Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → stevejohnson
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | 👥 | Please Come In | jam | 684 | 3.33 | 3.20 | 3.41 | 3.71 | 3.19 | 3.24 | 3.29 | ||||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | PoweRL | compo | 330 | 3.33 | 3.49 | 3.13 | 3.50 | 2.98 | 3.33 | 2.45 | 2.97 | ||||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Rogue Basement | compo | 135 | 3.67 | 3.41 | 2.84 | 2.98 | 2.93 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.66 | ||||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | We Dreamers | compo | 238 | 3.51 | 2.75 | 4.38 | 3.60 | 2.92 | 2.85 | 2.23 | 3.36 | 76 | |||
| 2010 | 19 | Discovery | Lizard Wizard | compo | 89 | 3.00 | 2.73 | 3.73 | 3.40 | 2.80 | 3.13 | 3.38 | 2.73 | 28 |
stevejohnson leaves an average of 50.8 feedback comments each event.
Nice atmosphere. The graphics and music form a good scene.
In terms of gameplay, there wasn't any skill or decisionmaking involved, just kind of dropping blocks from point A to point B until everybody died. This game would have had a lot more impact if there had been more of a story arc, or some goal you are trying to reach rather than just dropping blocks randomly. It didn't seem to matter who lived, except Robobuggy who'd give you an extra block.
One thing you could do is have different "types" of power that different citizens need, and what types you get depends on who you save, so it becomes a logic problem of who to feed to get the right power types for the next set of citizens.
Wow, I'm super jealous now. You made the same game as me but more variety, more space, better art, better music fit...excellent job! I had fun playing this. I did feel like the battery should have had _one_ more charge, though.
I really liked that you could hover over an enemy to see its movement pattern. Great little bit of UI affordance that most games miss.
If you ever want to team up and polish this for iOS or Mac, let me know. I've played with the Haxe toolchain before and didn't like it much, but I can get by and I'm an experienced Mac and iOS developer.
I'm also looking for future jam teammates, and if that appeals to you, shoot me an email!
I was really frustrated by not being able to reset a level, and died quickly on level 3 before I was even able to place offensive towers. Some basic quality-of-life polish would go a long way in this game.
Good atmosphere, but lack of actual zombies really takes the tension away! But I can really identify with just wanting to work on the engine all weekend. :-)
I made it 260 meters. I thought the energy ran out too quickly. Once you got below ~6 brains you had already lost and just had to wait it out.
But this matches a lo-fi genre of early '00s web game that my middle school self really enjoyed. Props for the art and sound. :-)
I packaged your game for Mac. Please re-host it and let me know so I can take it out of my Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8qjai93d9gykv1/portals_and_boxes_mac.zip?dl=0
I didn't finish because I got tired of the footsteps sound, but I did like the atmosphere and set of mechanics. Good work!
I really, really enjoyed this. It's extremely creative, and all the elements work together to create a thematic atmosphere. Really excellent work by your team!
I was about to suggest adding music, but then realized, it uses the microphone...
If you do another jam, I would be interested in working with you as a musician.
I got up to year 277 on my second game, waiting for the reputation bar to run down after year 234. Good concept and execution. My only complaint is that I had to use that drop down every time I wanted to buy something!
You put effort into places that are rare for a LD game, and I respect that a lot! Despite the wall of nearly-unreadable text, I actually liked the text itself, and the graphics and audio provided a more polished atmosphere than most games achieve.
I found it too hard to win, but it's a good, well-executed concept.
I had the same experience as @rikoclon, including winning by running off the edge of the screen.
You should fix your link entries, it currently looks like you only provide source code.
Crash on clicking 'start' on OS X. Sorry :-(
I got 19 with the keypad, but I could do better if I worked at it. :-)
Great scope, nice polish. My only request would be a sound effect for each key press. But in general this game is very well done!
The music and general mood was excellent. I never quite got the hang of the gameplay mechanics; more visual feedback would help a LOT. But great job on this game! You win!
I liked the style and concept of this a lot. I played up to level 5, but couldn't beat it. My strategy ended up being to rush amulets, rush back, kill bats, fill tank, repeat, but it always felt like the bat spawns showed up too quickly for me to be able to fairly fight them.
But, A+ execution otherwise!
Good scope and implementation for a compo game! Appropriately mellow sound effects. I always appreciate when compo games don't just use bfxr.
I made it all the way through and had an appropriate sense of puzzle-solving. This game has a good difficulty curve and was never frustrating or boring for me.
The graphical atmosphere and wiring mechanic gave this a polished feel above and beyond 90% of compo games.
Great job!
You did a good job making a lot of content for a 48 hour game. It's a good set of mechanics for the scope required. The controls are a bit fiddly but it's definitely playable! Good work.
Right in the pocket for the theme! Lots of potential for power-related mechanics: different ranged "weapons" to charge allies, thrown "battery grenades" with an area of effect, power pickups, etc.
I'll agree with the feedback about it being simple and repetitive, but...meh. 48 hours. It's hard to do! Nice work.
The Mac build works fine.
