses was really adorable; I loved the graphical style, the proportions, the animation, how round everything was, etc. The profile pictures were hilarious too; the obscenely buff horse giving me a lilting "Yoo-hoo" may very well have made my day.
This was weird and cute, and a lot of fun. Great work, folks!
I had a good time making a little hanging garden in this. It's a simple game; cute and fun to explore. It got me to thinking about all the different directions a dev could take this kind of core mechanic, too.
You could make discrete plants and such into self-sustaining loops. Plants could be feeding each other or some critters, producing a balanced loop of water production and consumption, etc. They could be terraforming barren terrain too; some plants could take nutrients out of soil and make it barren/stone, while others die or enrich it. Perhaps you only have a limited number of seeds you can plant per type, and you need to keep the ecosystem stable to keep playing; new plants, critters, and tools could be given to the player over time, to expand their options, and create a sense of progression. This could move into strategy/resource management game territory with some kind of currency; maybe plants providing the player with currency to trade for new tools or seeds, or a quota of plants need to be grown before a season is up, etc.
This makes me want to try building a strategy game or RPG around cellular automata. :P
It was weird when my butt got too big and just started killing people without my help, which is not a sentence I'd have expected I'd be able to write today.
Feels like some distant cousin of the Snake game, with some Binding of Isaac sensibilities. I had a fun time lining up attacks and all, and bouncing off of tiny Deadpools in Chef Hats and rocketing into the air was pretty fun too. Maybe some speed control and jumping with momentum would have helped give more finesse, though that's hard to do in 2 buttons. I'd second comments that these mechanics would go well alongside some additional goals or challenges.
Thanks for putting this together!
What a strange, surreal environmental game. I like exploring what's there so far, especially the creepy minimalist visual design. I'd love to see more of this setting you've made, and know several other folks who would enjoy this too.
It ran a bit slowly on my computer, and the contact detection let me walljump out of bounds (If you're doing what I think you're doing, maybe try doing a downward Raycast from the player to check for ground, instead of enabling jump doing OnCollision?)
I'm sorry you didn't get to submit what you wanted in time, but good luck fleshing it out further!
I will always love these old-school dungeon crawlers; props on making one! The music done with 4-op synthesizers was all kinds of moody and nostalgic. The fact that I could play this on my phone was an unexpected surprise! As usual, the art and character design is solid (the walls were so detailed they never got boring to see). I see "2 button controls" in the individual character controls, so the theme interpretation is there (the theme didn't say "only use 2 buttons for the whole interface" people).
If you want to keep toying with the idea, a dungeon crawler with some added roguelike sensibilities, or some new mechanics could be really cool. I'd pay to play one. Heck, I'd work on one.
Great work, and pretty dang impressive!
Really moody and simple Infinite Runner, with some neat tweaks to the forumla! Thanks for putting this together!
1) I thought that making your hitbox grow when you jumped was clever; it's a punishment for unnecessary jumping, making it more tactical. Still, jumping is fun for players (it's a way to play around and "express" themselves during downtime, especially in rail-games like this), so some other way for players to express themselves would be nice.
2) Moving the character to the left of the screen would help give players more advance warning; you'll notice platformers like Mario shift the camera toward where you're going, since what's behind you usually isn't as important.
3) As folks said, restarting without the intro, letting players skip it, or even starting the jumping part of the level during the opening part (you can still deliver the story without slowing things down) would all help. Starting off with controls, and letting the narrative come after would probably work fine in that case.
Loved the complexity of platformer behavior you got out of 2 buttons, even if it was pretty confusing for me to get the hang of. Simple as the game itself was, I had a lot of fun with this! Thanks for putting this together.
Clever mechanic, and a good take on the theme! Randomized keys were a nice touch, but them changing mid-game made this neurologically impossible to do by Muscle Memory, which is what people do to learn these kind of extremely difficult mental challenges and reflex games. Also, getting duplicate keys made some of the games impossible to succeed, just due to bad RNG, which is frustrating for players; I'd suggest unique keys.
That said, I really enjoyed the visual presentation, and the gameplay was a fun challenge. Thanks for putting it together!
Thanks to all of you for the kind words so far. I'm glad you enjoyed it! The unpredictable randomness was intended design, but resource generation might've benefited from a regular generation time.
Also, sorry for any confusion about the crafting; I talked about it some in the post-mortem, but if I'd had more time I'd have liked to have a more fleshed-out UI that explained items found or actions that are done in each movement state. Same goes for some indicator that the fire was about to burn out too. Feedback in general is the #1 area for improvement IMO.
@kmakai: Oops, compiled the project as a debug build, and never noticed I left those there. That's embarrassing! I took those files out of the zip; I don't think that's against the contest rules, but if so I still have the original copy!
I like the movement/aiming scheme; very Newtonian, how you kept drifting! Solid sprites and audio too, and some nice alien designs; did I catch a Day of the Tentacle reference in there?
For gameplay nitpicks, the UFOs seemed to leave a hitbox that could damage you after they were destroyed. Also, my fuel never really seemed to go down enough to need pickups or a fuel mechanic, but I might've been lucky with item drops.
This was a fun and very stylish game. Thanks for putting it together!
I'll try to tackle this when boardgame-loving family are over for the Holidays. I'll withhold judging until then. >_o
Thanks for taking a risk and trying something different here, and sorry for any toxic feedback you get because of it. Looking forward to checking it out!
I was going to complain about the lack of Orbit Speed control, until I realized that you could move out to slow down, or move in to speed up. Subtle, but really effective!
A fun arcade-style game, with a cute premise. I had fun playing it. Thanks for putting this together!
Really liked the visual and audio design here. The gameplay felt a bit like Go, which was neat. I liked the number of different actions/strategies you can take as well; the surround-and-capture mechanic was my favorite, and I like that it differed from the Attack Cell in that it didn't weaken or destroy what it captured.
The game was prone to a lot of back-and-forth, I found, which could make it slow moving. I think it'd help if energy could be transferred between cells, to help players who have a clear number advantage win more quickly, rather than drawing out the game.
With the simple interface, this could be a really fun mobile board game for folks to play with friends. Thanks for putting this together!
Neat puzzle game, though it felt procedural and like the "puzzle" element of the game suffered for it; a hand-crafted set of levels that knew what cars would be where when you were passing them would make a big difference in controlling the challenge! Still, the difficulty progressed well, and presented challenges well as you went.
Also, I'd have liked a visual signifier for Lane Changing Cars like a different body color, but I could also understand making them all blend in as a design choice too; this includes the visual design, where everything but the player is done in blue and white.
I liked the simplistic graphical style; fun game overall!
Just to add:
The Tap vs. Hold control scheme was solidly done; great way to get mileage out of two buttons. The hesitant way you move the turnip to your mouth when eating made me laugh. The ending (whether or not it was intended) where you may have found your treasure, but it was useless given that you were still trapped on an island surviving off of turnips, felt almost like an Aesop's Fable. The way the treasure map differed from the tiles of the world made it feel like someone had actually drawn it, without changing the graphical style; another great, subtle touch.
Nice art, and fun item-combination puzzles. The Wrecking Ball reference made me grin. The items and rituals really set the tone, and some of the descriptions were pretty entertaining. Odd's "Eyeballs In Hands" design and color scheme gave me some nostalgia for "Ahh! Real Monsters."
This gets me thinking... this kind of Gather Resources Then Craft Items formula could make a pretty cool Idle Game ala Cookie Clicker etc. A string of Eldtritch dudes to defeat could act as a gating mechanism that open up new mechanics or areas, resources could be generated by selecting a place to explore, and you could come back and make them into things to strengthen your Monster when actively playing?
Anyway, thanks for putting this together!
43 minutes is my record. Great pixels, great colors, and great little touches like the coiling leaves. I love the charming art style and color-coded hazards. The controls were a bit floaty, but it felt like the beanstalk had a life of it's own, and that was a good source of challenge.
Fantastic work, astonishingly so given the 3 hour time frame!
