Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Alphish
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 36 | Ancient Technology | The Great Sphinx Pyramid | jam | |||||||||||
| 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | The Incredible Vending Machine | jam | 1093 | 2.56 | 2.29 | 2.90 | 2.93 | 2.24 | 2.67 | 2.31 | 100 | ||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Ludum Deathray | jam | 716 | 3.11 | 3.06 | 3.11 | 3.00 | 3.39 | 3.59 | 3.41 | 39 | ||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Growing Up | compo | 787 | 2.71 | 2.95 | 1.57 | 2.81 | 2.39 | 2.06 | 2.71 | 2.40 | 68 | |
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Collision | compo | 523 | 3.24 | 2.90 | 3.20 | 3.48 | 2.79 | 3.06 | 2.78 | 3.42 | 100 |
Oh my, I think I might have found yet another very interesting entry. I'd like to write more, but it seems everything has already been told, and after playing dozens of games I'm getting somewhat tired... ^^"
(but yes, graphics and writing are strong in this entry)
Oh gosh, this actually *is* a game!
Could some people move over to the oceans so that players would be able to get full map coverage, please? ^^"
One thing I'd really, really like though: for it to open the game page of the person I click on. That would make navigating to proper games much easier.
...or there is such an option, and I somehow miss it? >.<
Ah, forget about it, I'm a doofus. Apparently I had to zoom in a bit (zooming was a bit counter-intuitive, since I learned to zoom in with rolling up and zoom out with rolling down; here it's the opposite) and then I could normally click and the link appeared. Thanks for making such an awesome thing. ^^
Actually, now that I think of it, it'd really be cool if the spots that aren't covered by any player in the regular area would be covered by the nearest player (or a group of nearest players, since there seem to be many people tucked very close to each other at some spots), thus making it possible to get 100% map coverage even if some places are sadly uninhabited, like, say Antarctic. I suppose in such case Voronoi diagrams would be a way to go...?
(yes, I'd really like to see how the whole world looks like...)
Either you started scraping more rarely, or it doesn't work for some reason, since I still don't see area around the person I commented on a few hours ago. :<
Alright, played it, the rhymes weren't even that bad, though they did feel a bit... pretensious? Also, they're related to Aisley, while Ashley is more down-to-business and doesn't do rhyming, right? Oh, and Ashley is American?
I'm not sure if it as intended, but I felt like Aisley was a girly girl conrasting with more tomboyish Ashley. I just wonder how in the world those two ended up connected. ^^"
I didn't particularly like the graphics; following certain style is one thing, but for some reason I don't like the colours; can't tell what would work better, though. O.o" One thing for sure, though: the gradients in buttons contrast with the plain colours of the game itself.
Also, the controls felt rather unresponsive, even in the Bugfix version; thankfully I somehow managed to complete the Aisley's Lifts Alone level, but it was rather annoying still, especially with waiting for the lift to return.
I guess it's one of more distinct entries and could be developed interestingly; but if you wanted to make this project further, I guess you'd have to rework the controls a lot. >.<
I've seen similar idea in a few other games, and I'm not particularly impressed with this application. The main problem, again, is controls, that made me ragequit on the first field of spikes, as if dealing with bottom side wasn't enough. Too bad, since otherwise the game has pretty good mood in general. >.<
I guess this game would be another of my personal favourites. Interesting idea, well-executed, seems rather complete. I'd like to have some sort of minimap added, maybe, and make it so that if all enemies are defeated the main character automatically enters awake state (in one dungeon I'm pretty sure I explored every room possible and didn't reach the awake state; didn't get a boss, either)? Another thing would be making walking buttons permanently visible, rather than making the player use "Move > direction" combination all the time (it's not like the buttons would interfere, anyway, I suppose)?
And yes, the soundtrack in dungeon is getting weary rather quickly; I don't know why, but it started to annoy me after a few loops. I suggest replacing it with something else, possibly longer so it wouldn't loop as often. >.<
It wasn't particularly difficult, but it doesn't need to be; if someone prefers greater challenge, maybe make more difficulty levels for them, but I personally don't think it's a game that needs to be hard. ^^"
Also, it seems I managed to get a good ending, though it wasn't named explicitly. But it looked good. Yay~!
It was rather fun, I even managed to complete the first "layer" of the worlds, but then when I tried to reach the space again, I got completely blocked by a swarm of black clouds; really, I can't see how can they be penetrated without insane luck. >.<
Very good and solid entry, with adorable audiovisuals. The levels aren't particularly puzzling, but I'll forgive that given the timespan. The main reason why it's not one of my absolute top entries (instead making it only to the regular top, how terrible) is because I've played nearly 150 games at that point and found games that are somehow more innovative or have more advanced narration. ^^"
Very solid entry, and somewhat entertaining once I got the hang of it. Bonus points for audio - if I say it reminds me of (early) Touhou, you're doing that right. ;)
Didn't have an opportunity to play it with two players... although I'm not quite feeling like doing that, anyway. ^^"
Uhuh, quite confusing at first, it felt pretty slow once I got the hang of it. The fact that you can keep your characters on screen with little effort when you know how to go about it doesn't help, either. Ended with 114, probably could get more, but I just let the faces float away. >.<
Pretty cool concept once you figure it out, but I couldn't complete the whole thing. I'd really like an indication whether what I've got is good enough or not yet (especially in regards to colours, that indeed could be more lenient). >.<
Decent entry, though a bit too difficult for me; I reached the third world at most, and then got slaughtered by various boomerangs and other shooty things. >.<
Cool concept, you really should have given yourself more than 12 hours to execute that. ^^"
It's particularly interesting how the creatures can attack the player, the opponent, or each other, and I'm pretty sure that's intentional.
I'd really like to know how the connected worlds mechanic would be exploited here, though; sure there are different monsters in different worlds, but I'd like that mechanic to be used in a more creative way, where world switching opens other possibilities than just exploration of other worlds, or something...
I'm not really amazed, since these sort of games aren't particularly challenging or anything; it's just walking around. That said, I'm aware you intended to add more, but you didn't have time. Things I didn't like, though: having to switch planes with numbers, while pressing something like Space bar or similar should suffice (it's not like there is other plane you can switch to); having the maze entirely based on diagonal directions; having to *move* in a given direction to shoot mah lazorz there. Also, the planes after 2 were rather disappointing, considering how fun the floor in 2 was. ^^"
Rather nice entry, these puzzles got me thinking a bit. Short, but still pretty cool. ^^"
I nearly quit because of unresponsive controls and constantly falling to pit at level 1. Good thing I read otters' comments and cheat codes, so I could see what is the fuss about, though I still didn't really progress that far; attempts to jump to some otter platform eventually annoyed me too much. >.<
Great idea, but it seems difficulty could use a bit of tweaking. o.o"
Alright, "Her Story" indeed is when things start getting interesting, though also a bit confusing (and yes, you could have mentioned that X button switches characters). Overall pretty cute game; maybe it could use some music, though. ^^"
Yaay, I saved the Earth~! Now I'd normally wonder how it'll sustain itself without the Sun, but considering the technological advancement that allows shooting bullets at speeds above light (it should take roughly 8-9 minutes for light to travel from Earth to Sun), I wouldn't worry about that.
(it still lacks a bit of polish, though, especially with possibility of shooting at the beginning)
Got to the second level, got stuck there; as far as I can tell, there was no path to the room containing the red thingy. Also, there wasn't really any princess, as far as I can tell... ^^"
(and switching levels could be easier; I don't have a middle hand to reach for these 5-6-7-8 buttons >.<)
Pretty fun entry here, though could use a bit more variety; split guns and rocket guns make for a rather little choice. ^^"
Pretty cool implementation of parallel worlds mechanic, quite different from typical application seen in many other platformers. Also, liked the Metroidvania-like exploration. There could be more of that, but again, timespan.
On a side note, I love the "seemingly innocent spike pit" expression (not yours, one of commenters'). XD
What in the world I just played? O.O
The ending was very... um. Yes, I guess "um" is a good word to describe that. Though not exactly unexpected given the general mood of that game. >.<
Too bad LD doesn't allow imaginary part in ratings, it would come in handy for games like these...
Hmm, personally I'm not a great fan of having WSAD + Arrows at the same time; I prefer switching between characters in such case, or have them both moving at once with the same keys for additional challenge (guess it would work much here).
Also, the movement could use a little tweaking, as now it "pauses" on each field, which I'm not particularly fond of. Aside from that, it looks like one of cooler ideas for multiple characters mechanic, but it desperately lacks levels, yes. >.<
Very good entry (in improved version, that is), with some pretty great puzzles, but it desperately needs audio! >.<
With that changed, though, it would easily be one of my personal favourites; the rest is quite polished, and while levels difficulty varies, it's entertaining nonetheless. ^^"
Am I correct when guessing that in Time Challenge game's levels are randomly generated, but always with the same seed?
Anyway, this game is pretty addictive, made it to level 30, but then I decided I'd rather not go further, and it indeed seems like these levels can go on and on.
Also, nice touch with using different soundtracks for different modes; more hectic for Time Attack and relaxed for Endless Mode. I liked the graphics and the fact you can see where the end is located, too.
Overall, very solid, polished entry.
But... but how is my snake? D:
(quite meta, clearly unfinished; not that there are many earthquakes in my area... ^^")
Nice little platformer, though from the mention about different seasons I expected a bit more variety. ^^"
I wonder, will the world be much larger in the Post-Compo version? You mentioned NPCs, too...
Well, the warehouse is rathe climatic (if a bit empty), and these pedestals and cubes are rather stylish, too...
...but it's still walking to buttons and then going to the door! >.<
Really, the most challenging part is finding someone else to play the game with. ^^"
(also, I take that the level when the gate is glowing from the beginning marks the completion of sorts?)
Some puzzles really could use a bit more leniency; a half more of tractor power or something, especially since it takes some time before bodies will align themselves. >.<
Music would help a lot, too. ^^"
Seems pretty cool, but the movement is slow and I lost twice. The fact it's randomly generated (and the second time I had to walk quite a distance to get a plane) doesn't help. Plus, I had a lot of trouble entering the door. Maybe a little more forgiving...? ^^"
Very cool graphics, though.
Interesting entry, I initially thought that it has mobile build, because it just looks very mobile-y. Pretty solid and fun, though with me not being a fan of endless games I didn't stick for too long. ^^"
Rather decent entry, with some unintentional humour coming from English translation.
I didn't quite like how the overworld graphics seem very... RPG Maker-ish. Not that I have anything against the tool itself (Ib ♥), I just prefer when game has its own style, or something?
(out of curiosity, which of assets you made yourself, and which were from other sources? Not that I'd blame you, considering the short timespan for making the game... ^^")
After thinking a little and having the information about the fact number indicate the speed, I came up with formula that must be followed for each planet to reach the perfect equilibrum: Sum(incomingSpeeds) = outcomingSpeed * outcomingEdges. With that knowledge I reached level teen-ish before deciding it's probably never going to end, however randomly generated completion messages can be.
Generally, I found mechanics to be quite original, but they didn't keep me interested for really long; I guess having levels designed rather than randomly generated, and limited number of them (and maybe some other gimmicks) would hook me more (not that I expect to make full game in 48 hours ^^"). As for audiovisuals, they served their purpose, even though they didn't stand out.
Overall, nice job here.
Instruction, instructions, instructions... they are really needed; I lost some time trying to figure out how to play your game at all and almost gave up. Having that figured out, the rest was pretty easy... u_u"
Also, these velocity alert sound and wrong planet sound are so annoying. D:
Aside from that, somewhat decent game, but not particularly exciting gameplay-wise; the most interesting moment was apparently some virus that caused engines and burning settings to be reset. Also, I have no idea what the green bar was supposed to represent. ^^"
The CD-coloured aura on completed planets was fancy, though, as well as the particles flying from planets to land on. ;)
While somewhat short, it's very, very detailed and polished entry. Loved the surroundings, loved the gravity, loved the way music changes depending on distance and gets completely mute when the character ventures into space. Too bad the use of theme is somewhat forced... ^^"
Also, the rock-paper-scissors machine was absolutely hilarious. I mean, I lost with the CPU 6 or 7 times in a row, what can be funnier than that?!
(probably putting in a fake screenshot of player winning in CPU, while it's impossible in game)
Cute graphics, but I've really got little idea what to do. I've discovered the other civilisation, though.
But seriosly, what's up with the names of wonders in faraway land? It just seems so... pointless. >.<
Ah, well, if it's online, that would explain some things; especially some questionable wonders names...
The non-improved version: nay. I was just wandering aimlessly, didn't find any key, tried to get hit by the enemy, but eventually I couldn't.
The improved version: better, but still far from my favourite. There's nice music, sometimes not as nice sounds (the key one was rather loud) better graphics and buildings, I even managed to get hit by enemy even though I didn't want that. However, the walking was still terribly slow compared to this vast, vast city and without any compass I got lost, gathering only one key total. >.<
Plus, I encountered some invisible walls. Perhaps they were intentional, maybe not, but still they don't give a good impression. ^^"
(also, I rated the non-improved version, since that's the one that counted in the Jam; the fixes in improved one are far from minor)
One of the greatest entries out there, once I've actually got to learn the control. Also, I could tell "it has potential" about many games (since there are few ideas that don't), here I can see it's a great starting point. Too bad I actually got tired after slaying nearly 4000 locusts.
Looking forward to having story mode of that, since Survival modes are rather... uh, depressing. No matter how long you try to fend off, no matter how many times people are surprised at seeing you again (great thing with that dialogue, by the way), I still know I'll ultimately fail. I'd rather play through something that will end on a brighter note.
(also, fun thing: I haven't found the instructions in game, the only reason I actually could play it that long is because I saw the instructions in screenshots)
Couldn't repair the navigation system, at some point game told me that everybody died due to life-support system malfunction, but then checking technician status revealed he's alive. Tried the Web (post) version, but repairing didn't work here, either.
>repair developer ld_terminal? ^^"
Alright, that was much cooler than I initially expected; the art and music was great here. Kinda reminded me of Eversion, and that's a good thing. :3
Alright, that was somewhat fun, with all these matching and all. It started out very easy, but then the difficulty rapidly increased. Somehow, asteroids weren't particularly as much of a problem as the planets falling to their... um, death? ^^"
(also, quite often the planets connected right after entering the screen)
Definitely one of the most creative takes on the theme around, giving rather new meaning to the "connecting people" slogan. However, it took me a while to figure out how it works at all. ^^" Still, the whole system seemed pretty polished, same goes for visuals.
I'm not quite fond of language at some places, but the game itself doesn't take place in environment where everyone uses sophisticated and pure English; it's more a matter of personal preference, if anything. >.<
Yay, reunion~!
Poor kiwis, though, they're cute birds.
This game's main strength is mood, though story is rather adorable, too. The graphics (people in particular) reminded me somehow of The Last Door.
Overall pretty nice, short entry, though it doesn't stand out much compared to others I played (granted, they do set the bar high). ^^"
Yay, I won~!
The graphics kinda remind me of Megaman, especially the main character, even though I've never really played Megaman 1 through 10. ^^" I got bored with music somewhat quickly, so it's a good thing the game didn't last much more.
Also, I didn't like how enemies damaged me by appearing at my position; I'd like to have some long enough warning time to stay away from them. I got 3 health points at some moment because of that.
Overall, rather decent entry, though not one of my personal favourites.
All that from scratch within 48 hours?
Wow, just wow. O.o"
How am I supposed to compete with that? D:
(for some reason I particularly like the audio, but bean mechanics are pretty neat, too, and the planets are very climatic as well; also, looking at the world from perspective of beanstalk planted on it turned out to be quite effective when searching for shiny things)
I got to see the menu, but the game lagged terribly and I couldn't really start at all; sorry. >.<
Lokarunith: I tried both Web and Windows versions, and both lagged to me to the point of Ctrl+Alt+Deleting it. Sorry, I've no idea what causes it. :<
As this game currently stands, I found it hardly playable (probably the fact that it lacks in-game instructions and I can't find my necropolis after a while have something to do with it), so I rated it rather harshly. Also, the graphics seemed a bit inconsistent; not to the extent of copy-pasting pictures from photos, cartoons and some pixel-art, but they didn't feel quite right, either. ^^"
That said, I wouldn't mind some good RTS while you would actually finish it. In the process you definitely should include some minimap so that players could easily navigate to different parts of the battleground, as well as find their structures. ^^"
Pretty good entry, managed to win on a large map with the first faction. Also, while AI is dumb, it seems to compensate well with number of ships it can end at once. >.<
Bonus points for including different factions, with their logos and such. I wouldn't mind seeing a campaign mode out of it, but then I'd prefer there would be difficulty levels, so that people whose eyes aren't all over place could have a chance to win, too. ^^"
Solid entry, with rather interesting idea, though it took me a while to notice that 1) I can control the direction of the ship by paying attention to that little ship-like thing rotating around the planet, and 2) the ship is launched in a direction from the center of planet, which is *perpendicular* to direction in which the ship is orbiting. ^^"
Aside from that, it was pretty fun to play, though that "3, 2, 1, GO" and fuel/air calculation at the end felt rather redundant, and I'd rather have them skippable. ;)
Didn't really have anyone to play with, so I can hardly rate it in terms of fun, though I didn't find bumping from one planet or another particularly exciting, and I doubt having more players would change that (given I'm not really into competitive multiplayer in the first place). ^^"
It looks pretty solid, though, and it sure has some connecting and worlding, so...
Tried a few times, even managed to jump at some land at the proper time, but then I got stuck on some moving red block and couldn't jump anywhere else, due to lack of portals and such. ^^"
@tbamberg: neither do I. :(
I had to read carefully to understand mechanics, but once I got the hang of them, game was pretty cool. One of more innovative entries, definitely!
Well, it sure wasn't particularly puzzling VN, but still very pleasing to play, with all that dialogue and such (and enough points of interaction not to feel overwhelmed by lengthy dialogue sequences). The humour was great as well; I quite enjoyed all that absurd. I guess my biggest complaint would be that graphics felt inconsistent in some places. ^^"
Very good entry overall. ;)
Pretty polished and silly, but monotonous at the same time. Also, I didn't know telecommunication was *that* aggressive business.
(personally, I initially expected violence-free game, and was rather disappointed to find out it's not ^^")
Cool audiovisuals, though I don't like mixing pixelated style with smooth vectors. The gameplay itself was alright, though nothing outstanding (I'm not a fan of games where the only goal is to get the best score possible, myself, and the gameplay itself is rather simple). Overall very decent, but not exceptional. ^^"
Alright, made it to the end, might have accidentally discovered some bug and treat it as gameplay element; or maybe it was gameplay element altogether, but it makes level 6 and 10 much easier than they would be otherwise. I mean: if orange orb has possible connection with more than one world, all of them get connected to the orange orb, making synchronised spikes avoidance a breeze.
Aside from that, game is pretty cool, both gameplay and aesthetics wise. I guess it might work well with more levels, though the little control over the blue worlds might make things more frustrating than challenging (seemingly needing more luck than skill). I wonder how it would work with lock-on option, when relative worlds alignment would be preserved; it might reduce challenge in some parts, but introduce in others...
(also, thanks for Madagascar; take some Greenland ;) )
Yay for turning light on and off.
Also, I commend on your choice of music!
Too bad I'm not really sure what was that supposed to mean... ^^"
That was one of more original entries, but got somewhat boring after a life. Also, I don't like how I don't have a definite goal in life, apparently. :<
The art and the setup is absolutely astounding; too bad it's so short (though not surprising, considering that these 48 hours must have been spent *somewhere*). I'd really like to see it developed further, though, the premise is quite promising.
(one thing I didn't exactly like: later part of soundtrack, when it went from mysterious cimbal-like instruments to something more techno-ish; granted, I'm not the fan of that instrument in general ^^")
Interesting concept, though a bit hard to control. Gave up after a while... ^^"
That was... quite an experience. Maybe not quite perfect and doesn't really apply to everyone (hahahah, how many people would say it's not about them while it indeed would be?), but still very unique. Perhaps you would like to participate in ruining the video games industry, as described here? http://itch.io/jam/ruinjam2014 I think you would do a great job here (and yes, that's a good thing). ;)
I guess the lack of interaction aside from pressing Space was troublesome, but I prefer that over having a few dialogue options from which none fits would be far worse here; there I am supposed to be me, and then the game tells me I can either want to be famous musician, or game developer, or get a tiny house, or I have no idea, or something; that would kinda spoil the experience. Though once we're at that, the last remark sounded a bit like the listener is assumed to be male; I guess in some cases word "man"/"guy" etc. might be used in relation to both genders, but I feel omitting that word (leaving something like "Thanks, I really appreciate you"; can't remember the exact quite) would convey the same without causing that trouble. ^^"
Also, good luck with fighting your depression. I'm not sure I understand what it's like to have it, but considering the fact it's not red and doesn't smell of potatoes, I wouldn't wish anyone to go through that. u_u"
The menu was very pretty, the rest... a bit disappointing compared to it. ^^" I'm not really into drawing pie charts, I prefer programs like Excel to do that for me. ;)
(maybe it would be more fun if it was drawing a particular trace, rather than colouring a round; or if it had different shapes on it >.<)
The graphics here were indeed very pretty, and the death screens too long.
Also, I managed to complete the whole thing, though some levels were rather tricky (and yes, it was sometimes difficult to tell how close I can approach). At later point the concept, while initially interesting, started to wear off; I guess this game needs a bit more variety later. Leaving these aside, it was rather fun, still. ^^"
Good entry, managed to reach the "Use your brain" level and even reunited the characters, but I didn't progress to the next one. Does it mean it's the end? ^^"
Still, that was pretty nice experience, though I'd really prefer if the characters wouldn't be able to meet after one of them dying, causing two tracks (losing and winning) playing at the same time. >.<
At the beginning I was rather confused, but once I got the grasp of it, it became rather enjoyable. One of characters got 11 dice, making him nearly unstoppable. Overall, one of the better entries I've got pleasure playing from the games sent here.
