Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → TheMeorch
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | Theseus | jam | 4 | 4.44 | 4.32 | 4.42 | 4.45 | 3.82 | 3.91 | 4.22 | 100 | ||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Guardian | jam | 558 | 3.28 | 3.06 | 3.19 | 3.02 | 3.33 | 100 | ||||
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Crystalline | jam | 45 | 3.99 | 3.89 | 3.90 | 3.65 | 3.33 | 3.57 | 3.82 | 100 | ||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Inventory | jam | 85 | 3.84 | 3.70 | 3.77 | 3.91 | 3.05 | 3.75 | 3.51 | 100 |
Really good execution of a really good idea. Even though it never passes the Start screen, I could see this expanded into a large game that slowly creeps through the beginnings of a glitchy game. Great game!
This is really wonderful. The presentation is fantastic, and I found it very moving. I occasionally found myself focusing more on clicking the buttons than reading the text above -- maybe if you could only press 1 button at a time, players wouldn't get into the habit of just rapidfire clicking boxes. That's a really minor nitpick in a fantastic game. Great, great work!
This is great! Tight controls, really cute graphical style, and a creative implementation of the theme. I also love how the bullets fall as they move -- it's a unique little detail that gives the game it's own feel. Awesome job!
The magnification is a really cool way to use such a large map in a single screen. It would be really helpful to have more visual feedback when a player takes damage or damages an enemy. Nice work!
This has a unique art style, and the puzzle is deceptively harder than it seems at first. Nice work!
This is ingenious. Using the spotlight to highlight the lead dancer is really smart, given the dance theme. A great, unique graphical style. Gret work!
Great presentation and a really cool idea. (I made an Inventory screen game too, haha!)
This really has the feel of playing an RPG, and with those balance tweaks you were talking about, I could see myself playing this for ages! Awesome job.
The character control is enjoyably slippery, and the pushback you get on enemies when using guns is really satisfying. The base level attack is a bit short-ranged for a game with such slippery controls though, since you need to get really close to enemies without accidentally sliding into them. The guns are so satisfying, I would just let the player always have at least the pistol -- it's fun! Nice work!
Fantastic game! The art and music are perfect for the setting and style. Once the all-seeing eye enemy appears, it spikes in difficulty a bit much, since it seems to be able to detect you even if it's not already looking in your direction. Enemies also like to clump up together, which makes it a bit tedious to separate them and take them out. All in all, though, fantastic stealth mechanics, and really impressive work overall!
Really inventive puzzle mechanic. It takes some time to wrap your head around how the pieces on the edge will move with the camera but ones in the middle won't.
Given the small screen size and simple controls, this could be at home on mobile.
You may want to uncheck the Audio category for judging, since the game has none.
Wow, this is fantastic! A brilliantly creative mash-up of genres that I could see getting super addictive. I really hope you'll continue working on this post-jam. I think this has the potential to be successful on a larger scale. Thanks so much for sharing this!
A very nicely presented story. Thank you for sharing it!
There's a cool foundation here, and I'd love to see where it could go with more levels that get much more challenging. The jump is a bit too floaty for my tastes, but I enjoyed playing. Nice work!
This is really fantastic. Platforming Tetris pieces? Brilliant. Great art, great music, great level design (with secrets too!). The jump is ever so slightly touchy, but otherwise, this is just amazing. I hope you consider building this even further, though it's really got a ton of content for a game jam. Amazing work!
Just super polished from all angles. If you keep working on this, I'd love to have the movement speed increased just a bit. Fantastic work!
This is really impressive work. Fantastic art, with a color palette that really stands out, and great music as well.
It seems really difficult to actually catch up with the ball. I think its agility could be toned down a bit.
I love the core mechanic here. It's a really interesting mixture of luck and strategy.
When you hover the mouse over a die, the head icons flicker really quickly over the spaces where you might land. I don't know whether that's intentional, but it's a visual annoyance in an otherwise beautifully drawn game.
Great job!
This is really neat. The chain mechanic is pretty unique, and the art style is very charming. Nice work!
This kept me playing, just to see what channel I'd end up on next! It's a cool interpretation of the theme. The movement feels a little sluggish, especially when you first press a direction.
This was fun to play by myself, playing as 2 characters at once! I can imagine this would be really fun with multiple players too -- especially since you can't pass through other players, so you'd need to communicate.
The left/right controls are the opposite of what I expected (I though left would move me counterclockwise, and right would move me clockwise).
Nice work!
This is a fun little game, and a cool idea. Like another commenter, I also got stuck when walking off screen.
The control scheme is really interesting. When combined with the swarm's motion, it's quite unique. The music and visuals work nicely together to form a sense of creepiness.
I found the flashing circle with the swarm in front of it to be a bit much for my eyes, and I'm not usually affected by blinking lights in games.
Cool twist on the match-3 genre. My clicks occasionally didn't seem to register. If that could get ironed out, this would work nicely on mobile.
This is just fantastic. Brilliant interpretation of the theme -- the layout of the levels stacked on top of each other is super cool. Great retro graphics, great controls, great work all around!
Really nice job here -- the art style is incredibly charming and the gameplay is simple and satisfying. Very impressive work for a quick turnaround.
Lovely graphics, and a great throwback to handheld games of yore. Nice work!!
Wow, figuring out just what is going on here is super fun and exciting! What a cool idea!
I think some people might miss the controls listed under the game window in the web version -- you may want to include them in the description on this page as well.
Awesome work!
Nicely done! The tombstones providing temporary collision actually influenced the gameplay more than I expected (having 2 characters actually influenced it less than I expected, but is still a very cool twist). It's frustrating to have enemies spawn on my or instantly shooting me. Otherwise, this plays super smoothly, and the graphics and audio combine for a great experience!
I had fun with this, just barely surviving and hoping the next enemy would drop a health potion. It seems a little easy to walk right by enemies sometimes, without having to engage them, but the relaxing feel was also really nice. Good job!
I really like the controls in this game. They've got a really unique feel to them, and it was fun to learn to make the most of them. Nice work!
This is a nice little adventure. The jump is a bit stuttery, which can make platforming difficult. Great interpretation of the single-screen theme!
The graphics are really nice -- almost like a physical diorama come to life. It could use some adversity from the poor snowmen though.
The controls are really smooth and satisfying. I'm glad dying doesn't make you start back at the beginning, but just increases your death count instead -- it's less frustrating for new players, while better players can challenge themselves to not die at all. Great job!
Lovely graphics. There could be more to the gameplay, but the overall experience is really fantastic. Great work!
Haha, this is really original and irreverent. Certainly one of the more unique games I've played here. Nice job!
Really cool idea. Moving the mouse on the in-game computer can be troublesome when my own mouse extends past the edges of the game window. Also the bow and arrow could use a crosshair to help with aiming.
This is a really nicely executed top-down shooter. The fog of war is an interesting twist, and I like that you can shoot enemy projectiles. Well done!
Incredible! When the theme was announced, I was waiting for someone to make a single screen Metroid game, but this exceeded all my expectations. Great level layout, solid controls, nice graphics. I had to play the entire game through to the end, and I loved all of it.
This is a really cool idea. Having a system where enemies can actually be helpful in certain situations is really neat and results in some interesting strategic decisions. This was fun!
Fantastic art, controls, the whole package. GTA with some Pac-Man sprinkled in. Great game! (But how do the cops shoot over buildings??)
The trippy presentation, with blinking lights and wiggling circles is really striking.
If a player falls into a goal, I think that level should probably just end immediately (with all remaining points going to the surviving player). Otherwise, both players have to wait around for a long time.
The art and animation are very charming, and the controls feel really good. I wish the difficulty ramped up faster, since you have to start all the way back at the beginning when you get hit, and the game is quite easy for the first couple of minutes. I'd also like to see how much honey I've collected while playing.
This is great -- a different take on some classic tropes. A really interesting metaphor, a beautiful graphical style, tight controls, pleasing sound effects... great job!
That feeling when you're trying to avoid an enemy and end up rotating the entire room and spawning more enemies. So good, haha!
It's great that dying doesn't really slow you down, it just messes with your score -- so new players can take it easy and not get set back, while more advanced players can try to play optimally.
I do wish I had more control of my character while in the air. The inertia is a little high.
Really fun stuff!
Pretty cool to see a jam game with voice acting! Given that it's there, it would be nice if the spoken lines stayed in sync with the text lines when the player clicks though them.
It sometimes took a long time for any clouds to pass through particular rows -- since that doesn't really add any strategy, it's probably best to not make the player wait.
A nice little shooter. It seems to run slowly and choppily -- speeding things up would make it more exciting!
I love this game! You've got a great collection of fun and creative bosses.
I really wish holding spacebar would rapidfire, though -- my wrist hurts now!
Moving so slowly suits the serene tone the game is going for, but it can be a little frustrating in a shooter. Very atmospheric, nice work!
I really enjoyed the core mechanic, and the jumping feels good. It seems like you're sort of at the whim of the popsicles, though, since it almost always takes at least 1 platform to get to 1 popsicle. Also, it would be nice to have the menus navigable with only the keyboard, so players don't need to switch between keyboard and mouse.
I really enjoyed playing this. Having to avoid shooting certain entities is something you don't always see in shooters, and it adds a fun dimension of strategy. The art is delightfully gory too. Great job!
I really enjoyed this! A top-down platformer with constantly changing terrain? Brilliant! I'm really looking forward to your post-jam version, because it's already really fun and charming.
One thing I noticed is that squares tend to melt very quickly, and it's pretty to get caught in a melting square that you had no idea was about to melt. Making the floor melt a little slower would let players be a little more strategic and avoid situations where the player feels cheated.
Great job!!
This is a fun little game! Since the game is controlled entirely with the keyboard, it would be nice to be able to select "Play" with the keyboard, instead of having to switch to the mouse, especially since you need to do that each time you die. I enjoyed playing this a few times over until I beat it!