Pretty weird, cool strategy game. I'm curious about how you did pathfinding, and what the lines between the mold dots represented. Also, fighting other mold is pretty tough (Especially that Turkey Level); I don't know if I gather strength by growing larger, or whether I'm supposed to just click on spots and hope I can overcome them by brute force. It seems like there's some neat stuff going on under the hood, but the game doesn't provide much feedback about it to let me choose my next move, other than watching my mold grow and some very pleasant sounds.
All in all, I had fun with this. Thanks for putting it together.
This is absolutely a fantasy I can relate to. So cool :O
That song is gorgeous, and chock full of ennui. It does a lot to build on the "escape from a dingy city" narrative. I love the second part, when the orchestra breaks into the motiff; unfortunately, I rarely last long enough to enjoy it, since it loops. Good motivation!
I really dig the art style too; the monochrome background draws attention to the black and white objects standing out against it. The way all hazards are black with white outs makes for a great, easily-recognized visual cue. I knew to avoid rats the first time I saw them, without instruction. Good game design!
The gameplay feels great too, and the rough steering is a new challenge my brain isn't used to. I'm glad you can recover from hits too; that makes things more forgiving. Though it's subtle, I also love the ability to spam the bellows after I run out of gas, to squeeze just a bit of air out and hover fruitlessly in the air for a few moments, before plummeting down; the way the game recognizes my desperation and characterizes it that way is adorable, and feels great.
Top marks, all around. You guys did great!
Pretty clever control scheme, there! Definitely made for some hectic dogfighting feels. Aesthetically, this felt like some kind of impossible mashup of Tron, Star Wars, and Dune, dunked in a fondue pot worth of 80's Cheese. Really dug the presentation.
I'll second that it was hard to aim over terrain without being close, and hard to hit the worm when close without colliding. Maybe the ability to keep the shot charged so long as A or D was still held might allow players to aim around terrain or swerve away better, but that may complicate the controls? Hard to say.
That all said, thanks for putting this together! Great work.
Short and sweet. It plays a bit like a puzzle, bit like a visual novel, with a unique central mechanic. This reminds me of some of the games by EYEZMAZE, particularly Chronon; not in the derivative sense, but the time-hopping exploratory puzzle-solving feeling brought it to mind.
It's a good gameplay metaphor, the way your control is limited to simple choices about what things you bring into your life, or what you bring into your child's life. You don't control what they do, and can only guess at what kind of influence it might have in the long run. I like the visual style and music; made it seem pretty bitter-sweet, but that's how life and living feels, sometimes.
I can feel the heart behind this, and can sort of relate; I've got a new nephew on the way, the first child of the next generation in my family. I'm hopeful and excited to see who they are. I'm worried that I'm not ready to be a role model, and will somehow mess up their life. I'm experiencing many other complicated feelings besides. This game is a pretty good time capsule for that sort of feeling.
I'm sure you'll keep doing great with your son, and hope you do well when the Ludum Dare ratings come in too. Thank you for sharing this game.
Very much Starseed Pilgrim, but I really enjoyed it; it's a solid mechanic for the theme! Nice platforming and puzzle combo, figuring out the seed behaviors. I liked how the objectives also gave you powerups; that helped progress feel good.
Also the goats were so awful I now hate goats IRL.
Nice use of hand-drawn graphics. I liked the Mixed Media/Papercraft kind of feel here! Also, interesting control scheme; it took a second to get my head around steering, but made for a pretty intuitive setup in time.
Took me a bit to understand the shooting mechanic, but that was a failure to read on my part. I liked how you combined shooting with recovery, and used a single button movement scheme. Very nice!
I can't say how, but I feel like the game's fail-state (getting too big) ought to be redesigned somehow; colliding and getting bigger made future collisions more likely, thus making it less and less easy to dodge, and making skillful play impossible; your run is as good as done once you're over 1/2 size, unless you're lucky with timing. Same goes for the finale; once you're too big to dodge, it becomes a waiting game, where you hope to be lucky enough to get no white blood cells for long enough to win. That said, it's a tough line to walk, between randomness that makes the game more exciting, and randomness that takes away meaningful choices (skillful play/dodging/etc) from players, or makes them wait on the game to flip a coin to let them lose or win.
I had a good time with this one, and thought it was a clever use of both themes, with a nice presentation! Thanks for putting this together.
Just hit 295, around the time I finally understood that the blue pickups clear the board: http://i.imgur.com/Dspzf7C.png
Great minimalist design, nice use of a growing number of instruments and more music as a reward for progress, and a pretty fun arcade-style game overall. The growing-by-moving mechanic felt a little like an afterthought, and didn't make much difference; it'd be interesting to see see movement controlling or influencing the size of the circular path instead, though it was fine as is too.
I very much enjoyed playing this. Thanks for putting it together!
What a unique puzzle game! I've never been more glad that I only have 2 legs to worry about.
Loved the tone the art and music set; fit the awkward controls and goofy movements perfectly. I loved how you curved up the difficulty gradually by adding more parts too. I didn't really grok the controls until the ladybugs and challenge poses at the end, and had a lot of fun failing to move myself properly.
This was a simple, clever, and really solidly-made game; sorry you didn't make it in time for the Compo, but I'm sure you'll do fine!
I have no idea what is happening. I think that's the point? :3
Big fan of dadaism, so I appreciate some LoLRandom. The gameplay was pretty random too, though? There wasn't an apparent strategy other than alternating between spamming the heal combo and shooting... without any foreknowledge of what the enemy is doing, or more precise timing controls, there's no way to effectively block. Also, I seemed to have 99 Moneys from the start, so I could buy everything? Not sure if that was intended, but it sorta broke the game.
Also. the game interface kinda suffered from the 2-button control scheme, rather than building on that simplicity in a positive way; especially given that I didn't see any achievements, you could probably have simplified each option to a button, like you did in combat, instead of scrolling.
Anyway, thanks for putting together this bizare little trip into Post Apocalyptic Neo-Moscow, and keep at it!
I pity the poor villagers who live on/inside an onion pile, however famous said onions may be.
Brilliant 2-button hands-off city manager. I loved the look, the tone, and the gameplay. Well done!
Solid game! I rather preferred the pacing on Manic better than Normal; it made it feel exciting, and let you quickly put an end to the frustrations of bad RNG giving you an impossible layout (only happened a few times). No advice here, other than to consider generation algorithms that didn't make impossible levels, or hand design the layout for consistency.
Thanks for putting this together!
I like the color palette, and the The take on 2-Button, and the fact that mouse controlled movement and shooting conflicted, was frustrating at first, but it made for some interesting strategic choices. I liked how the enemies moved if they had line of sight; a nice stealth-style touch! I couldn't hear any audio, but I'll update this if that changes.
Thanks for putting this together!
** Note for folks who are confused; Maj is Shift, Espace is Space.
Some great pixel art, and solid music choices; they really set the tone. I liked the character design too; that's a pretty neat hat, and I loved the claw they used to grip into wood and crumbling stone.
The platforming was indeed quite hard, but I managed to beat it; if you had more time, some easier levels to get the player familiar with the controls would be good. I liked the growing platforms, and how all the different blocks interacted; very good design there, and some well-crafted puzzles! I may have cheated, since I avoided the first green trigger in order to finish the last level; I couldn't jump up the thorny wall before the floor caught up with me.
For criticism, the controls seemed to not respond some times, especially Jump; many times, I'd hit Jump, but just walk off the edge of a platform, which was frustrating in such a precise game like this.
Thanks very much for putting this together; it was a lot of fun, and a well made platformer!
Nice presentation! Very much a gorefest, but you executed it well. Pretty challenging too; I had a hard time balancing healing, firepower, and keeping corpses available for deploying, but that was the fun of it. The number of buttons took some getting used-to, but the occasional hunting and pecking was fun in it's own way.
This has simple mechanics with a good amount of strategic depth. Thanks for putting this together!
Beautiful art and sound design. I had a lot of fun! Brought back similar feelings to Spore and Agar.Io, while still it's own thing.