I really wanted more variation. It got really repetitive really quickly, and the lights-as-bullets mechanic, while funny, didn't actually change the basic gameplay of a limited ammo twin stick shooter.
That said, you did finish, so good work!
Another vote for "too hard." I play a lot of twin stick shooters and found the spawn positions too punishing. I also thought this could benefit from just one more heart for the player.
But the gameplay is really satisfying in a way that most LD entries are not. Great job on that! Plenty of style.
I made a game with a very similar concept 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvqtfLrDhx4
Also, I'm on a Mac, and I got your game running in WINE. Please re-host this file and let me know so I can stop keeping it in my Dropbox folder! https://www.dropbox.com/s/39odp4915vrkcde/AllSystemsOnline.zip?dl=0
I was never able to buy anything other than a generator. Maybe it's because of WINE or something? So the fact that movement was always extremely slow might not be part of the actual game. I'll refrain from rating you for this reason. If you put up a video I'd be happy to give a rating though.
Great job choosing a scope and executing. I didn't personally find the mechanic fun, but it's more of a taste thing than a good/bad thing.
If you were to spend another 2 hours on this, I'd suggest adding crew bios to get the player more invested in each individual crew member and add to the atmosphere. Everyone who dies, you'd know if they had a family or not. :-)
Nice concept and good scope. Moving the station about twice as far away would make this a little better as a single level, or tweaking the plot so there are infinite goals to reach and giving the player a high score. Doing discrete levels in 48 hours is always a huge challenge. Anyway, I enjoyed it!
Nice little piece of art. Thanks for making it.
On the OS X build, I pressed Space to start and nothing happened. I thought maybe it was just loading things but after 30 seconds no luck, so I closed it. Sorry :-(
I like that there are mechanics to both push you out of the starting area and pull you back into it. However, it didn't feel like the difficulty ramped up at a good pace, and shooting didn't feel very satisfying. I also wish I could have repaired my turrets.
Good work making a complete game in 48 hours!
Great humor in this game. Good scope for 48 hours, well explained, easy to pick up.
I'll second the request for audio. And to add flavor, perhaps a feed of newspaper headlines to help you feel the democratic pressure?
Great instincts doing the sound that way! I'm always relieved to hear music and non-bfxr audio on a LD game. The text, font choice, etc. is thematically on point. You did really well on this!
I can never convince myself to do a classic-style arcade game for these things, I always try to make it too complicated. Props to you.
This is the first game I've rated that made me physically laugh (with sfx).
Bugs: I got a crash when hitting Build one time. Also, square selection seemed to intermittently fail.
Gameplay: It's a shame placement didn't seem to matter, so there wasn't much point to having a grid. Without that, there wasn't much in terms of gameplay mechanics, just click until you get the next thing, click, click, done.
Other: I liked the music, always like it when people make the effort there!
I love it when people take audio seriously and use simplistic graphics effectively. This is exactly the kind of thing I hope to see every LD. Great job.
I watched the video and still could not beat the first level. I got it saying "Resistance 33/33" but nothing happened.
This is a good gameplay concept for a 48 hour game, but several things really prevented me from enjoying this, even if the level had worked: * There is no visual feedback about what you have selected * You have to remember the individual part values or click them one at a time to see * There is no visual feedback if your path is valid or invalid * The clock prevents much experimentation and doesn't add any gameplay value * The tile graphics don't line up so my eyes can't follow lines easily
If you do a post-compo version, I'd be happy to replay.
Wow, some real complex gameplay! Super excellent tutorial. As someone who's done some JS game making in the past, I'm really impressed with the design here and I hope you keep doing LD.
I wish you had added sound though. :-)
I liked the chill music, great job there! It's so nice when people sit down and write something for the compo.
I will admit, though, I tried a few minutes of gameplay and never really got a feel for it. Like, I know the 1s and 2s are supposed to match, but there were so many white boxes I never managed to get very far score-wise because I'd be out of space in no time.
The graphics are top notch for 48 hours, much better than I did! This is mostly good and you probably know that, so here's my criticism: the wingspan feels too wide to feel "fair" to me, and for a game with art this good I also really wanted sound. Maybe it was my browser?
The controls kept locking up for me after getting my head back, either from taking damage or throwing it, so I couldn't make it past about 30 seconds of gameplay.
Nice work on a compelling puzzle game in 48 hours. Thanks for adding some sound effects and music!
This is a good concept, and I can see what you were trying to do even though I have no friends to play with. I do wish there were a better single player mode and at least some simple sound. It would have added a lot. A big part of a 48 hour challenge is figuring out how you can score while doing as little work as possible. :-)
This is a neat concept and would make a good mobile game.
Suggestions:
* Add simple sound effects for user interaction * Zoom out and in at each 'level' transition for a better sense of progress
Bugs:
* Help text was cut off in my browser in the second intro screen * Switches were always pointed up/left so I never had to think about it, just press 'a'
Congrats on the win! You deserve it. Such a great, tight set of ideas and atmosphere.
This is delightful. The gameplay feels original. The music fits really well. I could see this evolving into a game called Evil Piano or something where it behaves more like an endless runner. And I do think you could compose pieces that would work both for gameplay and as good music!