This was a lot of fun to play! I actually really liked that the game started out pretty intense. The shifting levels was a really neat surprise as well, and a great solution to the theme of this Ludum Dare. Great job!
So simple, yet so addictive. I appreciate that the difficulty ramps up very quickly, since you have to start back at the beginning whenever you fail. The color palette and audio suit the game nicely.
This captures the retro aesthetic really nicely. I opted to complete most of the levels without attacking, since it was often safer than trying to engage the enemies in close combat. I did have a bunch of enemies get stuck spawning against a wall, so that may have made the levels unexpectedly easier than intended. This was really enjoyable to play!
This is so cool. The mystery of who's who, the fantastic art style, and the different goals make for a really nice package that I'd love to see expanded in the future.
Nice game! Diagonal movement would help this play a little more smoothly, and the player's collision with blocks seems a bit restrictive. This is a cool homage to some classics, well done!
Great execution of a cool idea. It could use more forgiving checkpoints, and it would be nice to be able to perform a full jump while wall-clinging. Nice work!
Highly polished and relaxing puzzle game. Highlighting same-color blocks once you have one selected is a brilliant feature. The difficulty could ramp up a bit faster in Standard Mode, though Challenge certainly does provide a good challenge. Great work!
This is a cool word puzzle. If you don't need a word, it stays on screen for a long time though -- it would be good to be able to skip a word and/or just have the words stay on screen for a shorter amount of time.
This is fantastic! There are some really cool puzzles in here, and the basic mechanic is ingenious. I'd love to see more levels if you choose to expand on this (I really hope you do). Awesome job.
The jump is satisfyingly high. I'd try to make the game more challenging over time -- faster moving platforms, other obstacles, platforms shifting left and right, or other things to that effect. It could also be made clearer on-screen when the player is losing or gaining points.
This is a really funny toy. The knobs seem to respond to moving the mouse along a single axis, instead of moving the mouse around the circle of the knob, which can be a little counter-intuitive.
Fantastic art, but the gameplay could use some more interesting twists.
This is really fun. It took me a moment to realize that the shot automatically targets an enemy -- that's a pretty great idea. The movement controls seem a little bit floaty, but I suppose that's a personal preference.
I'd love to see what this would be like with more enemies, if you choose to continue working on it. Great job!
This is a funny little adventure. It doesn't seem to really fit with the theme, though. I missed a few lines because they overlapped.
Great animation, with a lot of character to it. It's difficult to differentiate whether a platform has collision yet or is still moving, since the platform's color is gray regardless of its state. Highlighting platforms you can land on would make this a lot easier to play. Great work!
This is fantastic. The music is absolutely intense, and the blueprint crimescene is a great use of the theme. The click targets are too small for items, so it can be very hard to interact with them. Aside from that, this is a really great game!
I found this really creative and refreshing. It's a little jarring to have so little control over the game, but once you understand what's going on, it's a really relaxing and unique experience. It would be interesting to have the countdown timer indicate what color the microbe's eye will be, instead of just what color its body will be. Great work!
This is a really cool concept! I'd love to see where this could go if you had a chance to make the main game and the meta-game progress into different stages.
The controls in the meta-game could be more responsive, and the mouselook seems too sensitive.
The look of the game is great, with a single screen illuminating this dauntingly sterile room. Nice work!
This is really fun. The visuals of the level taking shape looks great. Adding a few more twists to the gameplay could really take this to the next level. Great job!
Amazing! Totally addicting. The controls are perfect -- they require you to really learn how to use them well. The graphics are beautiful. Restarting immediately when you die takes a lot of the sting out of losing. I'll definitely be returning to this later to play some more!
Wow, this is really inventive. I'm impressed by the creativity on show here. Nice work!
Really stylish graphics and music. A fun twist on Pac-Man.
One tiny detail with the controls -- it seems that up/down always supercedes left/right. It might allow for smoother control if the most recently pressed arrow always took priority.
Nice work! The character's movement and the portal warping could be a little faster, just to liven things up a bit. The art is great, though I might not have the main character point a gun directly left or right, since he fires in all directions.
This is fantastic! Spinning, jumping, and shooting all together feels totally original and works really satisfyingly. Great cheerful music, art, theme -- everything! I hope you'll release a version of this on mobile, it would be perfect there.
This is a great puzzle game. Really smart level design, especially on such a tight schedule. Nice ambient, moody atmosphere. If you keep working on this, it might be nice to be able to repeatedly move in a direction by just holding that directional button. Also, restarting a level could be faster, and you could consider adding the option to undo one move. Lovely work, thank you!
Zooming in on screen quadrants -- cool take on the theme! I enjoyed this shooter, but it's incredibly difficult because the fire rate is so slow. It's fun when you get swarmed by so many enemies and manage to escape. If you increase the firing speed to help fight them off, this would be even better. Nice work!
You've got a really nice look going here. I'd love to see where you take it with animations and puzzles added in, so I hope you'll continue working on it.
One detail that might be good to look at is having the action prompts disappear when they're not usable (e.g. I can't look at the fridge while I'm opening it, so have the "[E] Look" text disappear while the character is opening the fridge).
A game where the camera zooms out as you progress -- that's a really cool idea. It can be annoying that your character gets pushed back by firing, but it certainly adds a new element of danger to games like this. Nice job!
The art style and color palette are really nice. It's too bad health isn't shown, since it's really vital information. Also, it's hard to tell when you've hit an enemy, especially the boss -- that could use some more visual feedback. Nice work on this!
This is neat and unique core mechanic. It's a little hard to tell how much each click affects a sheep's speed, partially because the change is so slight and because there's no visual change to the sheep when they change speed. If you were to keep working on this, it might be interesting to have the sheep sprite/animation change a bit for the different speeds it can have. Nice work! And congrats on your first LD.
This is really cool. It's takes a while to figure out just what's going on. I'd recommend putting the gold counter in the same corner of the screen as the text that tells you how much certain actions will cost, so you can instantly see whether you can afford it.
I like how you explored a bunch of different mechanics and permutations of those mechanics. The story segments, especially at the beginning, took a long time and dragged down the pacing a bit, though. Being able to skip to the next line would help move things along back to the gameplay, which was really enjoyable! Nice work!
This is pretty hilarious. Using real names is kind of crazy and ingenious. Nice job, creative work!
Lovely art, and an interesting core mechanic. It would be nice to get more visual feedback when you hit an enemy, so you know your attacks are working. Awesome job!
This is an interesting take on multiplayer. With only 1 player, it doesn't really work, since you'd need 2 hands on the keyboard and 1 on the mouse. As others have said, a ghost piece on the ground would help clarity a lot. Cool stuff!
Freezing enemies to make platforms is an interesting mechanic. It would be nice to be able to use the freeze attack in mid-air.
Forcing a complete restart when you die seems a bit excessive, since players aren't likely to want to retrieve the first 1 or 2 gold pieces all over again when there's only one specific path to do so.
Really nice artwork. Once I figured out how to create paths, things got really interesting -- what a great mechanic!
The graphics are beautiful, and so tactile! A free play mode where you can't lose would be great. I hope you do continue work on this--it has great potential. Well done!
This is a really cool game and a great example of how a minimal graphical style can be very beautiful.
I think the controls should only allow discrete movement from one grid square to the next, instead of free movement. Accidentally moving farther than you intended, or accidentally trying to walk into a wall, can be frustrating. The drill mechanic could also use a visual representation so you know it's working.
I really enjoyed playing this. Thanks!
It's a cool concept to use the same blocks to construct each level. The platforming controls are a bit floaty. Since the gameplay is controlled entirely with the keyboard, it would be nice to be able to navigate the Menu/Retry screen with the keyboard too, instead of having to switch to the mouse. Nice work!
This is a really nice implementation of Katamari in 2D. The controls and art really capture the motion of walking on the ball -- great work!
This is a really lovely game! Once I got the hang of it, I got totally lost in it. The wide expanse of snow, details like grass getting covered with fresh snow, and the satisfaction that comes from building the snowmen make this a wonderful experience.
It was hard to figure out just how big the snowballs had to be in order to stack, though. And since grass blocks you from rolling snowballs, you only have a few chances to stack any one snowman. If snowballs could roll over grass, it might be a little more forgiving and help new players get used to the mechanics.
Also, a minor note -- you can pick up a carrot and coals by just tapping up at the start of each day. Maybe you should only be able to get those items after you've stacked 3 snowballs into a snowman.
All in all, I really enjoyed playing this. Thank you for making it and sharing it!
Amazing work. The visuals, audio, and the capacity player exploration and discover all combine for an awe-inspiring experience. I would absolutely love to see a larger-scale game, with multiple screens of this nature.
This is really complex, between the concepts in the game itself and the controls. If you were able to streamline some aspects, or introduce them bit by bit, it might be easier to train players to manage these systems. There's a lot to work with here. Really interesting stuff!
This is interesting -- as a player I'm tempted to want to be able to see all the screens at once, so I can strategically try to figure out where to go. But this definitely hearkens back to an earlier age of adventure gaming where players had to figure everything out for themselves, and there's definitely value in that. Nice work!
Chaining together block explosions in order to get through a level is visually impressive and really fun. However, since it's relatively easy to get stuck or fall off the edge, you should really be able to restart a single level, not the entire game. It also feels like the ball should be able to push blocks just a little bit more, even without momentum.
This is a really fun puzzle RPG. I enjoyed trying to move from boot to boot and picking up whatever I could along the way.
It seems to have some scaling issues with fullscreen or screen resizing, and it goes into fullscreen when I press R to restart.
This is a cool idea, but it's far too hard at the start. If you want the main game to be this fast, it'll need a slow tutorial. Otherwise, just have the game start out slower and ramp up from there.
The lumberjack and beaver are both really nicely drawn, but they clash due to their divergent styles. It would help a lot to create a cohesive look for the whole game. It's also a bit confusing that losing all the lumberjack's HP results in his platform disappearing.