Broke my heart to not be able to keep growing, and go full Katamari on the red Microbes; I'd have loved to be able to control splitting, to save it for times of distress. Only briefly made it to 4 Colony Members before getting devoured, but it was a fun challenge. Thanks for putting this together!
Remember seeing this game while doing an update post, but I forgot to save a link. Glad I stumbled on it again. Beautiful artwork, and nice use of the limited controls!
The game presented some nice puzzle-style gameplay, with strategic choices, but one aspect of the design really rubbed me the wrong way; The meteors. I really like the idea of a shard that damages what it hits, and even one that nukes a whole ring if it hits the Barrier, but having it destroy a whole hex regardless of level breaks so much of the existing gameplay. It makes players helpless, and takes away a meaningful choice they could be making: "Do I have a position where it'll hit a Level 2 Hex that wouldn't be destroyed?" It also negates clever play to build up as many level 2+ Hexes as possible. Basically, if Meteors destroy rather than damage the Hex it hits, players are absolutely helpless; their only choice is how to lose, which is REALLY frustrating in a puzzle-type game.
It also might be worthwhile to let you shift the island one hex Right or Left in addition to rotation (Say, hold the left or right button to shift it while held or something); there were always Shards 1 tile too far away for a given size (might be an off-by-one error in the source?), and it would also potentially enable players more flexibility in positioning their island, and less frustrating time spent waiting for just the right Shard in just the right spot.
Critique aside, it's a really beautiful game, with some gameplay I've never seen before. You could expand on this; it seems like a pretty good fit for Mobile, etc.
Thanks for putting this together!
I really liked the core mechanic here! Shifting controls are a pretty cool twist for the Frustratingly Difficult Troll Platformer genre. I dig it.
The LOL U Died song was a nice touch. Just rub some salt into that wound, game. Thanks for putting this together!
Short, sweet, and challenging puzzle game. The minimal controls worked beautifully here. I really liked the presentation as well; the lights, the simple shapes, the trailing leaves and small blooms you leave behind... the whole thing. Thanks for putting this together for us to play; it's an excellent game, and would be worth porting to mobile, I think.
Little nit pick: I liked how the notes were pitch-bent to match the chord progression in the background, but some of the notes when collecting sparks seemed out of tune by half a pitch or so, though, which made them sound sour and dissonant. If it wasn't intended, maybe consider separate sound effects for each note for a later build?
I loved the use of interface-as-narrative; all you had was a scanner and some buttons, and the screenshake from being attacked, which left the visuals and what was going on to the imagination. It took me a while to understand how resource gathering worked, and what the purpose of the Ladel was. It was pretty hard to stay alive for long, but the challenge was fun. The resource gathering and lack of movement felt like an Idle Game, like Cookie Clicker, but much more interactive.
Thanks for putting this together! I enjoyed playing it.
The indirect control created some nice emergent moments where I would speed-boost my souls to spread them out, and then sweep across the map to gather new recruits, though I could just as soon speedboost to get away from too many shadows.
I didn't understand the reason for having duplicate stones toward the end-game, beyond giving my souls more targets, and better freedom of movement. It might have been nice if the stones themselves had a longer cooldown instead of (or in addition to) the cooldown bar, so you'd have to hop around more, and maybe bide time while the Reds recharged.
This game looked and sounded great, and had a good bit of strategic depth too. Excellent work! I really enjoyed the mood of this, and had a good time playing. Thanks for putting this together!
Liked the simple input, though I'll second that it was Old Nintendo Hard to dodge, shoot, and control yourself. Really impressed with the technical challenge of making a Gameboy ROM for LD. Very cool that you got audio working too! Thanks for sharing this.
Nice graphics and soundtrack; really great feedback to the actions. Loved the use of color, and the particles in the background. The mechanics were simple, and the platforming was pretty well-done, if kinda floaty (I just spammed attack and floated for a while as the AI kept jumping into me). I didn't notice much difference at all between elemental types, and seemed to knock the opponent the same distance most of the time. It'd have been nice to have more variety of actions; for a LD, less time spent on graphics and more spent on creating gameplay goes a long way!
The platforming didn't feel very good; jumping sometimes didn't work at all, collisions seemed off, and the movement was sharp. Also my robot could walk with feet on her head, which was kinda weird?
Pretty nice pixels, and I appreciated the different songs. Neat concept too! Something like this, combined with resource-gathering and part buying could make for a really nice complete game. Thanks for putting this together!
A game featuring archery does not a Towerfall Clone make, guys. >:I
I could praise the fantastic pixel art, the simple and readable sounds, the clever take on the theme, and so on... but I'll try to keep it brief.
A+ Platforming and level design. For example, I was worried I couldn't reach Horse's tipi after I defeated Eagle and lost my double jump, but I was glad to see that you left a horizontal platform that you could long-jump from using Horse's speed boost (as long as you still had Horse, you could reach Horse).
The idea of a game where the player decreases in power over time, rather than increasing in power was a brilliant tweak. As you the player get better at the game, your handicaps and advantages are taken away, which is a brilliant way of creating rising tension without "artificial difficulty" like stat bonuses and harder bosses. This sort of inversion of Power Fantasy tropes in games is something I'd love to see more of.
I couldn't figure out what Vulture or Rabbit did. Snake as a Totem was overpowered as heck; the only form I really used against bosses, due to that damage over time. That snake boss fight had a pretty brilliant touch too; despite you not having access to poison arrows anymore, you could pin snakes along the arc of your arrow, and poison Snake that way. Finding that out was one of my favorite moments.
Thanks so much for putting this together. It's games like this that raise the bar for what folks can do in a 48-hour Ludum Dare game.
Was actually thinking of doing something Mafia-esque with Hitchh1k3r this time, but we went with something else. Loved how you executed this! First person Werewolf... very cool.
Loved how you could use observations, statements of fact, note-taking, and deductive reasoning to figure out who was who. The variety of visually distinct character designs and the style in general were charming as hell.
Personally, I was ready to kill Purpster anyway because they dressed like Skater Waluigi and their name sounded like Perpetrator mixed with Puppy, but I was glad they turned out to be a Werewolf. Also Bertram, you wouldn't have seen Invisibilly inside last night; it's kind of his whole thing.
Thanks for putting this together!
Brilliant use of shadow puppets for everything from user interface to characters to platforms. Loved how the hands were revealed when turning, how the guitar and orange glow came in when the Red Hand was close, all that. Platforming was great too; excellent polish all around. Thanks a ton for putting this together!
This was a lot of fun! Enjoyed the puzzle design, and the simplicity of the core mechanic. You got a lot of mileage out of flipping rectangles! The level with the 3 stacked blocks was by far the toughest one for me, but I was able to beat it. Loved the catapulting, and getting smashed by the occasional mistakenly swapped block.
I liked the atmosphere, the visuals, the water shader, and the sound quite a bit. Was fun juking and hopping around shots, though I wish I had a way to remove the threats from some areas; perhaps tricking poachers into shooting one another or something? Also, some cost or mechanic that limited how often you could shapeshift, or changed it in some other way, might have been neat. As it was, it was a bit slow, but I enjoyed playing it; my record was 65/100. Thanks for putting this together!
At first the cards seemed to not matter, but then I died on level 4 without warning (I think because of them?); I'm not sure why, or what I was supposed to do in regard to their attacks other than shooting them. I also missed a target early on, and had to wait to scroll back through all of level 1, which was pretty frustrating. Nice artwork, and I appreciated the Karateka and other references in the background.
Very silly game. Thanks for putting this together!
Some of the character designs and sense of humor reminded me of Pen Ward. Really loved the lumpy low-poly meshes with oekaki-looking textures. And the music... those instruments were fantastic paired with the slightly off-pitch samples that sounded like old vinyl records. Loved the "In da club" song too. The brief snippets of characterization via dialogue and weird world-building was a lot of fun too.
I got to the prison, but invisible walls and a large eggplant-guy won't let me get my body back. Was sad to see it end, and would love to see this more fully realized, or maybe used as a conceptual seed for something bigger.