My only request would be a sound effect for dying. You could just crash your hands on the piano.
This may have the best gameplay of any action game I've played so far in LD38. It feels as frantic as a tower defense game ought to, has a variety of clearly distinguished enemy types, positional sound, decent UI...generally awesome job! I had genuine fun.
I played up to a bit of level 3. I think for the endless runner genre, it would have been better to have fewer discrete Y levels; the keyboard input didn't feel quite right for all the stepping up and down. Also, IMO endless runners ought to have music to help keep the energy level up.
It's an interesting idea and I like the way you introduced a few different mechanics. Good job!
Your "cross-platform" download is only for Windows.
This is a nice little tech demo. I can kind of see where you're going with it. Better luck next time on mechanics, but seriously it looks nice!
Easy and short, but a complete expression of an idea. The graphics are charming and I felt like I was in the game world more so than many other entries. And it has non-bfxr music and sound. Good job!
This is an interesting and compelling idea! But I never got past about 2 trades because the "I have 2 ____ trade/bye" window wouldn't go away and I couldn't see much of the screen. This is the kind of thing you could fix within the rules of the compo. If you do, please comment on my user page and I'll check back!
Well...I don't know what I expected. It looks pretty and it has music, so nice job with that! I certainly did click a lot.
Your downloads require a live.com login. Please consider hosting on itch.io instead.
Great intro, but there's too much empty space here for me to want to finish the experience. The good-bad graphics have a definite charm! My suggestion for next time is to just cut out content if there isn't enough to fill the space. I only got to level 2.
Maybe you know this already, but...the controls are covered up by a cat picture on the main screen.
I lost the race and didn't know why.
The cats are cute though!
This is good for a first original game! Despite the simple mechanics, this one stands out among the crowd as being reasonably balanced and not totally typical controls and abilities. The planet has some charm too. Congrats on finishing the compo! I scored about 500,000.
The fact that the fish don't hurt the player makes this very, very easy. It felt kind of like a zen afterlife where you fish forever to the sound of a pseudo surf rock track. I liked the mood, but I could have used more gameplay personally. Nice work though!
The "end turn" button doesn't work for me. OS X 10.11.
After losing at around 14 seconds a few times, I got into a situation where I could just not move and get an infinite score because there were no trees in front of me. Such is the downside of a spherical level.
This is an Actual Game, but it needs more to hang its hat on.
Your download link does not provide a download.
It's a nice little universe you made here. It feels like you meant to inhabit it with something (besides the flowers!) that would have made it into a proper game. Even just a mechanic that motivates the player to visit all the planets would have helped a ton.
Nice work all the same! I enjoyed this.
I didn't like how easy it was to fall off the edge or get trapped under food. But it does feel like a reasonably complete jam idea, and nice work on the high score server. Good call spending time on that. Thanks for the game!
Your Mac download link is broken!
I got to wave 6 and then let myself die. I wanted things to get more frantic more quickly, but all the enemies and bullets were still moving really slowly.
That said, this is the second game I've seen so far with almost these exact mechanics, and this is the better one. :-) Your art is appropriately good and polished. The music makes a big difference. Congrats on finishing and making a reasonable game!
This game is too hard. I can't make it more than about 30 seconds. The asteroids are often in shadow so you can't see them and it's too difficult to control the planet.
That said, the premise is hilarious and the atmosphere supports it really well.
This is a nice tech demo and I can see where you were going with it. A strategy game on a sphere is a compelling idea. Congrats on getting it to this point, and I hope you develop it further because it seems neat, potentially a nice mobile game with simple controls.
Web build worked great for me on OS X.
The music was a cut above most LD music, so if I were you I would be proud of that. Also don't worry so much about graphical quality. This game's biggest deficiency is in gameplay. The abstract shapes are easy to distinguish from each other, which is what matters.
Anyway, congrats on a successful compo! Nice work.
This is an excellent puzzle game for a 48h event. Really nice job here. The developer art may be lo-fi, but it makes for a super clear interface.
The fact that you did a tutorial too...it warms my heart. Thanks for the game.
I love all the text (English version). And a recruitment-only strategy game is interesting. But it's really hard to figure out what strategy actually works here. It seemed kind of random what the outcomes were, and I wasn't able to attack anything, or determine what the point of the hex grid was.
This might be better as a turn-based game rather than having every second count, too.
I couldn't find the rabbit hole on level 2, and after the second carrot all the foxes stopped moving.
I do like the abstract graphics!
Okay, I LOL'd. You got me. Best game ever.
I unfortunately wasn't able to figure this game out at all. I'm not an RTS veteran. I kind of figured out how to build buildings, but not how to get resources fast enough to build them quickly enough. And building units didn't seem to do anything somehow.
I am going to not rate this because I feel like I just don't get what's going on, but there seems like depth I just can't see.
I would describe this as "Steamworld: Dig: Lite". Super simple progression, bare minimum. Perfect scope for Ludum Dare, competently executed. The audio is well done, particular the music transitions.
