Beneath the Surface by FistBumpGames 2014-05-01T13:01:00
Is it possible to kill the boss ? The character seems to run and attack by itself.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → thebmxeur
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Lines | jam | 389 | 3.75 | 3.76 | 3.37 | 4.10 | 3.07 | 3.46 | 3.41 | |||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Rain Systems | compo | 224 | 3.45 | 3.29 | 3.98 | 4.00 | 3.25 | 3.34 | ||||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Le bateau ivre | compo | 742 | 3.00 | 2.53 | 3.51 | 3.19 | 3.50 | 2.00 | 3.46 | |||
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | Spatris | compo | 156 | 3.71 | 3.57 | 3.84 | 3.56 | 3.60 | 3.20 | 3.17 | |||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Expectations | compo | 603 | 2.68 | 2.04 | 3.47 | 2.56 | 2.84 | |||||
| 2016 | 37 | One room | Stick Figure Animator [NOT A GAME] | compo | 398 | 3.12 | 51 | ||||||||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Blobs are stupid | compo | 619 | 2.96 | 3.02 | 3.17 | 2.65 | 100 | |||||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | BadGameYouShouldNotPlay | compo | 1192 | 2.22 | 1.85 | 3.09 | 2.58 | 2.29 | 1.50 | 1.41 | 2.11 | 62 | |
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Reflection | compo | 308 | 3.44 | 3.47 | 3.80 | 3.67 | 2.63 | 1.20 | 1.59 | 2.90 | 93 |
Is it possible to kill the boss ? The character seems to run and attack by itself.
The game freezes after pressing space in the events ( guy playing music, big corp ).
Thank you for the comments.
Help or ? in the console will give you a list of available commands. Don't expect something fun though ^^
Took me some time to figure out what to do, but I really liked it. Good job.
When closing the game on windows, the process doesn't stop, I had to kill it in the task manager. Apart from that, looks like you're watching handmade hero !
Please change the sound of the text ^^
I pressed A/E and the camera was either very far or very close making it hard to play and I didn't find a way to set it back to normal.
Also you should not include pdb files (debug files) as they are twice the size of the game and don't serve any purpose to the user.
Didn't understand what I'm supposed to do at first. The UI doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There are things that appear behind icons (the cost/reward), there is a lot of space with nothing in it, buttons act as tabs, buttons are place in the middle of nowhere, the scrap tab and $ tab seems to be reversed... If you want to make GUI, you should look at real programs/games and understand why things are the way they are.
And add more explanations in the description so people can understand what they are supposed to do.
Avira antivirus reports a virus in the .exe . I'm sure it's nothing. Just letting you know.
You shouldn't put the pdb files (debug informations) in the zip. That's 140MB out of 270MB that isn't needed.
Maybe shooting just by pressing the letter would have made the game faster and more fun. The delay between shooting and making a friend doesn't help. Nice game though.
@peredom What's the error exactly ?
The idea is good, the platforming no so good (too much inertia), the jump sometimes not happening. It would have been better with checkpoints, and a key to restart if you removed the wrong thing.
I liked that the title screen and the intro are somewhat explicit but require you to actually look at them (more or less like the murals in brutal legend). I would have loved if you went full retro with parallax and graphics only on the pixel grid, no alpha and low-res particles. The control could also have been tighter. Loved the minimal narrative approach that let you interpret it.
Doesn't run, missing MSVCP140D.dll (debug dll). Maybe compile a release version ?
Dodging bugs is my favorite pastime. Doesn't work out of the box with a Steam Controller though.
Nice entry. Picking things and putting them where you want is a little bit off in my opinion.
Would have been great to have a count down before some of the mini games (clicking the colored button).
Looked great, but I wish I could skip level transition, end of level animation and teleport animations. On the second to last level, I didn't use the teleport and the level was easy. As already mentioned there were times when the ground disappeared before I really went on it. Grid base movement would have fit the game better ?
I didn't expect to enjoy it. Took me some time to find the last survivor.
@xcvzxc @icefox @jsmcag @hegemege @shujal @suchista @shp @randdir It was my first time ever recording any music, and I can't really play the guitar (or any instruments). So I'm glad people like it.
@firefly4 @hegemege @randdir The game speeds up each time one (or more) line is completed. It starts slow to let you get a hang of the controls and mechanics. After 10 lines, the speed is 1.5 times the start speed (starts at 100 m/s and increase by 5 for each line cleared) and it gets interesting. I probably should have displayed that information somewhere in the game. Since the goal is to last long, you need to try to complete several lines with one tetromino because it will only increase the speed once. If you give it another go, try to complete several lines and see if it's still too slow :)
Loved the idea, but the execution is a bit lacking. But enjoyed it.
The retry button doesn't work. Also I didn't understand why I lost. Doesn't seem I was hit by anything. Nice atmosphere.
Interesting. I didn't like the blue balls, it's too random for a game where you don't have much controls. Would have loved more horizontal level where you need to pick up speed to go farther or higher. Also the surfaces where you can't put the grappling on are to similar to the ones you can.
Go 2 cartridges, a console, bone soup, but can't figure out what to do next. - Is there a way to see all possible action I can do ? - Why can't I just give the soup to the dog and go past him/her ? I can't throw the bone ? - The game would benefit from messages that would give you an indication of what the solution is. Like "give bone to dog" reply is: "It would just eat the bone if you give it away." That is what I want so I can got to the house. There is not reason given that the dog eating the bone wouldn't let me past. It doesn't give any indication of what the author want's me to do. And at this point it's just guessing and no fun at all.
Like pace said, you can just go to a corner and kill from there.
Too much SFX and post process in my opinion. There should be more audio feedback for enemies approaching (and to know from where).
Controls are laggy and not good, bullets don't do damage for about a second after you or the enemy shoot them. No way to get life back, you need to go back out of the room to get bullets back. Some enemy shoot at you while they are of screen and some don't shoot while you're next to them. Sounds and graphics are ok.
Would be great if Microsoft started to play a sound each time a Window opened.
I think I would have prefer tile-based movements. And check point, if not at each room at least after getting each scrolls. I failed at the boss and I don't want to do everything again. It doesn't add anything to the game except (in my opinion) bad difficulty. Graphics are great.
What jelbre said. Also had the bug where I didn't fell. And in one of the earlier level I got to the end but it didn't work (there were no pickups so I don't know what I did wrong).