(though I didn't really like how I had to wait some time between switching turns and such; maybe reduce it a bit or allow the messages to be skipped early? ^^")
Umm... unless someone tells how to do that legendary "high jump", I can't rate this game very highly, as I get stuck inside the pit to the left and don't know how to proceed. >.<
(remember, people, add even simple instructions to your games; it doesn't take too much time and allows the game... well, to be played)
Nice graphics, interesting idea, amusing story...
...but the game itself was rather boring, with all these blocks at the beginning and then easy to defeat drills later. >.<
Pffft, that should have been WAVELENGTH Shifter, not PHASE Shifter. ^^"
It's quite a neat little game and a solid entry overall. Not something I'd play over and over again (I'm more a fan of story-driven games), but still pretty good.
Oh, hello, my old arch-nemesis, so displeased to see you again... *said me to isometric view*
Really, I'm pretty sure large part of the difficulty in this game comes from the perspective; it took me a few really careful attempts.
Aside from that, it looks pretty interesting and humour is strong within this game... but difficulty. That difficulty. And, even more so, perspective. >.<
Bonus points for taking the theme to its hilariously literal extreme, though.
Ugh, what's with people and their multiplayer game ideas. It really reduces accessibility, you know? >.<
Audiovisuals seem pretty nice, but that multiplayer spoils it to me completely. :<
That was rather interesting take at theme indeed, and moderately fun, but what about these poor countries in space? :<
(also, I can't help the impression that the author is Italian...)
Getting same message as Quetzakol, despite installing (and even then "repairing") the redist package (I used the 64-bits one, since 64-bits is written in the main download link). Sorry. ^^"
Somewhat surreal, but aside from that makes a pretty cool game (though I spent lots and lots of time on level 4; it literally took nearly as much time as all others together). Sometimes I felt like the game is going faster; must be related to that FPS thing.
Pretty cool idea overall, though the use of theme isn't too apparent. ^^"
I, for a change, thought of what Under Pressure would be like; I just forgot the tune itself. ^^"
Still, while I don't think it's particularly good use of Connected Worlds theme, it's a pretty nice meta game. Forgotten was particularly interesting.
Too bad it doesn't have saving (making me remember some password thing to type somewhere, grumble grumble) and in quite a few points it had insane keyboard mashing which I'm not fond of. Also, it could use something else than standard GM messages... ^^"
Still, that's a pretty solid entry. Good job covering the themes, in pretty creative ways, at that. ;)
(but seriously, how do you *input* password; I haven't seen info about that anywhere)
Very random and fun to play, the best game I played thus far (though I was walking rather randomly at the beginning). Took me a while to figure out that the bullet is rather slow and I can outrun it as much as needed. ^^"
For some reasons the controls didn't work for me (I tried shooting, WSADing, making sure the game has focus...), so I cannot really play your game. Leaving without score. >.<
Uh, alright, the controls finally responded in the Newgrounds version (weird, because these two should be the same...), but I wasn't particularly impressed with that, anyway. First of all, there were these annoying eyes that land on ground, making them immune to shooting; I could stand that, but with way too wide character's hitbox they're pretty much impossible to avoid when in large groups. Also, the sounds are definitely too loud and annoying compared to the music. >.<
Well, at least it has upgrades and achievements, I guess? ^^"
Simple but entertaining concept; not something I'd replay it over and over again, but still fun to play. I really liked the variety of characters; the only odd thing I noticed about graphics is that the inspector has outlines, while the suspects don't. Overall very solid entry, though its use of theme is a bit too metaphorical for most, I'm afraid. ^^"
(ps. I replied to your comment on my entry, maybe you'll find my response helpful)
The art is cool, but I had no idea what to do. Which, I guess, I'm not alone in. ^^"
Not a fan of arrows + WSAD setup, especially in such fast-paced games like these. Also, these mechanics aren't particularly friendly to new players. ^^"
And yes, there really could be more time to enter the portal. As it is now, it's quite difficult (though still somehow managed to get 550 for orphans). >.<
Nice style and all, but it's way too hard. These spawn rates are completely insane; I can barely regenerate myself when these bots in the meantime swarm around their spawn point so much that they can't move themselves! >.<
Or maybe there's some trick the game didn't tell me? Like, how to stop from spawning, or how to run? O.o"
Hmmm, that certainly was something, though it's not quite in my favourite mood. o.o (or maybe I didn't quite relate to the main character and all this drug stuff? ^^")
Putting story aside, I didn't like the audio was missing, but you made a good use of simple text effects; especially the trembling one. Also, the descriptions were good enough to give idea how things were supposed to look like, it's just that in some cases I didn't like how these things looked like. ^^"
(on completely unrelated note, you might want to participate in ruining the game development! http://itch.io/jam/ruinjam2014 )
Nope, I'm definitely NOT going to waste my time trying to complete that first wave, even if apparently there is *some* end to it; it was just waaay too long, and the targets were so small. You *really* need to work on game balance, or else FOT coefficient (Fun Over Time) will be decreasing rapidly.
The adventurey, haunting part was moderately fun, though. Also, nice voices in the team screen and circuits in the title screen.
Hm. Hm. To be honest, I didn't feel *that* affected, but it might have something to do with sparse dialogue choices and some parts repeating. Or perhaps I didn't really get a chance to relate? Or maybe I'd like to think I can keep my friends? *shrugs*
Another matter altogether there may be multiple reasons for being removed from friends' list. Eek! o.o'
(now to see the bill for these 2-years long talks...)
Aaaalright, apparently I've managed to get the best ending (if leading red to the red spot in upper left counts as such), although it was pretty confusing and I still don't really know how things work, except for the fact that leading black to black apparently alters the red's position. ^^"
Still, that was rather interesting and enjoyable entry, though the choice of colours was somewhat terrible; I know, minimalism and such, but using such bright colours next to each other (like blue against red against green) can hurt! >.<
Very solid entry, though rules were very unclear to me. Normally I'd add that this game lacked AI, but I had enough trouble trying to figure out how to make the Light side win (eventually I did ^^).
YES! INSTRUCTIONS! THANK YOU!
Aside from that, there really wasn't much indeed, and a room to enter the bridge seemed to be very, very narrow. Also, with the main character having only two directions it looked a bit grotesque when walking left or right. ^^"
In that sort of game I strongly suggest using grid-aligned movement aaand maybe making it a tiny little bit faster. That really would help, especially with them bridges.
Good luck with the next time. ^^"
Decent entry, though at the beginning perspective was set in a way that I couldn't see the planet I'm on. Also, I couldn't find the portal neither on the first nor second attempt. :<
Interesting idea, took me a little bit to figure out, though I still found it hard to predict how the guards will move. Oh well... ^^"
(also, it could use some sounds, I think)
Eh, not a fan of sanbox games, I'd rather have some more or less defined goal to accomplish, so I know when I'm done with the game already. ^^"
Still, the graphics and mechanics seem pretty neat, but I don't like the controls; Space seem somewhat alright, but it's the first time this LD I see Enter as the button to press to shoot. Personally, I'd prefer these to be mouse controlled (shoot left, mouse right? Or something?), especially with them cheating 360-degrees shooting bastards enemies, while I can only shoot in 8 directions. ^^"
Looks nice, but getting stuck spoiled it to me completely; I can't afford restarting every time it happens. >.<
Pretty cool idea and presentation, but sadly gameplay needs more variety and objectives or so; not that you don't intend to add that later. ^^"
Oh my, another fellow GM user I see here!
It was short, but I really like what I've seen so far. The puzzles were indeed easy (with a tiny exception being level 5 with 3! solutions), but I'd like to see what you can come up with later on! Also, I liked the mood in general, well set up by the audiovisuals (though I'd like to have longer soundtrack in the full version, or maybe even a few different tracks).
The biggest complaint I have is that I haven't found the mummy, neither I know whether the character is supposed to find her in the end or not, so I can't even rant about them bad endings or be happy about good ones. ^^"
Also, I bet the mummy's name is Gemma. That's because we've got levels with alpha, beta and delta, but not gamma in between - should the main character find gamma, he (she?) would kinda sorta find the mummy. Or something.
Decent entry, though if someone really, really wanted to go boring-and-practical route, they could grab some element, and then continually kill the same monster (weak against that element) over and over again, while standing around border between worlds as it's the safest here.
Also, it seems like the title is made of elements name in some other language (maybe Italian, maybe Latin, maybe something else? In Italian it could be "Fuoco, Aria, Terra, Acqua"...). Am I correct? ^^
(oh, right, forgot I got here because I wanted to unlock part of Peru in the world map; that would mean most likely Spanish, and the elements would be "Fuego, Aire, Tierra, Agua")
One of the more interesting takes on the theme, the narration is good, too; yet it's a tad short, and I'm afraid trying to develop this further would make the thing escalate pretty quickly. ^^"
The idea is great and the execution very polished, though I'd like to have some sort of hiscore tracking, or maybe score not being "Score", but rather "Clones", and not have ludicrous number of zeroes, but just show the number of clones? ^^"
Also, I'd like to know when I can still touch the past self (since I take clones aren't deadly instantly; otherwise the first clone would die just after touching the original); some sort of blinking, or bar, or any other indicator? ^^"
Could you please upload it somewhere else than Kongregate? For some reason, Unity on Kongregate crashes for me, while it works properly as a stand-alone page. *shrugs*
Definitely needs more instructions; I don't understand the goal at all! >.<
(also, it would be nice to have a visual indication whether the given world passes incoming flow or sends its own; perhaps if it sends its own, the incoming link would be cut short at the very end, showing a disconnection?)
Meh, it seems it's just more elaborate version of maze, with the most interesting twist being the torches; nothing that cannot be solved with a graph, pathfinding algorithm and potato chips. ^^" Also, the movement is really annoying; it seems that character gets a little stuck when near wall. At times like these I really strongly support grid-aligned movement... u_u"
Agreed with commenters above, the gameplay is a tad too simple. I liked the evil world, though; there is something charming about that setting, for some reason. ^^"
Rather adorable entry, too bad it's not concluded, I'm curious what would happen later. I also agree that walking is a bit slow, though at least there's the speed-up button (speed-up buttons, how useful they are...).
Still, that's really good as for 48 hours.
Alright, after playing around a little and moving the game to a different folder (I guess web addresses dislike "#" in the middle of URL ^^"), I got some thoughts. They are mostly critical, but please don't let it discourage you, but rather learn from that.
First of all - instructions and interface! At the very beginning, I was completely confused and had no idea what to do. Later I've finally found out that I can buy seats and beds, and then accept passengers, but it still should have been explained properly in game, IMHO.
I won't really comment on the long waiting time, just a hint: if lack of features (like asteroids minigame) would make some aspect too annoying (like the waiting time), focus on quickly fixing that aspect (like setting the times to much lower values). I had to do similar thing in my game: slow movement would make walking through empty spaces terribly, terribly boring, so I added speed-up button.
Another thing are the options in requests selection screen. You pretty much have occupied whole space with 2 planets data, leaving no room for more. Having e.g. some list of planets to the left could make the game much easier to add new planets to, generally, and I doubt many people would find a sim with 3 planets all that fascinating. ^^"
Also, after looking into Main.js file (to fix the times, yes ^^") I've noticed that w8 function had 6 if/else blocks that did basically the same except for the first line. To save some copy-pasting, I recommend (easy version) remove all the lines from if/else blocks or (harder version at first, but greatly pays off later) make the distances configurable in some arrays of arrays, or even (very logical and easily manageable version) determine planets x/y/z coordinates in space and calculate the distance from 3d version of Pitagoras formula.
I guess you aren't very experienced programmer at the moment, are you? Well, keep improving; I'd like to tell "feel free to ask if you'd like some help", but so far I haven't found a system on this site that would allow communication between two members (like private messages); maybe I haven't looked hard enough? O.o"
(sooo, my longest comment so far is on a game of a genre I even don't particularly like; well, things like that happen, I guess...)
Uh, in my previous comment, in the "I recommend (easy version) remove all the lines from if/else blocks" part I meant:
"I recommend to (easy version) remove all the lines from if/else blocks except the first ones, copying the removed lines after the if/else blocks beforehand"
or something similar.
Sorry for the confusion. ^^"
I'll be yet another person to complain about way too high sensitivity and footsteps. Leaving that aside, though, the game was actually pretty cool (though I wouldn't call it a pinnacle of horror setting, nope). Too bad I had to kill the monster in the end, just when he turned out to be pretty smart and trollish, rather than just yet another dumb zombie. ^^"
Graaargh, I got stuck at the Humpty's riddle (playing the updated version which is supposed to be finishable), which is all the more frustrating because a) I know the story, I just don't know what *word* exactly it is described with in the game b) the question cannot be brought up again, so I had to restart the game to know it's "what effect Lotus plant has", roughly speaking; at some point I forgot whether it was about the plant or the eaters, and things like "dream", "hallucinate", etc. didn't really wor; I even tried "book" or "seal", though I admit, I wasn't having high hopes about them. Exact words are terrible as an answer if they can't be found anywhere... and I can't see that word so far. >.<
Too bad, because it looks really interesting and I know where it's going (as if Humpty was asking that riddle without any relation to plot whatsoever); I just don't like getting stuck so early, apparently without sufficient clues.
Alright, I eventually managed to pass that riddle; still, exact words weren't the most fortunate here (especially since there are many different forms, and I'd sooner describe "effect" with noun or present continuous verb, rather than base verb; overall, exact words = trouble), and Humpty's clue was only available once. Also, I'm not quite sure how bookmark relates to the answer exactly... ^^"
Still, I eventually managed to complete the game and even managed to get good ending (on a side note, I consider it polite to end the game with GOOD END/BAD END, or otherwise indicate it's not the only ending player can get); the whole game was quite spooky and I once again got reminded of Eversion.
It sure was a longer adventure than I initially expected, and I really liked that. Not giving any scores, however, because I played the much more polished version sent after a few days. Still, after that polish it's one of the greatest entries I've had pleasure playing so far (but that rriiddddllee~!).
So, to sum up things that could be changed:
1. The riddle >.<
2. Indication of multiple endings at the end (GOOD END / BAD END or something)
3. Also, some "options" button, perhaps; it's not immediately obvious that they can be brought up with Esc, or that I can save game from there. ^^"
As for riddles: I'd generally refrain from exact word riddles (that require the player to input some specific word or phrase), with possible exception when that exact word is used rather visibly. In fact, I guess if Lotte used *SPOILER* "don't forget my advice" *END SPOILER* it would be easier to figure out and would be much more logical against "maybe the answer is right in front of you" part; since the word itself would be in front of the player indeed. Still, having multiple options to choose from is much safer in that regard; if player guesses at their first attempt, they'll have a satisfaction from getting it right, and if not, they might keep trying out other possibilities.
(but most of all - have your game playtested; it's players who can tell if the riddle is too difficult, not you)
As for options: I meant the pause screen itself, probably; the one that is brought with Escape button. I didn't immediately thought of that one, so I thought the saving/loading was simply missing or something. Might also have something to do with how most VNs I came across (most made with RenPy too, I believe) had save/load buttons in plain sight? O.o"
Hope it cleared up a few things? ;)
Also, do you mean by "future releases" even more improved versions of GOO (Best. Game. Acronym. Ever!) or other VNs? I guess I wouldn't mind either way... ^^
Alright, so I walked around, ended up in the place with red blobs (somewhat adorable, I admit) and got stuck. >.<
Too bad, because the game looks like it could be something. O.o"
It's not the first time I've seen this concept, but it's still done rather well, nonetheless. Too bad I got completely clueless at level 4, and then after climbing very, very high on some green spikey thing I fell off and was falling... falling... falling... and I was never heard from again. >.<
Interesting entry, but the compo version was just downright evil, making player start without some prior training or something, and in both version the main song starts being audible very late, making the beginning a pain - quite often I lost on the straight path at the beginning, and at later point, once I got into rhythm, I was losing on the bends. I didn't dare to beat 0.9x version, though. >.<
Oh, and I really dislike the green/red beats in the background; they're just so intense, and make my eyes tired. Maybe reduce their alpha a bit? Like, 5 or 10 times? ^^"
I don't care where the author is from, this has got to be one of the most, if not the most Japanese games out here! XD
Flying Spaghetti Monster would approve, I guess?
Nice puzzle mechanics, but the game felt really slow. Also, I was really disappointed to see that when I landed on the orange floor thing in the switch level, then turned around and walked away from green door and went to the end, nothing really happened except me falling. And it didn't restart or anything, so I had to start over.
Still, managed to complete it, though it took me a few tries to land on the faraway block in the congratulations level. ^^"
It definitely could use more polish, but the planets are so completely adorable at times. Too bad I couldn't finish this level starting with trampolines because it was just so random, and Earth was so slow, and when I eventually managed to switch the lever it turned out I stopped at the wrong position or I just ended up landing right on the spiked balls. >.<
Downloaded the Windows, ran the HTMl file, but apparently I wasn't able to play; it would just constantly load and load, or something, while displaying at the bottom something about being made in Unity and such...
(note that I've played many other Unity games, standalone as well as web ones)
There are two circuits you can collect at the (almost) very beginning: the easy one is in the red corner thing and is probably the one you gathered; the harder one is in the level neighbouring with the Graph Theory from the left, hidden in a spot behind a wall. As far as I know, the elements in other levels are easier to spot. ^^"
Hope this helps.
@Jesper: first of all, these "pipe" tiles are just tiles I didn't have time to draw the proper version of; the ones that are more detailed are how it's supposed to look like - you should be able to tell which directions they point to by seeing which sides are completely blocked, and which are open (e.g. the red-ish one corresponds to right-up tile).
Also, at the very beginning you can only swap two rooms before getting any further; then you should leave the terminal and move left, then proceed. The thing is, I can't really start with the smaller map, because it's the ONLY map for the whole game, and it represents the rooms. You find circuits, swap their rooms to make a path to rooms yet to be discovered, find more circuits, occasionally unlock some abilities etc. I hoped it would be intuitive enough, but apparently not for everone. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback, nonetheless! I hope to expand upon that idea later, with more dialogue and such... eventually.
@Rothens and anserran: thank you both for your kind words, they're much appreciated. ^^
@uprightpath: thanks for the answer, I'm glad you managed to complete the game eventually. I, too, found that some sort of map would be pretty useful; sadly, that's when I was completely running out of time.
Also, thanks for responding to my comment on your game, though just for future reference: when I leave some matter open, I usually check if developer did respond, once in a while. ;)
...seriously? -.-'
Parallel worlds have collided due to some interdimensional thingamajigs, and now, unlike before, parts of them are connected. At some point the player can even alter these connections.
Is it not enough? Should I have written "connected" all over the place to for this to qualify as use of theme? Personally, I think the best uses of theme are the ones that are apparent without explicitly quoting the theme, and I hope my game counts here. Referring to title alone (pretty much) to deny the use of theme, jokingly or not, is to me at least petty. >.<
@dunin: just in case you haven't noticed (and your criticism about walking sound might indicate so ^^") you can make the character go faster with Shift and toggle sounds with S, as it can be seen on instruction to the right, even captured in that very screenshot: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/wp-content/compo2/375043/39564-shot0.png ;)
"now you just need to care a bit more about the graphics"
*laughs hysterically while running wildly, shouting "I'M QUEEN OF THE SQUIRRELS!!"*
*ahem* That is to say, I ain't no artist. While the game as it is could use a bit more variety in graphics, like tiles or grass or something, the characters or the shruberries bird are nearly as good (in terms of complexity) as I can get. I can make the rooms livelier, definitely improve the GUI, quite possibly do some work on walls and replace the 45 placeholder room tiles in Graph Theory, but the general graphics style (like the characters) should remain the same. ^^"
(thanks for the comment, anyway; to you and to people above)
@Zathnic: glad you liked it; be aware that this game has a save feature, so if you get bored, you might come back later. Keep in mind that there actually is some completion screen once you put everything in order. ;)
(also, I hope the actual game won't be as repetitive, teehee~!)
Alright, so to address a few points, more or less recurring:
About travelling back and forth to the computer: yeah, I admit it's quite an issue, but once I sent some version, I'd rather not cause some bias now.
I will definitely include some sort of minimap to give the player better idea about their current position. Whether I'll include some sort of teleport-to-computer function I've yet to decide. My main concern is that it might allow the player to omit some important story segment or enable simple in-universe solution that renders the whole gameplay needlessly complicated (compare "why they couldn't use [revival item/spell] on [dead character here]"). Besides, I hope that
I guess regardless of adding teleporter or not, the minimap would answer most of Moosefly's questions:
- Where have I already been?
- Where am I now?
- Where was I headed to?
- How are the rooms connected to each other?
The only unanswered question would be "Which gates does each of these rooms hold?", but that in itself would be more of a puzzle - the Y+, V+, R+ and A+ keys correspond to different abilities, usable in different situations, and it's up to player to find out which ability works where.
About "Collided Worlds": thanks @ConflictiveLabs for pointing it out, indeed I made that typo in title screen. I take back what I said to MyougaHiroshi. ^^"
About figuring out what to do (mentioned mainly by Crowbeak): I take it's learning world-swapping mechanics that needs explanation? I guess I'll include some sort of instructions in Graph Theory that explain it in more detail. ^^"
About swapped Y-coordinates (mentioned by GrooveMan): well, yes, the trouble is that there are two Y conventions - "Cartesian" and "screen". The "Cartesian" Y coordinates are bottom-up, and are commonly used in maths. The "screen" Y coordinates are top-down, and are commonly used in regards to screen display, spreadsheets or the battleship game. I was aware of that ambiguity, but didn't really have time to think of some way to resolve it. ^^"
About the idea itself: glad you people liked it. And yes, fizzd, it's an original idea, though I admit I've got it some time ago and remembered for the time of compo. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback in general! I'll make sure to post related updates on Twitter, though first I'd need to polish my framework thing, and before that implement some unified data model so that, among other things, designing web pages wouldn't be such a pain. I just hope my personal stack won't get overflowed... u_u"
(on a side note, I'd have loved to make a HTML5 version of that game, too, but it turned out to be way too big can of worms; maybe the next time...)