10/10. Would be stuck forever as a Wuff-Wuffaing Shnozdog again.
Solid art and sound design! Very impressed by the rocking level tunes, and the solid firing sounds.
The Captain Forever style ship building mechanic was a lot of fun. Slowing down time but not pausing the game entirely was a really good choice; the bullets kept flying, and created a great sense of tension when trying to build yourself up in the heat of battle!
Due to the design, the only real way to play was to stack guns horizontally, and didn't change that ducking and weaving was the only way to defeat enemies and not lose your weapons; some more meaningful strategy or choices would have benefited the game greatly. I'd love for an ability to shoot past my own modules (maybe special modules, or the fins, or just all your own modules) as a way to make a sleeker ship with more focused guns, or of armoring up the front of your ship. Perhaps penetrating or beam-type enemy shots could have made that strategy dangerous (many good guns in a row could mean you lose everything). More weapon behavior variety would have helped get around that as well; mouse-aimed turrets, angled spread guns, modules designed for ramming, and whatever else.
Thanks for putting this together; I had fun playing it!
Neat concept! The sword combat style reminded a bit of the original Prince of Persia, and having to remember to stay close to a body to have an extra life was neat.
Mechanically, I think it'd have improved things if you gave a short wind-up for attacks (yours and enemies), so you could potentially predict an incoming attack and block it; as it was, blocking didn't really serve much purpose, as it relied on pure chance. Also, the mechanics for respawning encouraged players not to move forward, which worked at odds with what you wanted the player to do to win; some mechanics antagonized others, rather than working together.
Sounds were rather loud compared to the music, but I loved the retro-sounding audio compression. Pixel art and particles were nice, if the colors were a bit muted. Also, noticed a bug; an enemy I was fighting seemed to die, but didn't change animation states; they couldn't be hit, attack, or move anymore, but stayed on their feet and animated as though alive.
Thanks for putting this together. I had fun!
A nice simple maze-runner. The theme idea was neat, but didn't seem to happen often enough to make the gameplay feel strongly connected with the Theme. The lack of textures (or even changing colors) hurt when trying to create a sense of motion, or help me navigate and remember landmarks and corridors in the maze. For input, using WASD and arrows was a little awkward as well. I'd suggest WASD for Movement and QE for turning. Faster turning and movement would help a lot as well, since the gameplay was rather slow for a game heavily focused on maze navigation, and trial and error.
Honestly, I found the pace of the game and the lack of apparent progress (and the lack of a way to see what progress I'd made) rather frustrating. Games meant to be played slowly or meditatively are fine, but it's also important for game developers to be aware of and respect their player's investment of time in playing, too! A birds-eye map of the tiles you've explored so far would help create a sense of progress; even just a tiny box of nearby walls and tiles would help in navigating and remembering where you've explored if you wanted to preserve the feeling of being lost. Also, when progress isn't being made, it helps to give players small bits of positive feedback or encouragement, like the "reward" of getting a new song in the background, a new level mechanic like the automatically sliding walls, some new visual elements to see, or even just a new color of wall! Part of game-making is convincing the players that your game is worth playing for a bit, and will be fun, interesting, challenging, or otherwise engaging.
That all said, thanks for putting this together. Keep making cool stuff!
Very funny, and a good bit of fun to play! I think removing the background music and sticking with the sounds might have been better; it wasn't bad music, but the loop was very short, and it was starting to bother me a bit by the end. Loved the papercraft-looking solid color art style. Really appreciated the Spacebar as a "Stand Up/Reset" button too; posing the character had all the fun of QWOP or Toribash, but minimized the frustrations of being stuck in a pose you couldn't figure out how to escape from. Very well done, and in such a short time span!
Thanks for putting this together, and for sharing it with everyone.
joe40001, the number of Ziggurats is Too Damned High. Impressive stuff!
I'm grateful to all of you who gave the Post Competition version a try. We worked hard on polishing it according to your feedback, and added some of the features we didn't have time to get to during the 72 hours. Thanks again for all your comments, and I'm glad so many of you enjoyed our game!
Nice, simple Match-3 thinger you've got here. Sorry your drive and motivation is being butts right now, but congrats on the accomplishment!
I dig the colorful pixels and sounds; association to the theme was pretty loose, but I sorta get the circumstances.
Keep doing your best at any given moment, and thanks for putting this together!
Neat twist on "tower defense", with the jack-in-the-boxes as static defenses. I didn't see a bug-critter get into the room when I died, and I'm wondering if it was a code-bug that did it.
I appreciated the solid pixel art and sound effects, especially the breathing. Good feedback and interesting gameplay overall. I like to win, but I don't mind survival games either. Thanks for putting this together!
Wasn't expecting this to be so creepy and moody! Really liked the subtle changes to the room when you're not looking.
Could use some movement tweeks to minimize the occasional frustrating jump, as a few folks suggested. Nice visuals and audio, neat collect-a-thon race against the clock concept, and a fair bit of fun, for a relatively simple game loop. Thanks for putting this together!
Like Jessey said, it didn't seem to kill me off properly at the end; couldn't move, but could shoot.
I really liked how hectic the music felt; it did a good job of setting the mood. The way that hitting a Zombie made it move faster also presented an interesting strategy element, in a simple game like this. Thanks for putting it together!
I'd agree with the first few comments, in that the gameplay itself was sorta problematic. As the audience attempting to interact with the game, we need to get feedback from the game when we do something right!
I stumbled on the solution to the first scenario by hitting E in front of the detachable-looking panels, not because I thought I was getting replacement parts, but because I wasn't sure if I'd actually "gotten" anything from either of them yet.
Giving the players Feedback, whether that's a sound effect that plays when you do something, a graphic in the environment that changes (say, a panel pops off a thing), or even a bit of dialogue that says "good job getting the <Item>. Now put it somewhere" or something. The player can't peek into the code while playing, so you need to communicate when they do something right or wrong.
Other than that, I enjoyed your artwork, the bobbing-animation for when you had no ground, and especially enjoyed the story. What a neat scenario you painted! I assume VAL was the AI, yeah (that could have been more clear). I wish them a happy life together on the planet. :3
The flames were nigh impossible to keep up with... I couldn't remember all the chemicals!
I appreciated the sense of humor, and the hectic gameplay. good work!
Nice, high-energy shooty survival game. I enjoyed it! The sounds and visual effects (the hordes outlines blurring together, for instance) were really nice!
The most frustrating part was definitely the spawns; enemies could spawn literally on top of you, and was what ended most of my runs. It didn't feel fair to the player, since it wasn't something I could predict or prevent. A small activation time for recently spawned enemies (perhaps rendering them transparent for a few seconds, and not allowing them to collide with the player) or a warning of locations that will spawn enemies soon, so the player can get away, would both be good fixes.
Thanks for putting this together! It was fun.
I liked that the mouse required some puzzle-solving (had to be off the ground to lure it out) but the Mouse level was still PRETTY TOUGH, and took several minutes. I had to drop from the chair; anywhere else, and the mouse would change direction before impact.
Note: A computer's reflexes are going to be way faster than a human! Give us humans a break and give the computer some lag-time in reading the situation and changing their behavior. Or just make the target move slower so we can make up for it!
I liked the visual storytelling in the background; as time goes on, the owner finds and leaves a partner, gets a stove, etc.
Also, though cats aren't human, I'd still call them People or Persons! They certainly have personality. :3
Hey everybody. Thanks so much for the feedback! Rough edges and all, pretty happy with the game, and glad to know people enjoy it!
@jofersgames / @knightshousegames / @jjjjason / @adafheyesh
RE: The fact that Signal goes up every second, even when you're standing still... that was *definitely* intentional, and as far as we're concerned a perfectly valid choice you can make. Design-wise, the upgrades bought with Signal are all unnecessary, and meant as optional handicaps to make the game easier the longer it takes you to win. You don't *need* to waste time waiting around to buy things... you could just as soon go do other things in the game, or even leave the game running while you made a snack or something! That choice was part of the point... and an important part of the theme and meta-story we were going for!