Didn't got at fist that you needed to store thing and only export what was asked (since on night 1 there is nothing to export). The storage area is pretty big and shrink down slowly. I think a constant shrink of one row or one area would have been better than random tiles (so you would have to constantly re organize storage). Also the game elements, text and UI overlapping made things harder to read than necessary. A better use stacking block together (like having a smaller export area so you're forced to fit blocks together) would have made it more interesting. And the fast forward time button can't be clicked during the export phase.
2 frame animation looks bad. First time I launched the game I started inside a crate. The game is nearly impossible to play well because you can't see what is coming and you don't control where you'll land. I like the idea of running to try to escape the planet gravity, but since it's not really possible in the game, that falls flat.
The music was nice. Didn't really enjoy the game though. For the fixed version, google asks me to login, so you should probably fix that.
Your coding skill are really bad if you waste 512Mo of RAM that fast. :) You could have gone with 16Mo to fit the Win95 style. I found that it's hard to focus on both the game and the ram situation at the same time. Having ingame problems to illustrate the lack of ram (slow down, graphics glitches, text disappearing... ) would have been more playable than having to read a ram counter at the top.
Would have been cool to have a quick reload (like in Alien Swarm) because reloading in the alien wave room is like a death sentence.
Didn't understand how it works. Instructions say a/q to vacuum or deport, but pressing keys doesn't do anything most of the time. A friend told me to use AZER and QSDF but it doesn't work for me (either on AZERTY or QWERTY layout). Also the point/time kept going up while I was doing nothing but watch the ship moving over planets.
@theludovyc Ok, I figured it out. You need to hold the keys down. But then on the first screen I can just empty my ship and win.
@theludovyc What's the point of the game if you can just press a key for a second and finish it ?
Wait, there is a sword ?
You need to rename the folder build_Data to DyingPlanet_Data in order to play. At first I didn't see that the messages on the top right change so I was wondering what to do some sound when the message change would help to notice them. Spamming E to collect things or put them in the buildings was not fun. If spamming was not needed, more visual feed back would have helped.
Not being able to hit up or down is annoying, didn't figure out that you could hit the wall to push them back at first, laser kills you without warning, enemies can spawn on you or so close that you'll die instantly. Graphics and sounds are ok.
I think one of the sheets on the wall is wrong.
[spoiler]
If I understand correctly, green mark indicates a good number at the right place, and a green mark crossed with a red one indicate a good number at the wrong place. The bottom right sheet indicates 2 numbers at the right place. But there are 2 numbers at the right place and 1 at the wrong place (1 is at the wrong place, 7 and 9 are at the right place). Which makes the puzzle unsolvable (if you take into account the other sheets).
Don't like that the character change it's orientation when you stop moving. Don't like to be blocked by books on the floor.
Nice game. I feel the color of the platforms should be always visible because it doesn't add anything to the game to not know. Jumping between wall requires to jump where the walls are the closest, or you'll not be high enough to reach the next platform. A little more room for error would have been great. The last vertical jump with the green platform is annoying because you don't see the crystal so you don't know if you need to move, and you need to get it on the way up because you wont get another chance. Also I feel that the green platform should not bounce you up, but let you jump higher. Several time I pressed jump by reflex and ended up killing all the momentum. And you should put level 2 before level 1.
The minimap colors are weird, why isn't the sea blue ? Would have loved it to have an indication of where the harbor was. When buying supply, it's not clear how much it costs.
Restarting a level because I pressed the key a bit too long and moved 2 tile instead of 1 isn't great. Restarting the whole just to modify the path on one tile isn't great either. Would have loved to be able to just rewind the path instead of restarting. I find that it's near impossible to solve the puzzle without trial and error, and since error means restarting everything, it was not that pleasant.
Same as dalbinblue, I wished the left and right controls were inverted.
Way to easy, just making tower that reach the bottom of the screen and then it's just a matter of clicking when the tower passes over the bottom. Stopped because there was no challenge at all.
Hit boxes are off, there is not hit feedback, 2 frames animations are pretty bad. Overall the gamefeel is pretty bad.
Would have like that you keep inertia and that to stop you have to turn and boost the other way (like in Asteroids for example).
Should have a mode where you have a limit of things you are allowed to touch (and the limit should be 0) :)
Collision detection seems a bit off to me, also several time enemies just hug the exit letting no way to progress. Why not make the "buy" thing bound to "space" so it's easy to access ?
Looks and sound good. But nearly unreadable and thus unplayable. Too much effects make it impossible to see what is coming up (especially after collecting some spice), the camera is way too slow to catch up to the ship which also make it impossible to see what's in front of the ship. When the bar reaches 1/4 you loose so much speed that it's nearly impossible to reach a new container.
@raivk Maybe just keep the speed/inertia (it's in space after all) when you don't have spice and limit left/right movement speed ?
The graphics reminds me a little bit of Gonner for some reason (probably the exits). In one level where there was a lot of fire the game slowed done to a crawl until I finished the level.
I had some difficulty matching ghost with enemies, I think it was because I don't have enough time to see the ghost before needing to shoot enemies (maybe the transparency throw me off a little bit too). And as already said, it wasn't clear if I needed to count how many enemies or how many I killed.
Nice game. It was great that no tutorial was necessary and everything was clear.
@redspine @indigowolf The "game" only use the arrow keys.
@indigowolf I'm sorry about the crash. The game doesn't write anything on disk so there is no reason why it wouldn't start again. Maybe your anti-virus doesn't like the exe (which is understandable as it comes from the internet without any signature)?
@voxel-forest It's "designed" to be impossible. With some luck you can reach the end of the screen, but you'll still end up in the same situation.
@ommadawn I could have gotten that down to ~100Ko if I compiled without the CRT, but that's extra work for no real benefits.
@thekingbarry I'm sorry it doesn't work for you. Does it crashes, or does it just exits with nothing happening ? Could you try launching the game with "-gfx_log" as a parameter. If you don't know how, you can place this file next to the exe and double click it: https://sisyphe.be/ld48/48/start_log.bat It should create a file called "win32_opengl.log" which is a text file containing information about the capabilities of your graphics card. If you search that file (for example in notepad) for "Actual context", the next line should specify the OpenGL version and the game requires at least OpenGL 3.3. If you can't find "Actual context", What is the version specified near the top of the file after "Dummy context" ?