Nice work!
(Your Mac build works great.)
I love this. I love this so much. A planetary walking simulator that tells an actual story, with GREAT atmosphere. From a graphics and mechanics standpoint it's simplistic, but that droney music just totally sells it for me.
I AM SO IMPRESSED WITH THIS SILLY PIECE OF ART. YOU ARE AWESOME. Fives in all categories to you from me, except for a couple (I'll keep you guessing which).
Seems unfinished in several ways. No restarting after dying, no win/lose message, no instructions...replacing that "TBD" would go a long way here.
I liked this game so much [I wrote a post about it.](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/rogue-basement/funniest-game-so-far-life-of-an-ant) Five stars from me in all categories.
I would say this is the best game in LD38, but once I turn into a cave-in repair ant the plot seems to get stuck and I am doomed to fix walls forever. So I just let the colony collapse on purpose because I was done working for the man (er, the queen).
The music is perfect. The sound is good and not just made with bfxr. The graphics are appropriate. The writing is ant-alyzingly good and ant-i-not-funny.
So if there's more plot, I would be so happy if you could make a build that starts the game right after you do the cave-in repair job so I can finish this masterwork!
Great strategy game for 48h of work. I didn't stick around to win or lose because it takes a relatively long time to play, but I put in more time than I put into most games I review, so props there! I wish I had been able to mouse over all the islands to see their current stats.
This is a nice set of mechanics.
I got a score of 150 by holding down A and clicking extremely fast. My fingers are tired now.
While this is definitely a game, it really needs more variety. The shrinking planet as health bar is good, but it just generally needs more...anything.
Wow, this is definitely one of the better games I've played so far! The frantic tower defense + crafting combination works really well. I lost a couple of times before I figured out the refinery thing, but the journey of discovery was enjoyable.
I could definitely imagine these mechanics getting fleshed out with more content and working at a larger scale.
The premise is really creative. Seriously nice work.
I want to try this, but your OS X build doesn't work. Error message:
`Error: assembly specified in the dependencies manifest was not found -- package: 'microsoft.codeanalysis.common', version: '1.3.0', path: 'lib/netstandard1.3/Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.dll'`
Email me at steve (at) steveasleep.com if you want to do a debugging session. I don't mind trying to build from source if the tools are open source.
This is silly and fun. As a fellow art-game maker for a past Ludum Dare I really appreciate this. The atonal music, the amorphous player, the lack of a point...it really comes together.
It was a bit hard to figure out how to control where the spheres went. But I guess that's also kind of the point.
Nice work creating a simple little strategy game. The graphics are effective. My first game was pretty confusing, but I soon figured it out and won my second game against the easy AI. My strategy was to create a wheat field ASAP and then spam food donation for prestige.
With some tuning and a few more features, I could see this as a "real game."
Bug report: "play again" always starts a 2 player game.
Aesthetically this is really nice! It wasn't much fun to play single-player; I imagine it's a lot better with local friends. Some dumb AI would do wonders for this game.
It was frustrating that keys would drop with no lock boxes, and if you pick up a key, you can't drop it in favor of something better.
But I could see this being a pretty good mobile game if you polish it up a bit, since the controls are so simple and obvious but there is some real complexity and tactics.
Your WebGL link is broken.
Nice little 48h game. Classic Newgrounds-type gameplay. My wish list:
* Energy recharge bar to help decide when to fire * Clearer hitbox; looks like the beam is wider near the edges of the screen? * Planet HP bar * Ability to move my guy around the planet. There is no reason to do this but I still want it.
I had the same experience as Flaterectomy. Once there were 2 monsters onscreen, I couldn't do anything because I kept getting tossed back and forth.
Also, I never figured out the punch hitbox, so I couldn't hit anything. Very frustrating. I only played for about a minute because of these issues.
I did like that you didn't just use bfxr for everything.
Nice work on the scope of this. The maze adds a lot of play time without feeling tedious. I completed it in just under 15 minutes.
Combat was too easy so the consumables felt superfluous. Inventory space was cramped and I kept being frustrated at not being able to pick things up. The limitation didn't add much to the game. 2 more slots would probably fix it.
The graphics are of the "so bad it's good" variety (although the player actually looks nice).
The intro was in the 90th percentile of humor for Ludum Dare games. I physically laughed at the first CIA line.
Congrats on a successful jam!
I'm on OS X. The game crashed when I killed an alien. I had 21 coins and 3299 height.
This is one of the more fun games I've played in LD38 though! Decent sound, fine gameplay. I do wish the field of view was bigger, it feels unfair how little time you have to react to enemies.
It's not often I see a metagame, so nice job on that! It feels appropriate.
A GIANT HITCH: METAPHOR FOR MODERN LIFE
You wake up. Your alarm blares; you haven't slept well in months. Each day, you feel it more and more, the pulling apart of your soul from your reality. But you carry on, because it is your duty to society. The government child-rearing program raised you that way. You will not give up.
You leave your house, tripping over your favorite childhood toy. It looks so small now, lying there nearly flat on the floor.
You will never experience joy again.