Gosh, this really *is* hard. The fact that controls are WSAD doesn't help. >.< These are very nice effects here indeed, though (I didn't know why the title is "Ignis" until I tried out the heroic...). Still, I completed only the first level and it left me pretty exhausted; might have something to do with the fact that levels are long, which makes it more tiring than e.g. Meat-Boy ones.
(also, aside from typical developer bonus you already knew the arrangement of elements, which probably reduced the difficulty of discovering levels for you; not telling the game is impossible, rather that you had even more developer advantage than usual ^^")
It started out pretty interesting, got quite ludicrous at times, but that bank note grabbing stage and the dark room stage were antithesis of fun; I don't care whether it was on purpose or not, they simply weren't. >.<
Leaving these aside, it sure was one of the more unique entries out here. ^^"
Alright, I can't really tell what was going on, it told me to select a tree to connect, but after clicking the tree multiple times I've got no indication there is a connection. Maybe there actually was. >.<
It seems like it could be interesting after some polishing (what couldn't, though? ^^"), but so far somewhat unclear instructions with weird names, and my inability to establish apparent connection between the tree and the fungus caused me to quit. >.<
Certainly one of more original takes on the theme, but I can't win against this dual-core cheating bastard. :<
I barely managed to get a single goal. ^^"
The instructions were too well-hidden; by the time I found them, I had pretty much figured out most of it myself. >.<
Couldn't get past level 2. Also, I'd prefer if game speed bar wasn't so linear, or else I have trouble setting the game speed to 1.
It is pretty hardcore, yes, and I was about to quit, but managed to reach the other planet just in my to-be-last attempt. But sheesh, you don't give much room for error during the landing! You could have at least made that part a bit wider, now that the player finally reached that place. >.<
Still, decent entry, though not particularly outstanding against the others. ^^"
Rather cute graphics, but the gameplay gets bothersome after a while, especially if you lose your guard or encounter a collision bug and have to start all over again. >.<
Decent entry, nice audiovisuals (but the soundtrack *does* get repetitive after a while) and somewhat unforgiving gameplay; plus, I still have no idea what stars are for. The game stopped after level 4, does it mean I completed the last level?
Okay, it was rather interesting, though there have been only two choices from what I saw, out of which the first probably still had the same outcome eventually. There's just some thing I really wasn't fond of - it seemed only the characters' mouth expression changed during the conversations, while eyes, gestures etc. (especially eyes) were static, which made especially Claire look somewhat... I don't know, aloof? *shrugs*
Still, that's a nice start for your first entry. ^^"
Very solid entry, though gameplay becomes slow and repetitive after a while; also, didn't like the fact that I don't become a supermassive black hole at the end (the very eating of other planets WAS awesome, though, and that's what decided for giving it 3 points in Innovation).
On a side note, upon first playthrough I encountered division by 0 error in reptilian stage just after one of dashes. O.o"
Alright, completed it, got the not-the-bug crash at the end, though it required from me travelling quite a lot at very slow pace, and I didn't like that. ^^"
(plus, I got little idea why I'm collecting these circuity things)
Still, I admit, the square effect in the background was rather fancy. ^^
HaaayMaaan, how come you didn't tell me about your entry?!
The plot was rather... unexpected. And amusing. Graphics were quite decent, though somewhat bright, and the green background was standing out a bit too much against the actual elements. ^^"
Still, it was a good experience, though I didn't like how one mistake made me go back to the tutorial zone again...
Also, interesting how the worlds seemed to be simply at different depth.
The controls are very counter-intuitive and bothersome; in most games you have either up/down/left/right on WSAD and the direction changes instantly, or front/back/l. turn/r. turn on WSAD and the direction changes over time. Here it's up/down/left/right *and* the direction changes over time, which makes the vehicle a pain to control since you can't just make a delicate turn left or right. That's particularly annoying when I tried to grab power-ups.
Too bad, because the game, while very unoriginal, could be more fun to play otherwise; I'd like to see that rainbow/aurora upgrade in action. ^^"
Couldn't get past the the white wall at the beginning of the first level; the world switching felt very unresponsive. >.<
The story was a bit confusing, especially with all these pixels and such; it left a lot to be explained. And yes, this is not a game. >.<
I tried out both regular and fixed versions, couldn't complete either. Also, I don't like the detached text being displayed somewhere in the middle; additionally, it had a tendency to disappear more quickly than I'd expect it to...
It could definitely use much more polish, yes. >.<
It's not exactly the first time I've seen game like this, but I still like it quite much, after playing a few other entries with insufficient instructions or poorly balanced movement. Plus, there is something inexplicably cute about these balls with eyes, though I'd like their animation to be more random (like, rolling eyes ones in a while rather than all the time). ^^"
Didn't really like controls; it took me some time to figure out how to craft at all, and even then it was somewhat tricky; the items around didn't help grabbing the correct thing. >.<
The messages system is somewhat fancy, though; I'm not sure, however, how items receiving is handled and if it requires two people being online at the same time at least. Also, am I correct in suspecting that depending on island there are different elementary items (specifically, the unkown-named white stones and rubber trees on one island, and coconuts and palm trees on another)? Are there other items? How long it might take before my message reaches someone?
I guess that sort of multiplayer can get rather troublesome, overall, if the items we get depends purely on whatever people throw in... especially if they are on the same sort of islands as us...?
Alright, the graphics were quite inconsistent, I didn't really felt use of theme here and the engine was somewhat terrible, but this game is so silly that I still like it, somehow. ^^"
Interesting idea...
...but why multiplayer, whyyyy? I can't really play it because of that. >.<
The most outstanding entry I played so far; I really like Metroidvania games, and this time it's no different. The controls were confusing at the very beginning (personally, I'm more accustomed to Z = interact/proceed setup, so having up to interact, space to jump and enter didn't feel so convenient). Also, you might want to reduce inertia a little; as it is now, it's rather difficult to contol.
Still, the audiovisuals were pretty great; I really like the animation, especially the adorable expression of Noli while running. A lot of work went into that game, and it shows. Too bad it's incomplete, but that's what you get with 72 hours of time, I guess.
(oh, and one more thing: I'd suggest having all core instructions presented before there's any split to multiple ways; I went left at the beginning, and thus didn't have information about jumping or running)
It really is fast. o.o
And I still don't quite know what factors play the main part in taking over the enemy, despite having read instructions et al. In particular, where/when should I build radio towers, and where/when shield towers, and how the ships affect the gameplay and such...
(instructions, instructions, it's always them instructions... u_u")
The physics were acting somewhat weird, but I still somehow managed to complete the game. Moderately fun, in general. ^^"
The controls are very troublesome; managed to complete one planet, didn't dare to do another. >.<
Seems like it could have been interesting, but I got little idea about what I was actually doing. After a few turns I got rather bored and confused. ^^"
Very cute, but even once I managed to learn how to destroy asteroids (charge with one alien at high-speed; they stay alive after that) I couldn't make the tower, all these physics and the spinning are too wobbly. I don't even know what are their collision boxes. >.<
Quite fun entry, strongly reminds me of Worms. The sounds were very amusing. ^^
It was quite fun while it lasted, but sadly it doesn't even track the running, which leaves little motivation to try further. Plus, it could use more variety.
Interesting idea, but the movement felt slow and clunky, and sometimes I got stuck on the wall edge (faulty collision system, probably), somewhat killing the fun. The fact that I didn't know what is the ultimate goal didn't help, either. >.<
Pretty solid game, but I guess if I were to use that idea, I'd prefer to have some sort of puzzle/stealth game, where getting caught means immediate restart and instead of making rich poor and poor rich, you'd simply make poor rich (since at some point it doesn't really matter if someone has $ 100mil or "merely" $ 50mil) and rich would stay rich, just half as rich.
I guess I'll stop here before I start making kidney analogies.
Not a fan of visuals, definitely not a fan of audio. >.< Also, controls felt rather weird; I guess I'd prefer good ol' WSAD + mouse combo.
Still, I managed to beat it somehow, though the controls didn't make it easier. O.o"
Completed it, though the platform movement and ludicrously long falls didn't help here. >.<
And yes, naming folder "ld30" is not a good idea.
Played around with a bit, discovered 4 worlds total and various interactions between them; I didn't get to the last cloud in heaven because it was so far away, and after seeing the same animation of looking up, then slowly moving down over and over again I got too frustrated; I want an adventure game, not uber-precision platformer. >.<
Too bad, since this game really seemed like... something.
(oh, and also, it could use some sounds)
Very good puzzle game; the concept itself was indeed rather complicated, but the game did pretty good job explaining it basics, and I eventually completed all levels. Yay~!
One of the most innovative games out there, I think, and makes for interesting puzzles, too!
Interesting game, though gameplay wasn't very exciting to me (especially the two bosses I encountered seemed rather... slow? And they were waiting quite long between attacks? I guess I wouldn't mind if the game didn't have these bosses at all...). Audiovisuals were alright, though I didn't like sound effect of stringing the world (it sounded like I did something wrong) and the music instruments were somewhat... screechy? ^^"
Very fun entry, once I got the hang of mechanics it got somewhat entertaining (I'd like to have a visual difference between custom and built-in portals, though). Also, I liked the dialogue, but the ending was a bit meh, though. ^^"
Good entry, but there were too few of ponds around, the movement was too slow compared to the size of world and enemies encountered, I had to complete the bandits quest before getting a motorbike, but in order to do that I needed to get a gun, but I had only limited ammo in that gun and I couldn't buy ammo anywhere (maybe except for buying gun again). Then I ventured far south, but didn't meet anything, so I got bored and quitted. >.<
Perhaps I just didn't get lucky? O.o"
(Ps. In my game you can hold Shift to move faster)
Decent entry, though I had quite a trouble keeping track of all items at the same time; and neither I had a motivation to keep playing, since I'm not the one who likes to simply get the best score ever; beating the aliens would be a better motivation. But still, the gameplay somewhat confused me. >.<
Good game, if I haven't played through over 100 entries, I'd probably say it's one of the better I played. It had a nice variety while I played that, and these worlds were actually connected (with enemies health drops appearing later in the "real" world). Still, I feel somewhat sorry for Sara that has apparently been attacked with a stick...? No wonder she doesn't want Jimmy in her room. ^^"
Solid entry, I guess some scientists would point out a few inaccuracies here and there, but that would not be the first time a video game doesn't exactly scientific terms where they belong. ^^"
Aside from that, interface felt a bit clunky, though I guess it's understandable in that timespan (writing interfaces can really take much time); one thing I'd personally like to have is having North/South/West/East buttons arranged as directions they correspond to (North at the top, South at the bottom, West to the left, East to the right); that would make travelling more intuitive. ^^"
Spooky! o.o
Also, I got to be free, apparently. Yay?
(not exactly my favourite atmosphere, though; I generally prefer to have somewhat solid idea about what happened, eventually ^^")
On a side note, the first screenshot looked like a colour-swapped version of Cheshire Cat from American McGee's Alice. ^^"
Yup, that game is pretty excellent, even if short. Kinda reminds me of Ghost Trick. Graphics and animations, various soundtracks, pretty fun puzzles and the cat.
...come to think of it, it really is like Ghost Trick. O.o"
Sure I wouldn't mind seeing more of that...
Couldn't find the secret worlds. Also, I got blocked by an invisible wall when climbing. :<
Also, the character movement is kinda slow, would like to have a running option or something.
Very solid, somewhat addicting entry with good audiovisuals. The intro was a bit lengthy and I didn't quite know what to do at the beginning (that habit of mine, checking the game first and its description later... ^^"), but once I got the hang of it, it got quite pleasant.
Also, I'm not sure, but are the dreamt things (i.e. 4-matched groups) appearing in the background? If so, then it's quite a nice touch; I like that sort of gameplay and story integration.
Also, apparently I got a bug after losing due to filling the board. I clicked to proceed, then the board restarted, then the losing screen appeared, and it became unplayable, or so it seemed. ^^"
Pretty neat entry, reusing the old ideas in quite fun and challenging way. Liked the board shifting effect.
Decent game, but after some time it got pretty tiring, especially with mashing that X and C button...
(at least apparently friendly fire applied to ninja nazis, making them hit each other when I was jumping above them)
Aaaalright, so here we've got an adventure game, surprisingly long for that time-frame and amount of detail; somewhat simplistic, but still, that has got to be one of the best entries I've played so far, and completed, at that. Also, I must say the main character nailed it with his famous last words.
(sure the ending isn't as happy as it could be, but I expected things to happen that way, and was actually glad the main character managed to accomplish *something*, though the consequences are left unknown...; that is in contrast to Shoot the Shaggy Dog stories)
If I were to complain about something, it definitely would be inability to skip the dialogue lines (I had to wait once I've read everything, rather than proceeding early). Also, I'd prefer if inventory would have some sort of frame or something, to distinguish it from the environment. But these are details, the game is still amazing overall!
I'm finding some real gems today...
Uh, oh, this game is complicated. There are many, many resources, and a variety of options the game doesn't really tell about, leaving me pretty confused. Also, it seems like there's a lot of micromanagement and tracking involved, something I'd rather not engage in. >.<
But I must admit, soundtrack is very nice. ^^
Decent game, but the levels were too lengthy and difficult, making me give up on level 3. >.<
At my best I managed to chomp down 4 spaceships. ^^"
The yay:
- interesting mood
- original gameplay
The nay:
- troublesome controls
- hard to tell when to bite
- highly detailed cave contrasts a bit with spaceships
Pretty original entry, might be an interesting setup for something bigger and more polished.
On unrelated note: yay, mosaic!
My absolute favourite so far; granted, out of only 15 games, but still I really like what you've done here!
The wow:
- sound effects and music (to put it in better perspective: I checked if there's any convenient soundtrack link, and not finding out I just left the game open in background)
- graphics & animation
- all-round-polish
The yay:
- creative and well-executed game mechanics
- well-designed levels
The nay:
- could use some sort of tutorial; but it pales compared to the overall impression
I'd like to see enhanced version, especially with a tutorial and saving + level selection screen (and maybe different zones with different soundtracks, too?)!
Am I the only one who think that art is adorable?
*scrolls through the comments*
Nope, I'm not~!
The yay:
- the art, obviously
- audio (especially the sound effect of werewolf/siren/whatever other magical creature *whistling*)
The nay:
- during my first playthrough I started stuck between the tower and trees; I guess terrain generation is faulty ^^"
- ending could be a bit more rewarding, especially compared to prologue; come on, we want more of Henri's glorious art! :3 (werewolf turning back to human is a good touch, though)
- pages could be a bit more visible
Cute, if short game overall.
Yusss, I unleashed the terror of all my tentacles upon the world!
The yay:
- stylish
- interesting gameplay mechanics
- audio
- tentaclethoughts
The nay:
- no way to release tentacles (but you know about that already)
- gameplay felt a little slow
Pretty solid entry overall!
The yay:
- I got to be the king!
- different slime types
- mood
The nay:
- was kinda confused at the beginning; enemies falling on me and squashing me didn't help
Pretty solid entry, though not a highlight. ^^"
The yay:
- pretty interesting idea
- graphics and mood
The nay:
- it needs some sort of performance indicator; I don't know, cycles survived, children killed, anything that would work as some sort of hi-score metric or goal
- also, maybe start with slow health decrease, so that later it gradually becomes faster making things more difficult?
- game could indicate which area your mouse is in (i.e. scare-area, leg-area or grow-area)
- no audio
- space for restarting in otherwise entirely mouse-controlled game
Also, if you wanted to expand upon the idea, I suggest adding some sort of menu, along with ingame tutorial. I, at least, find it worth expanding upon.
That was certainly... a unique experience. ^^"
Pretty neat graphics-wise, but I found gameplay to be troublesome; at first, I couldn't really grasp how stars control the missile, and even once I got the grasp of it I found it quite troubling (partially because the turns are really quick, partially because it felt like the point of rotation is slightly off compared to star center). As for humour, not quite my thing, but whatever (I did smile on "I'll send you to heck", though). ^^"
The yay:
- graphics
- audio
- practice mode was somewhat cool
The nay:
- tried to get multiplayer to work, but was always connecting forever
- choosing "JOIN PRIVATE" option resulted in crash
- sometimes background was hard to tell apart from terrain
Overall, the game lost a lot in my eyes because I couldn't get it to work in multiplayer mode, which is where the most promising part (and theme execution) lies.
Reached level 3 before being cruelly slaughtered by a wizard. Hmpf!
The yay:
- a few skills, I guess?
- all your slimes are belong to us
The nay:
- movement! I've found no option to quickly move around without pressing the button constantly; I guess it's partially because of how roguelikes work, but I'd at least like an option to charge forward when I hold direction key long enough
- instruction dump in the title screen; if making a tutorial is too time-consuming, try to keep instructions brief or well-formatted
- instructions don't mention some things, e.g. that you need stamina to use skills and that it's tracked below health bar (and it wasn't immediately obvious to me, either)
- couldn't find anything that tracked experience, or whatever the levels come from
- can't really figure out the best tactics for specific heroes, and the game doesn't really help with that ^^"
- no audio
The meh:
- gameplay
- graphics
Tips for the future:
- clarity over features; it's better to have simpler but well-explained mechanics than lots of elements that mostly bring confusion
Good luck with future gamedev~!
Them monsters sure don't know how to beehive. >:(
The yay:
- overall presentation
- bonus areas
The nay:
- the trampoline was acting odd; sometimes I was standing on it, but when pressing up I'd jump as high as I'd normally bounced, anyway
- jetpack actually is a bit of a trouble once it wears off, as you can't gradually learn the obstacles to avoid with subsequent jumps
Rather solid entry overall, but a bit buggy (and I don't mean the bees). ^^"
I guess I managed to reach St. George, but couldn't beat him.
The game generally looks and sounds okay, but it's hard to tell what's going on sometimes (e.g. I can't tell when I defeat a knight after using fire, there's no death reaction or anything) and it gets kinda monotonous after a while. Also, I have no idea what the woman is for. >.<
The yay:
- graphics, kinda
- general mood
The nay:
- very, very clunky gameplay
- low mouse sensitivity
- hard to figure out what to do after collecting gun and thrusters parts
- movement feels really slow, especially when flying between planets
If you were to go on with this project, you really need to refine the gameplay. ^^"
The yay:
- variety of locations
- graphics & animation
- audio
- dialogue
The nay:
- got confused at the beginning, not knowing I can walk on checkpoint barrier
- the dialogue kinda distracted from gameplay at some segments ^^"
- the game would better fit the theme if we were playing as the other side *whistling*
Very good entry overall, one of highlights!
Made it to wave 2, couldn't get further. ^^"
The yay:
- general mood
- cutesy overload
- good and varied animation
The nay:
- second level has same layout as the first one
- background and elements graphics kinda contrasted with each other
- the girls are so pale that I initially mistook eyeballs for shut eyelids ^^"
Pretty solid overall.
I'm da destroya~!
(made it in the hard level)
The yay:
- cool gameplay mechanics
- nice graphics and audio
The nay:
- a bit confused about what to do at first
- game doesn't mention oxygen running out with time or, more importantly, that a charge can be planted with space
- menu is controlled when game itself is keyboard only
- SIZE! It seems there's quite a room for compression/removal here, starting with the main song in *.wav format; the game looks like it could easily fit in 10MB >.<
Pretty neat entry, especially for such a short timeframe.
After some playing around made it to the end. Kinda overlooked the fact that I can combine items. ^^"
The yay:
- art + audio = mood (I particularly enjoyed the music)
- well implemented adventure game mechanics
- story & dialogue
The nay:
- "empty" actions; i.e. some actions (interact, use item etc.) wouldn't provide any dialogue or anything (even something like "I'd better not touch it" or "I don't think it'd work" or "branch alone can't make a torch", except more ye olde Englishe); I'd like to get any feedback, even very brief
I don't know if you plan on continuing the adventures of not-really-monster-girl, but I'd welcome it very much if you did. :3
(WARNING: Might contain spoilers!)
The yay:
- graphics and audio
- somewhat challenging
- the general thought behind the story and use of theme
The nay:
- story execution (i.e. writing and specific events); while I get the general idea, I feel like it's incomplete or incoherent at some places and I can't put things together into a plausible picture. In particular, I don't know why such elaborate method of disposal has been chosen if simpler alternatives were likely available; or why the soldier was "abandoned", which would imply sustaining the illusion for absurdly long time; or how does one break through illusion and why the old guy couldn't. Upon closer inspection, this story feels somewhat contrived to me, as if the bad guys invented all this alien-slayer ploy just so that we can get a plot twist in the game, having little in-universe reason to do that otherwise. Or maybe there's some information I'm missing...?
- the soldier animation at the beginning looks weird without any arm movement ^^"
Mind, I generally found the game rather enjoyable and I do appreciate the attempt at story (it's probably still better than most of games around) and use of theme. However, having played a few story-driven games I might be more picky than average player. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback, people! Just to answer some of replies out there:
- yes, it's pretty generic snake, save for not-really-much-changing twist with targets and levels; didn't really get much inspiration this time round ^^"
- similarly, because of lacking inspiration I didn't really try to make anything more ambitious with the snake; this, and the fact it's more of a one-off project, I guess?
- I guess fruits and radioactive waste appearing from thin air make about as much sense as rapidly growing serpent, at some point capable of eating planets
- glad you people appreciate various sorts of little details I put in there; the core idea was simple, but I decided to wrap it nicely, for the heck of it; also, one of gameplay-related but hardly noticeable details is better support for U/S/Z-turns - if not for that, game would be quite unresponsive for such a quick switching
Also, I wonder if anyone (aside from me) completed all 8 levels. I confirmed it's quite possible even (especially) on Luminous Celerity speed!
Thank you all for your kind feedback!