Also don't expect too much of Rimbaud, none of it made it through except for the title.
@thegreenworm @assertfailure I had an issue with my sound system and couldn't figure it out in time. Hopefully I'll fix that for the next time.
@ubershmekel The boat sinking is part of the "story".
@waltsontanaka It's not that complicated. The algorithm is in lib/image.h.
I have a texture (embeded in the exe) of the ascii font (lib/raster_font.h, it's mainly the texture data written in text form). At startup, I read each pixel of the font for one character (a character is 8 * 12 pixels) and sum them up (image_to_ascii_initialize). I called that "intensity". I repeat that for each character, so I have an intensity value for each character of the font.
Each frame I render the tga images into one "scene image", then I convert the image to gray scale (a single channel for the texture). Then I call "image_to_ascii_render" to do the conversion to ascii. That function takes each 8 * 12 rectangles of pixels, computes the intensity (like before, just summing the pixel values) and find the character with the intensity value that is the closest and put it in a text buffer (meaning I can actually render in a text console, or in a text file). That's all.
Well, I then need to render the text, but that's just displaying a bunch of rectangles with the correct character image on them.
@icxon Thanks for reporting the issue. Unfortunately I don't really know what the issue could be (well, it's most likely a shader compilation issue). I won't be able to fix it, but I would be interested to know what graphics card you're running on, so I can try to test it if I ever run into that.
Could you try this version (with the -gfx_log arguments). This is the same file but should log shader compilation errors. https://sisyphe.be/ld48/48/ld48_debug.exe
Does the log contains any "Shader error" or "Shader program error" message ?
I think the bubble module only frighten fish when the ship is not moving. Once I noticed that I was able to reach the bottom.
I'm pretty sure the game ended my run while there was still possible moves. I had a full empty row at the bottom, a single block line available to place and single and double free space lines in the stack. Is there a fail condition other than not being able to place blocs anymore ?
The gun feeling isn't great. There is no feedback on whether or not I'm hitting the targets, or even if bullets are going out of the barrel. The crosshair is far to big/noticeable on the screen. It's seemed to be a crowd control shooter, where you often go backward while shooting, but the arena is filled with too much stuff making it easy to get stuck and die. The "light on the gun" only shine two meters ahead so it's hard to see enemies.
And I would like an option to disable motion blur.
I can't see a thing. Maybe it would be nice to have a "training" where you have to put the bar vertical, than horizontal or something to see if you actually see it (sometimes I though I saw it, but not sure).
@dhim Yes but that doesn't really help. One issue is that the game is still going on (you can "die") which doesn't let you get used to it. Another issue for me is that going from cheat to no cheat I couldn't see the bar at all which make me wonder if the game is working properly on my computer.
The game didn't work in 2 different browsers. The windows build seemed to soft lock after clicking on the first cube.
Completely forgot about the flares and wandered (and died) for 10 minutes. The used them by accident and found the 4 remaining nerves. Nice one.
Interesting.
My comment will be negative, but hopefully you'll see that as useful.
There are some usability issues, for example why choose P to go in photo mode, when it's a key on the other side of the keyboard ? Why not just E ? The camera pan was very slow, to the point of not being usable for me. Why not just keep the camera centered (without any pan controls) on the character and go to photo mode with the right click ? Why do I need to keep the mouse pressed to look around in photo mode ? In addition it conflicts a bit with the fact that it changes the texture if you press it while looking at somebody ? Why do I have to exit photo mode to turn around and scan behind me ? Why do I have to scan with different textures to detect aliens (I get why, but it's not interesting) ?
The first time I exited the game, it didn't exit properly (it was still running in the background), and now my Windows mouse cursor is big and I can't seem to make it back to the normal size. I guess I'll have to reboot or something.
Agreed with Ydrenor.
In the main menu I didn't figured out how to move to see the controls (I would expect to use the arrows in the menu, not wasd) so I started the game without knowing the controls.
In addition, I played the game without reading the full description on this page and I didn't figured out that I could use the chips to upgrade my powers. Is there a reason not to directly boost me instead of having to open the inventory and use the item (I didn't relaunch the game so maybe it would be obvious if I did it in game) ?
I think it would have felt better if it was tile based (moving on a grid). Falling from the blocks when you're half way across it felt off for me.
I for one think the controls suits the game (except maybe for the S key to turn around). It reminds me of playing Duke Nukem 3D years ago. Maybe allow the arrow keys in addition to J and L ? I don't think mouse look would improve the game, neither having the sun pieces visible from afar. Some way to help you find them would be nice though (e.g. a pulse of light or sound every 30 seconds or the pieces emitting a sound that got louder when you get near). But as you said, you didn't have the time.
I only found one sun piece, and I felt that it wasn't worth it to wander aimlessly hoping to find the other pieces.
So I wandered aimlessly without looking for pieces, got out of the forest and journeyed for a while. I got lost in those seemingly infinite plains, to finally reach what looked like an ocean. I was weighting the path I had walked, wondering if I got it in me to continue the voyage, or should I just enjoyed what I have in my heart right now ? Maybe I should go ba...
There was nothing anymore.
"DeeperInTheNight.exe has stopped working" (crashed in RenderBilboard).
Thanks for the journey.
I wish the rocks blocked enemies fire, otherwise they are just like a trap for the player.
Having to wait to loose all momentum before being to swim again made me feel like I wasn't in control, but being able to "steer" during the swimming did the oposite.
Very powerful cat, or very weak desk.
When I pick up an item and press space to pass the item description, it starts the search again which was annoying. Nice graphics and mood.
Could you make a zip file instead of an installer ? I'll test a lot of games, and I don't want to clutter my PC with a lot of installation left overs.
You should add a title card so that your game stands out in the game list. One issue I encountered was that it seems that if there are a lot of echoes, the game slows down and the echoes don't "grow" enough to be useful. Another issue is that the echoes are slower than you so you can't really see in front of you when you need to move fast.
The space flowers looked nice, although not in the style of the rest of the game.
The feeling of the weapons was terrible in my opinion. I couldn't figure out the range of the crossbow as the bolt didn't seem to come from where it's on the screen, don't seem to travel far and straight and it just didn't felt right. Similar for the plank and saber, I don't know how close I need to be to the enemies for them to reach, and there isn't good enough feedback to know if it hits or not.
