Tower to the Stars by ianh 2015-12-15T06:49:00
So far this seems to be the most complete game on here. My favorite interpretation of the themes so far. Addictive in a Flappy Bird sort of way. I really enjoyed it, thanks!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → SpecialChef
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Blob Schmlob (BS) | jam | 772 | 3.03 | 2.90 | 2.84 | 3.83 | 3.19 | 2.16 | 2.56 | 2.79 | 66 |
So far this seems to be the most complete game on here. My favorite interpretation of the themes so far. Addictive in a Flappy Bird sort of way. I really enjoyed it, thanks!
Audio and concept is spot on. I wish you had more time on this. Very promising! I say keep working on it beyond the jam. Love the atmosphere.
Its nearly unplayable with the way the turret spins. Good concept, but the controls are wonky. Maybe next time use one button to manually rotate the turret. or both buttons and pressed together to fire. Great job finishing and meeting the deadline. Not an easy task!
You need to attach the data folder with the exe file. Can't play the game. Will check back later
The audio was fitting. Good concept but it uses 3 buttons and no growing. I see there is no option to rate on theme, though, so I assume you acknowledge that. Not glitchy and runs fast. Add maybe some powerups and you have a 2D "Dynasty Warriors" style mini-game. Great job!
Perfect theme fit. Unique. Sound was repetitive and mildly annoying (but so was mine so no harsh judgement placed). Had fun with it! Thanks.
This has by far been the most interesting entry I've played so far. Not sure what to make of it, but it is extremely creative and I love the feel of it. Thanks for sharing!
Not sure if I was doing it right. The mushroom would grow, but the left shift key didn't do anything as far as I could see. Great fit for the theme though.
Okay, I see from the other commenters that the visual just wasn't implemented yet for watering. Retried and made a bit more sense. Great job!
I played this for nearly an hour. Please keep working on it!
Quite functional tower defense type of game. Maybe have the buttons reset after each wave? Or be able to build a structure that produces mechanics able to work on the buttons after having been pressed. Solid execution
Fun, but headache inducing. I muted the volume and then just kept playing. Building, expanding, upgrading. Need something like this for the mobile! Great submission!
SOO HARD! But innovative! No growing?
Rage Quit! Great game though. I had an issue where I lost and had to restart the executable. Every time a new round would load, I would auto lose. After that, I had some addictive fun. Fits themes well, has fun graphics, enjoyable audio, and all around fun vibe! Thanks!
I think the comments have already covered everything both good and improvable. I say continue the development of the game, if not for anyone else, for yourself. See what you can make of a simple concept and run with it! Great job!
Wonderful graphics and audio. Presents an urgency but with a light-hearted aesthetic. A few tweaks and you have an excellent mini-game. More time to explain controls between the cutscene and the game. Speaking of, a cutscene? A POLISHED cutscene? in a JAM? Great job!
Graphics and audio are great. I really can't say much about the theme... This uses 4 button controls and the only growing I see is the mushroom. I do have a minor complaint about the escape key not exiting the game. That being said, the game is very well put together, and the concept feels uniform in all aspects. I feel like this was done well. Thank you!
The game went insanely fast and then crashed. Like, fast enough that I literally couldn't see anything. I'm running Windows 10 x64 Pro if that helps. I admired the screenshots, and wish to play!
Love it. Great vibe! Wish there was more, but two buttons and all. Good job
Controls are... wonky. But love the concept all around. Very interesting mechanic to grow the carrots instead of jumping. Great job!
The concept of growth had more than one angle and I liked that. Very interesting and fun implementation. Maybe a splash radius for killing enemies would have been nice. Very difficult on a 4k screen. Still mildly difficult when adjusting the resolution down to 1080p
I'm so happy with the abundance of retro-feel going on this Ludum Dare. Great fusion of two classics. You nailed the themes on the head. Audio is a bit irritating, but what can you do with such limited time. I know if it wasn't for sfxr, I wouldn't have had anything in my entry. Couldn't finish music in time myself. So I'm not criticizing. A jingle in the beginning would be great in this (think: Pacman). Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed it!
No real challenge. That's okay given the time it was developed in. The placement of objects in levels felt very erratic, though. Seemed random. Good job on having a completed game! That's no easy task! :D
Really liked the concept. As has been said, a bit buggy. Fix those and polish up and you may have a long-term project worth pursuing! Great job!
Fun, but a bit frustrating. Executed 2 button controls well. No growing? Just a tad fast and slightly smarter AI would have done wonders. The SFX were great ;p
I enjoyed it
Growing is bad. Love it! Music was nice. Graphics were great. Innovative. Challenging as hell! Ease up on the beginning and offer a more subtle increase in difficulty and you may have a game worth developing further. I really enjoyed this one. Thanks for submitting.
Implement some concrete goal and I think you have yourself a solid mini game. Simple, but with purpose.
Funny. Doesn't fit theme.