@HayManMarc: Congratulations on reaching galaxies! By the way, "we"? Did you play with family? :)
@General: Glad you liked the twist and thank you very much for video review. That "aha!" moment when reaching second level was precisely what I was aiming for. ;)
@Odefus: Really glad someone else managed to complete the game on the fastest mode! And I agree, making quick turns more responsive required a little additional tweaking, but it was so worth it!
The yay:
- space whale!
- graphics create good mood
The nay:
- gameplay feels extremely clunky
- character hitbox is too large, often causing me to take damage even if sprite clearly didn't overlap with any danger
- random spawning can be very unfair; sometimes I started level very close to enemy and losing heart already, other times ammo packs spawned within force field
- ammo packs block my bullets
- no audio
- no in-game help ^^"
- level selection screen is a bit counter-intuitive; if I see the next planet somewhere down, I expect that down key will bring me there, not right
- Pluto needs more love ♥
- for some reason, main menu wasn't responding until I toggled fullscreen mode O.o"
Tips for the future:
- it's a good idea to make collect boxes at least as large as sprite (so that players won't experience hitting the collectible item and still not getting it) and hit boxes at most as large as sprite (so that players won't experience taking damage when missed a little)
- be careful with randomly generated levels; make sure to avoid very unfair or impossible to complete combinations
- do include your help screens in game ;)
Good luck with future gamedev~!
Got to level 6 with 100+ kills, got defeated by a stoopid bird.
The yay:
- animation!
- graphics in general
- somewhat fun
- the giant enemy
The nay:
- I feel like I don't know everything I should; for example, the white orbs left from enemies might or might not be experience, and I can't see how much is left till the next level, and I don't know if levelling up does anything else aside from restoring some bit of health...?
- the battle/movement didn't feel exactly smooth to me; maybe it has something to do with how you cannot move when attacking and that it takes a bit of time after attack before I can move?
Pretty cool (if maybe not very innovative) entry overall. ^^
Oh, also, the attack with mouse seems pretty unnecessary to me. I mean, mouse position doesn't really seem to be used, so it wouldn't hurt to make the game keyboard only rather than having player control movement with one hand and a single attack button with another. ^^"
The yay:
- looks pretty cool
- music is nice
- it seems there are quite a few interesting combinations available
The nay:
- couldn't quite get the grasp of controls; even the suggested combo didn't quite work out
- got stuck on 400-ish score :<
Overall, I think I'd prefer watching someone more skilled play the game to playing it myself. ^^"
The yay:
- adorable (if clumsy) monster
- mood
- non-standard use of theme
- graphics
- audio
- ending (with these sorts of games it could have been much worse)
The nay:
- movement is really sloooow
- controls felt clunky, especially when it came to hugging and releasing the stones
- I managed not to break a single house in the first town and they still put go-away sign near the third rock </3
Pretty good entry, overall, even if not the top-notch yet. ;)
@Shaun: yes, I put a rock on the ledge to the left of the first house, and jumped from there. Then later when backtracking I somehow managed to land perfectly between two homes, not harming either.
Don't underestimate the players. ;)
"Now, my brain is fried" - that's convenient, because fried brains are the best! ◕ ‿‿ ◕
The yay:
- choice of music
- I don't have to kill everyone, so I could confirm that entering the door and elevator in the last level has the same effect ;)
The nay:
- kinda rough round the edges
- zombie mode wasn't really implemented...
The meh:
- graphics (could use some consistency between gameplay/menus)
- gameplay (still, it's an improvement compared to BushidoBot *whistling*)
Overall, the idea has some sort of potential (the sort of potential many half-good ideas have) but it definitely needs more polish. ^^"
The yay:
- innovative concept
- pretty fun levels (especially since lasers started moving)
- good graphics (though characters kinda stand out against the rest)
The nay:
- inconsistent collisions checking (perspective-based for thieves, sprite-based for chalice)
- very dubious use of theme
- no audio!
I agree with others that it's an idea worth further development!
I really like how you added shadows to the objects, to indicate what is the actual collision area! I wonder if they can be made a little more subtle without losing their functionality, but overall you're going in the right direction. :)
Not shown: other band members revealing their inner demons as well.
(also, after a few tries I managed to get 715/793 with a "Drumbo!" rank, and I didn't need to repeat any section!)
The yay:
- really cool music
- original take on rhythm games - repeat a section until you get it right enough
- good effects
- graphics/animation
The nay:
- I felt like it was a bit too intense at times, especially with those triple key presses
- could really use restart option
- ability to redefine keyboard keys would be very welcome
- had to use mouse to PLAY/AGAIN in otherwise entirely keyboard-controlled game (plus in that kind of game you want to have your fingers prepared)
- just after launching, pressing DFJK gives me bad notes
One of my favourite entries overall! :3
Aaaalright, played a bit more, even reached DRUMSTER! rank with 744/726/18 notes after quite a few attempts (and even managed to perfect second level several times; I perfect the first level on regular basis). Once you get the hang of it, it becomes quite captivating, inducing "one more time" syndrome. :3
Also, one thing I've noticed is a bit of lagging, probably caused by soundtrack decompression (you probably use MP3 or other compressed format for tracks, don't you?) as it happened between different sections. I'd probably load the relevant and the next part directly into memory, as plain samples sequence (I used that trick in a WIP looping soundtrack player of mine, so that loops would be really seamless), or include WAVs if there wasn't easy way to do that.
Also, there isn't any rank beyond DRUMSTER!, is there?
The yay:
- art
- different creatures
- audio
The nay:
- no clear goal whatsoever (except in tutorial)
- gameplay feels clunky and glitchy
It could definitely use a lot of polish and tweaking. ^^"
The plot kinda sounds like the premise of "Pixels: The Movie". ^^"
The yay:
- art style
- audio
The nay:
- gameplay feels too slow and inert, making it way harder than it should be
- unpredictable bullets don't help, either
- crouch and pause are "locked" for whatever reason
- title screen stays for too long and cannot be skipped
Overall, it could really, really use some polish and balancing. As it is now, I've managed to reach the first boss after a few attempts, but couldn't complete the map.
The yay:
- graphics and mood
- dingleberries
The nay:
- movement is sloooow
- I'd like an option to manually advance dialogue, rather than waiting all that time
- music (the only sound there is) gets tiring quickly
- maybe reworking controls a little (e.g. a menu shows for multiple choice, instead of having two keys for different choices)
Pretty good, if a bit slow and short. ^^"
The core concept seems fine, but I'd prefer if there was something more aside from figuring things out by trial and error, especially with the games appearing and disappearing and such. I have very little knowledge about the general rules of the game (e.g. if games have set interval for appearing, or do they ) and that makes decisions even harder.
Also, I think it'd work better if creeps/orcs/zombies/robots had same price and same number of monsters inside (alternately, there could be packages e.g. with 5/15/50/1B monsters, each costing more than the other and 1B being boss). Furthermore, games themselves could have some variables that'd make one guess more likely than the other. Unless they already to, I can't really tell. ^^"
The game sure gives lots of choices! For example here: http://i.imgur.com/FmHM6YO.png
Either way, interesting visual novel and good take on inverting classic Tamagotchi. Most of the time the choices felt "too obvious" (i.e. it wasn't difficult to tell which effect they'd have), but I don't think it's a big flaw (it's not uncommon, either).
Graphics and audio were pretty cute, though sometimes I feel a font colour could have been chosen better; the narration text is a bit dark, and the red text kinda clashes with the background.
Still, pretty nice entry overall. ^^"
The yay:
- power-ups (two)
- allow player to play own soundtrack *whistling*
The nay:
- no hi-score storing!
- no difficulty progression (got score 200 until borequit)
- graphics are inconsistent (especially the moon compared to the nebula thing)
- sounds often seemed to be cut short, kind of like the next replaced the previous or something (instead of both sounds being mixed)?
The meh:
- gameplay
- story
- use of theme (one could change story to have humans sending their pilot against alien invasion and rest could play the same)
Tips for the future:
- if you make hi-score based game, make sure the best result isn't forgot the instant player closes game over screen
- simple yet consistent graphics are better than mix of crude and polished
- find way to handle sounds properly in SFML.NET?
Good luck with further gamedev-ing~!
I've got 52 score, if I recall.
The yay:
- quite amusing!
- wide range of goosethoughts
The nay:
- graphical inconsistency (especially pixelated objects with text)
- nullhonkers
- I wasn't getting any closer to Canada ;-;
I foresee it scoring high in "Humor" charts. ^^
(note that I played the post-compo version)
The yay:
- general mood
- different endings
- nice touch with eyes getting more and more filled with bloodlust
The nay:
- controls felt too slow and floaty
- intro text is replayed every attempt without any option to skip whatsoever
- endings could be a bit more rewarding
- game could also use arrow controls aside from W/A/D ones; while it's not a problem for me personally, I think people with AZERTY keyboard would appreciate
Pretty climatic entry, but gameplay needs quite a polish.
Effing Worms come to mind. ;)
The yay:
- more and more ridiculous upgrades, culminating in the grand finale against the Earth superhero
- visuals
- sound effects
The nay:
- takes some time to get started; if I didn't see the more advanced screenshots, I'd probably borequit at the first stage not expecting anything more
Overall, pretty nice silly entry.
The yay:
- spend a short while switching through menu options because of the selection sound
- somewhat amusing idea
The nay:
- very mistmatched graphics
- slow and clunky gameplay (especially with these collisions)
- level completion menu has hardly readable text
- music is played every time you enter the menu, with old one still in background
Tips for the future:
- consistent graphics, even crude, are better than full HD mismatched ones
- more often than not, slow movement is *not* a good idea
- either align movement to the grid, or make wall collision area not larger than sprite; it's really annoying when character gets blocked on nearby air or something
Good luck with further gamedev~!
The yay:
- funny premise
- the terrible monstrosity
The nay:
- the gameplay was so fast that I was completely STOMPED at the beginning; or rather, I kinda wasn't
- still don't know what the water hydrant is for
- no restart after end or anything
- despite its name, that banana peel has nothing to do with lizards or other reptiles
Maybe you'll have better luck (and more practice with tools) the next time? ^^"
Reached the boss, but couldn't beat it despite many attempts.
The yay:
- somewhat enjoyable gameplay
- varied art
- audio
- story
The nay:
- boss seems too hard, especially compared to the previous levels
- hard to tell how collisions work (sometimes I accidentally took health pickup because of that)
Quite solid, if a bit unpolished entry.
The yay:
- graphics
- different masks
- the boss
- soundtrack
The nay:
- masks don't change much aside from boss
- alright, I get that ghost can go through closed doors, but why my bullets do that, too? ^^"
The meh:
- main gameplay mechanic
Somewhat fun little game, even if not a stand-out.
"...and then, he became the best Pokemon-trainer in the world!"
(also, I managed to complete it on pacifist run; the level 5 bug made it all the easier)
The yay:
- story (panels, while it's not the best art I have seen, have some charm to them)
- each new brings new abilities
The nay:
- movement feels a little clunky
- consists mostly of platforming challenges
- animation looked weird sometimes (I particularly noticed it for rats)
- bats were appearing right in the middle of game view sometimes
Could use some polish, but the story is nice.
The yay:
- the art style
- the story (why did he leave the town in the end, though? D:)
- interesting take on theme
The nay:
- found the feedback a bit lacking; I'd like to have some indication of which element I can click, e.g. by it growing a little or something (kind of like upon clicking the element would make that "size bouncing" animation)
- minor bug: when I clicked near the flower cart at the beginning, where the bird person would *later* be, the dialogue option still appeared
Quite a solid entry overall, wouldn't mind seeing more of that. :3
The yay:
- graphics + audio = mood
- interesting mechanics; randomized heads make for a good layer of challenge
- includes penalty for needlessly poking dragon head (quite often I've seen games where button mashing was the way to go; thankfully, it's not one of these)
The nay:
- heads eat the furthermost matching birds first, which makes it easier for others to slip by
- no clear feedback when you poke the wrong head
- could use some keyboard configuration, maybe...?
Pretty solid entry overall!
Phew, I managed to complete it somehow.
The yay:
- pretty cool mechanics idea
- pictures
The nay:
- gameplay felt very clunky
- large luck factor in level 3 - the success depends on whether the kid goes up or starts wandering down
- the game could use mouse-based camera scrolling (i.e. when you reach the edge, the map moves)
The meh:
- ingame graphics
Overall, pretty cool idea, although the execution falls a bit short.
"Your adversary, Chaosmore the Omniscience" - not an author avatar at all. *whistling*
The yay:
- original handicapping mechanics
- various enemies
- mood
The nay:
- when I hit the questionmark block from below, no mushrooms nor coins appear! >:(
Somewhat interesting quirky entry.
Alright, managed to get all the endings somehow.
The yay:
- art + audio = mood
- multiple endings
- various dialogue options
The nay:
- really slow movement, making repeated playthroughs a pain after a while
- sometimes I felt like the font was off (particularly visible in "What the hell is going on" dialogue option; double "l" looked like a bold vertical bar)
- I still can't understand what *exactly* happens when; e.g. if there's any point of the "did you see anyone strange?" guy or why "put the cent" results in that ending; I can't even tell if it's because the game is unfinished or it was an intended ambiguity; the full version would probably help, I guess?
- woman's walking animation looks kinda weird O.o"
Also, if I were to pick a point where the use of theme is the most clear, I'd guess that'd be terminator ending (when you agree to come with that robot guy). At least I imagine that the main character destroyed the terminator and that's where the pile of metal came from.
"How do you call a Londonian cheese?"
"Why, it's Westmünster!"
The yay:
- the punomenal premise of the game!
- mockers that'd later taste the revenge
- neat graphics
The nay:
- gameplay feels too slippery and collisions seem unfair
- bugs - when they strike you, you are invisible and then might random-ishly die for whatever reason
- the mockers' speech bubbles covered one another
- I don't really know if the spark things have any purpose aside from bragging rights
Pretty solid, but gameplay needs some refining. ^^"
Yay, rhythm game~!
The yay:
- as mentioned, it's a rhythm game
- with a cool audio
- and cute graphics/animations and such
- and different sorts of enemies
The nay:
- the recovery time seems a bit too long; I particularly suffered from it in the last track where I had to continuously input about 8 notes in a row or so; it definitely should be at least slightly shorter than the shortest "beat", or else the delay will accumulate...
Pretty cool entry overall! ^_^
Oh, also, it could really use leave/retry button!
The yay:
- different kinds of enemies
- general concept of collecting souls and such
The nay:
- gameplay somehow didn't feel engaging
- jumping and running and flailing wildly seemed to work for about any sort of enemy, leading to some sort of monotony...?
- with that many villagers/enemies I'd prefer mechanics that don't encourage spacebar mashing
- the portal graphics are really inconsistent with the rest
Solid entry, but somehow I felt the gameplay wasn't that fun for me. >.<
I'd say that it's a nice little game if not for the fact it's not quite little; one could say it has grown quite long. Lame puns aside, the game has quite a few levels; I wouldn't mind if there was one mode with level selection and no hiscores, and another mode with a single run, three lives and hiscore tracking. Aside from that, I liked the concept and audiovisuals. Concept itself reminded me of my previous LD entry ( http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=preview&uid=39564 ). ^^"
One somewhat critical bug is that the game doesn't reset state after loss. I.e. I tried playing on hard, then I lost all 3 lives, but I kept the score and when I died on easy, I got back to menu. You might want to look into that.
Also, I'd like to see some music room there, where I could listen to the different variations of the soundtrack. I tried playing around with OGGs but it seems they're mixed inside the game itself. ^^"
Nicely done. The audiovisuals are really cool, and I like the general mood of gentlemanly wizard battle, with all that "Subtle Dispute" and such. Too bad I didn't have someone else to play the game with. ^^"
The concept itself seems interesting and somewhat original, but it's undermined by unnecessarily inconvenient controls . I'd rather prefer to just click on the action to perform, given there was already area to display all actions available. ^^"
I've been assaulted by angry integrated circuits! D:
Also, the game is quite pretty, but it seems to have no music, and I couldn't really figure out what to do. I managed to open some sort of gate and cross it quickly before it closed, then fell into a spike pit by falling through grating (bug, I guess?). I liked the red cosmos background, though.
I'd love to play and rate this, but get the same error as Linear. >.<
Thanks for the comments so far, I hope to return the favor, eventually. ^^"
As for the problem with building: I think it might be because of insufficient power. Generally, each facility construction process requires specific amount of power to be provided for specific time. You can track that time in the power management tab (second last one), as well as manipulate the priorities to allow the construction to progress in the first place.
Oh, and don't forget to click UPDATE button after you're done with energy management, either! ^^"
@squigglez: thanks for the report, I found the source of bug, next version will have it fixed.
I wonder how I should introduce the player to the game, as it seems to be the biggest issue now. Well, that and the fact that game is still very unfinished, so maybe if I actually add all needed options it'll help, if only a little. ^^"
Eh, I'm afraid I won't be able to make the next update before LD ends (so little time >.<). Guess I'll at least revisit the remaining commenters...
Pretty cool game. Liked the different enemies kinds, the narrative, the way theme is used and the janitor as a protagonist. Maybe a few kinks could be ironed out, but generally very solid and complete entry.
One thing I'd like is having subtitles for the crazy scientist's audio; I understood most of what he said, but sometimes had trouble figuring out what he said (plus, it's always nice to have subtitles, especially for deaf people). Also, I found the control scheme to be a bit tricky, especially since the most frequently used option is the one that requires two mouse buttons pressed (is that "two buttons control"? ;) ). I think it'd make more sense e.g. to have LMB held - aim & charge, LMB released - shoot, RMB - sweep.
Not the best entry out there, but it does provide a little fun for a while. Not much to say aside from that; graphics aren't particularly great, and audio is non-existent. ^^"
I managed to reach the last boss and even bring him down to some really dark state, but eventually couldn't make it. For the sake of my fingers I decided not to play again (please, no button mashers >.< ).
Aside from that, the entry is pretty solid, even if it's not a top-notch one. Good job. ;)
Well, made it to the hardcore mode, but didn't last much longer. I wonder why... *whistling*
Entry solid, but not exceptional. Could use some background music, I think. ^^"
(nice touch with a llama, though)
Well, that took a while to download; it seemed like speed was capped at 6-ish kBps. ^^"
Still, the entry was mighty fine, with its mood, wordless narrative and audiovisuals. The people and their demons were quite interesting; I particularly liked the old man and his demon consoling (?) him.
It felt somewhat short on the mechanics aspect; the platforming wasn't practically used, except for a few jumps every once in a while, and sometimes the choices ended up off screen (e.g. demon's hand-down). Also, it seems there's no way out of the ending screen, and one would be useful in this game especially with the replayability factor present here. ^^"
Well, the audiovisuals aren't stunning and the idea isn't super-fresh; it's pretty much a text adventure with unorthodox controls, after all. However, I rather liked exploring different options. I found a multitude of 2 good endings, many bad endings and one false bad ending (i.e. the one where you watch TV with orcs; how can that be a bad thing?!). Humor is strong with this one.
Nice little game, using both themes well. Audiovisuals are great as always in your games. One oddity I've found is difficulty progression - I've found the second level to be much more gimmicky than the third (and pretty much the last) one. The aforementioned second level was probably the most interesting one, too. Great job, overall. ;)
Pretty cool concept, though grows a bit stale after a while (and I don't think that's the sort of growing you wanted to include in the game). It could benefit from larger variety of enemies, maybe larger variety of what the main character can do or something? With shooting and movement using the same cursor the movement becomes unneeded after a while, since you're better off taking down the enemies anyway, and moving towards them just makes you even easier target. Also, the enemies could spawn around the entire game area instead of 8 predefined points. ;)
Not bad for a 5 hours of development, and it addresses the "two button controls" theme, too. I'd have liked some other controls, e.g. right for going right and up for jumping. The collisions seemed to act weird sometimes, too (especially when I was killed by these mean spikes :< ). Also, where you got the soundtrack from? I believe I heard it somewhere before...
On a side note, I liked the game icon. :3
Nicely made game, though I got confused at the very beginning; I guess it would have helped if the line evaluation didn't happen in the middle, with the bottom row displayed twice, but instead the bottom row itself would get the attention. That, I think, would make things easier to understand.
Putting that aside, the game was pretty nice, if maybe not the most original around here. Either way, good job. ^^
The entry's strong points are certainly audiovisuals and mood. The game involved quite innovative mechanics, and having different kinds of fruits and enemies was quite interesting. I had trouble understanding the game sometimes, however; I thought the fruits were supposed to attack nearby valid targets automatically, and yet they need to be thrown or something. Also, when some fruit was "killed" it respawned somewhere nearby (or such an impression I got) and yet I found the number of fruits of specific type was decreasing.
Still pretty cool game, though; made it to the rather appropriate ending. ;)
That's pretty darn impressive game you got here, and one of the very best entries I've seen here (if not the best). The mechanics are smooth, the obstacles are varied, the levels creative, the progression logical (I liked the touch with lowering number of stakes), the graphics stylish and the bosses entertaining (maybe except for the first one).
I'm not sure if the silver bats weren't underused. Also, there might or might not have been some music; sometimes I got impression I heard something, but might be random noise around...
Still, really great entry here. Looking forward to more games from you. ;)
I completed it on level 4. Can I get a cookie now? :3
That was quite an interesting take on the theme, rather difficult to play on higher levels, too. The visuals weren't particularly fancy, though; they don't need to be super-elaborate, but I think at least a change from dull grayscale could help.
On another note, I'd have preferred if the level generation algorithm avoided clusters of swappable letters, while leaving large areas of words fixed; it makes some areas nonsensically difficult and others just a decoration.
Overall, pretty interesting entry. If you expanded upon that idea, though, I'd recommend making it so that it accepts all combinations of existing words on both lowercase and uppercase crosswords; at some point it didn't accept SNIP but accepted SPIN.