This is a really cool twist on a shoot em up. The ability to align multiple ghosts in the beam of light is super satisfying. I wish the character moved a little faster, and it's a bummer to have to start all over from the beginning when you take 1 hit, since it starts out a bit slowly. I really enjoyed playing this, thank you!
This is wonderful! The concept is very creative, the enemies and power-ups are nicely designed, and the controls feel great. I had a lot of fun playing this!
This was fun! A solid shooter that I kept playing for a long time, nice work!
This is a lovely game. When you get all the musical parts playing together, it's incredibly satisfying. It sort of plays like multiple WarioWare minigames all happening at once, which is really smart given the single-screen theme of this LD. Great job!
I love this game. The graphics are utterly unique and look great. Rooms changing each time you step through a door is a super creative take on the theme. Amazing job!
Absolutely lovely. The rainbow trail on the full screen creates a beautiful and impressive image. My only suggestions would be to try to make the magnification controls a little more streamlined, and add a little inertia when the ball hits the ground instead of stopping it from moving immediately. Truly amazing work, congratulations!
Nicely done Pac-Man game, especially in 16 hours!
Absolutely beautiful presentation, fantastic music, and a really unique mechanic. I'd be excited to see where you could take this in the future, adding more interesting decisions for the player to make, beyond use using a positive or negative function depending on which color a given block is. This is already super impressive for a jam, and I think there's lots of potential ahead. Well done!
Beautiful music, and a really cool art style! The main mechanic is really neat and unique.
Having SO many characters in the game ends up hurting it in 2 ways, I think. (1) They very quickly all start "having no clue", since there are so many more characters than clues to get. (2) Finding the murderer eventually becomes a bit of a tedious search.
That said, with some tweaks to the clue-finding and character placement, this could be even more enjoyable than it already is. I hope you'll continue to work on it, thanks for sharing it!
Making the player stand still while controlling the projectile creates interesting situations where you have to find ways to shoot without putting your character at risk. I do wish the projectile controller were a little less sensitive, so I could feel more in control of it. The third level does indeed have a huge difficulty spike, but you've definitely got a cool game here -- nice work!
There's plenty of potential here if you choose to continue work on this. Finding ways to infuse this with challenge and variety would go a long way. Good luck with it!
Creating a sort of Twister situation on the keyboard with multiple players is pretty ingenious. Great execution on a novel idea!
Always good to see the classic Monkey Island gag. Well done, I enjoyed the art and some of the retorts are quite witty.
Absolutely lovely audio/visual presentation. Having the sound effects in key with the music just makes it all come together! Herding enemies can be a bit frustrating when they end up clustered along the edges of the screen. Maybe having the edges of the screen loop together would help with that?
What a hilarious mash-up of genres. The laid-back music puts it all together. This was lots of fun, thanks!
Lovely, clean art style and really fun gameplay once you figure out how it works. It's definitely a lot to take in at first -- if you do go ahead with the post-compo version, it would be great to have a mode that introduces the various attacks bit by bit. Great work!
The updated version definitely helps with the issue of small, hard-to-see sprites, though I think you may want to make it even clearer if possible. It can be very hard to figure out how things are working or what the player has to do.
I really enjoyed this. The graphical style is nice and clean. I could definitely see this develop into a larger mobile game. Nice work!
Wow, the graphics and audio here are just amazing. And the feedback on punching is so satisfying, I could do it all day. I'm very impressed, nice work!
This is a cool basis for an addicting game. I think speeding everything up (player movement and character spawning) would make the whole thing more exciting. You may want to have the player sprite change to accurately reflect how many umbrellas they're holding (or at least show the player holding 0 when they are carrying 0), instead of always appearing to hold one. Nice work!
Stunning visuals, aesthetically and technically. It can be difficult to understand exactly what is happening from moment to moment, but all in all this is just amazing work, especially for the Compo.
Fantastic use of the theme, and really impressive work for the short timeframe. It would be nice to have crafting controls on-screen while crafting, and also to show what functional differences (if any) each material has. That said, this is a really funny and creative game already, nice work!
The ship controls really nicely with the mouse, and it combines with the atmospheric music for a really pleasant experience. I also love the polygonal look of the asteroids. Well done!
Bomb Boy is a super cute platformer mascot! I think increasing the camera turn speed and pulling the camera back a bit would go a long way to making the controls feel tighter. Really impressed that you were able to make a 3D platformer in such a short time, nice job!
The graphics are great, it's hilarious, and the core stealth mechanic is really enjoyable. Great work all around!!
This was super challenging. I like how the player's movement speed and the enemy's attack speed are set in such a way that you really have to focus and be aware of your surroundings in order to survive. To make this more satisfying, it would be great to have clearer visual/audio signs for your attacks and their effect on the enemies. Nice work!
This was extremely challenging, but I did find myself getting better and better the more I played, which is very satisfying and hard to pull off. Nice work!
Very cool mechanic, with some fixable implementation issues that make it feel a bit off. I don't think you should be able to accidentally throw the frisbee away by facing the wrong direction, especially since the game ends if you lose your 1 frisbee. The game needs to be able to keep both players onscreen at all times (by zooming the camera and/or forcing players to stay within the camera's bounds). These issues are totally addressable, so I hope you'll keep working on it. Nice job!
Super impressive art and audio. Makes for a really atmospheric experience, nice work!
This is a really cool and unique mechanic. It takes a little while to get the hang of, but once you do, it's a really fun arcade game. The one thing that frustrated me was asteroids appearing right next to one of the endpoints of the red or green line, since it's the one position where you have next to no time to react to the asteroid spawning. If the game screen were just a bit wider, this wouldn't be an issue. Either way, awesome game!
Very impressive work, especially the smooth movement and slick graphics. It was difficult to figure out how the colored barriers worked -- this could be dealt with using clearer messaging or tutorial sections, but ideally you could just arrange the early sections to naturally lead the player down the path of figuring out how they work, without an explicit "tutorial section". Really great work overall, well done!!
You seriously made me laugh out loud on the title screen. That is an impressive feat. And it was indicative of the game as a whole -- charming, hilarious, and really inventive. Terrific work!
Seriously hilarious. One of the few examples where the feeling that I'm fighting against the game's wishes actually feels good and fun. Great job!
The top down parallax effect is terrific. The weapon does seem pretty conventional, but the game is definitely really fun to play. Nicely done!
Great work! This was really fun and charming. I'd love to see this a larger post-compo version with multiple difficulty levels, since the game takes a while to ramp up.
A beautiful visual aesthetic, a really striking soundtrack, and a cool central mechanic. I had a smile on my face the whole time playing through this. I wish the main character moved a little bit faster, but it was still a pleasure to play this. Great work!
I really like the artwork, with the exceptions of mouse's health and poo, both of which can be too difficult to see on the background. The controls are quite good and I enjoyed running away from the cats. I wish cheese appeared more often so I could attack more and spend less time just running away. Great worK!
An interesting take on the theme, and very nicely presented. Certainly makes the player think.
Fantastic atmosphere, graphics, and music. Totally solid gameplay with a unique and interesting mechanic. If you decide to extend this into a larger game (which it definitely has the potential to become), some things to consider would be more visual and audio feedback when a turret is destroyed, lessening the zoom/static effect when redirecting bullets (since players will be using this very often, the cool effect can become grating), and additional uses for the telekinesis mechanic. Incredible work for 72 hours, and lots of potential for the hours beyond. Great job!!
I really enjoyed the variety of flightpaths that the enemies and their projectiles have -- it made dodging very fun. The sound effect at the end makes me laugh every time. Nice work!
This is great! Awesome music, great graphics (particularly the lightning), and the weapon mechanic is really interesting. Great work!
Having a single deployable weapon that you must retrieve in order to use again is a really cool and interesting choice.
You may want to make the player's collision box smaller and position it just around their feet -- I had some difficulty getting through passages, because my head kept hitting the wall when I didn't expect it to due to the camera angle simulated by the sprites.
I'm glad to hear that you'll continue working on this!
I absolutely loved this game! Maybe my favorite game I've played from all of LD32. Amazing music, great platforming, fantastic art, an intelligent camera and a well-made Metroidvania setup.
The only problems are ones that all Metroidvania games face -- what begins with a sense of exploration can turn into tedious backtracking or a lack of any idea of where to go or what to do next. With that in mind, I think it would be best to help the player whenever possible, for instance:
- A map that automatically gets marked appropriately when players discover an area, when they discover that an area contains some interactive element or item, and when they have fully used that interactive element or gotten that item.
- Clearer indication of which key will open which doors, and also which doors the player currently can or cannot open.
- When a new ability is gained, have the player be immediately required to use it in order to figure out its potential.
I think there is lots of potential here if you keep working on this beyond the post-jam version, but what you did in 72 hours is already stunning. Awesome job!!
I saw your reply to my last comment, and it's funny you should mention the idea of letting players manually annotate the map, since I've been thinking about that exact idea recently. I think it would be a fantastic way to approximate the old hand-written maps players used to make for games like the original Metrood and other games of that era. I think it would give players a real sense of ownership over their experience, and solve a lot of the issues inherent to Metroidvania games. If you want to discuss further, feel free to comment on my game again or get in touch on Twitter, my username is @themeorch
From your reply, it sounds like you're excited about expanding this game, and you should be! It has lots of potential as a larger experience.
And yes, I think if you make more levels like this one, some outside-the-box mechanics could really help this Metroidvania stand out in a crowded subgenre. It can also provide great opportunities for secrets, since you can let the player optionally take Weird Mechanic X from Level X back into a previous level and discover new possibilities there.
I look forward to playing the Post-Post-Jam version at some point :-)
Wow, this was lots of fun! The controls were hard to get the hang of, but once I did, it was super fun to run around warping here and there. I hope you'll continue to work on this idea, as you've got a really great baseline. If you can find ways to simplify the controls, that would be great -- maybe have the teleport destination always shown, instead of requiring another button to be pressed to shot it? Anyway, awesome job, thanks for making this!
