Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → TheFuntastic
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Adventures in Spacetime! | jam | 181 | 3.63 | 3.25 | 3.94 | 3.44 | 4.06 | 3.73 | 3.50 | 26 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Synesthesis | compo | 152 | 3.67 | 3.36 | 4.16 | 3.80 | 2.71 | 4.23 | 1.24 | 3.05 | 48 |
I think the game loop would feel a lot better if the velocities on everything was turned up, to get the edge of your seat feeling.
For future reference, if you're having problems with html performance and fast updates perhaps look at how to implement a timed loop with a fixed update time. Can help keep physics calculations consistent even in the face of low performance.
The controls could quite easily be mapped to mouse movements:
Drag sideways = horiz line
Drag up = vert line
Single click to fill
Etc.
Otherwise nice toy
I think this idea has potential, but there were some things I found disorientating. For instance reversing direction is interesting, but feels totally random, so not very rewarding. An alternative for instance would be triggering reverse on collection some kind of "special" block so there is some way for you to anticipate whats going to happen. Furthermore I wouldn't have changing blocks to start off with, but rather slowly introduce them to ramp up the intensity.
Very nicely done.
(Incidental aside, I was looking a flip'd just a couple of days ago ;)
I really enjoyed what you've done here. Are you on twitter? I'd enjoy talking further about it...
My brain struggled quite a bit with the motion being perpendicular to the direction of travel. Maybe it's because I've played too many games based on actual physics where you continue to travel in the direction of motion when you break orbit.
Nicely done otherwise though.
Got stuck down a hole... after the door requiring two crates.
But other than that, really enjoyed the feel of this entry. Very nice!
Thank you for all the feedback so far. It is quite lovely!
@Hegemege don't suppose you will see this, but I'm struggling to understand your feedback, unless there is bug I'm not aware of. The game should be exactly as the screenshot.
Also for those struggling, the win condition is getting a loop going, which can play the require number of beats and use all the nodes. Should perhaps explain that better next time ;)
Main thing that got to me was restarting at the beginning each time. Otherwise I like the idea.
I actually enjoyed the setup, but i'll be honest I had a bit of difficulty figuring out the game. Once there were lots of triangles it all felt a bit random. Not sure what caused me to lose health either...
Nice little puzzle game. One thing I think would have improved the feel of the game was to have movement be relative to the player rather than to the squares. Particularly on levels where I had to execute several moves having to turn to face the desired directions was very tedious. But otherwise well executed.
Great work on the visuals and the level of polish. Really great little platformer for the amount of time spent on it.
Especially enjoyed the polish around drawing the arrows and getting up to full power. Stopping the player in mid air to line up their shot also felt sweet. However it took me a while to realise that the full power arrows could shoot through multiple enemies. I was a nice moment when I discovered this, but the design was overly dependant on this fact, as the first few times I played I just ran out of arrows. In fact it seemed to me a better strategy to just run over the hyenas (you have a enough health) and hit the gongs.
A way to collect spent arrows would be great, or even collect enemy arrows. Also going for a power shot isn't' really a meaningful choice - because you're not really that vulnerable. In fact right now power shots are the only sensible way to play the game. So I think there was a more of a risk reward at play, pulling off crazy power shots would feel a lot more rewarding. ;)
The juice in this is second to none. Great work on that front. I love how you amass injuries - I lol'd at that.
The only thing I think is letting this down a bit is the mechanic. Your breakdown section doesn't really explain itself at all ;) I was there in person when this was created, so I know there is something about timing and being the last person to press at a particular point, but for the life of me I couldn't figure that out, even when playing against myself.
That being said for a game like this I think making it about who mashed the button the hardest/fastest is totally acceptable. ;)
Thanks everyone who's played so far. I think we can safely conclude the default Unity Character controller isn't up to muster!
Struggled to figure out the mechanic. Started by just playing. My first assumption was to try and create vertical rows of colours. In my mind this was the metaphor that you're clearing the path for the torpedo, so the more lined up things were the better it would travel. I then tried clumping colours together. Basically I went from connect four to match 3 mechanics. I re-read the symmetry instruction, but I couldn't figure out what the desired axis of symmetry was so I gave up and just tried the clumping strategy for a while.
I then tried spamming for a while and that's when I noticed that some torpedos actually miss. I then thought it would be nice to get some kind of info on how close I was to destroying the opposition. It was only at this point where I felt like I'd finished playing that I then ignored the clear an present danger of the other ship and tried to figure out the relationships between all the elements of the interface. This was the first time I actually "saw" any of these interface elements. This is interesting in that it shows you how effective humans are at filtering out information, especially when there is a clear and present danger.
So this was the first time I noticed the damage and accuracy bars. With this I started to build a model of the desired symmetry, but I still don't quite grok it. I also noticed that indeed there was a counter showing your oppositions health.
I did however really enjoy the feel of your main interaction. When I figured out how to use a six block area to move a tile to where I wanted it, that was a particularly nice moment. I enjoyed the sense of speed solving, and having to trade off how solved the puzzle was against just getting a new puzzle. I think there is something there and that the dressing around the game is completely incidental (eg its about the grid and not about smashing subs). This means that you could strip away the entire interface (I was ignoring anyway) and just have the grid. Would make for an interesting mobile game.
Also I think staring on a smaller grid with a target that doesn't fire at you would be a great way to gently introduce the concept. Also not regenerating health between rounds felt really punishing. ;)
Wow this was a really ambitious game! The idea of swapping out mechs to change your abilities was cool, but I can easily see how that ate all your time. For instance there was no need to have the human running around. You could have easily done that by just choosing to swap between mechs using a key.
I know focusing on design in jams where you ran out of time can be harsh, but I'll provide feedback anyway seeing as this is fundamentally about learning.
I felt frustrated by ludonarrative dissonance (for want of less pretentious words) in the game. For instance killing civilians are perfectly happy to wander around while mad men toting machine guns are running amok. Also generally speaking in mech lore you are mostly invincible against unarmoured men, so I was disappointed to die so quickly. The level design also really didn't do much to amplify the awesomeness of the mech. For instance the big siege mech was stuck in a very small area. Also having internals to buildings wasn't really something that made much sense for the mechs. However in a bigger a game I could imagine that being a cool part of missions where you have leave the safety of your mech to enter a building to hack some data or some such.
Because of the level design I was quite drawn to the flying mech. But it seemed to have bug preventing it from flying after a few seconds? Really liked the idea of flying around buildings and picking of the inhabitants, but the walls on most of the buildings made that impossible.
Anyway there were the seeds of some interesting ideas here. Would have been keen to see the results if you'd started with a more focused scope ;)
Okay, upon reading the comments I see that there were missions and you are using a mech per level. Also now understand the fuel on the flying mech. Yup missed both of those things completely ;)
This was interesting. But I wonder if you could find a tighter concept but simply tweaking mechanics.
For instance score feels contrived. But fuel is important - it has more meaning. I want fuel to survive. So perhaps the collectables should give you fuel rather than points.
Secondly fuel runs down even when you are stationary. So perhaps instead it should only run down when you move. Now you've given me a resource to manage and a meaningful choice to make.
And then if you give a reason to need to move, then suddenly you have a game taking shape. Perhaps hazards hunt you down or target your current location.
Of course we're making something now that sounds a lot like Osmos. My that game was so perfect! :)