That said, the movements felt really good in comparison, and when I played it without trying to kill the enemies, and just tried to run through the levels it was nice to play. The jump height felt a bit low but it worked well enough for me not having problem traversing the levels. If the weapons had more kick (e.g. 1 hit kill on most enemies, fast load on the crossbow, better feedback...) it could have felt like the original doom as a pirate in a cave.
I wasn't sure (and still am) if the light gray things had collisions. At first I thought they didn't but I seem to collide with some.
Wherever this poop comes from, they need to see a medic.
The controls are a bit weird: when you go out of the track, the train directly turns in the direction I moved of the track (I suppose you use an offset from the position where I clicked). I think a click + drag + release would have been easier to handle (and faster to get off the track). And then just a click to get back on the track ?
@patatenouille Yes resetting the offset would probably have helped. And while playing, at some point I figured out there wasn't really a need to get back on the track. Maybe it's slower off the track, I'm not sure. Having to switch fast between off track and on track would have been great. But as everybody, we never have the time to make everything great !
I'm really bad at differentiating pitch, so I think having smaller interval between playing notes would help me notice the difference in pitch. Also just playing a chord like that doesn't sound good in my opinion, a melody playing continuously would be a lot better (and I'm sure a lot harder to make work right).
I'm assuming the levels are randomly generated, by I had at least 5 levels where the objective was just at the start of the level. Making the objective smaller with a higher range of notes/chords may have made it more interesting to play and actually have to listen to the sound to find it.
The Art style was nice. I would have liked to be able to invert the mouse Y axis. As mentioned above, having the ship in the middle of the screen really prevents from seeing anything. In the "tunnel" the only way I managed to get throw it is by not moving the mouse and clicking to hopefully kill the enemies.
At the boss I ran into performance issues where the game slowed down to a crawl (1 of my CPU core was maxed out). The first time it solved itself after 10 seconds, the second time I had to kill the game as it didn't seem to resolve.
Enjoyed that, thanks. I wish there was a windows build because there were some sound issues for me running it in the browser. Some small details: I wish the "small background" in the "big background" where better integrated together. And the text was a bit hard to read because it overlapped the moving sprites which I found a bit distracting and didn't feel at the right place.
Somehow, I enjoyed it.
Got to a place with a big enemy guarding an egg (I think). Couldn't figure out what to do next and the enemy didn't do any damage.
It doesn't work for me either (I'm on Windows 7). I know the itch page says to install the vulkan SDK but there should be no reason for the end-user to need to install a development kit to run a game. AMD, Nvidia and intel graphics driver contains the necessary run time dependency needed to run a vulkan application (as far as I know, I never programmed using vulkan). I tried using the run-time package from the LunarG web site with no luck.
The last two lines in the info window: Willo_Core: [info] [Vulkan] ReadDataFilesInRegistry: Registry lookup failed to get layer manifest files. Willo_Core: [info] [Vulkan] loaderValidateLayers: Layer 0 does not exist in the list of available layers.
@will-chambers I tried the updated version and it's working (without the vulkan run time...). I'm curious about what is taking so much memory as what I saw in the game was only text and on git hub there is only a 3 images (by the way, I wouldn't expect every body to have 6GB of VRAM currently, I don't have that). Also the git hub page doesn't seem to contain all the sources (I can't find the text I see in the game, assuming it's rendered on the fly).
For the game itself, it's really hard to play. I don't know if it's intended but it seems that I don't start the game facing the correct direction. After testing it several time, I'm facing the right direction but as soon as I move the mouse the direction changes completely (if I was facing north, I'm facing west or something), then I can look around normally. This happens whenever I go in a new "room", which makes it hard to follow the "dialogue". This also causes confusion because there is no distinction between the player text and the "narrator" text (like text color), so if I don't know what the narrator said, I can't really progress. Having the room bigger would probably improve the experience by making it easier to get the whole text in the screen and make it easier to navigate (a small movement wouldn't trigger a room change).
I can't exit the "As if anyone cares" room, whenever I go in the next room "What matters is who are you", I'm on the edge of the room and any more movement I do brings me back to the "As if anyone cares" room.
Several times I ended up in a state where it seems I was stuck between rooms, or on the edge of a room and the "outside" and couldn't get back to a playable state.
Whenever I exit the game, the game crashes.
I don't know how experienced/old you are (I'm assuming you're young), but here is some feedback for the future. Hopefully it's not too harsh. - The jumps are too "floaty", when I reach the top of the jump, I kind of have to wait to "float" done. - A lot of the jumps are blind jumps, I can't see where I need to jump to. - The exit of each level looks like a fire pit. At first I tried to jump over it. - When I miss a jump, I'm falling with no way to get back except by launching the game again. - A pick axe that shoots rocks ? - If I'm to close to an obstacle, I shoot through it. - In the level where you need to flee the boss, if I wait to see what's happening (since the first time I don't know I have to flee), I can't beat the level as the boss is quicker than me. - In the credit menu, don't make stuff bouncing, it's hard to read. - The graphics and story are bad. But with work and practice, you can improve.
I believe that in the credits their are several names (I may be wrong). If that's the case, the game should be in the JAM category, not the COMPO.
@meritcoding I don't know much about writing story. But not every games needs a story, and if what you're writing isn't good you might want to give context in another way (or no context at all). I would have preferred you spent less time on the story and more on gameplay.
That said, if you really want to write some story, you'll need to start somewhere (like you did here), and it's like everything else, you'll need practice and peoples feedback (not friends and family as this will be most likely biased).
Je n'ai aucune expérience en narration ou mise en page, mais je voudrais suggérer quelques idées seulement basées de mon expérience générale.
Je pense qu'il vaut mieux éviter les grands blocs de texte, d'autant plus si cela implique une petite police). Par exemple le texte du début de la partie. Il me semble préférable d'afficher une phrase ou deux à la fois, et d'afficher la suite dans un écran différent (ou faire défiler le texte, ce qui permet de revoir le texte qu'on à déjà lu). Un bon exemple récent est Disco Elysium: il y a des textes plus ou moins long, mais toujours distillés en petit blocs faciles à lire.
Il serait peut être bon également de donner au joueur une action (même banale) après quelques écrans afin que ça ne paresse pas comme un seul gros bloc. Par exemple avoir un bouton "Partir de chez Mémé" entre deux phrases.