The way we interpreted "Your Life is Currency" comes in 2 parts. First, the obvious part where Switch's Max Health is spent to equip mobility upgrades that unlock new areas. Typical Metroidvania progression stuff. It was also meant to make the game a *smidge* more difficult as the game progresses, since you have less health.
**Spoilers Below!** !> Signal, on the other hand, represents the seconds of *your* lifetime. In the Meta-Story sense, it's the time you as a player have chosen to play this game, and keep this little robot-filled world running on your computer. A broadcast from us to you, that you're choosing to spend your time receiving. In your day to day, you're always picking which Signals you tune into. This is just one of your options. One of the ways you can spend the moments of your life.
It wasn't really meant to be obvious or in anyone's face... but that might also go a little way toward giving some context for the ending? :3
Hohoho! The thick plottens...
@jjjjason
!>RE: Analytics, mostly we just want to know if players seem to be stuck in places, whether or not they die and how, or whether they quit before they see what we think of as **The Good Stuff**(tm). So we can adjust how we make Ludum Dare games in future. But yes, I am absolutely convinced that secretly it is also part of the plot now. Thank you for reminding me of something we definitely intended the whole time!
Anyway, other feedback!
- **Graphics:** I agree that the backgrounds can be a little same-y and noisy. In hindsight, I'd like to have taken another approach, or omitted them entirely! There's lots of rough edges around the gfx I'd have liked to smooth out. Same for the Z-fighting with the initial shop, or a known UI bug with the 4th item in the shop sometimes not showing. There were things we'd have liked to sort out, but decided to put time into other things, as the final hours were upon us. ><;
- **Sound:** Same goes for the music. I was working down to the wire to make sure audio would get *into* the game, and be balanced with itself. Tools like LabChirp are a big help as always, but it's hard to predict how the audio and music will interact... what might be too repetitive or grating. I'm glad the pitch randomization made it a little more fun!
- ** Offscreen Enemies/Stuff:** I was torn on enemies staying active and coming in from other screens too. I like persistent worlds and all that... but there were a few times in testing that it felt unfair when an obstacle from offscreen might shoot at you, or charge you. Same goes for the Modular Factory, and the blueprint that was a little tricky to find, until you were at least on your second loop. The minimap was made to mitigate some of this, but I agree that these are definitely areas for improvement!
- **Controls:** We wanted to keep the control scheme as minimal as possible. I agree that a redesign could help it be more playable. Especially with Jump and Interact both being bound to Space/Up!
- **Collectables:** The Golden Gears were a late-game addition, because we thought some sort of hard-to-reach collectible could be nice. At one point, we thought we might make them all necessary to reaching the end, but that got cut due to time. As it is, the abundance of health pickups meant that them healing you wasn't all that helpful. In hindsight, I think it might be more fun if they just added to an optional score or something, to reward folks who like exploring!
- **The End:** Glad folks enjoyed that! We tried to make it worth it. :3
Really enjoyed this puzzle-platformer. I'll definitely be following your future projects here, and on itch.io!
Nice clean art with good animation, snappy movement, and tricky platforming. The rhyming text in the levels was cute, and everything was tutorialized Very Well. Really enjoyed the core mechanic... you got a lot of mileage out of a few mechanics, and simply creating a block where you die! That's a sign of good efficient puzzle design!
You made an excellent progression of challenges to introduce new game concepts too. I especially liked the twist at the end, where you backtrack to the start and realize you're intended to beat the levels without dying. I love how it opens up new ways of thinking about the existing levels, and encouraging you to investigate more! The platforming was tough on the second part, but I managed to complete it, and it felt really good.
The death sound effects were evocative, and I would've loved some simple royalty-free music or something in the background to go with them, and set the tone. Other than that, I don't have much to critique, other than the difficulty curve of some of the platforming on the second time through. Particularly this room:
Tough.png
It felt like you had to walk well off the edge before you actually had to jump, to just barely land on the upper platforms. It was very precise! The ability to quickly reset helped, though. Other than that, the second playthrough went pretty smoothly for me.
I did run into that bug, where a block could push you through the floor, but that's not a big deal: https://i.imgur.com/xdBXquW.gif
Anyway, this has been one of my favorites from the jam so far. Thanks so much for sharing it with us, and congratulations on completing this! Looking forward to whatever you make in the future!
Aww dang, I loved this! Dig this quirky witch, and all the charm you worked into this little world. Friendly cactus included.
Really impressed by the visuals, music, and gameplay you managed solo in 48 hours! I tried the Compo once, and it just about destroyed me. I was the stone head on the right, who forgot the importance of sleep and self care, staring into the abyss and wondering where the days had gone.
This one knows what's up, though. I like the cut of their jib.
Image17.png
The exploration music was fun and driving, and had a bit of a Wild West feel. Fit the desert pretty well! Loved how bouncy and mysterious M's theme was too. I always struggle with making tunes during a Jam, even in a team setting, so I was really impressed! M's visual design is great too. And hey, if the letter counts as a conversation, this might be the first game I've played this jam that passes the Bechdel Test? Good stuff!
Trying to find constructive criticism that hasn't been given so far. I suppose I could say, the rate at which you get life back from fighting imps kinda negates the challenge of damage, a lot of the time. It might be nice if the game played up Health Management as a challenge... expecting the player to stay at middling health for stretches of the game, on the way to something to heal them. Alternatively, you could nix the steel boots, and create life-management challenges in the spike maze; deplete your health to cross sections of the maze, and reach safe islands where enemies/imps flew around, where you could recover your health. Something like that, to get some more mileage out of health as a currency!
Lastly, just gotta say... this might be my favorite moment all jam.
Image18.png
Witchy Capitalism. Harsh.
Anyway, thanks so much for your entry. I really had a good time with this. Definitely gonna follow your future projects!
- Day
Short sweet little point and click adventure!
The environmental and character art was nice, and the music felt appropriate for the setting. You definitely captured the classic Silly Adventure Game Logic with the water puzzle; it only starts to make sense what you were doing in hindsight, which is basically a trope for the genre. Made me smile.
I liked the Mastermind-style puzzle toward the end. Distinguishing between the two kinds of indicators (the top row for inputs, and the green/red indicators below) might've helped some people figure out what was going on. Maybe if they were round lights, or had some header that said "# Correct?" or something, that might've helped guide people toward the answer.
Seconding some of the other feedback too, regarding the mouse cursor; I closed the window on myself once, because it was hard to tell where the cursor's hotspot was. One thing that might help is drawing a cursor that's always there, and then also displaying an icon for the action or item being used next to the cursor. That way, the player always knows where the cursor is pointing, and it keeps things consistent!
A point-and-click in a game jam is no small feat. Congrats on your entry!
This was a really well-polished platformer/infinite runner! Enjoyed the story and tone quite a bit. The physics were tight, and movement and platforming felt good. I can't stand how floaty and imprecise Unity's defaults are either, so props on making your own raycast physics system for this!
Curious about the disclaimer at the start: "This work was (...) produced by a monocultural team of no religious faiths and beliefs." I've never encountered one like it before. What was it's intent?
I don't have much critique to offer about the execution of the game; it was all very well done, and extremely impressive for a jam! I'd echo that the gameplay was a familiar formula, but I liked that it was changed up between levels. The stylish cutscene art, voice acting, comedy, and noir aesthetic were all really well executed too. Loved the driving sort of ambiance created by the background music, and the lighting and set detailing in the earlier levels; really moody! Played through twice to get both endings (no clue if there was a 3rd for making no choice, though), and enjoyed the story quite a bit.
One abstract critique I could offer is that I like when games unify the gameplay actions that the player is taking with the story itself. In this, the story of someone choosing between their career as a stunt actor, and their crush on a cute actress, felt sorta separate from what the player was actually doing (feats of acrobatics, followed by a comical death). Good old "Ludonarrative Dissonance," and all that.