I really, really like this puzzle game. It takes a little while to figure out, since the tutorial is a written one instead of an in-game one, but once you realize how everything works, it's fantastic. I think if you spruced up the presentation a bit and added more gameplay twists, this could be really popular among a niche of gamers like me who love a good, pure puzzle. Great work!
One UI note: It's really handy to have the target reticule on whichever of your character is going to be targeted. By the same token, it would be really handy to highlight the weapon(s) of each opponent that will be used based on the current star assignment. You can currently just find the highest number, but it would be helpful for quick readability to have the weapon icon highlighted in some other way.
This art is absolutely gorgeous. I would put the secondary attack on a button other than middle mouse though, just to make sure players are able to use it regardless of their mouse setup. There's a lot of potential here -- I'm excited to see what you might do with this. Great job!
I love that this being a golf game results in a mechanic where your character warps to wherever your "weapon" goes when you attack. That's really unique and inventive. You managed to have nice level variety, and I'd love to see what other levels could look like. It did seem like my shot count wasn't shown, so I couldn't tell whether I had hit par for each level. Nice work, I really enjoyed this!
"Your last gig sucked so much that you raised the dead." Absolutely hilarious! Awesome job in such a short timeframe. If you keep working on it, I would consider ways to make the game easier for the many players who are terrible at it, like myself and many commenters here apparently. Beyond making the hit threshold larger, it might help to have the notes come at the player vertically instead of horizontally, so the horizontal keyboard layout maps directly to the notes (currently I have to sort of flip the controls 90 degrees in my head, which makes the game that much harder). Nice work, I really enjoyed this!
The bright graphics were very refreshing. Although the Daft Punk remix is very well done, you may run into issues having adapted an existing song for a Compo entry, but I'm not sure.
The framerate was chuggy for me, not sure whether that's just my computer. Polishing the jump physics, movement, and collision would help players really enjoy the havoc they can unleash in this game.
I love the idea of using the weapon to shoot and propel yourself, especially given that you can't move otherwise. Since the character is always in the center of the screen and the camera is zoomed in pretty close, it's hard to see your enemies before it's too late, which make things especially difficult when the method of moving your character is so challenging. The graphics are really nice and I'd love to see more levels using this mechanic (but I got stuck on level 3 sadly).
I enjoyed this once I figured out how everything worked. It's a nice relaxing game that gets more interesting as it goes on and the challenge increases. Nice work!
This is fantastic! Amazing style, great humor, and just a wonderful idea executed really well.
Absolutely incredible graphics, plus great audio and overall mood. The core mechanic is very unique. I had some trouble with the throwing controls on keyboard (I couldn't get my controller to work unfortunately). Also climbing up from a ledge could be smoother by just having the player climb up if they keep holding up. Those are minor nitpicks for such a polished and content-rich game made in such a short time. Fantastic work!
I love this mechanic -- so creative and so playable! The last section is so much harder than the rest of the game that I think it will tend to ruin otherwise good scores. It would also be nice to be able to "shoot" when you're right against a wall and facing it. There is clearly a ton of potential for this mechanic and this game, so I hope you'll keep working on it. Great job!
You've got a really cool mechanic here, and you explore it really satisfyingly over the course of the levels. The visual aesthetic is great too. The checkpoints are a bit too unforgiving I think, resulting in the need to replay sections you've already mastered multiple time, but otherwise this is really quite amazing. Nice work!
The controls surrounding ladders are a bit finicky. You may want to snap the player to the center of a ladder when climbing, so they don't end up getting stuck at the top, where the ladder meets the floor above. Also, when walking on a floor that has a ladder leading down, players probably shouldn't fall when they reach the top of the ladder.
In a lot of games, swimming feels sluggish or tedious, but not here -- the controls felt great to me. The levels start get really interesting after Level 5. In a game like this, I'd love to have a timer and high scores, since there's a lot of room for mastery of the controls, and a lot of the levels have shortcuts if you can pull them of. Awesome work!
Fun co-op platformer. It might help to have a target reticule when holding your partner, because the throw can be hard to calculate -- this becomes an issue when you throw your friend, slightly miss an enemy, and they immediately die as a result. Great work, especially on the time-frame of the Compo. I'd love to see this expanded, with the platforming tweaked and tested further. Nice job!
This is a really neat mechanic. I couldn't figure out how to know when the mind control was going to wear off, which resulted in a lot of frustrating deaths. If you provided that information to the player, perhaps as well as a visual indicator of when you are close enough to control an enemy, I think it would go a long way. As it stands, I still really enjoyed playing around with the mechanic. Nice job!
Terrific art style and great use of the theme. The camera zooming when you move was cool but a little jarring, but the platforming controls are quite good. Nice work!
I know you said you didn't finish the graphics, but I actually quite like them as they are! The platforming controls are a little touchy, but I think you could definitely work further on what you already have here. Nice job!
The music and dancing animations come together joyfully! The timers are a little strict and it takes too long to loop around and start playing again -- I want to get back into the game, because it's fun!
The interesting physics of a yo-yo on a string is perfect for a fun and satisfying video game weapon! I had lots of fun combining jumps with yo-yo attacks in order to take out multiple enemies in a single attack. The character's movement speed could be a little faster, but the terrific chilled out music sort of fit the slower pace actually. If you keep working on this and implement the features you mentioned, I think this could be a really fantastic larger game. Awesome job!
I really enjoyed the art style here! The projectiles always seemed to go a bit above the point that my crosshair was pointed at, but once I got the hang of that, I had a lot of fun with this. Nice work!
Cute graphics and animation! I liked how the seeds had multiple uses -- nice interpretation of the theme!
I really like the look of this -- the art style and color palette are very pleasing. The character moves and shoots a bit slowly, though. If those were sped up, I could see this being a fun multiplayer game once implemented. Nice work!
Controlling yourself and the Palbot simultaneously was a really cool and unique gameplay element. Very well made -- a very impressive total package, especially having been made so quickly. Great job!
Destroying blocks and building with them to create your own path is pretty awesome. However, having to have one hand switch repeatedly between the keyboard and mouse can become tedious -- it would be great to see if the controls could be adjusted so that only one hand needs to be on the keyboard, so the other can remain on the mouse.
I found this very beautiful -- adding color to the world and having the screen absolutely overflow with color was delightful. Great work!
I really enjoyed playing this. The physics feel good, and I like that your own weapon can hurt you. I'd love to see what this could look like if everything moved faster, there were multiple boulders, and the game were more hectic overall. There's a lot of potential here, great work!
What fantastic work! The graphics are killer, the music is great, and the gameplay of using your enemies as weapons is really cool. I'd turn down the screenshake when sucking up enemies though, as it can be a bit much on the eyes. Great job!
The feel of the platforming here is really unique, and I like it. The clean graphical style is also great. I'd love to more levels where you really have to use your trail-killing ability in interesting ways. Great job!
This was fun. I really liked the enemy sprites. It's cool how the spoon will come back to you even when you move after shooting it, but I wish it dealt damage when returning to you as well, since that would allow fun trick shots.
I enjoyed playing this! The amount of the level that you can see in front of you is a bit limited though, especially with the player always being in the center of the screen at all times -- this makes it difficult to see what enemies lie ahead. Expanding the view and letting the player move more quickly might be worth looking into.
I think the most important thing to consider here is how you can give players interesting choices to make and interesting ways to practice and exhibit their skill. Currently, players don't have much of a reason to move beyond the bottom row and spam the attack button. This is a good start, so keep it up!
Really beautiful graphics! I hope you'll continue working on this so we can see where this might go!
Great mashup of some classics. I enjoyed the small, pixely graphics.
This was really funny. It's pretty interesting that the main mechanic encourages you to almost always move toward the camera -- that said, it's a bit hard to wrangle the camera, so perhaps it should just be zoomed out more or top-down? Anyway, nice work, very unique!
You've got a cool base for a platformer here. In order to make the platforming feel more precise, there are some adjustments you could make: holding the jump button probably shouldn't trigger the double jump automatically (especially since it seems to trigger it at less than maximum height). Instead, you may want to allow variable jump heights depending on how long the player holds the jump button. Those 2 things would give the player a greater sense of control when navigating your levels. Nice work, keep it up!
Great, crisp graphics and totally solid platforming. I do wish the attack was more responsive, and had a shorter animation before occurring. Great work, I enjoyed pushing my way to the end!
The music and laser sound effect set the mood very nicely. The core concept is really neat, and taking out a bunch of enemies in a single shot is really satisfying.
There are some parts of the game you could polish up if you choose to keep working on this:
- In at least one of the levels, it was very unclear which walls reflected lasers. Given that bouncing lasers can kill yourself or the core, it's important players don't feel like they're accidentally sabotaging themselves too much.
- The player tends to get stuck on corners/sides of ledges when jumping.
- The laser sometimes fires erratically.
Having to avoid hitting yourself or the core with the laser provides some strategic depth, but it can be frustrating to accidentally mess up the entire level with one errant shot. I'd consider ways of maintaining this strategic element while lowering the potential frustration resulting from it -- perhaps a real-time preview of the path the laser will take, or a slower-moving laser that the player can delete at any time after firing, or just more hit points for the player and/or core.
Interesting challenges to think about, nice work!!
Nice lighting and graphical style. I didn't seem to be able to hit enemies who were right next to me, so if they swarmed around me, I would just be stuck.
My hand hurts! I enjoyed playing this -- it might be worth letting the character rapidfire if you hold the attack button, so players don't need to press it so rapidly. The gameplay could use some more twists, but it definitely got exiting as the enemies started coming at me faster and faster. Nice work!
Fun premise for a competitive multiplayer game. I experienced a bug where the left player's attack always flew backwards, unfortunately. If that were fixed, it seems like the throws are still too high to be generally useful. With some tweaking (perhaps having that attacks shoot forward from whatever elevation the attacking player is at) this could be super fun! Nice work!