Garder une taille de police constante tout au long du jeu est aussi selon moi une bonne idée. De plus que les polices pixelisées paressent floues si elles ne sont pas agrandies par un facteur entier.
Un autre point est d'avoir une meilleur mise en page du texte. Le plus simple pour moi est d'éviter le texte centré (utiliser du texte justifié, ou même juste aligné sur la gauche me semble préférable), et éviter le texte qui se trouve sur toute la largeur de l'écran (lorsqu'on est en plein écran), je trouve ça plus désagréable à lire.
Au moment de faire les choix, on pourrais aussi imaginer de devoir cliquer sur les images plutôt que sur les boutons en bas de l'écran.
Du point de vue de la jouabilité, je ne trouve pas intéressant de devoir refaire tout le chemin lorsqu'on meurt. Dans l'idéal, il faudrait un moyen de pouvoir éviter les morts, ou de justifier le retour en arrière en gardant les objets ou d'avoir un intérêt ludique à retracer le chemin. Mais c'est probablement trop de chose à prendre en compte pour une game jam.
I didn't understood that I could move the TV antennas, maybe if there was static on the screen I would have tried, because to me the TV was turned off. I had trouble with the Morse code, I only got the 2 letters correct, but I always have difficulty when it comes to listening to specific sound (like recognizing pitch).
I got a bit confused to why I lost, I think the end screen should give the reason of the failure. Maybe I ran out of fuel ?
When you get some weapons it gets interesting. I wish the movement were faster following the mouse. And a different color for enemies bullets as it's sometimes hard to see them with upgraded weapons.
Every code written during ludum dare is ugly and hacky, but if it does what it's suppose to do in a reasonable amount of time, then it was the right code to write.
Maybe you could add a comment at the top of the file with some compile instructions. I tried compiling with MSVC but it didn't work (it doesn't like the array subscript in function parameters), but using clang worked.
Also providing a compiled binary would be nice.
The performance for me weren't great, it felt a bit sluggish making it harder to aim precisely. It got quite tense after a few rounds.
It would be nice to have more or less time based on how many letters there are. I didn't get much after 5 letters (not native English speaker).
@cptplastic Sorry about that. I can't really do anything about it, it's Microsoft not liking people using their APIs.
@ale I had some ideas to "make" people use files, but when a friend tested the game it seemed hard enough to solve without using files. I'm glad you figured it out as I was worried nobody would.
@ruthiepee There is a sys action to send the checksum.
@crazyrems The diagnostic command tells you what the checksum is, you than can use the sys command to "produce" it and send the result.
@labtoast We are so used to computer not working that it has become the norm :smile:
@bqq Files were supposed to be mandatory, but the single tester I got found them too confusing, so I left them in but not required.
@kizilejderha Unfortunately I don't have any way to test on Win11.
Since the window shows up for a second, it looks like your antivirus might be closing the game (several persons reported issues with antivirus softwares). So if you are willing you may try to add an exception for the game.
It's also possible that I screwed something up, but unfortunately I didn't took the time to add detail logs. If you can, try running the game with the "-gfx_log" parameter, it should create a text file called "win32_opengl.log". In that file there should be a line that says "Actual context" followed by "GL_VERSION: 3.3". It would be very unlikely that your hardware doesn't support OpenGL 3.3 as the window wouldn't show up in that case.
@spex130 Could you try adding an exception for the game in you antivirus ? Several persons reported having to workaround their antivirus.
If it doesn't work, could you try to launch the game with the "-gfx_log" parameter, it should generate a text file called "win32_opengl.log", and look in that file if it contains a line that says “Actual context” followed by “GL_VERSION: 3.3”.
@spex130 Then it's very likely that it's an issue with your antivirus. Sorry about that, I can't really do anything.
With the windows build, if I pressed a controller button to start, the camera would stay on the title screen.
I can't say I enjoy the game that much. The bike doesn't have much punch (slow to accelerate/brake, or at least it feels like it), and having a fixed throttle (meaning when you release the button it doesn't decelerate) felt off to me, and made it hard to get a feel of when to slow down to be near the conduits.
The getting back to the bike after a crash reminded me of Road Rash on the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Like everybody, the lack of feedback and the way information is spread across the screen made it a bit hard for me. Looks nice.
Playing with keyboard and mouse, it seems that space and shift didn't work to go up and down (or it was too slow to notice). I found it was a bit hard to know in which direction I was moving. Space game often put small objects or particles to have reference points to know if you're moving and in which direction, and that could have help.
At some point I had several loaf of bread creating a barrier and making every item fall off the belt. Who orders bread ?
It's a bit weird to have the sound off by default, as it's contribute a lot to the game feel. At least it didn't blow my ears out like it sometimes happens in ld games.
The gameplay felt a bit off. I don't play a lot of bullet hell games, but it seem to me that they generally have somewhat slow bullets moving in known patterns, or fast bullet with precise timing and feedback to announce themselves. Here with enemies spawning at random location, with some shot that seem to explode into more bullets and the view not covering the whole screen, it felt unfair.
At first I thought I would have some remarks, but after a few try it turns out it's really well balanced. Good job.
The movements feel a bit off, and it looked like I was shooting above small gooballs (but it was hitting them). Some hit visual and audio feedback would have been nice.
Took a little time to get used to the controls. For some reason I didn't get that the "character" was always moving and I was expecting to have to keep the button pressed to move.
@flying-dog-fish Don't apologies, I don't think the instructions are the problem, they were fine, it's more a gut feeling when I saw the game that made my "expectation" for the controls to be different. Maybe because everything was square ? I somehow didn't get that it was going to be like pacman controls, even if it looked like it.
Like everybody, level 7 was the hardest (I solved it only after reading rolly's comment). Level 8 was second hardest but I figured it out eventually. Nice entry.
Agreed with ha1fbit, it wasn't clear what the special power were, if they were random and when they were activated. I had some levels where I could jump infinitely and restart the level and couldn't do that, and was left confused not knowing how to finish the level.
I also once got stuck in the floor: I was near the top of the level and wanted to try to jump on the top tiles to cross the level laterally, but that flip me at the bottom of the level and than quickly at the top and I was stuck in the ground.
The text at the top right was hard to read for me (I was paying attention to other things at the center of the screen).