Got nearly 150k worth of score. That started really slow, and initially I thought first there is no gameplay at all, and then there are only line-like enemies and no variety. Then upgrades and triangles happened, and things were looking a bit more interesting, though the game still becomes rather boring after a while. There were shapes that move (shift) around, but I think it's a rather weak use of theme. ^^'
Oh, also, I think some sort of crosshair or other mouse indicator would be really helpful. The mouse cursor didn't display for me, so I had a little trouble aiming. Plus, the arena borders could use different graphics than flashy rainbowy epileptic lines. ^^'
It was fun to play around with my super-powered gatling gun for a bit, even if it's not really the greatest entry around (those are rather few and far between, anyway). ^^'
Yay, I managed to complete the game without any game-crashing bugs whatsoever.
Well, that was certainly a curious take on theme, in a way more than one. The story seems rather interesting, too, but I can see quite a lot of unused potential here. The thing is, with how this game tackles the subject, I feel that:
- the game is somewhat "inflexible", it kinda handholds the player - each client has 2 "effective" items and the rest are "useless" items, there's a clear pattern determining which is which, and player gets instant feedback from management (rather than leaving the consequences to discover for the player later)
- the game is one-sided - literally all clients crave for something they don't need and might in fact harm them, and it appears the best thing you can do to them and the humanity is to remove their needs altogether; which has somewhat unfortunate implication that to make people satisfied is to strip them of their dreams - is it really what we want? O.o'
- the game is unconvincing - despite giving customer files feedback when the player is on the wrong track (or no track at all), I've seen no feedback when I do things right; I could imagine the clickbait writer becoming a proper journalist and finding her true call there, or the sex-craving doc advance the research for common benefit, or the singer giving an epic goodbye tour or something like that; I can't immediately think of something for gamedev, and while I'd like gang member to settle down and pursue calm life, I'm afraid that's not how Yakuza works...; the thing is, the game doesn't really explain how exactly my actions benefited the clients or the humanity
How I'd rather do that instead:
- come up with people who have some requests, which might or might not reflect what they actually need (I think that maybe not always, but sometimes people actually *might* know what's good for them)
- have a bunch of enhancements, that might better or worse correspond to the needs/requests
- for each client and enhancement, I'd consider what impact this enhancement would have on the client, even if it appears unmatched (it'd be rather curious, having wisdom enhancement on doc cause him to finish his research and realise all that sex stuff is unnecessary, anyway); some would more or less improve the clients' lives, some would cause smaller or larger harm, some would be indifferent
- drop the opinion from management altogether, or make it just that - an opinion, which might or might not be accurate; and instead let the player discover the consequences through the client files feedback
Excuse my essay, it's just I feel that theme has so much potential it feels wasteful to me to use only a fraction of that. ^^'
All those points above aside, I still think it's a pretty great and well-executed entry (the crafting mechanics were rather cool, if maybe a bit clunky at times; I particularly disliked SUBMIT being so close to TOOLS). Definitely one of this Dare's better games. ;)
Quite a fun puzzle idea. I liked the general mood, animation etc. too, it's a well polished entry. If there's some issue, then maybe that it's too short. ^^'
Still, pretty good job overall!
Aw, too bad it's Mac only, because it's a game I'd like to try for the title alone.
Alright, that was rather fun puzzle idea, but sometimes I felt there wasn't enough determinism in the game behaviour; usually when two pieces needed entered the element at the same time, and the output element would then pass in the either direction. Instead I'd prefer if the game was more "discrete", in that all that shapes moving, inserting and outputting would be done on some regular "ticks" or something like that, making the game behaviour more orderly.
Still, it was pretty fun to play for these several levels.
The game is pretty cute. The art style is simple, but serves its purpose, and there was a good variety with the minigames. Mechanics were working pretty well, too (though driving was a bit of a pain). I'd have liked to have some special ending for getting 11/11, though; it's always nice when perfection is rewarded. Also, I haven't heard any audio...
Good job overall. ^^
Neat visuals and sound, though the gameplay got stale for me rather quickly. I guess some variety in enemies behaviour could help, or something similar, instead of just the plain "follow the player". In such case, I guess making the map bigger (or player/enemies smaller) would help, too.
Upon checking the post-Jam version, it seems qutie livelier, probably due to animation and audio. It might or might not have better difficulty curve, too (i.e. it didn't feel overly easy for too long now).
I'm not quite fond of the UI bars, though, especially the healthbar with that white background behind it; plus, it'd be nice to add some full bar background, or other indicator of what's the maximum value of a bar.
Oh, also, I think I pinpointed some annoyance of mine; namely, moving along the walls of arena is anything but smooth. I think it'd feel better if the character nicely slided along the circular wall rather than get kinda blocked on that. I wonder if the game would work better if it used polar coordinate system (up/down for radius, left/right for angle) rather than Cartesian one (up/down for y axis, left/right for x axis), since the area seems suited better for that system. Dunno if it'd work, but if you have time and will to experiment a little, then maybe...
That was rather original entry. Kind of like visual novel, but simpler in story and a bit wackier when making choice. After lots of branching it becomes a bit tiring, though, especially the fox in Egypt arc. Maybe include a feature that allows just proceeding with the parts of story already discovered, or something? ^^'
(after all, it takes only 8 pieces of story, each branching into 2 choices, to make some shapes being repeated over 100 times across all gameplays...)
Still, the magician hat eaten by a pacman is the best! :3 Quite cool entry overall, but I think it needs some features to make repeated branching easier.
That was quite an interesting idea, though I find it a bit hard to tell if it would evolve into something fun with more puzzles and obstacles or not.
Also, I can confirm that starting late kinda sucks; starting late after having work done on earlier idea even more so. >.<
Hopefully you'll get more inspired for the next LD.
A platformer where you switch between two worlds? Pshhhh, that's so 5 Jams ago!
I tried playing the game thrice, at second attempt getting even a bit far (defeating the first boss as well), but got literally stuck (as in, game-breakingly stuck) in all cases and giving up in the end. The platforming here felt rather sloppy (and not really because of slopes), dialogue was getting cut on the screen of 1024x768 dimension, no matter how much I pressed Ctrl I couldn't get the cat to use fire breath, and in the final battle I lost and was moved to the last checkpoint, blocked out of the game area. In the end, the impression... wasn't particularly favourable. >.<
Perhaps the next time make sure your game has no critical bugs (possibly getting someone else to test it, if possible)? They can really get in the way of the game...
So... I take that she wasn't a virgin after all? ^^'
Pretty decent mix between a puzzle and a stealth game, but I've found controls really sloppy, often ending up walking a tile further than I intended to or having the vampire feed himself with no particular input from me. The graphics are solid, but not outstanding.
Overall a decent entry, but somewhat rough round the edges; could use some tweaking (especially movement).
Nice puzzle, even if a little short. I've found the sound effects to be a bit too loud, especially compared to the soundtrack. The mechanics were rather interesting, having shapes buffer to swap different shapes around was an interesting twist, but ability to combine and separate the current shapes is what made things really neat. I think that, in general, it's an idea that's worth expanding upon.
Overall, you've made your point.
Pretty neat entry. A bit tricky to figure out at first (as there isn't really much time to play around and learn at that point), but once you get the hang of it it's rather pleasant, if maybe a bit too simple. The graphics weren't really top-notch, but they have their charm and serve the purpose well enough. Pretty neat game overall. ^^
Well, the audiovisuals aren't exceptional (though I liked the design of later levels; it's just that sometimes things looked weird for some reason), and mechanics aren't perfectly polished, either, but the game still is somewhat enjoyable. The shapeshifting maze mechanic sounds rather interesting (not unique; there has been similar concept, but still not overdone), perhaps it could work as a sort of puzzle...?
Pretty solid game, overall (even if the game is a bit slow when not running).
Haha, that entry is pretty sweet. Small, but has a bunch of touches that makes it feel complete (especially the slow-motion part). Really cool work. ;)
Creative concept, but kinda killed by poor mechanics. Just for the record, I've found the most efficient strategy to stand around and do nothing, with a sword lagging behind; enemies would then walk onto the sword themselves and I'd be virtually invincible, if not for the aging.
Graphics are alright, but not stunning. Music works fine, though I haven't heard sound effects.
Next time, you might want to focus on the mechanics rather than title (or at least in-game art player will see 99% of time, rather than a title that player will see only for a bit). ^^'
A platformer with changing shapes. Nothing too special, but I kinda appreciate the different forms and their properties (especially the long one and round one). Graphics work, too, though I'd kinda prefer if the ground blocks weren't so "disconnected" sometimes, or that the goal was more fancy. Blocks, on the other hand, had some nice symbols on them.
Overall, a solid, if maybe ordinary entry.
Hmm, the game difficulty feels kinda unfair. Like, you need to be really precise to enter the center, and it takes long to go from the very top to the very bottom. I sense the serious need for rebalancing. The fact that restarting requires mouse while the game does not adds a bit of annoyance, too... I didn't see any difficulty progression, but then I guess there's little room for one, and no opportunity for me to notice it. >.<
Too bad, because had the game been more balanced, I guess I could enjoy a few plays (even if the idea isn't particularly exceptional). Better luck next time, maybe? ^^'
It's not particularly innovative gameplay, though I like the idea of using cellular automata to alter the maze (not sure if it would work for a more advanced game, though). However, at some playthrough I've found that the end game point was stuck between walls and it seemed to be fixed that way (as if it reached a stable structure or something), so it seems the game is not always possible to complete. Good call with making area around the player stabilised, though.
Overall, pretty nice idea, though it's hard to tell if it'd lead to something greater.
Huh, that was an interesting idea. Even without reading on the game, I've noticed some face-like shapes (though for some reason I've noticed some of these on the mountain-side rather than sky-side...). However, I didn't quite figure out that I had to mouse over an eye. The fact that I didn't notice the plus-sign didn't help, either...
That's rather atmospheric game indeed, though the background music might not loop perfectly. Maybe it could work with more levels, maybe not...
Alright, played the additional levels, they're rather cool, though level 2 mountains have too rough edges, I think, making the faces harder to find because the faces are smooth, and the mountains are sharp (I hope you know what I mean). I particularly liked one of the faces in level 3 (you know, the one that uses really cool idea).
Oh, also, nice touch with the heads in the interface, as well as the some-sort of noise texture on sky or something...? Can't quite name it, but I think there's some effect on the sky that wasn't there before. ^^
Somewhat hilarious take on the chess, one of the best uses of theme in the entire Jam, really interesting puzzle.
One thing I found annoying is that sometimes I don't feel like I can determine mechanics. As in, in level 2 I was doing some random moves which didn't lead to checking the enemy king, which would make an easy win for AI, but instead it randomly decided to beat the top-left rook instead (even though usually it made its checkmate right). I think it'd work better if it was clearly stated, that if you don't check the enemy king, be prepared for the opponent making checkmate on you instead.
Also, sometimes I couldn't quite see what move did the enemy make, nor could I tell how I've won or lost, because the final window completely covered the board. I think that requires fixing.
But that aside, it was very fine and interesting puzzle (of course, not too much fun with only one level). Certainly one of this LD's highlights.
146. As in, one hundred fourty six.
For some reason it looked like, as I was prepared to accept a circle, a diamond suddenly rushed at insane speed and ended the game. O.o'
I quite enjoyed it. It's essentially a variation on the shape-gate endless runner, but it's one of the few games that does it right, not making player do some micromovements to fit into the slot or whatever; just changing the shape accordingly. Different sounds for crossing different shapes was a nice touch, too. Nice game to play for a little bit.
The idea was certainly innovative, though the execution needs a bit of polish and balancing. For example, once I get shoved a bit to the left, I can't seem to retain my original position (I even tried pushing ball to the right by widening a wall, but either I failed to do so, or it's not possible). Also, I'm not sure if the random platforms generation gives any guarantee that some segment will be possible to complete (guess it's not really easy to determine that, huh? ^^') which is essential for a fair, skill-based endless runner (as opposed to luck-based one). That aside, mechanics themselves seemed to work properly, and visuals are good, too.
In general, solid entry, though I feel it could really use some balancing.
Uh-huh, I wasn't really fond of the controls; personally, I'd have preferred WSAD + mouse + LMB; in the game turning around etc. felt way too slow and didn't really leave room to work around the wolves. Also, I don't like the idea of gameplay relying on finding secrets, especially if the game gives no indication where these are, or even whether I'm hitting the wall or not (punching sound effect is same for both cases, so I can't be sure if I'm really hitting the wall or not). Made it to level 4 twice, but couldn't complete it; I didn't find the fabled secret, either.
From other things, I'd like to have more perspective and have different parts of the maze more distinct. Maybe it's the point of maze games to be easily lost, but in such case I wouldn't find plain mazes (or easy for losing-and-having-to-restart mazes, for that matter) particularly exciting. ^^'
The gameplay concept in general seems decent, and audiovisuals work well enough (though nothing mind-blowing here), but due to some details (mostly controls and having to restart every time I lose) I can't really find it truly enjoyable. Sorry. ^^'
And another shapeshifting platformer. Granted, this one uses involuntary shapeshifting rather than player-controlled, which is a bit of a change.
That aside, the gameplay was somewhat solid, though perhaps not quite smooth. The graphics and audiovisuals weren't great, but worked well enough. I'd have liked some indication about how much health I've got, though, sometimes it's hard to tell if the enemy chipped a bit away or not.
Also, I completed the boss battle. Yay.
First of all - please, please don't mix mouse and keyboard controls unless necessary, especially if the keyboard controls involve anything more complex than arrow keys/WSAD. It's a pain to switch to mouse just because menus don't do keyboard. >.<
Second - I wonder where all that filesize came from, since the game itself seems rather simple and I don't see too many assets or special graphical effects, either. O.o'
As for the game itself, there's quite a room for improvement. In the upgrade screen, I'd really like to see the exact parameters and how they'll change depending on the upgrade. So e.g. it's not just "Reduce Earth Cooldown", but rather "now the cooldown is 5 seconds, but for that upgrade point it'll reduce to 4.8", that sort of feedback. As for the gameplay itself felt rather clunky for some reason, and I kinda just wanted the levels to be over already. Also, I really don't like the tendency for levels to become longer and longer; prolonging time to survive usually just makes things tiresome rather than challenging; maybe just stick to making enemies stronger with each level instead? I liked that there were a few kinds of enemies, but it wasn't enough to keep me really entertained, sorry. ^^' Oh, also, it'd be really nice not only to have shown whether a spell is in cooldown or not, but also how much cooldown is left (e.g. by gradually filling the elemental change indicator or such).
I found the graphics to be a tad too simple for my taste, and the music seemed to go on really chaotic; like it was different tracks pasted together rather than one coherent piece. That might require some work, too. Another thing - the menus were bugged; i.e. after a game over I restarted and the buttons stayed there or something.
Overall, keep working and learning, there's some way to go. ^^'
To be honest, two levels are way more than enough. That game seems to combine the challenge of quick shapes parsing (i.e. how to react to opponent's shape), memorisation (because the game goes so fast that it's easier to memorise the patterns than react to them on runtime) and endurance (unforgiving life system). The mix of those doesn't really end up well; I mean, I don't really feel like completing level 1 over and over again so that I could learn how to complete level 2 (and it's rather lengthy, too). Remember that, as a creator, you can easily figure out the level as you make it; players don't have that luxury, and learning the level will be more painful for them. That is, if they want to reach a reasonable score, because for large time you can just stick to the bottom of screen and stay relatively safe (and limited lives don't really encourage player to do otherwise), skipping some segments altogether...
Oh, also, twice in level 2, somewhere around the life power-up, I got killed when hit by a bullet, even though I had shield on. Needless to say, I didn't like the fact.
That aside, this entry is quite well-made in terms of audiovisuals, mechanics and enemies variety. It's mostly the challenge design (i.e. combining lives system with not-so-easy levels) I find troubling. I think that if you made gameplay a little slower, but use random enemies, that'd shift the challenge from memorisation to reaction, which I think suits that game better.
Got the score of 27.
At first it seemed like merely a curious variation of the shape-switching gate-matching endless runner, with swapping shapes around. Then colours started getting misleading, and things got a little more fun. Then multiple shapes at once started appearing... I managed to successfully swap a few, but things get pretty intense at that point.
Overall, it's really cool variation of that ever-so-present with this theme gate-matching endless runner. Maybe at later point even more shapes need to be matched, I dunno. Really neat, anyway. ^^
When the theme said "Shapeshift", you actually meant environment changing all around, not the main character being "shifted" or "moved around" and being a shape, right? ^^'
This entry was pretty fun to play around, some levels were easier, some harder, some left very little room for error (esp. the questionmark one) or required quite an endurance, but in the end all were passable and none felt particularly unfair. I just have no idea why sun is involved in particular. ^^'
(also, it's a bit of pity you didn't use some opportunity for untold story; like, the environment getting more and more annoyed at that arrows controller flapping around; there seemed some episode with DIE level followed by some possibly sadistic (?) face, but wasn't eventually brought to conclusion)
Really cool entry overall. ^^
Oooooh dear, the game was really sweet in terms of gameplay and audiovisuals, until Divine Temple appeared; it's pretty much an overkill, as it adds the challenge of actively avoiding shapes atop the aligning the shape just right and controlling its mad, mad spinning. I never got any reasonable shape on that one, and I did try. >.<
If not for that level, the lasting impression would be quite favourable, but it kinda spoiled it. Be careful with the last minute additions the next time... ^^'
I've got to admit, though, that shape-matching mechanic was quite smooth and smart. It's not really something so simple I'd come up with immediately, and it actually tells something. Really good job on the programming side, aside from the art.
The story is there, though I didn't find it to be the highlight; maybe it has something to do how the god kinda encourages wiping out people and stuff, which makes me hard to sympathise with that god. I dunno, maybe I expect from the higher being more maturity than just smiting enemies and basking in glory...?
Overall, quite a cool entry, heavily spoiled by the last level.
Is it a fun concept? Maybe it's a fun concept. Hard to tell, because I don't have anyone to play the game with. ^^'
The mechanics seem to work correctly, but I've found controlling to be somewhat unintuitive; it'd feel more natural to me if I could perform all actions with left mouse button (rather than having LMB for selection and RMB for action). It'd be nice to see which units have made their move already and which can still perform actions as well.
I wonder if this game wouldn't work better as a board game, or maybe remote multiplayer rather than hot-seat. That could open up some opportunities related to players having secrets not know to each other, so e.g. an addition of "spellcards" (i.e. special one-time effects to turn the things around) could be feasible. Another alternative to make the things less predictable and more interesting could be having a random factor (though there's a risk of making the game too luck-based). As I see it now (though without really trying it out in action), this game lacks the element of unpredictability (i.e. players can account for each other's possible moves in advance, and none other), and isn't as complex as e.g. chess to compensate for that.
Oh, also, the visuals were neat, but not mind-blowing. ^^'
The mechanics are rather solid here, but they don't make for a particularly interesting gameplay - I've found the fights to drag on and on (especially with more enemies); I'd rather have a bit higher damage, or at least some indication of how much opponent's health is remaining, to have some feeling of progress.
The touch with standing in the moonlight to transform was nice, and it was good that human and wolf forms had different abilities; though in the end, in combats it was pretty much "be werewolf as much as possible", anyway. Also, maybe the transformation itself could have some indicator, e.g. the screen gradually becoming a bit brighter until it's complete?
The graphics weren't great, but they set the mood alright, especially with those bloody-boney props. The narrative worked well, with the game, too.
Overall, the game is solid, but kinda dull gameplay-wise at the moment. Maybe try to add a bit more variety there? ^^'
Finished with 58 deaths, if I recall correctly.
Wow, that's some pretty sweet mechanic you put in place here. Not only that, you make quite a great use of it, too (especially the lasers). The shifted world not staying in place unless I micromanage it is kinda annoying, but also understandable given the reality kinda tries to reassert itself, or something.
The graphics are pretty neat, though the main character walking animation seemed kinda off; like it's stiff, or maybe it doesn't match the walking speed? Can't quite put my finger on it. The audio isn't particularly advanced, but it builds the mood alright.
Yet another pretty impressive work I've seen this Jam (if rather difficult; it could use some saves to complete it in multiple goes, maybe?).
Oh, by the way, I've seen multiple games with mouse-controlled menu and otherwise entirely keyboard-controlled gameplay, but yours has to be the first one to do it with such a flair, even including a special cursor graphic for that. I still think keyboard-controlled menu would work better, though. ;)
The gameplay isn't particularly creative, though a twist with watching the shapes' change and striking at the right moment was nice. I quite liked the audiovisuals, too (especially the animation).
Overall, maybe not outstanding, but pretty solid entry nonetheless.
Alright, got a first post-Jam update, mostly aesthetic for now. I dunno why I don't focus on mechanics instead, maybe that's because Richelle is so irresistible?
At SeaMonster and mooncalf: well, figuring out how the machine works is one of the big parts of the game (of course, if mooncalf couldn't even have fun, that'd be troublesome). Another matter altogether is that the game perhaps leaves a bit too much open to interpretation; I plan to make an easier introduction for the core elements in the game in one of upcoming updates (maybe even the next one).
@GameQuester: yeah, I'm afraid the gameplay at this point isn't that engaging. It probably would work better as something to casually go back to and play around with, rather than to complete in one go. However, until I implement saving (which might get broken when items list changes) that won't really work, huh...?
@medidog: It's not really *that* random (I even implemented a queue of sort that prioritizes items not yet received), but I can see why the mechanics aren't that obvious (well, figuring it out is one of the key aspects).
Either way, I added some indicators to the machine in the recent build. Maybe with those in place you'll find it easier to figure out how the machine acts?
@Ithildin: thanks for constructive feedback, it helped me quite a bit. In the most recent build aside from prettifying the machine I've added some screen-switches so that one can jump between Newton/Richelle directly. Also, as per your suggestion, clicking on the synonym hides the list automatically.