Going outside, a sharp shock of blunt objective truth: you are not normal. It is obvious to everyone. This world is not made for you, though you are cursed to inhabit it. You trundle along the tiny street, destroying others' lives and property by your mere existence. You cannot cease to be yourself without ending yourself, and to do that would be a mortal sin that would send you to Hell. And so, like a CIA prisoner strapped to a chair in an interrogation, you continue to Be and to Suffer.
Finally your arrive at your "work"-place. But it is a cruel facsimile of purpose. They keep you here so as not to admit to themselves that they have produced a vile, unfit Thing. You oscillate between Red and Green, Green and Red, the stop and go of an irregular heartbeat. Some days you just jump up and down on both buttons at once and notice that no one cares; the "work" is done anyway. This is comforting.
Soon you are allowed sustenance. You must march past the others, the normal ones, who stare at you and talk amongst themselves. Your presence brings them comfort at the thought of not being you. You abase yourself before the dispenser of your food, an unpaid intern who hopes to climb the corporate ladder starting below the bottom rung. He throws balls of butter at your face, his disgust palpable with each toss.
After calorie intake, you climb some stairs, forever. When you reach the top, the story ends with no explanation.
Such is human life.
Nice little arcade game. I couldn't tell if the walls were closing in because I was losing towers, or because that's just how the game works. This felt like a solid old-school Newgrounds game.
Definitely in the 70th percentile of gameplay for Ludum Dare games!
I won, but I wasn't happy with the gameplay. It's a cool idea for the planets to be your weapons, but it's not enough to hang the game on. Winning felt both difficult and tedious, because the player ship is made of paper and it's very tricky to get the enemy ships in position because they seem to lose interest in you extremely quickly.
Also, whenever your mouse moves outside the screen, the controls stop working, which is a HUGE problem when you're trying to deftly avoid bullets!
Nice and tight set of mechanics, but once you figure out the perfect-defense attack strategy, there's no challenge and no interesting decisions to make. Reasonable sound (bfxr?) and music, but the gameplay just isn't there for me.
Might I suggest a dodecahedron?
I don't see a ready-to-download binary for any platform here...
+1 to Spinaljack. But this is a really nice set of core mechanics with a good presentation. It did feel unfair that an enemy could pass through you though if you move toward each other from adjacent spaces on the same turn.
Cute! :-) Minimum viable brawler. I wish there was more enemy variety.
Basic mechanics are there, I just wish I could find some exit stairs! And I, for one, love the death screen. Much respect for taking the roguelike route.
I feel your pain about doors, my game has that problem too. :-)
I'd love it if you could make a version with everything twice as fast (movement, animations, cutscenes). I'll play through it regardless, just stating my request. :-)
Rogue Basement has a Windows build now! You can email me at steve@steveasleep.com for feedback or whatever. Thanks for the interest! Downloading your game now.
https://irskep.itch.io/roguebasement
The only thing I would have added is a phone home with what the user typed, so you could see how many people did what I did: say "help" and then die.
As someone who has attempted to make an adventure game and failed due to the same technology/story tradeoffs, I am impressed with your efforts. Very short but also well done.
Not much depth, but you knew that. Your kitten sound is very well-recorded. (I hope you created all the sounds yourself in the 48 hours or you should be in the jam instead.) Important part: I had some fun.
The biggest trouble I had was physically moving between challenges, so it got stale for me pretty quickly. I think it would be more enjoyable if they were closer together, or if movement between them was automatic. Great job otherwise, though.
This is AWESOME. Well-rounded and fun.
I felt deliciously superior to my fellow contestants. Funny, unexpected, well done.
I have to disagree about enjoying the mechanics. The AI didn't do anything, so it didn't seem to matter how long I took. Maybe with a proper enemy it would be more enjoyable.
Can't put it in the compo if you didn't create the assets during the jam, sorry. (Entertaining, though.)
A few rough spots and finicky bits with the vertical air jets. But holy cow, what a fun experience!
I accidentally played for over an hour.
Pretty and entertaining, but shallow. Music got old fast. I could see this getting really good with more variety and control.
Doesn't seem to be on-theme at all. I made it through the game and had fun though.
Die, minimalist scum! Love the scream sounds.
Cool concept. Way too punishing on failure, since it can take quite some time to get a level right. Good music.
Sneaking didn't really work for me. I never moved as far as I thought I would. Other than that, I love the concept and execution!
I enjoyed myself thorougly. Took way too long to fall once I got reeeeally big (like every object in the room).
Yep, it's weird. I LOL'd.
I thought the controls were fine, but I agree that it was too hard to see the obstacles coming before they were basically upon you.
I managed it with the hints, but it was a bit too clever. Definitely unique though. :-)
The first couple comments cover my thoughts. Unique and easy to play, though figuring out how to use positioning was a bit tough.
What a wonderful bit of design! Most LD games use boxes as a cop-out. This game owns it and it looks/sounds great.
Just the one level, and it looks like you changed the game after the compo ended? That's a big no-no.
Could be a lot of fun if polished more. Interesting (and difficult, especially on a trackpad).