In a world where there was more time, it might've been neat to see gameplay that reflected Pawel's choice between career and love; perhaps the player had goals to accomplish in the level, as a stunt actor being filmed in a scene. A countdown timer to reach the end of the level, and a checklist of optional goals like "[x] Get lit on fire" or "[x] Jump dramatically over the spike-filled pit", ending with a final necessary goal like "[x] Fling flaming body into the fuel stockpile" or whatever. Something that made the player a participant in Pawel's Stunts, more than just the narrative backdrop the game was set against.
Then, include some harder to reach behind-the-scenes area, where you could spend precious time from your countdown timer schmoozing with Kitty, trying to get her to notice you. Or some other way of trying to win her heart, but that might cost time, and make it hard to do those optional objectives for that level. Basically, find some way where the player is making a choice between Pawel's career as a stunt actor, and his pursuit of his heartthrob, in the levels/gameplay itself.
Then, rather than a either-or dialogue choice at the end, you can make their gameplay throughout influence the outcome of the story. If you don't get all the optional Stunt Acting goals by the end, Pawel gets a bad end as an actor. If you don't schmooze with Kitty, you never get the chance at the smooch scene, or have a reason to try to save her and risk your own life. And if the player finds some way to do both, then they might have the athletic skills (or have saved one of their Nine Lives at some point) that they might save Kitty, and live. Even if, in keeping with the noir theme, the outcome of them both surviving is just that Kitty gives you a perfunctory peck on the cheek, and still barely notices Pawel.
Of course, that's just one way to do it... but games always hit hardest when the story is unified with the actual things the player is doing during gameplay. I think this story would be well served, if the player was making some decisions, or doing some things throughout the levels, that might reflect Pawel's choice between his own career and his crush on Kitty... some way the player's actions influence the outcome, rather than a binary dialogue choice right at the end.
Anyway, it's hard to find some constructive criticism to give, since this was such a well-polished game. I hope some of that is of use. Thanks so much for all your effort in putting this together, and sharing it with us!
- Day
I adored this game. What a simple, beautiful meditation on life and the choices we make in it! A Gachapon and it's randomness-with-choices makes a pretty good vehicle to carry that metaphor too. Especially liked how certain outcomes unlock new paths, and create a little story of someone's life. I love this!
Nice choice on letting the player influence outcomes by putting a capsule in the tray... that makes it a little easier to try to get certain outcomes. That definitely helps in a Game Jam setting, if you're like me and you want to read all the little story blurbs and see the cute art.
Decision.png
Mood. And you folks made the right call, I think. Congrats on your entry, and thanks for sharing it with us. :3
Very, very pretty pixely hack-and-slash. Gorgeous sprite work; really appreciated the bloody color scheme, parallax effects on the clouds, the looming sun, and that the bodies of the fallen stayed behind, as a reminder. The drum-heavy military tone of the music was nice too, as was the way the one-way loss of health ended up making this a tragic last stand.
On the critical side, the connection to theme felt loose, and I'd second that the gameplay itself was a little unsatisfying (note: not typically one for hack-and-slashes!). Whether an attack hit or was deflected felt largely random. I might've been misunderstanding it, but if it was random, it might've been neat to do something a little like Prince of Persia 1, where scimitars deflect attacks that are high or low, based on how they're being held. The player would have to observe the enemy's stance, and attack in conjunction with the down key to slip under a high guard, or vice versa. Something in that vein could turn the enemy's blocking mechanic into a way to reward skilled play and observation!
Congrats on your entry, and thanks for sharing it with us!
Pretty cool roguelike, with an interesting central mechanic; sacrifice extra lives to extend the dungeon and give you more upgrades before a pretty tough boss-fight. You present the players with a pretty interesting and meaningful choice right up front (once they figure that out), which is very cool! The procedural dungeon-chunks felt pretty good, and connected well. The pixels were excellent, the animations good, and the sick guitar riff when you get stripped from your bones and leave a little conquistador skeleton behind was excellent. You managed to put together a really nice, compact roguelike experience, and I'm really impressed!
I love challenging games, and I try to play every game through to the finish before rating, but I had to quit after about 8 runs from a mix of frustration and minor bugs. In a game that centers around split-second reactions, precision, and making no wrong moves, it's really frustrating when the game drops inputs. I'd carefully time attacks to cut down arrows or enemies, or a jump to avoid them, but the buttons wouldn't register. And if it was a one-off bug, it wouldn't have been a big deal. But it just *kept happening* to me... really soured my experience.
There's a chance it was some form of latency with the WebGL build, but judging by the way it feels, I'm assuming the attack input checks were done in Unity's FixedUpdate function? This creates a problem I've run into before. FixedUpdate doesn't run every frame, so if input checks are done there, some frames just don't check for inputs.
Other critiques for things that felt unfair... clipping through the bottom of a platform and into an enemy, the fiddly platforming with low ceilings, the long runs of skeleton archers that are near impossible to pass unless you have a few lives to throw at it, the hitbox in the boss' fire hitting you while below the top platform... and finally, the jump down into the boss pit itself.
On my first run, with full upgrades, I jumped right down, and landed in the lava I had no idea was there. Which cost the whole run. In later runs, there'd be moments when the boss would already be in the middle of the fight as I fell, landing me directly into firebreath I couldn't see. Or directly onto a skeleton I couldn't see. Or onto a platform where I couldn't possibly outrun or avoid the attack. In a nutshell, it's important to give the player the information they need, so they could at least *try* to avoid a death... especially in a game where so much can be lost by something that's completely out of their control!
I mostly cite these frustrations because of how much I otherwise enjoyed the game! Really nice work here... solid music and visuals all around. Thanks so much for sharing this!
- Day
Man, I love these gangly monster designs! The masks gave the player and enemy interesting silhouettes from above, which definitely helps differentiate them too.
Killed myself by over-harvesting. Interesting choice there, making Harvesting something that the player has to ration as a way to recover health and fight better, but that they shouldn't overdo. It was simple and elegant design, and it made whether or not to harvest a meaningful choice! Excellent stuff.
I'll second that it was tough to know where the enemies were attacking, to know how to dodge or strafe effectively. Same for knowing when my attacks hit, so I could keep track and strategize how many hits the remaining enemies needed. Getting hit several times all at once by a swarm was harsh too! That might be intended design, but I've always been a fan of using a tiny window of invulnerability after a hit, to let the player recover, without getting instantly wrecked.
Congrats on your entry! Thanks for sharing it with us.
What a gorgeous game!
Love the minimalism, the monochrome low-fi tiles, and the way you used them... especially the contrast between the organic thorny vines/trees, and the boxy bricks and chandeliers in the upper section. The use of brightness to draw attention is really great too! platforms are easy to distinguish from background, and white draws attention to your character, and other hazards like spikes or enemies. The particle effects on the orb, as they orbited around it, were really good too! I get the sense there was a lot of intention put into the design, which I appreciate!
The combat felt fair; a little wind up, followed by a brief hit window, and little bit of vulnerability during the recoil. The enemies had similar behavior, so you could act and react in combat... and if you mess up, you feel responsible for it, instead of randomness or unpredictability. The AI was predictable, but I think that was fine; they definitely caught me a few times!
It's hard to come up with a constructive critique for what's here... it's all really good stuff! I suppose I could say the life/blood/particles sometimes spawned outside the playable area, which could be frustrating. Also, there was a moment when a goblin-type fella decided to park his butt right on the initial platform over the spikes. I was holding onto about 100 points at the time, and this was the only way forward... and the enemy wouldn't leave the platform. So I had to leap out over the spikes, hit them with an air attack, then to an air jump and return to the left, and do that perfectly several times. I did it, but on the last swing, I fumbled my air jump, and landed in the spikes, losing all my saved up points. A really nice emergent moment, but needless to say, it felt harsh! I would've liked to have had a little celebration, or at least been able to scramble back to recollect some of my spilled bits. But alas...
Anyway, congrats on your solo entry... that's not easy! And thanks so much for sharing it with us.