(on a side note, funny that you mention "thesaurus" section, even though I don't recall using that name directly, aside from game code and files; did you perhaps decipher some pun out there...?)
Thanks for the feedback people. I'm not sure if the tutorial makes the gameplay easier to figure out or not, but since then I didn't get complaints about that, so yay...?
@Swynfel: really thanks for the awesome and detailed feedback. Glad people are able to figure the mechanics on their own; one of the biggest challenges of pattern-finding puzzles is balancing them so that they're neither too easy nor too hard to figure out (as opposed to constrained puzzles, such as Sokoban or Sudoku, where solver is familiar with the entire domain and just needs to narrow down the solution). What I like the most about the vending machine mechanics is that they're fundamentally simple - their essence can be captured in one sentence with two verbs.
As for the indicators, I guess they don't really help that much with determining the nature of the machine, but they can be helpful once you figure it out. Especially if you poke the indicator board (i.e. left-click on it) - all the lights then become stable, reflecting the actual state, until you move the mouse elsewhere. I used it to determine what sort of ingredients are needed to get the item I want.
As for the animation on presenting something: I dunno, I did make an animation for dropping an item into the machine, and sliding an item that's served; and the reroll button even has the effect you seem to describe, i.e. current items slides out, the next item slides in. It lasts for about 0.2 seconds, but it's there.
(in such case, I guess you don't have a bad taste, then?)
As for the reroll/accept buttons - I can see what you mean here, but that change would kinda go against the buttons' expressions. The green is meant to "encourage" (give me something/I like that item), while the red is meant to "complain" (I don't like it, give me something else).
As for the hoarded items registrations... I think I might make it more convenient in the full project, though not immediately available. Still, at later point you have a good chance of getting the previously-unregistered items, anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks again for the feedback! Your suggestions are not lame at all!
@Xanjos: just curious, have you collected all the items, or gave up because it takes too long? Just curious.
In proper version I plan to add a few features that would make the grinding more bearable. Also, saving, so that one could do it in a few goes.
@Lullaby: thanks for the comment.
"Concerning your game, the global mechanic is easy to learn and pretty interesting at first glance, but quite repetitive after a few "shapeshiftings"."
Just curious, by "global mechanic" do you mean the mere fact that items can be inserted into vending machine, renamed and hoarded, or the specific rules governing the machine (and making it easier to predict how to obtain unknown items)?
As for the rewarding/motivation, I guess if someone doesn't find that sort of gameplay appealing, they won't really feel motivated to keep going. Once you figure the game out, its complexity is more akin to incrementals rather than, say, puzzles or strategies. I plan implement a bunch of features to make the grinding more bearable and some additional content/dialogue to make it more rewarding, but it'll still be grinding. Then again, saving might help a lot here, too... maybe?
As for the "slides" vs bigger screen - I think I can see where you come from, though I'm not sure it's doable in this particular game. I'd either need to make the screen really, really big (which probably wouldn't make laptop/mobile/browser players very happy) or give smaller space for particular features, and thus for characters representing them (Richelle, Newton, heck, even the machine kinda counts) as well, and they are going to be quite important. It's not like those features cannot be neatly arranged in a sort of vending management window, but I'm afraid it'd harm the charm this particular game has. ^^'
Still, I plan to add some features that would eventually keep hoard recording and synonyms swapping contained in the vending machine window, so you wouldn't need to switch the windows so often. I do have some general plans about it, I hope they'll work out in the end.
Thanks for the feedback, anyway. ^^
Thanks for the comments, people.
@nihilaleph: About the screen change and dialogue - yeah, I think I should have made it so that during dialogue the room-switching buttons are hidden. In the next version, probably.
@CtrlAltTea: I like your thinking, especially that jazzy/elevator music suggestion; I might include something like that, eventually...
@csanyk: Sorry you couldn't figure it out. That "out of order" thing was put in place to make sure people won't stay around the machine, constantly exchanging "Nothing" and "Thing" and assuming that's everything the game has to offer (I know it happened to at least one person); instead pushing player to explore other screens, and discover Newton's ability to use synonyms, without which the game basically cannot advance anyhow.
Also, I tried to avoid too explicit tutorial, instead of relying on "out of order" segment and heavy use of tooltip, so that the learning isn't too intrusive and doesn't kinda treat the player like an idiot. The tutorial section definitely will be polished (e.g. Richelle's section doesn't have any proper explanation yet), but if you have some specific suggestions how to make the explanation more helpful without being intrusive or "condescending", I'd like to read about them.
@PinkIndian: wow, 72 is actually quite a lot, I'm glad you sticked for that long (especially since there's no saving yet, some day...). ^^
@TheCain: I have some ideas for quality of life upgrades in the next version,
@General: Yay, thanks a lot! Good to see someone trying it out live; thankfully, you did well figuring out the core mechanics. I will do my best to keep it up. ^^
I've only played a few games, so take it with a grain of salt, but it looks like it'll be one of my strong favourites. It's got great visuals for both worlds (I particularly like the other-world's regular box/cupboard), catchy soundtrack (with a nice switching-between-worlds effect), quite fun puzzles that use the world mechanics well and adorable ending that has nothing to do with the main character dying or whatever (come to think of it, the cat-themed doormats were dead giveaway). Great work. ^^
The gameplay was tricky at first, giving me a challenge to even defeat a single enemy, but then I was getting stronger and enemies weren't (no difficulty progression), so in the end (having 7x shotgun and 1x rifle) I defeated over 50 enemies with ease until bore-quitting.
I think this game really needs some more variety when it comes to both enemies (different shooting patterns and behaviour etc.) and player upgrades (health, shield, overheat, different kinds of weapons; maybe player could just have a storage of weapons and pick them to customize the weapon for specific purpose). Alternately, you could turn the endless survival into a game with some sort of campaign, levels introducing new enemies etc. which would then feature endless survival, or something; it seems to be a good model.
Oh, also, the cash collection sound was jarringly loud compared to the rest.
Looks like a good start, but desperately needs more variety.
Completed the whole thing. ^^
It wasn't particularly innovative idea (I've seen games with multiple pieces/characters moving at once already), but it was well designed and executed, nonetheless. Could be fun to have even more puzzles, maybe (though given I'm about to get some sleep, it's probably for the better there aren't too many levels)?
Overall, I kinda liked what you did here. ^^
A decent metroidvania entry, though the movement felt a bit clunky. I liked the variety of abilities; rocket triangle has got to be my favourite (if only the rocket-launch didn't require holding button for so long), while the round with its overly bouncy mechanics was quite annoying (my least favourite moment was between coin 2 and 3, when I had to jump up two high ledges with round barely reaching their height). The graphics were simple, but serve their purpose. The soundtrack seemed alright, if somewhat unstructured.
Overall, not bad.
Best score: 5584. That sure got pretty flashy.
That was fun to play around for a bit, but if you had longer soundtrack, I'd probably stick around for more. Too bad the background didn't have some props flying around; I think it'd feel even more disco with that.
Pretty decent entry overall, though I guess if I played it for longer, I'd really get some headaches or something... ^^'
Pretty cool concept, though gotta agree with others that sometimes it requires too much precision. The art isn't mind-blowing, but audio sets the mood right. I've got to complete all the levels, too (the last one even with a blob to spare!).
Oh, and one option I was very, very missing in this game - quick restarting. The game isn't really generous with the blobs, and losing one somewhere at the beginning would mean I'd have to drop the remaining blobs until I run out of them; particularly annoying in the level with blobs that can't stand (on) triangles.
Overall, quite cool and fun to play entry, if maybe a bit too unforgiving. Hope you get even better for the next Ludum Dare!
Well, it's not particularly original game, but seems to work well enough. I don't really feel particular urge to keep playing, though, and at some points the shapes become just too fast (especially when there are combos of two). Maybe add multiple lives (or a gradually replenishing health bar...?) so that a single skip doesn't end the game altogether?
Uh, huh, that game was quite a pain to control. I got the hang of the first block modifying in the second level, but trying to change second block (u; also, wasn't it like the 1st block but from different perspective) or the third (i) was completely unsuccessful. Also, the perspective of the first block didn't stretch too far, so I couldn't make the long bridge I wanted.
Also, the game didn't really gave much steampunk vibe to me. Too bad, because I'm rather fond of steampunk...
It seems like it could have been a cool idea (with a few more features; mere blocks reshaping might get stale after a while), but sadly the execution falls rather short.
That game kinda reminds me of strong interactions between quarks.
I rather liked the general game concept and aesthetics; it isn't particularly complicated, and the gameplay gets less challenging once you get the hang of it, but it was still pretty enjoyable. Pretty good job here. ^^
Also, wow, Kirzo, that's pretty amazing feat to get that far! :o
Pretty creative idea, executed rather well, too (that frog took a bit of time to figure out). Guess it could benefit from better audiovisuals and more sensible progression mechanics (i.e. once you complete the level, you go to another level, not go back to menu and select another). Oh, also, menu itself could use some keyboard controls; it's an annoyance if the only situation I use mouse for is to navigate menus which easily could be kept, as the rest of the game, to keyboard.
Still, pretty nice entry, especially given the timeframe. Good job. ^^
Somewhat fun concept, kinda remind me of Z-Rox. However, sometimes I felt there was more than one shadow fitting the shape. Also, I'd like the preparation phase to allow viewing the shape also from top and bottom, because sometimes it's not clear whether there's some hole or not.
Overall, solid entry, fun to play around for a bit. Gotta add the point to audio for the losing sound effect.
Sorry, but I couldn't really get far. I had unlocked cat and dog shape, got to the second room, but didn't progress further and couldn't even get a fabled flea (a shame, because I was curious what SFX had the flea). The mechanics felt really weird, and I kept getting all these informative panels despite already having used the subject or something, and I couldn't really tell the useful items apart from decorations, nothing really sparkled with importance to me, I was just going in circles and couldn't even find anything really useful. I felt like I was in hunt for something, but couldn't even tell where exactly I should expect it...
Also, the game worked rather slow and laggy to me. Maybe make desktop versions for graphics-intensive games? I doubt browsers have particularly great performance...
The game looks like it could be interesting, but somehow I got little idea what was going on or what I was supposed to do, and clunky mechanics didn't help. Sorry. >.<
Solid entry when it comes to audiovisuals, polish etc. (although I could use a button to stop the man going on path instead of restarting altogether; and the man could really walk faster). However, the puzzle mechanics and their usage in game is kinda too simple; only the last few levels were remotely challenging for me, since stairs and arrows alone leave somewhat little room for thought (most placements are pretty obvious, and those that aren't can be checked easily).
Also, I feel the theme usage here is a bit of a stretch, even though other entries used environment alteration and I was fine with these. I dunno, maybe here it just seems too mundane (nothing as spooky as castle changing on its own or as wacky as warping the game window?).
Still, it's quite decent game, just not too exciting for me when it comes to gameplay itself. You seem to have little issue quickly making a game that feels complete, nonetheless, and that's quite an important thing, too (many people can't get a game to feel complete even with all the time they want, ehehehehe...).
Haha, that's pretty fun game. Maybe not particularly outstanding in terms of raw gameplay, but I've got to love spawning rainbow skeletons to the metal music. Too bad there's only one track for all levels, and there's little variety in the gameplay (completing wave 6 doesn't feel much different that completing wave 1).
Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the general idea. ;)
Well, I seem to have completed the level. Kinda a shame you didn't follow through with that, because the concept looked kinda interesting. I wonder if the same base mechanic (i.e. moving slime parts) would work better in a grid-aligned rather than physics-based environment...
Generally, cool idea, too bad you didn't follow with it (too little time...?). ^^'
Yay, I *beat* the supermassive discoball!
One of the more enjoyable entries this dare, despite being quite difficult and unforgiving at times. Dunno if I wouldn't prefer this game being made for some other soundtrack, but complaining about it would be just picky. Very well done! ^^
I liked the shapeshifting castle idea as well as the general mood, though I'd prefer a different colour choice than a mix of red and green (plus, the handheld items don't really add to the mood, given their paint-ish style). Also, I'm not really a fan of platforming in general, and especially in 3D in first person perspective when I can't even see where my feet are (I had to make some jump by staring at the ground to make sure I time it right). ^^'
Aside from that, it seems like the castle really wants to sound like speaking in Shakespearean English, but doesn't really know how (given the omnipresent "thy", even though there should be some declension, and if I'm not mistaken the original form is "thou").
Overall not a bad entry. ^^'
Couldn't complete level 1 - the turn just before the second chain of shifting walls was just too unfair. Also, couldn't complete level 4 either because the ball at the end of its drop kept misaligning itself "horizontally", and was falling near the spot, even though the general skew of the floors was correct.
Other things relating to the general gameplay: camera makes it kinda tricky to see how I'm supposed to aim; the blue/purple arrows placement sometimes made things turn in the other way than I expected (mostly the rotators and floors) and the movement is too slow, especially when playing the level for N-th time. There really could be some speed-up during the idle segments (not too rare here), maybe even a manual speed-up button, and the camera turns could be smoother so that it's easier to follow what exactly happens; also, maybe don't make the camera follow the ship exactly.
Aside from that, the idea was okay, the music wasn't too shabby either (if maybe somewhat unstructured, like I'm hearing some generic composing attempts); the graphics generally worked, but weren't particularly impressive. If you could iron out the kinks in the gameplay, it could turn into really fun to play game.
Yuss, I'm a vampire with #1 bragging rights!
I'm not really a fan of platformers, and platforming with shapeshifting protagonist gaining different abilities isn't really all that innovative. However, the abilities are rather varied and the execution is solid enough that I rather enjoyed the game (though I'd have preferred if you were a bit more generous with checkpoints, especially in the last level). No music and a tiny bit of audio, but it's pretty forgivable, especially for Compo. Graphics work quite well for that game.
Overall, pretty good job. ^^
Alright, um, the audiovisuals are really cool and set the mood alright...
...but I have not a slightest idea how to play it. >.<
I can do some Z-swings, I can increase gravity, and I don't know how I'm supposed to turn these skills into.
Too bad, because the rest seems pretty solid. Maybe with clearer instructions/feedback I could figure it out...
Wow, that's some fast-paced game. Perhaps you could want to slow it down a little?
I rather liked the general concept, though; there seem to be a few endless runners that use changing shape to go through variously shaped gates, but yours is the first that makes the mechanic more nuanced than "get the exact shape or die". As in, if you pass by a little margin, you get more points than if you gained by playing it safe, and you even lose points if you just go completely thin - I find that to be a pretty good idea to balance the gameplay.
The game is still rather hectic and difficult, and I'm not sure if there aren't moments that make the game nigh impossible (e.g. going from the wide gap all the way to the left to the narrow gap all the way to the right), but it seems to be pretty fun while it plays. A bunch of different soundtracks the game randomly picks from is a nice touch as well, and the game gives the feeling of polish.
Pretty cool job, overall.
Really liked the mood, though the gameplay itself is rather tricky to understand and the mechanics aren't quite perfect - in particular, the collisions seemed to be more sprite-based rather than "position based", making some things work not like I'd expect.
Still, I managed to complete the game in the end. Not bad, but quite confusing. ^^'
Alright, dunno if it's the game being horribly inefficient or you choosing the variables badly, but the main character was walking terribly slow to me, and after completing the 3rd level I gave up. Sorry, I'm not a fan of plain maze games in general, and this one has way, way, way too slow movement for my patience. >.<
Maybe next time choose the movement speed better, or make the performance better (depending on what's actually the cause of the slow movement)...?
Ooooh dear, a platformer. Not only that, but a platformer with a time limit (game-scale rather than level-scale, at that!) and very sloppy mechanics. Also, no ingame explanation for controls, so I had to check for these in game description, losing time in between. It didn't work out well. The graphics didn't really help, either (so *that* was a rabbit? O.o').
I guess you still have a rather long way to go to become a full-fledged games developer. Keep improving!
I can't decide if it's rather crude or pretty smooth. ^^' The movement feels a bit clunky, but I really like how the puppet switches forms while still being the very same puppets (also, chicken form is a pleasure to watch). The music was barely audible, though, especially compared to some speech (?) at the beginning.
Personally I'd prefer if jumping was available on UP/W button, aside from Space (since it's not used anywhere else, anyway). Also, perhaps add some sort of shapes indicator, and allow switching by e.g. Q/E (previous/next) instead of somewhat inconvenient J/K/L (climber/frog/chicken). That is, if you plan to expand upon that idea later.
Also, was that white thing at the end with puppet becoming idle intended? It looked like it was supposed to be an ending, but I'm not 100% sure.
Still, pretty good job, especially the animation. ^^
The graphics are pretty cool, and choice of music is good as well. I felt the mechanics or level design were a little sloppy for some reason, though; maybe that's because I couldn't rotate the camera while I wanted to (the camera always stuck to the same perspective)?
Also, the mouse wouldn't show up, and the only way I was able to press the button was to right-click on programs bar and click from there. Not really convenient, I think.
Another thing is a lack of restart button; so if someone got stuck on level 2, they'd need to play the game again (which also involved pressing the "Start" button again, which for me was way more challenging than it should be). That aside, it was pretty solid entry.
Hopefully you'll have better luck the next Dare. ^^'
Gaaah, what's up with you people, making depressing platformers about love. You could make it not depressing, not a platformer or not about love, and yet... >.<
Eh, that aside, the game has rather interesting concept, and fits rather well with the theme of sacrifice and such, but I'd have really preferred, if, you know, I could actually reach the end with the rest of my strength. As it is now, it's all too futile, and I don't really like futility... that's just too bad. Especially since the soundtrack was pretty cool, too, and the rest of the game was solid, it's the needlessly depressing ending that spoils the thing for me.
Pretty neat entry, though it could use more audio. An indication about the current score in the game wouldn't hurt, either. Also, you might consider making different distinction between various colours, so that colour-blind people can enjoy your game, too. ^^'
It's some little yet neat game. I particularly like how you are able to reach the goal in multiple ways. Various characters and little bits of humour are nice, too (I liked the kid with "Day 50 - still without nose" or something similar).
One funny thing about it is how in order to present people with some items you *become* these items. That sure is some unorthodox way of using tools, but I guess it's hard to go wrong with? ^^'
If there's something I'd change, that'd definitely be movement speed. The game isn't really big, yet I felt it was unnecessarily longer due to slow walking. ^^'
Huh, another platformer that involves changing shapes. Given the general tendency, I find that hardly innovative. Still, the execution is rather decent, and the gameplay is rather quirky in a fun way, too. It doesn't really require the player to think creatively, though - if you have a spaghetti, you know you need to bring the eater, and if you have a high ledge, you know you need to use pogo. ^^'
Still, gotta give a few points for humor, all that spaghetti has some charm...
Well, hopefully you'll manage to make actual gameplay the next time. Maybe play around with Unity sometime between this and the next Dare so that you'll be able to make things quicker? ^^'
I like what you did here; the first part is just mundane platforming stuff, first robot levels were a bit boring, but then things got a lot more fun, with different modes and whatnot. Also, the command selection was actually pretty easy to use for me, I didn't have much issue grasping it. Two annoying things, though: undoing and restarting level (with the program in place) was taking too long with longer programs, and I didn't seem to find a way in the gameplay mode to do a soft-restart (i.e. keep the program); that is, a way other than running into obstacle or something. ^^'
I hope you can come up with a better algorithm to do undo/reset (in fact, for reset you could just keep the last simulation step in memory, not to re-calculate it again).
Overall, pretty cool game, even if the graphics could use some polish (and consistency; the clouds didn't quite fit to the pixel-arts, I think) and there could be some audio. ^^'
Ah, another game with shapeshift-to-cross-the-gates mechanics in place. At least this one has collectible orbs, too...
Still, often I felt I couldn't quite place my hexagons right, and that the gate check occurred a bit earlier than when my structure was crossing it; it felt weird. In general I couldn't quite figure out how what I see relates to what the game actually registers, and that disconnection is nothing good; like the game has lacking or deformed feedback.
I think having the shape aligned to a fixed grid (as someone else mentioned) would improve the gameplay; the challenge of meticulously placing the shape isn't really needed here (instead, reaction and shape-action coordination could be stressed).
It seems like it could be an interesting entry if some more variety was added into it. The most obvious idea that comes to my mind (and I'm not the only one, it seems) is having the glyphs randomised each time, so that the player needs to react accordingly (each wizard could have own set of glyphs). If that was implemented, I think the gameplay would work rather well.
I rather liked the artwork and animation in this game, though what I'd prefer is having one animation for each winning/losing wizard pair. So that, say, brown wizard would be polymorphing opponent, while the red wizard would zap them instead. Right now it seems each time you win, you get the same result depending on the level, and each time you lose, you get the same critter depending on your wizard; instead having spells for each winning/losing wizard pair could better establish wizards' "personality", in a way.
Pretty solid and complete entry, overall. A bit of pity there's no lich battle, though I guess I'd prefer playing that in a more various setting (and I wouldn't really want to have the lich spam spellpieces even more than the 3rd level wizard currently does).
Well, that was fun to play around for a bit. The soup getting more and more variety was really cool. Also, I've somehow managed some sort of colourful disco mode or something, dunno if it's the secret ending or not...?
Overall, nice little game.
Took me a while to realise how to perform the commands (maybe there should be more detailed information that you need to start holding Space, play the song, and stop holding or something? Or maybe it's just me being dumb...?). But at least I got to play Undertale main theme in the meantime (1541334 etc.).
Completed the whole thing. I usually don't consider platformers to be particularly creative, but this one seemed to have somewhat fun mechanics. The movement mechanics were acting kinda sloppy, though; I seemed to get a little stuck sometimes, and the platforming generally didn't feel particularly smooth. The audiovisuals were quite fancy.
You seem to be planning to make more of that. I wonder what else you have in mind, because so far it wasn't really varied (just the base form and the phoenix so far)...
I like the aesthetics, and the shapeshifting mechanics work well enough, too. I'd have much preferred if the game was aligned to the pixel-art. It looks really unnatural to me otherwise (especially in case of the jump), like some sort of resolution mixup for no apparent reason.