The spinning movement controls feel fantastic. The audio really sets a cool mood, too. I think the moment to moment gameplay could use more variety, but this is a really cool game as it. Nice job!
The artwork and music are fantastic. I'd love to see where this could go with more time spent on it. Nice work, keep it up!
Solid shooter with nice graphics. I was surprised when the enemies didn't shoot at me (at least in the first 5 levels). Varied enemy attacks and movement patterns would go a long way to making a more exciting and dynamic experience. As is, the difficulty ramped up a bit to slowly for me and there wasn't enough variety from level to level.
A really solid top-down shooter, with great lighting and nice looking graphics. I liked how the toaster weapon had unique gameplayer compared to the pankcake gun, which was more of a typical gun. Nice work!
Nice art! And certainly an unconventional premise! The character movement seems to hitch when changing directions, which upsets the flow of gameplay a bit. Also diagonal movement seems much faster than up, down, left, or right -- perhaps because it's effectively moving in two directions at once?
I really like the feel of slowly pushing my way toward the target. The graphics and music also came together in a really nice, relaxing way. Nice work!
Lovely pixel art! The character movement and animation is a bit jerky and slow, and the world seems a bit empty, given its size -- but I'm sure you could develop on it if you keep working on it. Nice job!
I really like the art style here. The movement controls are odd though, as the character seems to keep moving in a direction only when you tap and let go of a movement key once, instead of changing direction or stopping moving in real time based on the player's input. Making those controls more intuitive would go a long way. Nice work!
Very cool main mechanic, and great levels that explore its potential. The enemies can be frustratingly to avoid, though. This might be help by tweaking the jump physics a bit to allow more horizontal movement control. I really enjoyed the art style and audio -- very atmospheric. Fantastic job!
Switching between the two characters and using their various abilities was really fun. I really like the visual style as well -- nice work!
Very, very impressive to have two languages in a jam game, even with some translation issues. Beautiful art, fantastic music, excellent work!
I really enjoyed this, even though I'm apparently terrible at it. The art is really nice, and it's satisfying to send enemies flying! Nice work.
I absolutely love the asymmetrical abilities. They make for a really dynamic, hectic experience. Awesome job!!
What an interesting concept. It's a bit difficult to handle once a bunch of spheres are on screen, since the ship moves pretty slowly and it can be hard to know how much you'll need to shoot a sphere in order to correct its pitch. I think it would be an interesting challenge to try to make a more accessible version of this game concept. Nice work!
Nice work! This was lots of fun, and throwing random hats at robots is really funny. I wish I was able to restart a level when I lost instead of starting the entire game over -- I want to see all the levels!
What a great concept, effectively layering two games over each other in a way that feels totally natural. Great art and writing, too. Turning is far too slow, but this is otherwise really terrific and inventive!
Wow, once I got to the doors and saw the swarm of all those people, I knew all hell was about to break loose. And boy did the game not disappoint. Great work.
This is definitely an interesting concept. I'd be curious to see what you could do with it if you amassed a giant list of words with different in-game functions. One thing to consider is confusion between using the keyboard to move the character and using the keyboard to type words. Also using two hands to type vs. using one hand to control the mouse. Plenty of interesting design questions to consider.
The main puzzle mechanics are great! I really enjoyed playing this through to the end (or one of them at least). The character controls can be a bit frustrating, but this could be remedied with more horizontal control in the air and a higher jump height. Awesome work!
I really like the art, especially the main character (and how their visor changes color). The controls were a bit awkward, but once I got used to them, I was able to enjoy the entire game. Nice work!
Very stylishly presented, with great voice acting and music. I'd be interested to see if there could be more to do from the computer interface. It feels like the current version of the game is just the start of something bigger that we don't get to see (yet?). Nice work!
I think there's a lot of potential with the gravity control mechanic. I'd love to see what this might look like with a more dynamic set of enemies and other environmental characteristics (wind? flying enemies? dodging enemies?). Congrats on your first LD, keep up the good work!
The desert theme music was particularly enjoyable. The camera in that area seems to lag behind the character, though, which makes it difficult to see enemies before it's too late.
That is certainly an unconventional weapon. I enjoyed trying to grapple with the wind and land my shots. Since the game controls are entirely keyboard-based, I would make the "Next Mission" screen also use the keyboard instead of making the player move their hand to the mouse. Also, since you can replay a mission as many times as you wish, the 3 shot limit seems unnecessary, and just creates unnecessary time during which the player can't play the game.
I really liked the feel of controlling the orbs with gravity. Combining that with platforming makes for a cool package. I ended up getting stuck behind a lava wall due to a checkpoint bug, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I played. Great work!
Very unique take on shoot em ups. The idea that getting hit can help you in various ways depending on what hit you is very interesting. That said, I don't know that the game gave enough of a reason for the player to actively seek out getting hit. So I still tried to avoid every single enemy, and when I accidentally got hit, my upgrade was essentially random, because I had not intended to get hit by that enemy. If you could find a way to make players actually try to get hit someties, I think that would really put this idea over the top. Really cool game, nice work!
This was an interesting puzzle game, though it was hard to figure out exactly how some aspects of it work. I particularly enjoyed Linear Shock mode, since you don't get bogged down in prices for various bombs and instead just have to worry about how to spend your clicks. Nice work!
Good lord, this game gets tough a few levels in! But to your credit, I kept playing a level over 25 times to beat it. In a challenging level-based platformer like this, I think restarting should be automatic, instead of making the player press a button to do so, especially since there is no other option that the player might want to do other than restart the level. Nice work!
Awesome, frantic and super fun! I love the weapon variety and the chiptune soundtrack. If you keep working on this, I'd love to see even more weapon variety and enemy variety. Great, great job!
Very interesting idea. It's difficult to visually follow what is happening though, due to the small size of the people and the visual complexity of the background. If you could find ways to more clearly convey what is going on to the player, it would help this unique experience.
Great work, this was a lot of fun! I held down shift the entire time -- maybe just have that faster speed be the standard movement speed. The tension of missing a shot and having to rush to the left in order to attack again was pretty great.
Very creepy atmosphere, and a really interesting core mechanic. Since the player moves slowly, the Shielded Retreat move seems to be much more useful than the more proactive moves, but with a little bit of adjustment, I think this could get even better than it already is. Nice worK!
Really interesting idea here. I wish the tones played by the character had been in key with the background music -- if you choose to keep working on this concept, that might make things come together really nicely. Keep up the good work!
I actually found this to be a really interesting puzzle mechanic, once I figured out how it was working. I'd love to see what more levels and more polished up version of the game could look like. Nice work!
This is really funny. The only problem was that I didn't really get to see the huge mass of ragdoll people in front of me, because they either got stuck on geometry or lagged behind my camera. That said, this was utterly unique, refreshing, and hilarious. Nice work!
I really enjoyed the atmosphere here. Given that the ship is hard to control and can die quickly from hitting walls, I felt the need to move very slowly, which made it a bit tedious when I died and had to restart. I honestly preferred just easing around the sky and slowly leaving the atmosphere. Sorry, prisoners!
What a creative take on Tetris! The gameplay twist really changes how you play, and the enemy's attack of replacing a block with one right above it is very thoughtful. I highly recommend anyone who plays this to use the Windows version, as the better performance affects the gameplay. I'd love to see this get polished up post-compo, so the piece movement would be a little smoother. I could play this for a long time! Great work!
When playing this game, I tended to just try things and see what would happen, and I found that really enjoyable and exciting. It would have been nice to be able to make turns pass more quickly, since a lot of the game is spent waiting. Nice work on the music shifting based on gameplay. Great work!
What a hilarious concept, and lots of fun to play. The animation of hitting an alien right on the head is hilarious and super satisfying.
The game can be quite challenging, since you have to extrapolate from the Swing meter where the ball will go, resulting in a lot of trial and error shots. It would be nice to let players restart a hole (with whatever level of city destruction there was when the originally started that hole) instead of having to restart the entire game.
I really liked the music and graphics, aside from the red text that can be a bit hard to read on the backgrounds it appears on.
Great work!
Solidly executed shoot em up! There's plenty of interesting tension when you work your way up to the super powerful max upgrade and then try not to lose it all by getting hit. Nice work!
The weird recoil is an interesting mechanic, and I enjoyed playing with it. On some levels, the camera didn't show all the enemies at once, which made it perhaps unnecessarily difficult to figure out where to aim and when to do so. Since players will be failing levels a lot, you can probably just restart failed levels automatically, instead of requiring the player to press R (if you do want them to press a button, it could just be the mouse button, so the game could be played entirely with the mouse).
I love the controls and the look of this game. I hope you continue to work on this, because this has a lot of potential. This is a great start!
What an interesting mechanic! It's hard to wrap your brain around, and I've never played anything quite like it before. Given how challenging it can be, it might be best to remove the timer requirement and instead reward (but not require) beating the timer -- or make the timers more lenient but reward beating levels much faster than required. That way players can really explore these cool mechanics at their own pace.
Nice work!
Amazing. Great execution on all fronts. The steering automatically tending back toward north is a subtly brilliant touch that I didn't see coming. Just fantastic work -- I hope you keep working on this in the future and add a couple more twists to the gameplay.
It's awesome that that you were able to make a game like this for a jam. Impressive work!
Nicely done -- the contrast between the gray tile levels and the colored vegetation is quite beautiful. I enjoyed playing this.
Lovely artwork. It was sometimes frustrating when the other people slowed me down -- but that's totally intentional and conveys what you want it to. Great work.
Wow, this is a really nicely implemented shoot em up, with great art and music. I'm really intrigued by the upgrade mechanic -- it has a really interesting tension to it, though I think it has some issues in terms of usability, since the player has to look at the bottom of the screen to check their points and check the upgrade. Maybe there's a way to put that information around the ship itself or something, so that the player can keep their eyes where they need to be? Awesome work!