- Day
Haha... props to you for submitting this despite it maybe not being all you wanted.
I can unironically say, nice pathfinding! I tried to break it, but it navigated terrain really well. Especially good for something with procedural generation! Nice job on generating the environment and it's details too; it made some nice mazes, with a good blend of trees and rocks, and the occasional patch of light.
I think if there were some silly reward stringing me along, like a few lines of dialogue or poetry, some collectibles or goals, or even like... places with colors to see other than red, I'd have happily loped around in this weird forest for a bit, appreciating the trees and mazes of rocks and whatever.
My one unironic critique would be that it'd have been nice to hold the left mouse down, and treat the direction of the mouse from the character as a movement vector. Some way of more directly controlling the avatar, with less clicking.
Whatever your goals here, this was a nice little hellscape walking sim featuring a nightmare beast. Congrats on your first LD entry, and thanks for sharing it with us!!
- Day
Managed to finish, but this was a tough little platformer!
The graphics were charming, and the western-sounding music was nice too. I've never seen a double jump mechanic where you spring off the corners of terrain like this, so nice innovation there! Timing your jump and catapulting yourself in the air like that felt really nice. I appreciated the cacti in the background too, for helping me gauge the distance of my jumps, when I couldn't see what I was landing on.
I felt mixed on the stand-and-shoot mechanic; it was retro in a fun way, and made the act of aiming and shooting an enemy something you'd need to take time to do. But it also did feel a little clumsy, or like it broke the momentum of the game when time was of the essence. Death audio also stuttered or repeated sometimes when you died on the spikes, but it wasn't a big deal.
One thing I might've changed is the way some of the later levels respawn you very close to the sandstorm/wall, and the way it moves nearly as fast as you. Unless platforms are perfectly spaced, you keep losing your lead every time you jump... and a lot of jumps are necessary! Also, it leaves you no time to stop and shoot enemies who were too tall to jump over. It felt a little unfair, that taking damage was mandatory in some of the later levels.
Overall, nice job y'all! Especially for a first Ludum Dare. Congratulations on your entry!
- Day
@garygreen, @kent-reese, @terristen, @eduardogacn, @chiranjiv, @chevalbancal
Thanks so much for the kind words, and glad y'all enjoyed it! We tried to make something simple-ish that players could learn with time, but still challenging and strategic. Hope we managed some of that!
The 3D effect on the cards is one I think we're all pretty proud of too; it's actually just made of a few layers of flat sprites, which scroll at different rates. Like the parallax backgrounds of 2D-era games! It's a really neat effect, and one I've always been fond of... so I'm glad we got to work it into this.
Huge props to @hitchh1k3r for implementing both that, and the stencil buffer shenanigans that gave the cards depth, during the jam. I am amazed how fast he works!
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@lou-bagel Thanks for the feedback! To answer your question, the choice part of the game comes in a few ways:
1) What season, and what tile you play a card on, can change it's effect (this is reflected in the card text changing)
2) Events between years often let you choose a card to add to your hand. Once you know what cards do, this lets you plan ahead a bit.
3) You have 5 cards in your hand, but only play 4. You can also increase hand size as the game progresses. And though unplayed cards stick around, you can postpone playing them; hand management is another way to plan long-term!
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@xmatos Sorry for the lack of adequate tutorialization. I've found that pretty hard to work into a game jam timeframe, with these kinds of puzzley or strategic games. It's a real bummer, and something I definitely want to get better at. Thanks for the kind words nevertheless!
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@robert-li I do like Catan, and that style of boardgame! Though I don't think this *plays* like Catan, we're definitely guilty of having cards, hexagons, and stuff you put on em. ><;
Also, an undo button, or even a full rewind system, *could* be nice in a game like this! Might help ease players into the mechanics, and let them explore and experiment a bit more. Thanks for the suggestion!
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@canti We'd discussed placement and adjacency being an important part of later-game strategy, but had to cut that bit of design for time. In a full game, agreed that placement synergies would add a bit to the strategic element!
Music wise, that's my bad. I was bouncing between art and music, and really struggling to compose this jam. Ended up stretching out a simple loop I threw together in 30 minutes or so. Wish I had more time on it. I had such plans!
@pepperkep The design behind the Crisis Cards was that they'd make your existing problems worse, but with clever play (or avoiding playing them) you could restabilize. The other thought was to make it so that, once you got into a bad state, the game wouldn't drag itself out... so it kinda pushed you harder and harder toward a game-over. That said, I do worry we might've overdone it a bit!
In the early draft of the game, the player was intended to have the Terraform, Develop, and Work cards the whole game through, which gave them more options for bumping their numbers around. We ended up spacing those out into separate Eras, to ease players into the mechanics... but a side-effect was that it limited players ability to rein in out-of-balance resources. Given more time, I think I'd want to reconsider that all, and maybe redesign the eras and card-sets too.
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@ghast-neoh Thanks so much! Making this a game about maintaining balance, rather than about gaining and spending resources, was one of the design choices we made at the start. The game-philosophy behind Analgesic Productions' "Even the Ocean" and so on was an inspiration for this! I definitely want to play with this concept some more.
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@matthewi Thanks for the play! I hope the challenge with the Crisis Cards was welcome, rather than frustrating. And sorry about the text; we tried to make the game work on any screen size... but some of the positioning of UI bits, messages, the card scaling, and all that could probably have used some tweaks. Lessons learned for next time!
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@g-a-gamestudio Definitely agree that pausing is important in strategic games, to give players time to think. We did work a sneaky sort of pause into the game, by letting the player take as much time as they wanted between playing cards, or making choices. Also, I agree that more detailed popups, and an ability to look at what cards are in your deck or discard pile would've been nice, if that's what you meant by more menus. Thanks a bunch for the feedback!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
As a firm believer in the power of games and sims as teaching tools, what a neat project! I jokingly complained about it a bit on stream, but the fact that each unit was linked to a wikipedia article was pretty nifty! I had to do a deep dive into my rusty old Premed Dropout brain to remember what cell bits did what, and definitely struggled to manage the waste products in my cell, but I had a good time with this! I think my biggest complaint would be the death rate of cell machinery, and the difficulty I had with managing RNA to make bits to keep the cell going. A system for queueing up RNA orders, or setting target numbers of different cell machinery, would have taken a load off my poor bad-at-multitasking brain! That said, thanks a bunch for making this!
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
I have never seen a gardening game model soil drainage before, but when I saw that sand drained water faster than soil did, I will admit I geeked out a bit. What a neat little gardening sim! I struggled a bit to learn the plant placement mechanics, though it was a lot of mechanics and different buttons to learn up-front. I think the input could've been simplified a bit, to use mouse as much as possible, and it might help make things easier to fumble your way into understanding. Honestly, I think I would've enjoyed this game if there was no character at all, and I was just planting and managing plants as a disembodied mouse pointer! That said, I enjoyed playing this. Thanks a bunch for making and sharing this!
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
I really liked this management game! The mechanics took some familiarizing myself with... I couldn't get the intuitive thing I tried to do early on to work (big fuel rods, heatsinks, and fans), so I switched to Thorium Rods, Reflectors, and Coolant Cells. I liked the placement and adjacency mechanics, and how it gave you a degree of creative freedom in your strategy. Gameplay itself had a unique feel... almost like a digital board game! The art was clean, readable, and communicated information well (like how the more powerful fuel cells were more intensely green!) Despite repeat failures because I'd run the game too fast to react to power demand, I definitely enjoyed playing this! Thanks so much for making and sharing this!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
This was a pretty neat take on a tower defense sorta game! At first, I was pretty confused by how I might build more defenses and all that, until I finally managed to get workshops from the duck king. Really impressed this engine was made from scratch within the jam, and I found the art pretty charming and effective; good at communicating what things were! I had a good time with this. Thanks so much for putting this together!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
As someone who struggles with micromanagement, I like the idea of a strategy game that aims to cut that out! I tried a good 6 or 7 strategies though, and nothing seemed to help against the exponential growth of the lava ant spawners... and I couldn't see a way, whether going full offense, full defense, or even focusing on just nurseries, that I could keep up with enemy ant production. Strategy games where each team is asymmetrical can be tricky to balance, but as a player without an intimate familiarity with game mechanics, it did feel imbalanced. That said, I can be kinda bad at games! I liked the clean, readable hand-drawn graphics; each ant type was easy to distinguish, so props on the visual design there! And I gotta say, every time sounds played when the mouse scrolled, and it warbled from doppler effect... the goofed up trumpet toots absolutely *sent* me. Thank you a bunch for making this game!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
Sorry I didn't catch the line about needing to wiggle the audio nob before the music started; I ended up getting a fair way in before I actually heard the music! Loved the aesthetic of this... the VHS font, the subtle distortion and CRT effect on the corners... real nice! Impressive models and animations too! Enjoyed the challenge of doing a rhythm game with one hand, while controlling my slippery movements with the other. Thanks for making this! Any opportunity to shake my bony butt and keep Roller Disco alive is a welcome one.