Well done! I started expecting to get scored based on how many turns I used. Some penalty for failure would also have been nice, or a time limit. Then it would be more of a puzzle. But seriously, good game.
Fundamentally a good LD game. Audio, win condition, and linear progression would improve it a lot. The UI is more or less perfect for the concept, which is interesting.
This entry has the best audio of any I've played. Extremely well done, first LD or no. And the grand prize is perfect.
Great look, good concept. Could have used some audio. The web version was a bit stuttery for me.
I found the potato! That's all I need. :-)
Didn't run for me on OS X 10.8. Does it need Java 7?
On OS X, I was able to launch the jar, but could not click [Start] or [About] to start the game.
Hard to rate without someone to play against. Seems like a fun version of realtime Rock Paper Scissors though.
I seriously enjoyed myself. Well balanced, new, well executed.
Well, it works! Would be nice if it would advance me to a new level automatically though.
At times confusing (what are the rules for getting eaten by the dark red?), but overall very engrossing even on a normal laptop. Well dome.
I couldn't figure out what the rules for the character controls were. Music got old fast. Fun little concept though.
I couldn't get over the first wall after 2-3 minutes, even with a regular mouse.
I literally could not get past the first set of guns. I can see it being fun, but I shot them ran past them, changed between black/white...nothing worked.
Wonderful intro, and an actual game! Who'd have thought?
"Did they send me daughters...when I asked for sons?"
Pretty interesting. I haven't tried to play it through yet due to time constraints. I wish I could skip through the intro.
Surprisingly engrossing, great job. I wish the color trails would fade slowly. I also found it really hard to win on the default settings since the AI has so much of an advantage.
This plays really well. The level designs are successful, so good job! Sound would make this feel a lot more polished. Also, the music cut out after a bit.
It wasn't clear if I was able to do anything. I never found anything that the Z key worked with. I walked to the right until I hit a wall.
I like it. But it's not a game. :-(
Sound effects are so-so. The general aesthetic is very good. Somehow the two vertical lines make the game grid look much better than without.
This is great for a 48 hour game. Not the usual platformer fare by any means. A couple nits: the music felt repetitive after a few minutes, and it felt like things happened too slowly to keep my interest. If it were a bit faster, with small interface sound effects and different music, it could be 50% better. Maybe also put the hymns in some kind of visible display. The clicking back and forth was slightly (though not very) annoying.
Great work!
I'm not trying to be harsh, but I legitimately could not figure out what the heck was going on. Some instructions would help a lot.
Took me a second to realize I'd become horizontal, but once I figured it out, I laughed. Very short, but entertaining. Good job!
Very atmospheric, easy to play. On level 2, the blue blocks seemed to take forever to migrate to the holes I dug. Like 3-4 minutes of just waiting.
Movement was very jerky, but I liked the random caves and the general feel of the game. However I wish I had a way to replenish my rocks.
Beautiful artwork! It provides a nice atmosphere. Unfortunately, the audio doesn't really match.
I agree that the character does not move in a way that matches how it looks. Slow, floaty, and weak.
But, great job! I love it.
I'm sorry, but if you won't bother to package this so I can just click on it like every other game, then I won't bother to play or review it.
py2app and py2exe. There are plenty of community members around to help you use them. I don't have a Windows box handy but someone in IRC took care of it.
Very simplistic, and the ball looked a bit jerky. Looks nice, though. And I do like the audio.
Wonderful concept, and it looks great! I of course echo the criticisms of the other commenters (dynamite spam, audio), but definitely finish this.
I wish I had been able to avoid talking to someone whenever I moved. Other than that, I really loved the format and with a bit of polish I could play this for quite a long time.
Very enjoyable! I wish those giant sea monsters would drop more than one measly coin, though.
66 matches in 584 seconds!
By clicking a lot I was able to have some cards stay exposed. You can't modify your original submission, but you can provide an "alt" link in addition to the submitted link.
This is awesomely demented. Gameplay is spot on. However, the screen is WAY TOO SMALL. I had to zoom in on my monitor.
I can't stand the music and the monster movement is maddening when it keeps going between a gold square and an adjacent square so I can't click the gold. And it keeps disappearing my already explored squares. Rawr.
This looks like a game that would be really cool if I could figure out how to play it. Documentation please.
Nice graphical style.
OS X link is broken and the web version won't work for me either (latest stable Chrome).
This is...I don't even...
When I finally go insane, this will be the only game I ever play again.
I won! Could have used more variation, but the names of the treasures kept me going.
I explored in all directions for about ten minutes and found nothing. But the atmosphere was nice. It was pretty easy to get stuck somewhere you can't jump out of.
This is essentially the spell casting from Harry Potter, but the string theory context really works well for it.
The subtle graphical hints really help since the dragging direction is ambiguous sometimes.
I didn't make it through, but I like the moodiness. Suffers a little from "a thousand twisty passages, all alike" syndrome.
Classy! Definitely frustrating in parts, but the atmosphere is perfect. Could really use some sound though.
I love the writing.
So this is a game where you run around and shoot things. Nice graphics. Not terribly original or thematic.