I had to redo the last level a bunch of time because the only solution I found was to try to fall over the time thing and than loop several time by falling down and hope to have enough time to punch the thing. Wasn't really a good experience. Also I didn't find a button to restart the level, but several time I messed up and had to wait for the thing to restart because I knew I wasn't going to make it.
I'm used to the Intel asm syntax so having the destination operand as the last parameter was confusing at first. I found that it was easier to just hard code the path by using a bunch of `set x #0` than to worry with detection. I also had a small issue where the bridge opened twice. It happened several time, I'm not sure why.
On a broader note, I think the UI was too big (font, button, text too big), making it hard to use the manual or read objectives. I've seen in the past other game like this (were you program some robot) where the size of the programming stuff is smaller than the presentation of the bot. It's not the case here but the size of the UI makes it feel off.
Great game.
Finding the solutions was not the problem for me, what was difficult was executing it. As other said the issue when stacking characters and jumping and not being able to jump while on the machine made the last few levels more difficult than necessary. Great game still.
I was interested to see were the game was going as shocking someone/"something" felt uncomfortable from the start. I didn't go to the end (if there is one) because I missed the buttons at some point and didn't feel like doing all the work again to load the various bar.
I also felt that the game was missing a bit of feedback to know if the game is still progressing. For example when the bar to load electricity appears, and I use the button to load it, it takes a while with no more new things happening. I didn't know if there was more to the game, there was a few lines of text that seemed different but wasn't sure it that mattered. After looking at the comment I went back to the game because they appeared to be more and I got to the point were there is a big rectangle on the top right with text in it, which I didn't really grasp what it was about and failed to press the button while reading it.
So I liked it, but since it seems like it's story driven (with the gameplay making everything resonate) I would have liked some checkpoints or at least not a complete failure state for missing to press the button once.
I don't know if it's by design but at some point I started in a room that seemed to be infinite on one axis. I followed the room (which was completely empty) until I reached a wall. Behind the wall was a room that seemed infinite on the other axis. I followed that for a while and when I found another wall, there was a corridor behind and a faint green light at the end.
I liked that for a while the illusion of infinity, and the general procedural generation reminded me of the backroom videos. I wanted to see the monster, but was a bit disappointed when I found him, I had to track them as they were stuck in a door way.
Nice entry, as other already said, it would be nice to lock the mouse in the window.
One of the items to pick up was unreachable, it was close to a wall and I couldn't get close enough to pick it up. It was really hard to orient myself (which I understand is the point) but it was too much in my opinion.
I wish there was a star to stop the rebound after jumps ;)
I quickly started putting every thing in 1 corner of the map so that enemies spawn in some general direction which probably made it easier for me. I had the issue several time where I clicked outside the window which was a bit annoying. There was also some slight slow down when the boss spawned and came into my turrets field.
As other said, some sound/visual feedback when a cool down finishes and when we shoot would have been nice.
Nice entry.
The waves start every 10 seconds, but since you need to finish them before that (otherwise you're dead) the theme doesn't really "fits/apply" in my opinion. I mean it's not possible to have enemies left when a new wave starts so the 10 seconds are pretty irrelevant. Also the game on the ludum dare page seems to shoot below my cursor.
The animation of the "gun" made it somewhat feel good. I was unfortunate to start my 1st and 3rd games with the invert control thing and it didn't felt that it got worst than that... In both cases I lost because I pressed the wrong direction and went into the wall and an enemy. Lower speed, lower fire rate... didn't make it that worse. It would have been nice to be able to jump with space.
I only encountered the monster once (at least I think it was, might have been a statue for all I know). Knowing that the monster only move every 10 seconds doesn't give much information. Where does the monster start ? How far can they move ? Do they teleport to a new location once every 10 seconds, or do they travel 10 seconds than pause 10 seconds ?
The mood was nice, but once I got into the "cavern" I didn't feel any pressure has the monster didn't seem to come there.
Very good entry. I encountered two bugs: - At the end one of the character died when I jumped close to the very last wall when I was walking to the right. - The game finished while one of the character wasn't touching the door. There was around 1 "door width" of space from one of the characters.
I wish there was more challenge, it seemed pretty easy once I got the hang of it. I stopped playing because it didn't seem to change over time.
I also expected filled square to mean it needs to be switch on. I wonder if it would have been more engaging to use the numpad layout since using only one hand seems easier to me. But I suppose not every keyboard has that.
I seem to have some issues with the game, it stutters and doesn't seem to properly detect when I click on an enemy or on the way. Sometimes I get the red sword over enemies but most of the time I don't. Some time the character moves without me clicking or on things I clicked earlier. I also only get the "missed" after I died. The console displays a bunch of error: ``` ERROR: Nonexistent signal: storage_slot_item_changed At: core\object.cpp:1530 ``` The following error repeating several times ``` ERROR: Node not found: CountLabel At: scene\main\node.cpp:1382 SCRIPT ERROR: clear: Invalid set index 'text' (on base: 'null instance') with value of type 'String'. At: res://widget_elements/skill_slot.gde:76 ``` At the end (when I died ?): ``` WARNING: WorldEnvironment::_notification: World already has an environment (Another WorldEnvironment?), overriding. At: scene\3d\world_environment.cpp:40 ```
@cptplastic I tried the new version and it ran much better, I was actually able to play. I still had stutter at times, it seems when several enemies moved on the same location (I forgot to check the console for errors, sorry).
Killing enemies that are on the same spot is a bit tedious because after you kill an enemy, the cursor change to the move cursor even if there is still an enemy under it. It takes a little delay before I get the attack icon again.
I didn't really get why I was losing health. Is it because enemies "look" at me ? There didn't seem to have projectile or other indication that they attack. I also didn't saw enemy waves every 10 seconds. The light fade out every 10 seconds but there didn't seemed to be more enemies every 10 seconds.
Did you made the music ?
Very nicely done. The sequence level was very interesting to solve. Nice job. I also made a "sort of" programming game if you're interested https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/rain-systems
I got inside the room requiring 350 pills and died pretty quickly and I didn't want to collect everything again. It might have been easier if I needed only a few items at precise locations so that you can sort of speed run back once I died. I also found it hard to read the key you need to press on the phone: it's too blurry and sometimes the text seems incorrect (I had issues with page down, text seemed wrong; b 8 and 0 look too much alike). Also I don't use a Qwerty or Azerty layout (switched the layout to play) so when required to press a key I had to translate to Qwerty. It might have been easier to use only keys around WASD so that we can keep the mouse in one hand and not have to move the other much to press the required key. And I don't know what the seringe do (I couldn't use it) and at some point I pick up an object but I don't know what it was.