Very cool idea and slick presentation. I agree with others who have said that it's not clear enough which blocks are what color. I'd highly recommend fully texturing the blocks to differentiate them, instead of a thin outline. Also, with the fixed camera, it can be difficult to tell where a block is in space -- if you keep working on this and add a movable camera, I think that would help a lot. Great job so far, I hope you continue this!
This is a great, hilarious concept. Even if intentional, I think the tough controld detract from the experience, but if you work on them in the future, this would be an awesome, unique experience.
This is so good! Probably the best music I've heard in this jam. Great artwork, too, and the game is just really fun.
It's a little jarring when the character loops from one edge of the screen to the opposite site -- if you could make the background loop instead of the character, it would be less jarring.
Also, when I ran out of fuel, I just had to float around hoping to find more fuel, which was odd -- I'd either make it easier to refill fuel when you're out, or make it a game over when you're out. One solution might be to make it so shooting propels you slightly backwards.
Anyway, terrific work, congratulations!
You really managed to create an epic spectacle with this. I'd love to see more twists on the gameplay over time if you keep working on this. Great job!
This is great! It's a really satisfying challenge to control the ball around the obstacles, given that your control over it differs along each of the 3 axes in a way that is totally natural.
The only thing I would look into is the fact that players are very likely to momentarily hold both the left and right buttons when they're changing directions -- the current result is an awkward staggering of the camera. Adding a longer wait time before the ball speeds up when you hold both buttons might help.
Anyway, great job!
Lovely vector graphics! Lander games often frustrate me because the motion is so slow and they often require lots of restarts -- that said, this is a great execution of that genre, with a really nice scaling of difficulty over the course of the levels. Great job!
This is absolutely fantastic. One of the best game's I've played this jam. You've got a unique, simple mechanic that has a surprising amount of depth -- changing size to dodge enemies, trading greater spin speed at the risk of having an enemy touch your larger size, timing the spinning to hit enemies. Really awesome, with an impressive degree of mastery possible.
I hope you keep working on this -- maybe adding new enemies, ways to regain health, etc. Great job!
Wow! The sense of discovery that you inspire with the visuals, music, and open ended gameplay is really impressive. The 2D-on-3D art style is particularly striking.
I'd love to have the main character move more quickly, and adding a little shadow below her would help with platforming.
All in all, beautifully done. Congratulations!
Absolutely lovely artwork in this game. I just love the style!
There seems to be a little stutter whenever I hit the ground -- it looks like it might be because the character is actually falling ever so slightly through the ground upon landing, but I'm not sure.
The game definitely is challenging, but I worry that it's too much in the direction of frustrating/tedious challenge, at least at the start.
This was really fun. I love the blocky art, and the levels provide a nice gradual increase in complexity and difficulty. It seemed like hitting only one car almost inevitably prevents you from getting beating a level -- if that's the case, it's somewhat frustrating to have to finish a race after a collision. It could be interesting to provide more opportunities to come back from a collision if you play well (or just auto-restart a level after a collision). Nice work!
This was lovely -- I could see this mechanic used in a more traditional game, but it's also great in this form. The art style and audio match the mood perfectly.
I hit a freeze during two playthroughs, but I really enjoyed this nonetheless!
This is really cool! The platform creation mechanic is really neat -- it provides some really nice open-ended gameplay. I also appreciate the restrictions you placed on the mechanic (i.e. the player can't move, and the platform keeps rising as you move it side to side) -- it makes for some interesting tension. Nice work!
Great execution and presentation on a fun arcade-y idea. Finally seeing how the Growing theme got incorporated was surprising and hilarious!
I love the interface, and I really enjoyed the ritual gameplay. I think this could be expanded into a really cool larger game.
This is really cool. The yellow line is an interesting way to help provide an understanding of the orbs' position in space -- it's still really difficult sometimes. I would recommending have a more forgiving/wider sword, at least at the start. I had a lot of fun playing this, nice work!
This is fantastic. The platforming feels really good, the music is great, the artwork is nice. I had lots of fun playing this -- thanks!
I really like the dive mechanic. It adds an element to a runner that I haven't experienced before. I wish the game started a little faster, just so it's more fun when you have to restart. Nice work!
Great execution of a great idea -- it really conveys the meaning nicely through gameplay. You've already got an impressive number of systems in play here, and I'm glad you want to keep working on this.
Great presentation, with a unique visual style for the character and the world itself. As a player, I wish there were more I could do to stop meteors from hitting the planet -- maybe if double tapping a direction made the character sprint? Anyway, really fun to play -- great job!
By the way, if I understood the credits right and you didn't make the music, you may want to opt out of the Audio category.
Wow, it's rare that I can be so apparently terrible at a game and have this much fun playing it. Hilarious, beautiful, awesome work.
Very promising game, with a unique art style and a unique control system. The control of the character and the interaction with the people are a bit too unreliable, though -- if you touch that up, I'd like to see where this could go. Nice work!
Great art and music, and a fun runner. I'd recommend having the music not restart every time you die -- it makes it much more frustrating to lose and people don't get to hear the awesome music! Also the hitbox definitely seemed to behave oddly at times. I'd love to see this extended with procedural generation. Nice work!!
This is an interesting idea, and you have some cool mechanics that work with the lack of a jump. The difficulty curve seems a little unsmooth, though -- some of the earlier levels are much harder than the last couple of levels.
What a fantastic idea! And good execution of it! Hilarious sound effects, too. Nice work!
I like the art style, and what I played seemed like the start of a cool adventure. Not being able to change directions in the air once you've started moving in one direction make the platforming excessively difficult, especially given the precision platforming required for some sections. Making the small change to allow in-air control would instantly make a huge difference.
Really impressive work -- I love the music, the art is really nice, and it's just fun to play. Great job!
I enjoyed this a lot! Surprising level designs that take advantage of the mechanic really nicely. As others have said, it can feel a little slow at times -- though having things move faster might make a difficult game even harder. If you could find a way to make that work, I'd love to see a larger collection of levels in the future.
The pixel's comments are a really nice touch.
Fun runner! I couldn't tell if the boulders became more numerous or faster over time, but if you let the player see further ahead, you could probably increase the difficulty more over time. Currently, it's actually quite hard unless you use an exploit (standing on the very edge of the level).
The slow zoom out is just epic, fittingly given the rest of the game's presentation. This was a lot of fun, good work!
Really cool combination of mechanics. If you keep working on this after LD34, I think it could benefit from using more than 2 button controls (specifically for selecting) -- still, having the game slow down while selecting makes it totally work. Nice job!!
This is fantastic -- utterly charming, fun, and frankly addicting. Great art, great music and effects, and nice elegant gameplay. It seemed to take a really long time for the difficulty/tension to build up, but that's something that be tweaked with playtesting over the course of more than 72 hours! Awesome job!
This is really fantastic, unique, and beautifully presented. I think the game is actually more interesting in "easy" mode -- too often in "hard' mode, I felt like I had to just flip a coin, whereas in "easy" mode I could sometimes be more strategic.
It seems like many of the options the player are gets are trivial -- one should always pick safe terrain over an animal or a dangerous terrain, right? Maybe the choices should always be between 2 tiles of the same type.
I hope you keep expanding this game!
Cool mechanic, and a nice exploration of some of its potential -- even in just a few levels. I'd love to see more levels and find out what other interesting ways of using these mechanics that you can find.
I admire the way you started with an interesting design question/problem and found ways to make it work. I almost got stuck, but I'm glad I kept going and found the secret ending. Really impressive work. Great art and music too!
The music and stark, slowly growing visuals make this really entrancing. Great work!
You've done a lot with a simple mechanic. It's quite fun to play. I couldn't really figure out what the strategic advantage would be that would make me want to activate speed-controlling icons in multiplayer, but it still made for a dynamic experience. Nice work!
This made me smile. At first, I didn't understand why it was so short! Nice execution of a funny idea!
Interesting mechanic -- as you work on this further, I would try to find ways to lead the player to naturally discover how everything works, rather than relying on them retrying old levels.
Awesome artwork! It was a great surprise when I realized that there was a second game after the first one that put a new twist on the concepts of the main game. Nice work!
Great music, great character design, and fun gameplay! Having the two sides be so far apart really makes the gameplay more frantic, because you need to keep checking from side to side. Nice work!
Once I realized that you're not trying to jump from platform to platform, but rather that you can basically fly infinitely and change directions at will, this got quite addicting! Backspace isn't the best button for a web game, as some browsers will interpret it and go back a page. If you keep working on this and massage the platform generation to provide more pathways designed to be traversed by the frog's diagonal flight path, this could get even better. Great work!
Wow! That's some of the most visceral interactivity I've found in a jam game. You've done a fantastic job of controlling the feel of the experience. Also it's just twisted and hilarious, great job!
It was fun watching the little enemies attack each other! At first I was confused -- since you can click the A and B buttons with the mouse (and I tried that first), I figured that was the only way to play, despite it not really being possible to click the on-screen buttons quickly enough to mind control an enemy. Just a little minor point of confusion that could be avoided by disabling the ability to click the on-screen buttons. Nice work!
Fantastic distillation of an RPG into a two-button control scheme -- and at the same time incredibly sprawling. Great art, music, everything. Amazing!
Great core mechanic! If you work on the collision detection a bit and maybe make the timer less restrictive, I'd love to see this explored further. Nice work! And great art, too!
Despite experiencing major performance issues once I got into combat, I really enjoyed this and played it to the end. The art is fantastic, from the sprites to the lighting, to the blood splatter. The 2-button controls are also really satisfying, and don't feel like they're shoehorned in just to fit the theme. Great work!
This is one of those brilliantly creative ideas, where seeing a 3 second animated gif sells you on it completely.
Really strong execution on a great concept. I'm impressed at how you thoroughly explore the various uses and ramifications of the core mechanic. Great work!!
This is a cool puzzle game. It took a while to figure out exactly how it works, but once I did, I really got going.
If you make more levels, I'd love to see even more variety in terms of the techniques you need to use in order to solve them.