Well, it's a game, I guess. Not sure what it has to do with discovery...
This is a fascinating concept. I have had similar ideas. Unfortunately, I had a very hard time determining when the game wanted my input and when my input had any effect. I have no idea why I suddenly lost.
Arrow keys scroll the page in Chrome as well as controlling the guy. It ran really slow and then I fell off the bottom of the screen.
This, sir, is genius. I only wish it had gotten harder.
I laughed. I cried. I danced. And I made the other guy cry. YESSS
I can see how close this came to looking really awesome. Better luck next time!
Cute. Art, gameplay, and audio work together. Simple but effective.
How can you have a dance-off with no music? (Other than that, I love it)
Cool idea! I liked the difficulty level. Graphics were so-so and it could really have used some audio.
The intro was great. The falling game, I couldn't figure out how to score points or how to win or lose.
Well, that was morbid.
The movement was very jerky so it was difficult to see, but I beat the game in about 35 seconds. "Maze with a twist" is right, but not a twist that really affects the game play.
Very pretty, but I couldn't find much substance in the gameplay. You find planets, you shoot pirates, but why bother finding planets in the first place?
This is the creepiest game I have played yet. (The enemy should move faster when you're not looking at him for extra creepiness.) The static effect on the walls was awesome. Controls were a little funky.
I got stuck outside all the rooms after 3 or 4.
Hey, this is pretty cool! Great snow effects and an interesting concept. I have the same gameplay issue as johnfn, after a while you just click four or five points one at a time until the bar is full.
Nice tutorial, even if the level design is, as you say, uninspired. It wasn't clear if you also need to light the walls. (Apparently you do?) Could have used some sound.
It took me a while to figure out the funky control scheme. It's like you're rotating the entire world, not your party...
Loving the disorienting swishy graphical effect, but I'm not a big fan of the flat 'easter egg hunt' gameplay style. I got to 42 and got bored of staring at a grey and black screen.
Nice physics. :-P
I like the collaborative/competitive thing, but you don't need my email address.
I like the idea, but the ship is extraordinarily difficult to control, so I could never play for more than 60 seconds before dying.
I like the puzzle concept, but the controls are needlessly difficult. Very zen though, I like it.
That was one very angry robot.
I got about halfway in but could never figure out how to make duck tape. Loved the concept though.
This ran fine on OS X with KEGA. I dig the music.
Wow, that was small. But I lol'd.
So you just touch the lights? Not much to see here, I guess...
Sonny, I wrote a Mac app packager for Love2D myself a couple of months ago. It's on the forums. Use that, don't make me download a bunch of crap.
Runs at about 1.2 FPS for me on OS X.
Much love, friend, much love. Well conceived, well executed.
I like the concept. Scrolling was a bit irritating, zooming and drag-to-pan would be helpful there. Is it possible to give different ships different targets? How do you know when you are going to get a new ship and where it will appear?
This game is just awesome. Great storytelling, graphics, and audio. I forgive you for not letting me play again when I lose.
The text under the rock is a bit hard to read.
I couldn't get very far in this. There is no forgiveness if you can't catch the one you need when it flashes by.
I could only figure out the one very simple rule about adjacent symbols. Not much else...
Great audio. Even though you didn't make it.
I want to like this game, but I absolutely cannot play it with that hyper-distracting rotating overlay over it.
Interesting idea, one that I've had in the past and am glad to see implemented. Looks great. I got tired of the main mechanic relatively quickly, but I'm sure you could add variety in a few ways. Great audio.
Interesting idea. Tough to control and a little monotonous after a short time (two criticisms I would also level against my own game).
I liked this a lot! I couldn't keep straight which hero is strong/weak against which monster, so I had to take a screenshot of the instructions screen.
Graphics look very good. Spot on with the theme. Congrats on your first LD!
Great idea and good enough execution to be playable. I played this for twenty minutes without realizing it. Could use some documentation, but I managed to figure it out, so I guess it's intuitive enough. Surprisingly fun!
Graphics get the point across. (But what is the purple stuff?) No audio. Eats a lot of CPU after a couple of games.
Released a library to the community, which was nice.
I had fun playing this. That's the highest compliment I can offer anyone in this contest.
Unplayable because the collision detection doesn't work well enough. And jumping is just odd. The help label is too small for me to be able to pay attention to it. I didn't notice it for five minutes. There was no sound. Can't really see how this relates to the theme.
LD40 — The more you have, the worse it is (21)
Science Cat Hell: Extreme Maze Edition by dwemthy 2017-12-17T00:07:22Z ♥ 0
Binding of Isaac clones are not roguelikes. I didn't hold that against you in my rating though!
The enemies were easy to avoid and not varied. The constant game-stopping modal dialogs were extremely annoying and took me out of the game. If those had been different I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I love twin stick shooters.
Whispers in the Deep by blay09 2017-12-17T00:01:32Z ♥ 1
This is really well done. It reminds me of Starward Rogue quite a bit. I found someone of the debuffs a bit too punishing (blindness in particular) but it was a really good push and pull of mechanics with appropriate audio.