It was weird at first the the character only looked to the left, than when I picked up the gun I understood why.
L'UI n'était pas claire pour moi. Je n'ai pas cliqué sur la flèche en haut à droite parce que je pensais que ça ramènerais au menu et je n'avais donc aucune idée des critères à rechercher (pourquoi peuvent-ils être masqué?); je n'étais pas sûr de ce que le cœur brisé ferrait.
I liked the mood, although I may have abused of the right click painting, maybe I would should have tried to use only the left click to make it a bit more mysterious and having more to do. Can I ask how does the rendering work ? Does everything as a black texture and you paint/project in it ?
@fullsaphir It's pretty common, as I didn't use any engine and I didn't sign the executable (or submit it to Microsoft for review). You can scan it with your anti-virus if you want to be sure it's safe. If you get the blue window from Windows smart screen, you can still execute it (if you think it's safe, and you're right not just trusting the executable) by clicking on "More information" than "Execute". The full source code is also available if you want to check that.
@walaber I'm sorry about that.
Here is a test build with some things disabled (Gameinput and asserts disabled, nothing changes for the game). Gameinput (the new API from Microsoft to handle controllers) may not be present on your computer, or some issues with the shaders might be causing a crash. If it still doesn't work, could you look if there is a log.txt file next to the executable ? Are there error messages near the end of the file ? Which version of Windows are you using, and which graphics card (OpenGL 3.3 is required but that should be supported for any card in the last 15 years) ?
https://www.sisyphe.be/ld48/54/lines_test.zip
@maximevincent A friend also reported some lag, but his issue was with lag for the audio when you change direction (which is trigger when a key is pressed so it might just be input lag). What's your PC specs (any pc should be able to run it, but there might be an issue with high end PCs) ? What's your monitor refresh rate ? My friend has a RTX 3080 on Windows 11.
@lincolnsalles I'm using some API's from Windows 10 (not specifically for this game, but it's part of my codebase) so the game won't run on Windows 7. Sorry about that. Maybe this version will work: https://www.sisyphe.be/ld48/54/lines_test.zip It's the same but without Microsoft Gameinput API which requires Windows 10 19H1 (May 2019 update) or newer. But I'm probably using other API's not available on Windows 7.
I have the opposite issue than some: I filled the board and have at least one of each plants on the final board and the game doesn't end (none of the two check-mark are on). Still it was a nice little game.
Got to level 10 and I stopped.
I like the idea, but in the first 7 levels I could win by staying at the bottom of the screen, barely moving and just shooting ahead. Starting from level 8 it seemed that wining was just tied to the RNG because I reached the funnel near the end of the level and the entrance was filled with yellow asteroid and no red ones to destroy them. After I don't know how many tries I managed to get by thanks to some lucky RNG where there was a way past the yellow asteroids. Level 9 was also related to chance and the discovery that I could spam my space bar to shoot a lot and almost clear a passage. Level 10 killed that method by having far too much blue asteroids and very little way to get around them, so I chose to stop there.
It was hard for me to have to handle movement and shooting at the same time. That and the auto-scrolling made it quite hard. One thing that might have helped would be to keep shooting while the space bar stay pressed.
I also had the WASAPI error at startup.
I made a game from scratch using only C too. Looking at your code, I'm assuming you're from the Handmade Network community. So Hello !
I was a bit confuse that the last level kept repeating itself. Otherwise, nice game.
Really nice game. I wish there were some sound effects. On my first try, one of the green block squash me and I think I fell through the floor and the game put me back at the start.
I wish visual studio worked as well as in this game.
Enjoyed it a lot.
I started with the web version but getting out of the control box with escape conflicted with getting out of fullscreen (needed to get out of fullscreen, exit the control box, go back to fullscreen), so I switched to the executable.
I liked the "no information policy" on what to do, and figuring stuff out was great for my taste. The soft lock that other people mentioned happened to me twice (top left room, top right part of the room), and having to restart the game and redo things was annoying especially since there was no reason (that I know off) to lock the player there, so I'm assuming it's an oversight and not intentional.
Another small issue is that the control box "items" (O2, Power) where hard to see, having the background opaque would probably have helped.
The graphics, sound, music, animations and controls where great. Good job.
I felt like something was missing, or needed some tweaks. The player speed could have been a bit faster to allow evading enemies and get to the required weapon. Especially since weapons went flying to the other side of the screen when you pick a different one, which made it hard to get them back, especially if the land on the edge where an enemy can span. I also was expecting having to kill every enemies to end a wave, and was surprised several time when the enemies disappeared at the end of a wave.
Same as other, the hit boxes seemed a bit off. Like the hit box for the character is the rectangle the texture is in which encompasses a lot of "not character" space. A second of invincibility after choosing an upgrade would be nice to avoid getting hit by things you don't see anymore while choosing the item. A brightness configuration at the start of the game would help too. Playing during the day in a bright room makes it harder to see enemies.
Why is the character looking at me like that all the time ? Why are they running backward ? Wait... they might have a second face that I don't see...
There are a few things that could be improved in my opinion: - Make the character lower on the screen and smaller, so we can see what's ahead; - Add a shadow under the character so that we know where we'll be landing; - Orient the camera toward where we need to go when we start a level (some times the camera was facing the wrong direction); - Leave enough space so that the camera doesn't go closer to the character in thigh areas; - What was the point of going to the previous level when we die (maybe it's a left over of some idea, but currently it is mostly annoying) ? - The use of items could be made easier: Have the claw always on left click. And just use an item by pressing 1, 2 or 3. - Move the exit button somewhere else than next to the retry button, and with a confirm message (see the next paragraph).
The jumps on the tiny blocks were frustrating in my opinion, especially because if you miss one, you're likely to die and go back one level. I got to the second set of tiny block (after the level where you need to use the jump higher item) and I tried it several times until I clicked on Exit by accident. I didn't feel like redoing all the levels so I didn't finish the game.