Simply amazing control of mood and tone, and the slow, contemplative gameplay fits perfectly. Great work!
This is really cool, and you really feel in the groove once you get going. This feels like the last level of a hard game though! I want to cruise through some easier levels on my way up to this! I do wish there were another shoot button other than Z -- using WASD controls with Z was cramped for my hand.
Super well made shmup with lovely pixel art and pumping music!
I absolutely love how the energy system encourages you to play aggressively.
Given how quickly most of the enemies move horizontally, I found myself very rarely using the vertical shooting mode. The UFOs that stop in place give you a good reason to use that mode, so more enemies like that would be great.
Great work!
This is great -- fantastic atmosphere and pacing, and you really feel like you're controlling the creature through great physics. Nice job!!
Fantastic all around! Lovely artwork, great music, and a cool way on the theme. I love how one of the attacks is also a movement ability -- things like that are super elegant and fun. Nice work!!!
This is just fantastic. An elegant set of mechanics in an elegant presentation, with wonderfully designed puzzles. The way you implemented the controls is also super user-friendly, which is impressive for a jam game.
Even though you've got a completely satisfying set of levels and story here, I'd love to see this expanded into a larger game, perhaps on iPad. If you do keep working on this, one of the things I'd recommend is a way to either mark squares as "ones I'm pretty sure about" or a "pencil mode" of some sort where I can mark squares I'm just testing out. Something like that could players experiment and manage some of the larger levels.
Wow, I've never played anything quite like this. It was utterly fascinating and delightful throughout.
I'd love to play a longer game like this. Nice work!
Really cool visuals and a good use of the theme. I wish the leeway you gave the player in terms of positioning were more forgiving -- it's extremely difficult to align the shapes just right, especially with the gameplay taking place on an angle. It seems like mastering the current level of difficulty is possible, but easing the player into that will help that actually happen. From your comments, I'm glad to hear you'll be working on that, nice work!
It took a while for me to figure out that I should focus on the board's eyes in order to get a sense of what it's thinking -- once I got the hang of that, it was super fun to try to read and manipulate the AI. The presentation is really charming too!
I forgot to mention this in my previous comment, but I think this game would really lend itself to gamepad controls -- each analog stick moving a hand and triggers to pick up/drop pieces.
Let me adjust the tense of my previous comment:
This game DOES really lend itself to gamepad controls -- each analog stick moving a hand and triggers to pick up/drop pieces.
:-)
Lovely art and mood expressed through the music and text.
The post-jam does exactly what I was hoping in that you can explore more of the objects in the room if you want.
I love how the tones that play when you find objects mesh well with the music -- I used a similar technique in my game!
I'd consider letting the music keep playing when you hit the final screen, so the end isn't as jarring.
Great work!
Nice work on this! I enjoyed playing through (I think) all of the content.
The jump feels a bit jerky -- I can't tell whether that's because of the camera movement at the top of the jump or just the physics of the jump itself. Also making the attack radius larger might make the game more exciting, in that players would be better able to run around and attack, rather than slowly inching toward enemies.
The art that you made is great, especially that game cover!
Fun and very playable clicking game, nice work! The music did seem a little out of place, but I enjoyed this!
Really lovely artwork and a great sense of personality. Lots of fun, nice work!!
This is somehow really addictive! It would be great to have enemies or some other form of obstacles or gameplay twists show up as you play. The sprite work is great. Nice work!
Lovely presentation, a really cool core mechanic -- and 3 meaningfully different playable character, awesome! I really enjoyed the shift movement (particularly the Square). I found myself barely moving with WASD, and instead focusing on just shifting around. That was super fun, and I think you could expand on that into a really cool larger game if you want. Nice work!
I really love the sprites you've made. If you keep working on this, I would look into allowing the player to attack while moving and having the player and enemies visibly react to getting hit, so players are more aware of the current state of things.
Great work!
I really enjoyed playing with both weapons. I like that the rail gun can still be fired while charging -- just with a smaller shot. And the scattered shot added just enough randomness to keep things interesting.
I love the way you put the art together, and the game is just hilarious. Nice job!
You've got an incredible aesthetic going, and I'd look forward to what comes from this post-jam. In this version, it's hard to gauge your position while jumping, and movement can be a bit jerky, but that's all stuff that can be ironed out in the future!
Very cool puzzle -- it would help to make the gray squares darker so they pop more from the background. Nice work!
This is an absolutely brilliant idea executed really well. Great artwork, soothing audio, and interesting (if extremely challenging) level design. I hope you'll keep working on this and develop it into a larger game.
Things I'd consider if you work on this more (there are a bunch because there's already a lot of great stuff here and I think this has so much potential):
- Give the player a short grace period where they can still jump a few milliseconds after walking off of a ledge. This will lead to more forgiving and satisfying controls.
- Give the player more control left and right while in the air, since such precise jumps are required.
- Have enemy projectiles and spikes in the background layer be more visible through the foreground, to avoid the frustration of getting hit by things you can't see.
- Add checkpoints.
- Make the planes move faster.
- Make the difficulty curve slope up more slowly.
- As another commenter mentioned, I'd consider a button that stops the layers from moving back to their starting location. In the current game, just about every jump is made from one moving platform to another. I think you can find some great challenging layouts in the other aspects of the game, while allowing this aspect of the gameplay to be a bit more forgiving.
I'm really excited to see where this goes in the future. Definitely one of my favorite games this LD. Congrats!!
You've got a great set of mechanics here, and I liked exploring the big levels. The camera being so zoomed is used to interesting effect in some areas, but other times it feels like being able to see more of the level would help avoid cheap deaths and also give a better sense of scale. A variable jump height could help platforming feel tighter. Nice work! I enjoyed playing this!
This is a cool idea -- I could see something like this being a mode in Tetris. It could definitely benefit from having the speed increase over time, as in normal Tetris.
The lack of rotation really makes you think in a different way than you do in a typical game of Tetris. Always having access to square blocks and either a vertical or horizontal line block seems to take away from the variety and interesting decision making of Tetris. What if you only had 2 or 3 shapes to choose from each time? I think you've got a really interesting game here, and I'd love to see how you expand on and refine it. Nice work!
This is awesome -- I had a smile on my face the whole time. The 3 different movement abilities are legitimately fun to play with, and I played through this a bunch of times just to explore what I could do. Awesome job!
Cool puzzle mechanic, and I like how you let the player experiment in order to figure out how things work. The last 2 levels did cause me to sort of just move around randomly, as they were so overloaded with orbs.
Adjusting the colors a bit could make it easier to memorize how different combinations will act.
Nicely done!
@snowyowl -- Thanks, you most certainly did find an alternate solution, nice work! I've updated the Post-Jam version with a tweak to Level 17 that should fix that.
If anyone finds any alternate solutions in the new Post-Jam version, let me know!
P.S. The problem with alternate solutions in this game is that they'll result in your shape changing between the end of one level and the beginning of the next one. You can read more on that here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/2016/04/22/theseus-the-risks-and-rewards-of-continuity/
One of the cleverest game I've seen, but in concept and execution. I'm super impressed!
If you keep working on this, I would try to allow the currently invalid rotations whenever possible (by moving the player 1 or 2 squares if needed). I'd prioritize doing what the player thinks should happen over maintaining the same center of rotation for each piece at all times.
Anyway, awesome job, I loved this!
This is a nice start to a classic DOS style action game! I like the precise timing needed to reflect projectiles -- that feels really good. I wish the character didn't maintain so much inertia when switching directions, especially when moving in the air. Lowering that could make things move a little more responsively and get the action going. Nice work!
This was fun and relaxing to explore the possibilities, and I really like the wiggly animations. Nice work!
This is a really cool implementation of an educational game. I think if you made the transitions between each "word" faster, it could get really addicting to repeatedly solve words, which could in turn help reinforce the learning even more. Nice work!
The music and art set a great tone for the game. The way the ball stuck to surfaces took a bit of getting used to, but I really enjoyed playing through this. I'd love to see a longer game with more levels in this style.
This was really fun, with great audio and visuals! While the fact that you don't have to actually press any buttons in time with the music takes away a little bit from your connection to the music, it's still really satisfying to position yourself correctly and watch yourself as you hit the shapes in time with the music. Great job!
This is great -- the tension between keeping enemies close to you in order to attack them but not letting them hit you is ingenious. nice job!
This is really cool. Combining character switching with shooting is really inventive and fun. And I like how characters react to nearby bullets. Really impressive work. Nice job!
Great artwork and animation. This is a fun arcade experience, and the 3 different weapons balance each other nicely.
I'd recommend not allowing the player to interrupt their own attack with another attack -- players will inevitably try to attack quickly and repeatedly, and will end up just restarting the attack animation. Also, making players complete each attack that they initiate will force them to be even more strategic.
P.S. Thanks for trying out my game, Theseus -- the split ability isn't available at the start of the game. The early levels are all solvable without that ability (which requires a pickup in later levels).
This is awesome. You did an amazing job of building the sense of a big world and an adventure that's varied and interesting. Really impressive for such a short development time.
I had a lot of fun beating this, though it was frustrating to get reset all the way to the beginning when you die. Checkpoints would help a lot.
Great work!
Even though there didn't seem to be a reason to hold spacebar in this version, it was fun to traverse the level, with huge jumps and quick rolling.
The audio and visuals combine very atmospherically.
It was sometimes hard to tell which elements in the environment were background and which were foreground. Also the controls sometimes feel inconsistent, especially when flying. Sometimes I could fly very high and other times I couldn't -- perhaps some tweaking and a more open tutorial area to explore how that works could help.
This is awesome. The colored lasers a brilliant feature, as they force you to think on multiple levels at once. Having them appear in multiple orientations and even with multiple lasers at once is really smart. Great work!
Nice work on this! I like how the solutions are rarely what you'd first thing when looking at each level.
It would be a nice feature to be able to see which blocks have been shifted. And of course I'd love to see more levels!