That aside, the game is rather solid adorable. I guess a part that annoyed me a bit were alone people, who didn't say anything about their preferences forcing me to do some trial-and-error.
Nice concept; plays rather nice, too (if a bit clunky), I managed to complete two stages. I'd have preferred if I was able to catch werewolves not only from sides, but up/down, too. Clearly, art isn't your forte, but you still have time to learn (or might eventually find some artist to work with).
Also, gotta agree with adam: don't use mouse in menu when the rest is entirely keyboard-controlled (and conversely, avoid keyboard-based menus in mouse-controlled games, but that's more rare). Keep controls necessary to minimum.
Overall, nice work, keep improving! ^^
Got 85 points in the end.
In general, I found the frog form to be OP and didn't really consider the other forms, and the fact that later levels have more diamonds falling, thus reducing the risk of running out of time, doesn't help. So, while shapeshifting mechanic is there, I didn't really use it (it mostly happened around the endgame, when there were so many diamonds that the critter just kept changing forms randomly). I think this needs balancing.
Audiovisuals wise, the game is good, though I've noticed the music after a while stops playing; I'd rather expect it looped instead.
Solid game overall, but it doesn't stand out to me yet. ^^'
Audiovisuals are great, gameplay concept isn't really bad either, but the gameplay feels rather bothersome, and what's worse, it seems that could have been avoided relatively easily in a number of ways. The thing is, the dashing is quick, but imprecise, while walking is more fine-tuned, but doesn't allow flying up; so with the game mostly taking place in air, I'm pretty much forced to haphazard dashing, which I'm not particularly fond of. Maybe instead Kitsune could always go head towards the mouse, which would also remove the need for some keyboard controls (having RMB for activating shrine would make keyboard redundant altogether, which I think is a good thing). Also, the enemies spawn rate could be a little higher; the thing is, individual segments of the game are pretty easy, and it takes little effort to keep shrines in a reasonable shape (with at least one unit of shrine health). Or maybe make it so that you can reset shrine protection timer by reactivating the shrine while the form is still present; so that I don't have to wait for time-out, because it's not clear if I manage to defeat the approaching enemy on my current timer or not (especially with the troubling movement).
The thing is, right now it's supposed to be an action game, but it plays like it wants to be a relaxed game, and ends up being neither; more like a test of endurance and resistance to tedium, as when you're at the late stage of the game, having waited for enemies or collectibles to appear, you might really get careless just because things happen way too lazily. It's really tiresome...
Then again, it was pretty fun discovering that it's not like I actually turn into a wolf, then into a deer, then a bird or something, but rather that I can be a wolf, a deer and a bird all at the same time - and a fox, too. Also, it appears the protagonist is actually Ran Yakumo, if her being a fox and possessing an ability to cross boundaries is any indication.
Really good when it comes to presentation, falls short when it comes to core gameplay.
Responding to your response:
As for the dashing: I'm fine with dashing being imprecise and keyboard being more precise, if keyboard control allowed vertical movement, too. Since the game practically ends up mostly in air, it's good to have a precise mid-air control as well.
Glad you'll consider "resetting" the altar protection, it'd help quite a lot at times.
As for relaxing/action-oriented: I don't mind having a break every once in a while, in fact it can be quite welcome, but it just happens too often. Then again, if you fix the spawn rates and difficulty curves, I think the game should leave the dreaded not-idle-enough-to-be-relaxing, not-busy-enough-to-stay-interesting territory.
Oh, on unrelated note, blowing the dark cloud away with the power of all 3 shrines at the end was kinda awesome, I liked that. ^^
Reached the DUNGEON: TODO, gonna assume that's the point where the game ends short. A bit of a shame, since it's a pretty cool game. The graphics and animation are varied, the music works with the mood (I think I might have heard the body-swap sound effect a bit too much, though...), the theme is used properly, and the mechanics seem to work correctly; overall it's quite a sweet adventure game. Great job, I'd like to see the post-Jam update.
Ah, another shapeshifting platformer. Somehow, these aren't a rarity round here. ^^'
The controls felt a little clunky, but were passable (they do take a bit to get used to, though). Graphics work well enough, though sometimes I felt animation was off (most likely the cat, whose animation was not synchronised with movement). On a side note, I wanted to pick up a flashlight and ended up taking a cannonball in the face. Boo. :<
The soundtrack... I appreciate the attempt, but I didn't see much structure or melody here; it wasn't really something that "flows" inside my head, and definitely not something I'd play on repeat (which I tend to do, and even made a program to detect loops and extend tracks endlessly). ^^'
As for the backstory... well, it's been a while since people discovered they can make games with statements about love, human, philosophy and whatnot, and I don't really think this game really stands out. I think "don't pretend to be someone else" would work better if it was implied through the game that pretending has bad effects, or maybe if the whole basis of the game is that all that shapeshifting is merely an illusion (rather than having a measurable effects such as flight). I hope you see my point - I'm not particularly against story- or message-driven games, but after seeing a fair share of them, it takes some clever integration into the game to impress me.
Generally, solid entry, yet somewhat lacking in different aspects. Hopefully you'll get better with these by the next Dare. ^^'
...pfffthaha, you leave no chances, do you?
Either way, I played and rated the compo version, then I played again the post-compo version and completed twice (once to collect all easter-eggs, second to do the same in the bonus mode; poor Nyamo, Fuzzball is still better at everything. ^^' I enjoyed it quite a lot, it's a pretty neat metroidvania, and rather outstanding for such a timeframe. I can't really find anything really wrong with the audiovisuals or gameplay, quite the opposite.
If I really were to nitpick: I'd prefer if the balloon mode had some inflation button (either "up" or "4") so that I wouldn't need to needlessly switch to another shape just so that I could start with the inflated balloon again. Also, the spring world had a somewhat annoying tendency to have these invisible borders; i.e. I could go all the way to the level's border and find there's a wall inside, while I'd prefer if it was clear from the beginning that there was a wall there, and I shouldn't even bother trying to reach that place. Perhaps you could fix both of these issues in one of updates, if you plan any more...? The game is still great despite them, but it could be even a tiny bit greater. :3
On a side note, Claustrophobia gives me strong "Undying" vibes. ^^
(by the way, that's the first time I heard about 9-bit soundtrack; is it twice as good as 8-bit soundtrack?)
Lots of 5s around here overall; even the compo version felt pretty much like a complete game.
Alright, I can't help but wonder...
...why *snake*, of all forms, is the one that can switch levers? ^^'
That aside, it's a nice little puzzle game. Most of the time it was pretty clear how things should behave, and you also made a proper distinction between safe holes and unsafe bottomless pits. The greatest issue I took with this game was how easy it was to fall by pushing a block into a pit; I often did it accidentally. I'd suggest using a grid-based movement instead, since the challenge based on movement precision doesn't really fit a game like this one.
Overall, pretty decent entry, though not particularly outstanding.
Kinda fun to play for a bit, but it seems to lack any real challenge aside from "achieve the goal as quickly as possible"; no losing conditions or anything. I'd prefer if there was some way to lose the single-player game, e.g. by interacting with others your own opinion sways a little too, and takes some time to reinforce or something. Also, gotta agree with others that it's a bit too hectic.
Also, I like what you did with shaping shift. It's a bit of a stepping around the core theme, but in a creative way, so in the end it's not really bad.
Gaaaah, sorry, can't complete that. The platforming movement here is so sloppy I can't really control my character properly, and the jumping is way out of proportion. Also, there seem to be some issue with death screen or something, like one time I got the game restarted without any message, the other time I got the message, pressed R, nothing would ever happen, third time I got neither message nor restart. What really broke it to me, however, was the moment when I tried to jump a little bit to the left, but instead ended up going all the way to the right and dying because of a fall. Sorry, can't complete that, not with these mechanics. >.<
Audio was fine, backgrounds were alright, animation felt a bit off (maybe because the steps didn't really match the movement speed?), but it's the platforming mechanics that kill the game to me. Sorry. >.<
Alright, I got notified about an update, so here goes feedback revision.
First of all, when you do the update, you should provide the Jam alongside the post-Jam version; having only the post-Jam one is prone to creating unfair advantage. Dunno how about others, but I at least *rate* the Jam version, and I might or might not provide the feedback on the post-Jam one (depending on the mood, really ^^'). That way I rate what has been done in the Jam/Compo timeframe, making it "fair" to all participants.
About the update itself: dunno what exactly you changed, but now it seemed to be more pleasant to play; maybe the movement is a bit faster, or maybe I just got experience from previous playthroughs? You did mention making some improvements, so I guess they worked.
Also, I might have tracked down the reverse-jump bug - it happened to me regularly, when I was standing right next to the pressure plate (i.e. the jump was away from the pressure plate). I don't recall any other situations when it happened to me.
Either way, I managed to complete the entire thing, even twice (once without, and other with the secret treasure). With platforming tweaked somehow, the level design felt more solid, and the fact that you could save up some key to reach a secret area was a cool idea.
So, that game wasn't that bad in the end. Hope to see you all the next Jam, with your skills improved. ^^
Oooooh, that's really sweet, I like the mechanics you've put in place here. Collecting maps to switch between them in parallel is quite a neat puzzle idea, though with more and more maps it could get old rather quickly, eventually; that is, unless you e.g. made different chambers with different sets of maps, or something? Still, the idea itself is pretty cool, and the execution doesn't fall short, either!
If there's one suggestion I'd make, that'd be probably making the movement grid-aligned. There seems to be no additional worthwhile challenge by having the character move unsnapped. ^^'
Really cool entry, in terms of idea, execution and audiovisuals. ;)
Yet another shapeshifting platformer...
The gameplay had quite a share of flaws - restarting meant starting all over again, which is not really encouraging. For some reason, pressing "down" chooses the form named above the current one, and "up" the one below (rather than the opposite). Also, the mechanics don't feel particularly impressive, and music gets repetitive quickly.
Generally, there's a very large room to improvement here (especially the restarting of the entire game upon a single mistake, this can get frustrating quickly). Hopefully you'll get better by the next Ludum Dare. ^^'
Well, the graphics seemed weirdly blurry, but then it turned out it's Unity giving fastest settings as default. Pffft!
Overall, quite an atmospheric entry, particularly in terms of music; the graphics and special effects were good, too, but I'd really like to have some more variety in trees or obstacles or something (rocks, what happened to the poor rocks?! D:) so that the exploration isn't getting too monotonous. Oh, also, the step sounds were a bit too loud for my taste, and sometimes they sounded weird (more like some cracking than stepping, I dunno).
Two things I still don't get: the ending, and how this game is related to shapesifting. ^^'
So, is the name Bill Cipher? W.D. Gaster? I couldn't see it, because I accidentally keypressed once too much, and skipped the great reveal. ^^'
(Satan/Devil? Naaah, that would be too easy)
Either way, I probably enjoyed the shapeshifting mechanics more than multiple-shapes-at-once movement; then again, the latter may be caused by you using too many shapes at once (misapplied idea rather than one that's inherently bad). Bubble gum was somewhat interesting, but I don't quite see why it's a *bubble gum*. ^^'
The game makes for a decent puzzle, though nothing too original nor exceptional (I and many others came up with multiple-entities-at-once idea years ago). There is some story, but I didn't really enjoy the writing, and it kinda seemed like its main purpose was to justify the bad audiovisuals. >.<
Still, considering it's your first ever LD and you spent on it 7 hours, it's quite promising. Keep improving. ^^
Pfffthaha, that was fun in a weirdly charming way! It took me a while to understand how exactly the Swedish Fish works (at first I thought it's more like snake, then it turned out not quite so, and it can cross over its trail, too), but then it was kinda fun experience. I wasn't too fond of the portals, though, especially since they had that weird mechanics when they sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. ^^'
Also, gotta love "Sugar explosion" sound effects; especially since I looked up Swedish Fish. Audio in general was fine; I didn't find the music too annoying, either. Graphics aren't really top-notch, but they have some variety and for a 10-years old they look promising.
(oh, and a technical note: the text box in tutorial seems to be above the Swedish Fish, i.e. when Fish enters its area, it becomes invisible; since you're using GameMaker, perhaps you could have set Fish's depth to lower value in the object settings?)
It might not be the most polished game out there, but it's adorable in its own way. Keep improving. ;)
Completed the entire game without losing a life, ha! :3
It's not a particularly original or complicated entry, but it works, I guess? I didn't encounter any particular errors or anything. I'd like to have more audio, though. ^^'
(also, the shapeshifting wasn't really present that much here; it could as well involve spooky scary skeletons instead of mutant slimes and their relevance to the gameplay would be pretty much the same (collide -> you lose a life and go back); except skeletons would come with better music.
Yay, apparently I've managed to become a super-whale. Pretty cute puzzle game, but the exploration part seems rather unnecessary to me (in fact, with all that random generation means sometimes items end up in configuration where a perfect victory is impossible), and I wasn't really fond of slow walking and having to *press* button to move to the next field.
Maybe you can expand upon that general idea, somehow...?
(I just wonder, what exactly happens to player character once they successfully turn into proper whale...?)
Gotta agree with others, it sounds like an interesting story but a tad confusing. Right now my theory is that the shapeshifter's true nature is a word, or something similarly abstract (dunno, it seemed like the book was the home, or something).
Not bad, especially for last-minute excuse for voting in LD. ;)
I quite enjoyed that detective game; it incorporated the theme quite well, too. The game seemed rather well-balanced overall, except for one thing: the clues were often redundant (sometimes even repeated, word-to-word) which was way too luck based; when I get the precious progress bar to 100%, I expect at least a reasonable chance it'll advance me somehow.
If I were to implement a game like that, I probably would make it in such a way:
- determine variables involved and divide into slots (e.g. highest point into 501-749, 751-999, 1001-1249, 1251-1499; population into 10k-20k, 20k-30k, 30k-40k, 40k-50k; %water into 1-24%, 26-49%, 51-74%, 76-99%; has port into YES or NO, has airport into YES or NO)
- when generating the states, I'd make sure no two states fall into the exact same set of slots
- when giving the first clue, I'd pick an incorrect state at random, compare it with the correct state, randomly pick a property where the states fall into different slots, and make a clue based on that property, making sure that it eliminates the incorrect state
- once the first clue is provided, I'd eliminate all other states that don't meet the condition in the clue (mark them internally in the game; the player wouldn't have it explicitly told)
- once another clues would be needed, the procedure would be the same; except the random incorrect state would be one of those that hasn't been yet marked "eliminated"; that'd guarantee that at least one state would be ruled out by the clue, making it useful
You might want to refine the algorithm to your needs; also, if you want to guarantee that all clues bring you at least one step closer to solution, you might want to increase the number of states (or maybe even have different difficulty levels with different map).
That's it, your friendly neighbourhood mathematician is out. Really cool and enjoyable game, overall~! (I rather liked cards descriptions, too)
Hmmm, at the beginning I didn't really know what to do, seeing only "LEFT" and "RIGHT" and no protagonist and such. Then upon second attempt I kinda used W/D instead and found that it's just that sides of the screen are cut off, due to using 3:4 ratio resolution. ^^'
As for the game itself, I get the idea but the execution... didn't really end up well. I can understand having no time to make levels or something similar. However, the controls are rather horrid, with mouse and WSAD section and arrows section all being used and frequently alternated between. I'd rather have it kept simpler, e.g.:
- get rid of grenade mode; it just adds an unnecessary layer of complication and isn't really used anywhere
- use left-mouse button to shoot instead of Shift
- once the shape has been selected, use Q/E and/or mouse scrollbar and/or mouse dragging? Generally, to keep everything in the WSAD + mouse zone
I hope you can see where I'm coming from here. ^^'
Also, the narrative font was kinda undreadable on that background, especially when a letter ended up between bright gray and dark gray zone.
Aside from that, graphics and general idea were alright, but there's still a long way to go to have a solid game. ^^'
Keep improving!
The general concept seems fine, though I haven't really made use of the power-slide and often (especially at the beginning) I was getting a game-over seemingly out of nowhere (might be because of the super-quick guards); you might want to fix that.
The graphics were fine, but I'd make the background less contrasting (see those bright-gray/dark-gray tiles); else it stands out too much.
I kinda wonder why the friend ended up in a shady government facility, and why governments must be responsible for everything. But I guess that's another story...
Got to level 5, too, I even got 500 and got so many pieces I was pretty much immobile but then the game kinda said "eh, whatever" and didn't advance me any further (Berserker mode is soo OP). Rather funny concept, but I guess it'd need to be readjusted to make a complete and successful game.
Overall, not bad. Keep it up.
I quite liked the art style, as for audio, Kevin MacLeod did a good job, too. *whistling* Story is somewhat interesting and adds to the game.
The gameplay idea is alright, but mechanics often fall short. People mentioned getting stuck, which happened to me once, too. A more serious issue would be slow movement (played the embedded version, don't know if it should have it fixed or not), but most importantly, I can't quite grasp the rules and objective of the game. It seems whenever I lose all "health" I go back to some checkpoint, but I can't quite see where the checkpoint is, and were constantly going back to the spot right when leaving outside, with 150 atom points. So, even though I'd like to record my progress after getting some difficult atoms (especially the one to the top-right of grandma, aaarrgh), I don't know how and keep going back where I started. Even then, it seems like not all atoms recover where they should. I have no idea what to do with atoms to complete the game, either...
So, it's a game I'd like to like, but I can't quite figure it out to do so. ^^'
The art in this game is lovely. The mechanics work well enough, too; the gameplay is simple, but functional nonetheless.
Good choice of audio, but since it's not yours, I won't rate it. That, and you already opted out from that, anyway. ^^'
Also, don't be afraid of variables; they don't bite, and once you get to know them, they're really helpful. ^^
(too bad I don't know Construct, and thus have no idea how to help with cards scaling or weird Arial appearance...)
Oh, by the way, I think you should change your "Web" link, as right now it points to the downloadable archive containing the HTML5 game. The thing is, browsers are mean and won't let people play HTML5 directly from their disk, so you would better replace it with link to page where the game is playable, or a non-browser version. ^^'
Keep improving! :3
Awww, there I thought I found a really neat puzzle game, but it ended so quickly. :< Too bad, because the idea had quite a potential.
The graphics work well enough, but they lack animation, which I'm not really fond of. The mechanics aren't too advanced, but they didn't seem to break to me, so I guess it's alright.
I hope the next time you'll have more time for levels, because you seem to have cool puzzle ideas; it'd just really help if you made more levels based on that... ^^'
Alright, the graphics aren't particularly great, but the gameplay is really cool. Sure, the idea of changing shapes to met creatures isn't really unique, but not yet overdone and here it was made rather well, with 3 enemy types and interesting puzzles revolving around them. I managed to beat the entire thing. ^^
Really cool entry, cheers~!
The game is really pretty, but falls rather short on gameplay - the catgirl form is much slower than cat and can't reliably keep the spirits away, especially with seemingly long recharge and attacking only the spirits she's facing (and there's no way to turn back to agile cat shape manually, either). After a few tries I managed to complete a level once, but then I failed again and don't really feel like trying anymore. ^^'
From minor qualms, the music (at least in menu) has audible loops, and the font was a bit hard to read.
Keep improving!
Well, the puzzles here were very underwhelming. As in, "I've got a single red character that can cross red tiles, I can switch anytime when on neutral tiles, and I just need to cross red tiles after passing neutral tiles... what to do, what to do..." sort of underwhelming. Each character having distinct abilities works way better in games with character-switching, while this game's premise feels just too simple to me. >.<
(then again, I'm not a 5-years old kid)
Aside from that, I'd prefer if the graphics used consistent style, rather than realistic backgrounds and cartoony foreground. Also, you might want to make the tiles more distinct (it's a little tricky to tell gray, turquoise and purple apart; I didn't really have much trouble, but people with worse colour recognition could get confused...?). I guess the rest works well enough (or at least didn't stand out to me too much?).
A technical note: it's more of a shooter than a roguelike (these tend to be turn-based rather than real-time, and have more focus on tactics/RPG elements than dexterity).
I've played a few rounds, got the hang of it, though the slow movement is a bit discouraging. The snipers were OP indeed, too. Maybe I'd feel more eager to play around more if this game had some goal? Or maybe even a few levels, with each acting as a "checkpoint" (i.e. once you die, you don't go to the very beginning). This certainly has some room for improvement...
The concept itself feels pretty generic, but I appreciate the variety of enemies. Also, hopefully by the next LD you will have better hang of balancing. ^^'
When I read the game description, my first thought was "wow". As in, "wow, that's some unusual puzzle idea, will it work?"
So, I ran the game, and I must say that the graphics could use some tuning; I don't even mean making the sprites more polished or something, but at least choosing something different than bright red background and blue buttons for menu. The game itself feels a little clunky, too, mostly due to suboptimal way the reordering phase is handled. First of all, it'd really help if reordering was made with the level state visible, so that I can see what I'm getting into (it's particularly important in the level with reordering checkpoint). Second, it'd be nice if the game remembered what was the last combination I started with, so that I can just do a single correction or so. Finally, the reordering phase uses mouse while the rest of the game uses keyboard, making controls a bit bothersome.
As for the puzzles, they weren't as great as I'd hoped (in particular, there were not shape-specific abilities or anything; just walls that reacted to specific shapes), but still provided a little bit of a challenge. I particularly found the one-time passes and +1 shifters curious.
Generally, kudos for the idea (and interesting theme usage), but execution could use some reworking.
The first thing that I could notice, is that graphics are really horrid (and you have no excuse for that; choosing the better colours wouldn't take much more time and still work; heck, black and white would work better).
Another, that menu is mouse-controlled instead of keyboard-controlled, despite the gameplay not using mouse ("press any key to advance" would be better).
Then, once I got back to the game, I've found that re-playing the game after losing causes the soundtrack to overlap, so I had to pretty much restart whenever I lost (i.e. aside from my first attempt, whenever I reached that level with other random switcher).