Figuring out how to use the claw took me some time, and I think the game would have been better without combat, health or item. Health seemed pretty irrelevant and "combats" were not interesting. If the enemy would kill us in 1 hit, the game could have been only about movements and speed. The only combat (that I saw) that had a purpose was to get the jump potion, and that could have been a pick up on the floor instead (the first time I killed the enemy, I didn't saw I got a potion), or a special jumping block on the floor (removing the need for items).
All that seems easy in hindsight, but I know it's not obvious while doing the jam (or just not what you wanted to do).
Keep it up !
Couldn't really get the hang of it. I took me several tries to figure out how the UI worked (tab to get the "tree", than select something in the tree, than click buy in the right panel, then buy on the item to place it in the world (don't forget to tab out of the technology tree)).
After that it seemed that CO2 would saturate almost instantly and no mater what I did the water level rose too fast for me to do anything. I think it would have help to have a tutorial level to understand better what's expected from the player.
I played a few in game weeks, but I kept getting the persons asking for a million dollars several times in the week, some times in a row. There wasn't enough different dialogues, and the choices were almost always : get money or don't get money. Would have been nice that dialogues affect each other, like granting something to someone causes something to someone else or everybody. But I guess that would require more time.
Should it be a Jam entry as multiple persons gave their voices ? Or at leas opt-out of Audio ratings ?
@decadedecaf I updated my rating in the audio category to take the voices into account.
Like the idea about a drifting game (tried to make one for the last LD but didn't manage to get something working well enough). But I found it hard to just not run into every wall. The drift button (which I didn't understood at first that I needed to keep accelerating to work) made too much of a movement, and didn't really depended on my speed current turning angle. I understand it's an arcade game but I didn't feel in control of the car enough. It was also a bit weird that with the controller I couldn't use the triggers to accelerate, brake and reverse. Still props for making working car game.
I'm very bad at that sort of game. I can't aim and at the same time avoid projectile, and avoid my body. I had a hard time distinguishing between enemies dying particles and enemies projectiles. Otherwise it was well polished, nice work.
Similar issue that some other have mentioned. I can't go to some tiles from certain directions. It happened to me on two levels: - level 5: I'm completing the level by going up and down creating 5 columns, and I can't go on the red tile coming from above. I can go on the red tile when I do rows instead of columns and going on the red tile from the left. - level 10: I can't go to the red tile even if every tile is yellow and since there is only 1 way to go on the red tile, I can't progress further in the game.
After moving a lot in random direction, I can get stuck on any tile (it seems).
Until that, the puzzles seemed very easy and straight forward. An undo move option would be nice to have.
I found it hard to control. I think the small particle flying by contrasting to the rock passing by slower made it hard for me the understand the frame of reference/inertia for the character. The planet in the background didn't looked like it was the background at first, but I got used to it.
The performance are really bad for me, about 13fps in average. Since I couldn't play it in good condition, I'd just say that the heart texture for the heart made me think that I add lost health. I think it would have been better with it was filled and not just an outline.
Au début je pensais qu'il fallait finir sur l'oreiller. Mais c'est vite devenu impossible. Concept simple qui fonctionne.
Got stuck on level 8 for a while than figured I could draw a spring like shape followed by a long line to make the enemy only advance a little bit. It relied on the fact that the line would break after a while. The line breaking was the thing that I think could use more feedback for the player to understand whats going on, for example by lerping the color from white to red to illustrate that it's going to break. Still it doesn't explain why some line breaks and other don't.
I was a bit "scared" by the last level because I though the "multitasking" was going to be hard, but it turned out it was Ok and the interaction between the enemies made it simpler than it looked for me (maybe I got lucky).
Same as jellycopter, the perfs were bad on my machine (and I my opinion the visuals did not justify it). An average of 17fps, which made it quickly very hard to do anything after a few speed pickups. The sound for the pickups was really annoying to me.
The first level was too big with all the graphics looking the same. Since there are no way to orient yourself other than drawing a map, it felt like it was just luck to find the pages, and not running into the monster. So I personally didn't find the game interesting or engaging. The single sound for foot steps felt off but it kinda raise the mood a bit after a while. I know it's common with horror games but the very loud sound of the monster is more annoying than scary.
EDIT - As pointed out by the dev, I completly missed what the game was about - EDIT
Didn't get very far, I kept getting stuck not being able to jump (the circle at the bottom left lighted up, but I couldn't jump). The inertia of the character felt a bit off for a platformer, but I didn't played enough to know if it was a real issue. Graphics were nice. The music was too loud by default.
@fan Thanks, I totally missed that. Since there where a lot of bars available in the first level I didn't thought it was limited, and, well, I didn't saw the counter at the bottom right. Maybe it would have help to have the counter under the character or something like that.
I feel a little bit off about the cover image being a render that doesn't look at all like the game.
The game itself was OK, not much to do, hard to fail (I did the last 3 floors without seeing the water). The text at the beginning was too fast for me, I wasn't able to read it. I liked that I could see outside, as it gave a little depth to outrunning a world ending event. You could have let the player at the top of the building at the end letting us with nothing to do but die.
I'm genuinely curious: what is making the game so big in term of file size ? It's not the first unreal game that has a big file size compare to what's in it.
@alisher-fazilov I'm not sure I agree about the meditative part. The "goal" of the game seems to be to remove any natural formation and destroy any population (they are screaming to their death) that stands in your way, to build shopping malls... The best outcome in my opinion is to leave the island as soon as you arrive. The creators did this in purpose (looking at the achievements) but since it's so obvious from the start, I didn't want to engage with any of the gameplay.
The game looks good and is well polished though.
The mood was "good".
It felt like English is not your mother tongue (but I may be wrong) and the phrasing was a bit weird, which somehow added to the atmosphere (something can be better than the sum of its parts). The slashes ( / ) in the text felt weird, especially in one of the screen where it was supposed (I guess) to separate sentences (or groups of words), but I instead read it as an option between two words. For example: "something/something something/something" reads to me as "something/something" "something/something" instead of "something" "something something" "something".
The ambiance reminded me a little of Baudelaire's "Les fleurs du mal".
Felt like it was going to be hard to beat (planning the route across several levels was hard/scary), but ended up at the boss with the exact defense required to get no damage from them on my third try. Instead of the rewind/redo, maybe checkpoints at the start of each level could have worked ? That's assuming you can't be in a state where you can't beat the game if you didn't get enough upgrade in previous levels.