This has an interesting mix of mechanics. Since the player can just hold down the left mouse button and then move the mouse to turn bugs into shapes, you could remove the need to hold the left mouse button at all -- just let the player move the mouse around and press right click whenever they want a skateboard.
I also enjoyed the art and music, nice work!
I love the art and the whimsical mood you created with the music and bright visuals. Nice work!
I really like the strategic opportunities that the laser provides when combined with the double jump. And I'm really impressed that you hid such a big secret within the game (I don't want to spoil anything). The visual aesthetic(s) is/are really nice too!
If you were to work more on this, I think the placement of enemies and pickups could be more precisely generated in order to complement the robot's jump. But as is, I had a lot of fun playing. Nice work!!
Stunning on just about every level. Super charming and cohesive art and audio, with a fun and surprising core puzzle mechanic.
"Uncouth" is my new favorite game over message.
Wow, this is fantastic! I love the chunky pixel art, and you've got super solid shooter gameplay at the core. The gun ability didn't seem very viable to me, given how long it takes to wind up and that it leaves you vulnerable when it lands (but the animation for it is great).
Really impressive that you created this much content at this quality. Great job!
I had fun playing around with this. Making the jump height vary based on how long the jump button is pressed could make the controls feel a little tighter. Once enemies hit you, they tend to jump right on top of you or move left and right almost at the same speed you move at, which can be a bit frustrating.
I really like the second attack -- it took a while to discover it, but the tension of putting yourself in danger and rapidly pressing attack to hopefully attack in time is really nice.
When you get to the point where huge swarms of shapes are following/avoiding you, things get really fun and hectic.
Whimsical art and really funny audio make for a really attractive arcade game.
I'd recommend having spacebar or another keyboard key activate the Next and Try Again buttons, since the player will have 2 hands on the keyboard while playing. Having to reach for the mouse each time you win/lose is an unnecessary step.
Nice work!
Nice work -- the mood, art and music are all super charming. I found the difficulty a bit extreme and the resets a bit jarring, given the large size of the characters, the small spaces they had to fit in, and the speed at which I had to navigate. If you could ease the player into the difficulty more, I could really get into maneuvering the levels while enjoying the great tunes!
I've never played a game that controls quite like this -- it's very interesting. We found that we would accidentally fly off screen much more often than we would actually hit each other. I'm sure players can get better at the controls and at using the square to control themselves -- it might help to have the starting arena be larger with fewer opportunities to accidentally fly off screen or get stuck.
Congrats on your first LD! Finding ways to add more depth to the gameplay will make it more fun. For instance, you're navigating a channel, but you don't really have to make any decisions about where to go, whether to speed up or slow down, etc. The potential to burst yourself can be a good source of tension -- if you adjusted the enemies so that the player can't just hold the puff button when they hear the shark's sound effect, it would again offer more opportunities for interesting decision-making and reaction.
This was fun! I enjoyed exploring the levels. There are some collision issues, and having jump mapped to left-control was uncomfortable, so I just used the mouse to jump (which was unusual but functional).
What an awesomely inventive concept, with a hilarious execution. Great art, funny writing, and gameplay that's not quite like anything else I've played. Nice work!!
Nice work, and congrats on your first Ludum Dare! I really like the artwork, and it was really funny watching the character slowly turn into a lizard (though I had to focus on the letters).
Nice job -- really sets a tone nicely with the stark visuals and sparse music. Unless I'm mistaken, you need to click Retry with the mouse when you die -- since the game controls require both hands to be on the keyboard, it would be ideal to have the player be able to retry using the keyboard, instead of having to move their hand to the mouse each time they die (or just automatically retry, since the player will surely want to do that).
Nice work!
Wow, this is awesome. It's very difficult, intentionally, but I stuck with it for a while and actually got pretty good at it! Super satisfying animations, and a great sense of humor conveyed just through the feel of the mechanics. Great work!!
Letting the player change their shape in order to simultaneously reposition their hitboxes AND change where they're shooting is brilliantly elegant. I'd love to see that expanded into a larger game. Great work!
I found the art and mood so charming, even when things got a little scary! Nice work!
What an interesting mechanic! If you pulled the camera back a bit, it might help the player better understand their surroundings, and therefore heighten their strategic options. Really cool and unique, nice work!
Awesome presentation, and a really nice twist on the rhythm genre. It seems that you can cheat the game a bit by just slamming spacebar repeatedly, but it's really fun to play if you don't do that.
If you keep working on this, I would add calibration options, as things tend to feel out of sync one way or another. Great work!
This is a very cool puzzle game, with a nice set of mechanics. I had a lot of fun playing all the way to the end. The gameplay is responsive, and the puzzles are open-ended enough that you can get a sense of really exploring a level. Great work!
I was honestly surprised at what a mental challenge the game became once you start contending with multiple hole shapes at once. This is a charming game, and I enjoyed playing it a bunch! My highest scores tended to be when I happened to get lots of the same hole shape in a row -- in the post-jam version that you mentioned, it might be worth tweaking the randomization a bit. Nice work!!
Congrats on your and your daughter's first Ludum Dare! My favorite aspect of the game is avoiding moving enemies while your fish keeps stretching out. The bright artwork is great! I hope both of you will continue to make game together!
It's really cool controlling the skydivers and watching them move into various positions. It often seems impossible to cycle through the shapes and move to the new location fast enough -- increasing the move speed with the arrow keys would help.
Very cool take on the theme. Nice work!
This is so great. One of my favorite games this LD!
I really hope you keep working on this even beyond the post-compo version, because it's seriously fun and addicting.
Fantastic art, and nice use of parallax scrolling to make things that much more epic.
I think you could tweak the camera a bit to make it more user-friendly -- perhaps either keep it always centered on the character or even have it off center so that the player can more more in the direction they're facing. For a game where you can die easily, that would help a lot.
I really like the mechanic that combines shooting with shapeshifting -- very clever. It's also a great touch characters react to shots fired near them.
In some situations it was really hard to pick out the specific enemy I wanted to shoot, since there were so many running around quickly on top of each other, but that was also a fun challenge!
I love this game.
It captures childhood in a way that few games have for me. It's silly and funny, but also honestly moving. It's incredibly creative and surprising. It feels like a huge adventure and also just an afternoon playing outside. I can't say enough good things about this. Thank you for making it!!!
Really fantastic presentation and exciting gameplay. Between the shape defaulting to the center of the screen and the streak that it leaves behind when moving, it was very difficult to see the black hearts in the middle of the screen.
I'd be curious to see if you could find a way to make it easier for the player to memorize the order of the shapes that they switch between -- or make some way for players to switch directly from one shape to another, without cycling through them all.
This was fun, thanks!
I loved playing this game! It's a great challenge, and really unique. Showing the arrows so players will know what orientation the rectangle will be when they shift to it is a brilliant touch that really makes the game. Awesome job!
I enjoyed playing this! I think you could remove the purple character, as it seems to do nothing, in which case the player would never want to switch to it -- it's currently just something that requires an extra click from the player.
It might be interesting to have a penalty for hitting an enemy with the wrong element (the enemy gets stronger maybe?), as this would require you to more strategically shoot and switch elements.
Nice work!
Great use of the theme, and a very interesting game. If you could find ways to make controlling the physics a little more accessible, I could see this expanded into a larger game with lots of really unique and interesting levels.
This is absolutely amazing! So elegent and fun.
Occasionally I would click a square that didn't seem blocked, but the game thought the ball was blocking me -- obviously lag will be an issue with an online multiplayer game, but if you can find a way to make that happen less it would be great (maybe allow players to place squares that overlap slightly with the ball?)
Also, it would be nice (though not really necessary) to make it easier to remember which square will be replaced when you place a new one, perhaps by having slightly different shades of squares.
All in all, this is amazing and one of my favorite games so far. I hope you'll work further on it and release a post-jam version. Also the game logo is lovely.
Fantastic! You've got a great core mechanic, and you expanded really nicely on it in the levels that followed. I'd love to see a bunch more levels with new mechanics and combinations of the existing ones. Awesome job, one of my favorite games so far!!
Fantastic mood created through the music, sound effects, art, and pacing. Great work, and I'd love to see more of this after the jam!
The quick movement and jumping is very satisfying. If you continue to work on this, you could look at adjusting enemy movement -- for instance the boss tends to either move almost exactly in line with you or stand still in a position where you can attack it without worry.
Really funny gameplay and presentation. If there were a way to better tell whether you're lined up with the cut-out, since it can be hard to tell with the camera's perspective.
Great work, lots of laughs!
This is so charming, I really enjoyed playing through the whole thing.
One thing I would recommend is for the confirmation sound that plays when you hit a button at the right time to not clash with the music. I'd recommend either making it in the same key as the music or use a sound effect that has no pitch.
This is really cool way of laying out a maze. I enjoyed trying to figure the levels out, and I stopped myself from using the trick of just working your way backwards from the gems. Since you can only move from one grid cell to another, it might be worth removing free movement, and instead having the player move only along straight lines between the squares. That way you avoid the slight annoyance of colliding with corners. Nice work!
Nicely done, and impressive for such a short development time! Obviously it would be nice to just restart a level and not the whole game when you lose. Also, having the red squares block you instead of kill you would have largely the same effect but be a little more user friendly.
This is great fun to play and beautifully presented as well. The dash attack is a really cool mechanic, since you're sending yourself into danger instead of just firing a bullet or something -- you have to make sure that other shapes aren't behind the one you're aiming at and that you won't end up in a dangerous position after making an attack.
It's a small thing, but I also really like that the controls are extra easy to remember because each shape resembles the letter it's mapped to -- the triangular shape of "A", the curves of "S" and the boxy "D". Brilliant little touch. Great job!
Beautiful artwork. Making enemies take longer to attack you, and giving the player more of a chance to react would be great.
Great audio, and an cool take on the theme. As some others have said, some warning about when the ship is about to shift would be great. I most often died when DEF switched to MOV and I suddenly moved much faster than I expected (into a bullet!)