However, the puzzle idea itself isn't really that bad and, properly expanded upon, could make for a really fun game. Some puzzle game design related advice:
- no such thing as random switchers; I imagine their very existence is just because you didn't have time to make it so that YOU doesn't change every single frame when it stands on some switcher, am I right?
- no restarting the game for a single slip-up, there's really no point; this game has no skill/timing-based challenges (unless someone has hyperperception allowing them to time random switchers transformation just right), but relies on figuring out the correct sequence of steps instead; once that sequence is known, there's no point to make player repeat the challenge over and over again
I hope the next time you won't forget about Ludum Dare, and choose the colours better. ^^'
That's pretty cool take on the theme. In principle, it's kind of like those shape-shift gate-crossing endless runner, but here the shapeshifting process itself is handled in an interesting way; especially when you get to play with the different switcher patterns. The later levels get too quick, though, as in, "I instantly know what pattern to make and still can't click my way to make it" way; perhaps at later levels set the minimum based on the keyboard-presses required to complete a segment? ^^'
The audiovisual side doesn't fall short, either; the graphics are pleasing, the sounds appropriate, and the soundtrack is my favourite (it indeed has that Tetris feel), I'd like to see a double-looped version of it (which totally has nothing to do with me having a program that finds loops in tracks to then play them indefinitely, nope; and I definitely don't have DDRKirby's entry soundtrack on a playlist in that program).
Overall, a really cool entry, one of the better endless-hiscore type of games I've seen this Jam. ^^
Wow, I got my score recorded 3 times. Now that's generous. O.o'
Played around for a bit, but since I didn't seem to lose anyhow and the game wasn't becoming harder and harder, I just kinda died on purpose. And I didn't even knew about the antibody form, I just kinda blindly played around. >.<
I think that game needs some rebalancing, and quite possibly larger enemies variety, difficulty progression etc. Ingame instructions wouldn't hurt, either, I usually don't feel like checking instructions on the game page.
Pretty solid entry; audiovisuals work well (especially music, even if not top-notch), and gameplay doesn't suffer from major bugs or anything. I think the main issue is with intuitiveness - the player starts out with octopus and no other forms, and using the first ability doesn't really provide any feedback, so at the beginning I thought the ability simply doesn't work.
Also, I kinda skipped over the fact that there are ruins where I should obtain other forms. Personally, I'd prefer if they were all available from the very beginning, since they all need to be levelled up individually, anyway; so it introduces additional complication for little challenge. Another thing is no apparent penalty for death (aside from going back to the beginning); thus making me not very motivated to care about my life. ^^'
Still, pretty good entry overall, even if the last boss pretty much boils down to chasing the 3rd form leaving destructive waves in its wake.
Mood is strong in this game, but I think the gameplay could be polished; quite often I felt I was unfairly losing, especially when getting stuck on some obstacles (there was one I died on particularly often). If that was fixed, I think it could make a pretty successful game...?
Uh, oh, it's a platformer. Not only that, but it's a precision platformer. And with rather unfair collisions/hitboxes, too. >.<
The art was mostly good, with background having better quality than some sprites (e.g. a hedgehog), but overall it serves its purpose well. I liked the soundtrack, too (some sound effects were a bit annoying, though, like kangaroo's dying... screech?). The story isn't particularly creative, but it works well enough.
The collisions and maybe level design require some serious work, though; it's fine when a game is difficult (unless it's platformer, because I played way more difficult platformers than necessary to prove my platforming skills), but I've found some segments annoying, and not rarely because I died seemingly without any contact with spikes whatsoever. This led me to using R button so often that sometimes I was mistaking it with Space (including the one time when I reached the owl spirit and restarted mid-dialogue after a really, really painful segment). >.<
Also, you need to get a better grasp of designing multiple-window maps. Sometimes when I jumped the view was moving up and down to catch up with main character, other times I tried walking left/right not seeing there's a ledge just around the window border, the ledge I need to jump on. Also, the flying squirrel fall segment (the one where you avoid bees nests) felt a bit luck-based due to little time for reaction to the next-screen obstacles.
I like the game's mood, but mechanics and challenges require some serious reworking.
The art is pretty neat here, too bad there's no audio. Still, I rather enjoyed that, especially backgrounds.
When it comes to mechanics, they are sadly a bit clunky and buggy. At one time, I got stuck on some platform and could only jump. On another occasion I fell from the map and there was no death or anything, so I had to reload the game. I'd like to have arrow controls, too; with WSAD and RF that close to each other the controls become crowded...
Also, with the gladiator jumping like a flea I can easily jump over the guards straight to the Caesar; I don't think that's quite how the game is intended to be completed. ;)
That's some really neat puzzle with interesting levels. I've got to admit that the difficulty is a bit over the place, and the game being really unforgiving doesn't help, either (I've found the need to replay the level altogether really tiring; would have preferred if the death triggered something like "undo" effect). Especially since you need to have your eyes all over the place to look for potential threats.
As for the audiovisuals, the graphics worked well enough, while the music got pretty tiring pretty quickly. With that in mind, I find it good that the game has "only" 6 levels, as each already takes a while, in large part because of the need to restart the level on the tiniest deadly mistake.
(at the same time, I guess the fact that I completed all puzzles in the end shows it was pretty enjoyable, after all)
Loving the concept here! It's quite hilarious when you first sloppily draw your wheels then get your magnificent vehicle running.
What I'd have liked is having controls refined somehow (sometimes, mouse was getting out of the game window, and on fullscreen it was just too laggy). Also, more variety (the terrain with its twists and turns should be definitely randomly generated, and maybe involve some bumps along a way to mess with the vehicle even more) and the leaderboards as @Will Edwards described.
Aside from that, excellent job. I liked the audio here (especially the sound effects when crossing another player's record) as well. ^^
That was pretty curious game, and an interesting take on the theme. I more or less figured out the purpose of specific parts, though I would have liked to have some sorts of pictures instead of abstract patterns, maybe even hidden in specific R/G/B settings? Still, that's pretty neat concept to play with for a bit. ^^
On a side note, the mouse coordinates reading fails in fullscreen mode; it alters the wrong buttons. For a while I was wondering why switching one button changes others, offset by a few positions. >.<
Yay, Wilhelm Scream. Too bad it's from the dev intro, not the game itself. ^^'
I appreciate the effort that went into the game, though the game felt pretty rough round the edges. In particular, I feel the background was too bright (especially when compared to Icarus who has similar colour) and I wasn't quite a fan of how pixelated graphics are placed against non-pixelated area (generally, having pixels rotated and/or placed at fractional coordinates). Though playing around with soldiers physics was pretty fun (if maybe an unintended kind of fun), so maybe it's worth the cost? ^^'
Oh, also, the non-pixelated text felt inconsistent against the rest. >.<
Alright entry overall, but definitely needs more polish.
Ah, about the splash screen - I don't think it should be silent or anything, rather that if I were to hear a Wilhelm Scream, I'd prefer to have it in the game specifically. ;)
Fun to play for a little bit, even if it's not particularly sophisticated or long. I particularly liked the facial expressions. At the same time I feel the graphics were a little inconsistent; especially the portal effect looked a bit off against the clear-bordered cartoony caveman. The audio worked pretty well.
(gotta admit, though, the rectangular hitboxes were looking pretty weird on these rocks, with all that floating around and such ^^')
Needs more medusa heads! (who played Castlevania might know why)
I managed to complete the entire game. Fixing broken platforms was interesting mechanic to introduce, too bad it wasn't used for some really interesting puzzles (also, it would be nice to see how many parts you've got and how many you still need to collect). Gotta admit that the waiting time is a tad too long sometimes, especially since moving platforms are often not synchronised.
Otherwise, somewhat enjoyable if a bit generic platformer; I like the clocks aesthetics, though. By the way, good choice of the soundtrack. ^^
Well, I won't be particularly original here if I say that I find the idea interesting, but the execution way too time-consuming and unrewarding? ^^'
I especially didn't like how I finished my tablet, then tried baking it, then I overbaked it and I lost my tablet. After meticulously putting in all these tiny little marks and having it all go to waste, I kinda quitted. For what it's worth, you could have very well thrown that mechanic away. >.<
I wonder how that game could be improved to make the gameplay not feel as much like a chore; the premise itself isn't bad, after all...
I totally dig the protagonist's animation.
Also, fun to play for a bit, but I've got to agree that the death beam is a bit untimidating. Also, maybe there could be some different endings depending on how far you advance, I dunno. Guess I'm just not the sort of person to get motivated just by getting higher and higher score.
(also, I kinda initially thought that the teleporter is the final game's goal, and I should get to it as soon as possible ^^')
Phew, finally completed the game after multiple attempts (the fact that my computer decided to crash randomly didn't help). It'd help if a downloadable version was available, so that I wouldn't need to download the resources every time I get back to the game.
Still, that was pretty enjoyable and surprisingly advanced entry (though the fact that I played the post-Jam version *might* have helped). Too bad there were these dead ends where I couldn't advance further, some justified, some not (e.g. near the end it didn't register that I had gravity already changed; so upon next playthrough, I didn't alter gravity until the very end, and only then succeeded). Also, after all these attempts I would have kinda liked more rewarding ending, I dunno, depiction of complete destruction or at least more detailed description of what happened next? ^^'
Still, that was one of more enjoyable entries I had pleasure of playing.
Wow, really great, this one.
The stats and general mechanics feel meaningful, there is some variety of choices and the writing and various events is of pretty good quality. Things were well explained, too, I didn't feel overwhelmed by all these stats.
(also, I got the best ending ^^)
"Thanks for playing that long."
Huh, this one felt pretty chaotic, yet with some effort, trial and error and some conventions in place I eventually managed to complete all levels. The mechanics were pretty well done, though sometimes the balls were getting stuck against each other, ending up in some weird loop or something (still, these were literally corner cases). ^^'
I'm not sure if I would be up to 42 puzzles like that, with all that chaos and trial and error (since I can't quite simulate in my head the entirety of the orbs movement), but for what it's worth, it's a pretty fine puzzle.
I think it's needless to say the audiovisuals were impressive as usual? (though the background felt a bit dark, and for a while I thought it's actually plain black)
I enjoyed the game. It could have been more polished, but the core is interesting enough to be enjoyable. I found the pyramid puzzle confusing, until I walked around and found the helpful NPC who pointed me to the solution, oh well. ^^'
(gotta admit, though, these Egyptians were pretty smart, knowing how many years before Christ their pyramid has been built; they probably discovered that with their ancient technology or whatnot)
Among the things I'd like is probably a wider torch range. As it is now, if you pointed the torch in all 8 possible directions, there would be quite a few blind spots; if the cone had an angle of, I dunno, 60 degrees (45 minimum) that wouldn't be a problem, I think. Alternately, make the torch follow the light, giving full 360 degrees no matter the cone width.
Oh, also, when I reached the end screen, the game immediately recognised the "W" key I held down while leaving the pyramid, closing the game, so I had to restart. It was pretty annoying, to say the least. ^^'
Completed 8 levels, then failed immediately on the 9th. There was some insane stuff going on there. >.<
I like the different areas, enemies etc., as well as the main character (with that north-arrow pointing to the shooting direction). Too bad the different enemies weren't showing more varied behaviour; it seemed like with each level it's more enemies that are getting faster and more frequent. Also, maybe some sort of upgrading the player as the game progresses would help, too...
Overall, fun to play for a little bit, but rather tiring to complete. >.<
I enjoyed the story and the general aesthetics of this entry. Sadly, the puzzles weren't particularly interesting; gate-switching and mazes don't provide much challenge, and the warpers are just annoying.
Still, the game overall has really nice mood and atmosphere to it, though I'm not quite sure how I can tell if I gathered enough items or not. ^^'
(also, them aliens sure had very *cough* aerodynamic spaceships...)
That was rather fun to play, I finished the whole thing. I've noticed that once I racked up some massive collection of weapons I became basically invincible in battles, but since that imbalance worked in my advantage (and perhaps spared me from restarting the entire game upon losing, I dunno).
If there's some trouble, it's figuring out the game at the beginning (but later it becomes more or less clear); also, I would have liked some ability to scroll through map. It would be nice if the procedural generation enforced some key areas (river, forest, altar) to appear on each island from the point they become relevant. Also, I still don't know what these numbers in the top-right area of cards mean.
At the same time, I find the game did pretty good job giving player meaningful choices. It was pretty easy to learn the possible consequences of specific cards/events and it was up to player to decide which they pick. Recently I've played some games with similar concept, but they gave little idea about what exactly can happen in specific event, and so I just blindly accepted events because why not. In this case, that part is done right.
Also, I find it amusing how portals are represented with curly braces. ^^'
Overall, pretty enjoyable and polished entry. Would have liked some audio, but still.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Glad that you generally seem to enjoy the dialogue, and the last puzzle (which is the first "real" puzzle there). ^^
I admit that the game at the moment isn't particularly polished (which shows e.g. with the stairs bug). Generally, this Jam I focused more on some very specific set of features (including the jumping, the blocks and some other things that haven't made it to the game proper), to check if I could pull them off. I might need to think more about how to handle the unclear blocks height (maybe having the walls and floors autoconnected to a single whole, rather than being drawn as a grid of fields, would help already?).
As for diagonal jumping, I hoped the level design would make it clear enough that jumping diagonally is the only option, but maybe I was wrong...? Also, I acknowledge the point of @g12345 that there's an issue with jump being possible only at some times. Generally, right now it's like "try moving in a given direction or one of neighbouring ones, if not possible, jump", which means in some cases a technically valid jump is impossible to pull off. I'll need to handle jumping better, too...
Ah, uh, thanks for the feedback, everyone.
...I've been taking part in a week-long challenge recently, and it appears now that I've got some other game idea that doesn't involve that many layers and should be clearer in its presentation, so I'll probably focus on that one instead. I might or might not come back to this project later, we'll see...
(for the record, you can check the prototype of the other game here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f222gspc505xmkw/AAAaSwJtYRx-bjeb1OBvGLhIa/OSG%20Timely%20Entries%20-%20ZIP%20Archives/Alice%20-%20juegOS.zip?dl=1 )
That was certainly quite an interesting experience, and a *relatively* unusual take on the theme (mind, I considered some ancient computer system, too, before settling on the pyramid; though I was thinking more along the lines of C64 or something).
Nice to play for a few goes (though having to refresh page to play it again is a nuisance), and is generally a good joke game (as in, there's some effort put into it, even if you only had 7 hours, and some jokes are actually kinda funny). Not bad, overall. ^^
(also, the "WHOA Paint" ending was pretty magnificent, in a way; must be them colours)
@Zee: with comments like these, I feel we really need to have some sort of upvoting system. XD
The aesthetics are strong in this game, though the controls are pretty confusing. Still can't figure out why some gems go out when I try to press the key, as if I did something wrong, and so can't really rack up much score...
Also, games like these could use some online leaderboards (at first I somehow thought that the three pictures on the main screen are the top 3 players, actually XD).
The atmosphere is strong in this game. The audio worked pretty well. The 3D display engine was pretty nice, too, although there was some weird glitching with floor elements. Also, there was some weird display around the screen edges, kind of duplicating what's already on screen.
The gameplay could use some balancing. 6 half-lives are pretty harsh, especially if the game just quits upon completion, rather than restarts the most recent room or something. Plus, often I felt losing lives was unfair, e.g. when I fell into the hole, then kinda had the right button still held when I respawned and fell immediately afterwards. Also, I'd have liked to have more range of the lit area; as the game is know, it's a tad *too* dark. >.<
Gotta agree with the TerraCottaFrog about the fullscreen, too.
Ah, a text adventure. Slightly time consuming, but when done well, it's not that much of a problem, and that's the case here. ^^
Generally, I enjoyed the writing here, and the story worked pretty well (as well as the meaningful choices). One thing I find understandable in Compo timeframe, but still noticeable, is that some paths were cut short; e.g. I don't think there's much you can do outside the shield (except for dying from radiation).
Also, I'd really like to have some sort of restart button after completing the game. Its lack makes exploring alternate endings a bit more of a pain than necessary... ^^'
I completed all 8 levels; it was a bit tricky, but with some base strategy (e.g. concentrating tiles of some specific colour in one place to have less blanks to fill in, pushing monochromatic tiles around corners whenever possible). Too bad there was no congratulations screen, and level 8 appears incomplete. You really didn't expect anyone to complete all of them, huh? ^^'
(in the meantime I've thought of an algorithm to randomly generate arbitrarily large levels, because why not)
Generally, the game played really nice. From things I'd like changed - an indication which tiles are in conflict and which aren't (it could be e.g. implemented by having some little orbs between tiles, and the orb would light up if the tiles matched). Also, I'd prefer if I could swap any two tiles, not just the neighbouring ones; the latter method provides no challenge, anyway, just need to do more clicking.
That aside, pretty good job, the puzzle mechanic was interesting, and the audiovisuals worked well (I like how there was a different music for level selection and level itself, too).
Completed the little content the game had, would have liked a bit more, but I know from my own experience it's not quite that easy. ^^'
Also, I encountered a weird bug (after dying, maybe?) that made my character keep going forward as if I kept pressing W button. I tried various stuff to unlock the character, but nothing worked, so I just held S when I wanted the character to stop, and moved camera when I wanted to change the direction. Pretty inconvenient, still. ^^'
I must say, though, the visuals look quite great. If you hadn't said that, I'd never have guessed it's your first 3D project. ^^
Huh, gotta admit that Papyrus' theme works pretty well for the Egyptian mood. ^^'
I think the graphics are nice, and the level structure and traps are interesting, but I'd prefer if the game was single-player (I can't fully enjoy multiplayer games on my own ^^'). Also, the platforming mechanics didn't work particularly well for me... >.<
Well, hopefully the next Jam the gameplay will work out much better. ;)
Interesting concept, though the execution leaves quite a room for improvement. In particular, the controls were a bit tricky, I don't really know how I can accumulate solar power (though I've never really ran out of it, either) and I couldn't quite understand what specific blocks do, so I just ended up trying to mow through the enemies until I died. Would be nice if I could actually defeat them for good. ^^'
Still, seems like a concept worth expanding upon.
I greatly appreciate the story (maybe except for 4th wall breaking parts; the story is humourous enough without it, anyway) and the general idea behind this game, and the intro actually establishes the reason why reloading in this game is so slow.
I've got to agree with others, though, that after a while the hand hurts because of all that reloading (it's 24 key presses, after all); maybe making it automatic when the character stands idly, with an animation visualising the reloading process, would work better in the long run. And speaking of the load run, I think the game could use a few less levels and/or more variety in them (gotta admit, though, the graphics were pretty varied). Also, the music was pretty tiring as I progressed further, and it's mainly the amusing story that kept me going. ^^'
Still, it *is* quite a fantastic entry, especially for such a timeframe! Great job, here!
After a few tries I eventually won. ^^
At first I completely didn't know what this was about. I thought it was meant as a sort of parody game, with the ship progressively breaking apart as it's an ancient technology and player always losing (I didn't even realise I can fix things). Only after reading the description I understood it was meant as an actual game. ^^'
Still, the audiovisuals were already pretty cool when I played the game the first time, and the next times it didn't change (maybe the letters could be larger, though). The pirates dogfighting aspect was pretty fun to play.
The aspect of choosing between safe slow travel or quick dangerous one would be interesting, but the fact that the game seems to offer nothing particularly interesting in the slow travel time, it generally is more fun to fight the pirates, anyway. ^^' Also, with no apparent to choose the tasks I can't even do any optimisation (plus, random rewards add unpleasant luck factor; i.e. depending on how generous RNG is, the game might end in more or fewer turns).
If there was ability to choose the tasks, as well as something fun to do when flying slowly, I feel the management aspect (aside from fighting and repairing aspects) would be pretty cool. Nonetheless, really neat entry. ^^
On a side note, rare deaf leopards seem to be quite common around there. ;)
Nice little entry, managed to get all the keys. I like how there's a good variety across enemies (e.g. the dogs flying around wildly wherever, and the spiders slowly walking up and down like on a spider web thread). It wasn't particularly sophisticated, and I would have liked something more of an ending that changing the message (as well as some retro-sounding audio), but for what it's worth, it plays alright. ^^
Oh, also, nice job making the screen switching effect, making the world feel connected. Touches like that are always nice. ;)
Phew, made it to day ~5.14; if only that chicken flew a few seconds earlier...
Well, that's some pretty enjoyable arcade with great aesthetics. The animation and sound effects were spot on, and there was enough variety of the items to keep things interesting. The difficulty curve was pretty well balanced, too, making things progressively harder rather quickly, yet not being too sharp. Also, it involves some good resource management element with the log and the overpowered chicken force.
It might not be a metroidvania or a rhythm game, but that's quite enjoyable still. ^^
Wow, that was pretty intense and insane. Too bad I couldn't watch all the glory happening in the background because I was too busy clicking at all possible stuff; though maybe you could have toned down the flying things (like, to 1/3 or so) to make things still look ludicrously plenty without making them too crowded.
Generally, I enjoyed the entry. Maybe it's not 100% spot on the theme (would fit Growing more, maybe? ;) ), but the audiovisuals and the humour worked pretty well here.
Interesting concept, but seems really tricky to execute properly, in a way that being an octopus isn't required to fully enjoy the game. >.<
Either way, I was totally confused, and the fact that I got that screen setting where the sides get cut off didn't help, either (I couldn't see the "CONTROLS" button, so I was completely lost). Even knowing the controls, it was pretty hard, until I finally decided to make a team of all marines, gather them around the same place and use their secondary abilities alternately (Q, 2, W, 2, E, 2, R, 2, repeat). With that, I eventually defeated all the slimes I faced and eventually reached and destroyed the artifact (the movement was kinda slow, though).
Aside from that, audiovisuals worked well enough, and there was some variety in the enemies and backgrounds, it seems (I didn't quite like the black and white floor). Overall, rather decent entry, though troublesome controls and slow movement take away from the experience to an extent. ^^'