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
This game has a really charming aesthetic! The contrast between cute colorful slimes and the mute-colored menacing BG/demon-slimes was nice. Something about the wet, bouncy-sounding lead instrument in the music lent itself to slimes too!
Like a couple other folks, I was confused by the controls for a bit, until I realized you clicked the *portraits* and not the slime knights or the environment, to move them. A bit more clarification of that in the description up top would've helped out! Retreating all the knights back into the healing zone, so they fought the enemies while being healed, did seem to be a bit of an unbeatable strategy too; it felt hard to lose, when they were being healed all the time!
I appreciate the simple controls which could even work on mobile, and the slower-pace as a strategy game (good for me, since I have some trouble multitasking while under stress). This was a fun little game with a real polished look. I enjoyed it. Thanks for making this!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
So, if I understand... the world is spherical, right? And gravity is relative to the center of that sphere, no matter where you move around it? Because if you straight up put a custom dynamic spherical gravity system in this I don't think my brain can handle it. Between that, the extremely weird movement, the birds with guns, and the description up there that felt Deeply Done With Everything... this game came across as such a high-effort shitpost. And I mean this as a good thing. The best thing.
Music and graphics were rad. I couldn't shoot a damn thing. I just let the enemy birds crash into the tree and/or shoot themselves, and tumble away into oblivion. The squirrel simply would not acknowledge I existed. None of the acorns worked. Not even when I intentionally clipped through the ground to try desperately to unearth them. Everything was weird and clumsy.
And I had an amazing time with it. Thank you for making this.
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
Oh my goodness though... where do I start? Between the quirky cool narrative, the clean ant art, the steep-but-fair difficulty, the elegant way this does deck-building, and the rich but simple card mechanics... this is easily one of my favorite games of this Jam! Definitely one of the most mechanically original and well-designed! I struggled a bit to recognize that cards cycled back through the deck when discarded, and stumbled a bit with the Infuse mechanic (I tried to combine parts with Tier-1 genes first, and it confused me when I couldn't do anything with it). A bit more feedback on what the different ant parts did would also be great; I could intuit some stuff, but it was hard for me to shift focus and read the text, when I was frantically futzing with cards, managing health bars, and trying to plan. That said, this easily kept me busy for an hour, and I plan to go back and play more now that I'm off stream! I'm real impressed by what you accomplished in a jam, let alone as a solo entry. Thank you so much for making and sharing this! I loved this.
This was a brilliant take on the theme! Each level was it's own little puzzle vignette, to understand what was going on and how to stop it. Player interactions were all based on a versatile little pick up/throw interaction. Funny, super charming presentation with the visuals and audio, and all around a great jam entry. Definitely in my favorites from the jam!
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
This was a really pretty collector game! I couldn't find out if the Axe had a use (the tree didn't seem to care for it, understandably), or if there was a difference between Potions and Fertilizer for the tree. The low-poly terrain looked nice, and was fun to explore (I liked some of the little areas farther from the tree). The way the camera oriented to face the tree always was a nice way to know how to find your way back was nice, but there were moments when I wished the camera looked where I was trying to move. I also noticed the tree's glow changed based on how well it was fed, but a little more feedback on it's wellness (maybe some indication of maximum health versus current) might've been nice, and helped create a sense of urgency.
Thanks for putting this together! I enjoyed playing it.
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
I know you weren't able to get as much game in here as you'd wanted to, but this was a neat game! I really liked how the rock cubes, as they were mined, shrank down to ground level... it was a really elegant way to tell the player the resource was being depleted! The way the water cubes waved was another neat aesthetic touch. The graphics were really unified too! Between the low-poly models and flat shading, everything looked really good together. I definitely noticed some weird behavior trying to drag the king, and issuing multiple orders to one character, but I know how you don't often get time to test and check stuff. Especially when you have ambitious plans! Even so, I had a good time with this, and wish you luck continuing it! Thanks for making this!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
What a beautiful, moody, satisfying platformer! The time limit imposed by the flame kept driving you forward and exploration feel risky, with campfires as waystations and places to collect yourself. The way new mechanics unfolded as you progress through the world was really great too. Appreciated the nuggets of narrative as you go along, and the meaningful choice of whether to avoid wolves, or spend your fire fighting them. Elegant, well-executed, and thematically strong platformer! Really had fun with this. Thanks so much for making it!
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
I always like a good precision platformer, and this one was short, sweet, and pretty charming. I appreciated the clever way of imposing a time limit on the player too, by having the fire burn down! The lighting effects, particularly the way the ember's glow was blocked by terrain, was a nice, subtle touch! Appreciated the clean easily-readable terrain, and the movement physics felt responsive and easy to control. Thanks so much for sharing this! I enjoyed myself.
Loved the mood and setting here! The chunky, angular geometry felt very retro sci-fi, the CRT effect is real nice, and I really appreciated the bits of low-fi greeble! The lights, and faint view of components within the vents and so on make the setting feel bigger than what we get to see, in a neat way!
My first loop was spent listening to the banter instead of doing my actual job, which probably pissed off my operator/partner. But hey... I assume time loops are on the client's dime, not ours. With more time, would've been neat to have their conversation change between loops, in a way that maybe characterized the player's character and/or the operator (depending on who all retains memories/information between time-loops!) Also left me wondering if the CRT effect is meant to imply we're viewing a video log of time-loops... perhaps we're an investigator later on, considering the footage of the strange Space Mystery that resulted... hmm! Really piqued my curiosity, so good work crafting a bite sized narrative that left me wanting more!
Like some folks said I appreciated the 45-degree-angle view, even if part of me wishes I could move diagonally too. Makes me want to look into modifying Bitsy's movement code to support that now! Also, more stuff to examine and distract you from actually doing your job would've been fun too, given more time. It created a neat sort of tension between farting around because I technically had all the time in the world, while also being pressured to solve a very time-is-of-the-essence problem. A classic sorta sci-fi "What If...", rendered into a simulation. Cool stuff!
I noticed your entry was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback. VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
This is honestly pretty brilliant? Had a satisfying, frantic feel very like playing Tetris, despite having very different mechanics! Made it to about 3 minutes in before I flubbed it. The rising difficulty of having more burnt wood cluttering the space, and more fuel dropping down spreading flames and messing up your plans, made for a nice challenge! Even with just 2 wood pieces with different properties/burn rates, there was a good amount of strategy at play here. I really enjoyed this! Thanks for making this.
Hey! Saw your game was a few votes short, so I played it on Twitch and gave some live feedback! VOD is up on Youtube, if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6oja9yekY
Cool tower defense/shop sim sorta game! Definitely took me a while to figure out how to build guns. A popup message like for Repairs and Cooking, or the instructions letting me know I had to *click* on the guns, would've been appreciated. Nothing else used mouse, so it just didn't occur to me! I found the pixel art aesthetic really charming, especially Alessandro's cat happy-face and angle-bracket sad-face. It was a pretty unique concept too, and I enjoyed playing this. Thanks so much for making this!