I really enjoyed the premise. Not many game in the jams with a solid plot. Funny as well. Two button controls is done well, but I don't think you did growing. Correct me if I'm wrong. I know that was a curve ball, and we didn't have to use both themes, but that is my only complaint. So really, again, excellent job!
Had to play in windowed mode due to the screen being partially cutoff. Also, fell down a pit and did not die. Just fell for eternity. Other than that, it was cute and funny. Overall amusing game. Keep up the good work!
Not sure how this fits the theme. And the lag between button presses is a bit irritating. However, I had fun with it and played it twice through. Haven't done that with any of the other games yet. So innovative and fun! Great work.
@utoxin: The themes were difficult, but glad I could fit them well. Thanks for the compliment. I wanted more sound as well, but I really fell behind this time around. The level was put together quickly for submission and wish I had the chance to design it better and to be less difficult and annoying.
@Monochrome Bears: I'm installing the Mac module for Unity currently and will post up a Mac port ASAP. Thanks for showing interest :D
@tweedle: I'm a huge retro-gaming fan and was aiming for a childhood feel. Glad you saw what I was shooting for. It IS challenging, but given more time, I think the challenge would lean more towards the fun side instead of annoying.
@Weeping Rupee: I would love to build an entire world in this game (remade with better than two-button controls and better graphics/audio of course). I was thinking of Kirby: The Great Cave Offensive for the SNES (on the All-Stars cartridge). In that game, you were taken back to the part you started at. I really liked that feeling. Should I rebuild this concept in a way that fits my vision, that blob at the beginning will have an important role in how the game makes you feel. Thanks for the comment!
@Monochrome Bears: Mac Version now available!
SSJMetroid: The overall smoothness of gameplay became my ultimate frustration. I really wanted to improve it greatly, but unfortunately, I ran low on time. The blind pits of doom were the result of rushed level design and hate that they existed. Wall-jumping was something I gave up on early on since you could just repeatedly mash buttons to glitch jumps. Planned to come back to it later, but...well (you get the idea). Thanks for the feedback!
@Pietdagamer: Good to hear, I am putting up a Linux port to simplify the process for others not familiar with WINE. Good to hear though! Thanks.
@moltanem2000: The reason I wasted the first 30 hours never touching my keyboard was to ponder a concept that would allow more complex mechanics with just two buttons. I didn't want to use a joystick or mouse because of the gray area of whether that is considered a button or not. I went through many ideas that I would have loved to have done with growing, but couldn't make it work with two buttons. I felt the need to tackle both themes. Originally, when you died, you went to the beginning, so I added checkpoints to the buttons after a growth phase. Still not ideal, but was so much worse. Thank you for your input! :D
@middenkwaaii: Thanks!
@AlexLemminG: The visual glitches are a side effect of the way sprites were handled. I was converting everything to use dynamically blitted textures at runtime from a master texture instead of sprite sheets and build large textures for display rather than individual objects with individual sprite renderers for every square, but ran short of time. Thanks for the input. BTW, LOVED your submission! The best so far!
@CodeNMore: The difficulty and time-wasting were definitely an oversight on my part. Quick decision-making is not my forte. Thank you for the comment.
@flakoflak: Difficulty was my biggest complaint this LD34 and on my game for LD30 (different username). Apparently I have some learning to do on level design :p Thank you
@abuzreq: The enemy-following only happens with a distance of 13 units I believe. Beyond that and their AI mechanism is disabled until you are within proximity. After death, their positions are reset anyways. Definitely painfully slow to respawn though. Will keep that in mind for future projects. Thank you!
@local minimum: Staying dead between plays was super important to me in order to reduce the repetitive gameplay that was expected from a jam. Makes it a little less painful to die and I'm sure many more people completed the level than ould have otherwise. That being said, I can still see how people are frustrated. Level design is never something that should be taken lightly. I wished I had more time to really put the level on paper, and organize it in a way that is fun. Mario / Kirby style. I downloaded a map editor and started placing blocks, exporting the map to a CSV file and just rendering to a texture at runtime. Thanks for the constructive feedback. It is always appreciated!
@Efuvex: Glad the port worked. Didn't test it until 24 hours after uploading it. Oops? Glad the sprites were adorable. It is simple programmer's art. I chose blobs because they don't have hair, legs, or arms. Simple to do a 2-frame animation. Then just do a hue shift for the enemies :p Pondering on how to further this concept and definitely leaning towards a cute and adorable style. Thank you for commenting!
I think this is the first 5-star rating I've given. Enough said. Bravo!
Really enjoyed this. If it weren't for the sudden increase in difficulty at the set of horizontal red bars, I would have kept going. Granted, I spent a good deal of time trying! I'd play a game like regularly for sure as a concentration task! Great job!
Loved the concept. Great interpretation of the themes. Not sure why this is a quarter of a gigabyte for such a simple game. At least its not an installer! The shaver lags behind the mouse a bit which can be annoying. Could polish this into a decent mini-game though!