Dungeon of Cursed Artifacts by Florian van Strien 2017-12-16T23:50:00Z ♥ 1
Really excellent entry. I've made two roguelikes for LD and this is better than both of them! Really good mechanics and balance, at least for someone who plays a lot of Brogue.
Tabletop Farm Simulator 20,000 by jcsirron 2017-12-15T04:52:52Z ♥ 0
I harvested 2 fields and then everything burned down. ...I win?
To the other side by cosarara 2017-12-15T01:17:08Z ♥ 1
I have a weak spot for lo-fi graphics like this, particularly when they are animated! That plus the monophonic music really gave this a nice game jammy indie zine-type feel.
The first time I died by running into an enemy. The second time I died by running into my own bullet...not great. I didn't have the patience to win. But I did have some fun!
Goonisher by aaforcebox 2017-12-14T00:20:39Z ♥ 0
I think I really needed an overlay with the control scheme. I had a hard time remembering what the different attacks would do. But this is a nice set of mechanics, good level of polish for LD. Good job!
Antibody by Enot487 2017-12-13T20:58:02Z ♥ 1
Good balance of mechanics, good music and sound effects.
My issues:
* It was too hard to find spheres. Very frustrating to just wander and see nothing. Some indicators at the screen edges would have helped a lot. * Invisible walls * Number of enemies felt unfair compared to number of spheres
King's Gambit by shyguy567 2017-12-13T05:25:39Z ♥ 1
I was more engrossed by this than 90% of the games I've played for this jam! Once I did manage to break it by clicking "Dossier" during a conversation - when I came back none of the buttons worked anymore. But the music was a nice touch and the graphics were charming in that vector-lo-fi way.
Dead Weight by Marc Jones 2017-12-13T05:01:35Z ♥ 2
I couldn't figure out how to score points. Every island was just something my ship would bump into. But the combination of mechanics is a good idea and the music is hilarious.
Bonding Bad by volando 2017-12-12T20:59:43Z ♥ 1
OK wow some real game design work! I truly enjoyed my time figuring out puzzle solutions. The assets were at just the right quality, though I would have appreciated some music.
ImmuneControl by jkniest 2017-12-12T20:50:43Z ♥ 0
Competent tower defense implementation. Macrophages felt like a waste of time, though. And it suffers from "Unity lighting syndrome" - really dark-looking.
Bo Jackson in The Temple of Ming by Nodine 2017-12-12T20:42:08Z ♥ 1
The volume and difficulty of enemies nullified the balancing mechanic, in my experience. At a certain point I just couldn't see how to keep any vases unbroken and dodge bullets at the same time. But the push and pull of the two systems is conceptually really nice!
Order Now! by Sibi 2017-12-09T21:31:56Z ♥ 0
Fun little vignette. The music is very appropriate! Gotta order like a fiend!
I would have appreciated more information about why new options kept appearing, and more conflicts between the friends. I also at first thought that the menu was 2 levels deep and I had to pick a sub-section, but that wasn't the case.
Close Friends by skippuku 2017-12-09T21:27:55Z ♥ 2
Cool idea for a jam game. Nice little scope, pretty well polished, and easy to figure out without over-explaining itself. A+ would make many close friends again.
ARTIFACTS by Fran Segura 2017-12-09T21:23:43Z ♥ 0
The beginning is punishing without giving you a chance to figure things out. You basically have to die before you understand what you're supposed to do. I didn't have the patience to continue much past the gameboy because the ghost movement was very difficult to avoid in a way that felt unfair.
Space Freight by KingMatthew 2017-12-06T05:46:33Z ♥ 1
The Mac build just opens a dialog that says "The application Desktop can't be opened."
Excessive by moonlightbomber 2017-12-06T05:00:13Z ♥ 1
Hello fellow more-story-than-game maker! I also made some interactive fiction. Downloading your game now to see if I can get it running on my Mac.
Artifact by notpresident35 2017-12-06T04:54:58Z ♥ 1
Nailed it on the atmosphere for the time limit. My accuracy with the gun wasn't nearly good enough to make the balance work for me, but the death animation more than made up for it. A+ would get anally probed again.
Dungeon Boy! by nardandas 2017-12-06T04:48:29Z ♥ 3
I avoided combat as much as possible and just kited the enemies around while opening chests and beelining for an exit. You could have avoided the sword entirely and focused on bombs, which would have solved your animation problem a bit.
For short jams, it can be really effective to add a bit of jiggle or rotation to sprites instead of trying to get full mesh or keyframe animations for everything. Just something to think about. Congrats on finishing!
Super Trader 64 by WildGamut 2017-12-06T04:33:53Z ♥ 1
I couldn't tell if the game was trolling me with the color scheme. Everything was gray and black and I couldn't tell if the cats were going to be asking me for yarn or tennis balls; they look exactly the same! I feel like maybe the textures didn't make it into the build or something. Either that, or it is an artistic statement about the inherent brutality of capitalism.
Asteroid Crasher by erebus 2017-12-03T23:24:37Z ♥ 1
I won!