Hide and Seek by DDRKirbyISQ 2020-10-27T11:39:39Z ♥ 1
Nice scary game, very polished. The visual style it's pretty cute and polished, I liked the cloudy borders you used, it gave it a dreamy look, that I think fit with the game atmosphere. The sound design is amazing, and it truly improves the mood/atmosphere of the game that is, for me, the best part of it. The sound for the crow arrival is very oppressing!
I've played both jam and post jam versions.
My biggest issue with the jam one was the music puzzle. Fact is, I've understood pretty well what I had to do and also somewhat how the not were related to each other, but it was too hard to perform without any hint. I think another issue is that the sounds you here from the door are not a piano one (or at least sounds different from the piano notes), that makes it even harder to choose the proper sounds. You fixed it in the post jam and now is clearly easier but yea, this is the kind of fix the removes the listen part because visually is so much easier. Maybe, to help def people, the best solution would be to have a setting for them? Like enable visual clues.
Also, adding fullscreen would have been so nice (maybe with itch.io you could have obtained it for free? you know, the settings in edit game), it would have improved the mood since fullscreen makes it easier to focus and immerse into the game.
Maybe another little things that could be improved is the purpose (?) of your actions, I'll try to better explain what I want to say. Basically, after the first part, you have to unlock the door with the music, and it was a nice puzzle, but I was not sure how it fit with the game apart being a gamey thing to increase length. After that you have the teapot thing, again it seemed there just to add a bit of length to the game, but to me was a bit pointless so it detracted from the game itself. I know that the teapot appears in the room to make you think that the crow was in fact the little girl (even though it appears also when you are with her), but it seemed a bit "rushed" just to give some "easy" meaning. This is not a huge issue it's just something I think could be improved to make the game better, but being a jam game I think you already did a lot.
What I really loved is how you gave the hint on this page. Instead of putting the hint directly into the description, to avoid spoilers or accidentally read the solution, you put a text here that must be decrypted using the page you link, and also you made it so you give just a little hint and then the full solution. I've appreciated it since I just needed to know the notes and with them I've managed to complete the puzzle (jam version of course). I mean, you could have just added a spoiler block (I'm not sure if it is available on this page tho) but this solution is more cool to be honest, nice to know about it, I may reuse it in the future!
I would have liked the "close your eyes" mechanics to be used more. Reading the description I thought it was more important to the game, while it's more of a gimmick to know when the crow is coming (and for the music puzzle).
Those are just my thought and suggestions, at the end I've really enjoyed the game and it's atmosphere! Great work!
LD53 — Delivery (14)
Ludum Dare 53 by Beebster Games 2023-05-20T14:49:00Z ♥ 0
I like the idea of starting with low health and having to get resources to heal constantly. It's a nice fast paced/stressful mechanics.
That said, the actual implementation needs a good amount of work yet.
Not sure why I kept getting hit while gathering hearts. I think u mentioned that there is the sorceress hitting you, but it felt too much and totally random, sometimes nothing for a minute, sometimes hit after hit until I died. I can understand that u want the game to be challenging, but, since it is not very finished, I think it would have been better to make it easier so people could at least see what your overall idea was and also getting satisfied because they completed it. I tried twice, but after dying randomly because of the "constantly getting hit randomly", I gave up. I'm not even sure if killing the sorceress near the grave was the aim of the game, I thought I had to deliver something.
The music in the background was fitting, but it stopped playing after a while, I think u needed to setup it to loop!
As for the combat, well it's very basic but confusing, I saw that 1 hit could almost kill the skeletons, but they did not die even after many hits. Not sure what was missing but I guess that there is lots of work to do here too to make it properly working.
I guess u like stats a lot, but I think putting as the first thing in this game page the list of damage may be confusing for the player, and might be something that should be put somewhere else. The description would have been fine with way less specific informations.
Reading it back, it does say something I forgot while playing, that there are mines everywhere. Honestly, not a very good mechanic as it is, since u can't know where they are and it just feels like a bug. Maybe having a way to detect them would make it a bit better, as of now is just unfair and not clear.
That said, even if the game requires more work, overall it works and can be played, and that is something to be proud of when joining a game jam. Keep doing games and getting better!
Your Delivery is Here by GinLuy 2023-05-20T14:13:05Z ♥ 0
The atmosphere is so good, really creepy and scaring. I'm impressed by the amount of beautiful artworks u managed to create! Especially loved the last one in the intro, with the guy staring at you. The audio is also very well done, delivering (lol) the mood perfectly, I felt uncomfortable and unsettled (which is a good thing in this case). Not only the artwork and music, but the direction of the intro is very interesting, loved everything about it and that alone was an impressive work!
The gameplay though, I mean, I still like the atmosphere and the amount of visual stuff that it is in it, let's say, on a "sensory" level (visuals, sound, mood) it was well done, but the gameplay, not at all.
As first, the way u control the character is very very basic platform and was not good. There were some visual glitches, like the box stretching, I did not understand and were confusing.
The hitbox are too big and get hit too easily, it feels unfair because, to me, it felt like I was not even close to the object hitting me. U usually do the hitbox smaller than the visual, not bigger. Some jumps are too precise on a height level, and since the controls are so basic this sometimes required to press jump before moving, otherwise I would have not been able to do that 1 pixel more to go over the platform. It might feel like "u need to get better" but it just feels like I can't do what should be very simple and easy.
I also encountered some body parts, the leg, which I could not reach (guess it was impossible?) and the body at the end, but could not interact with them. Not sure if the game has an ending after the body bridge.
In general, the level design was artistically interesting, but not very interesting gameplay wise, maybe because it felt too generic. At some point, I got outside the level by walljumping, which was kind of fun lol
As others have pointed out, even though I liked being overwhelmed by sounds and visuals during the gameplay, it felt a bit too much always. With this I mean that there was no change of pace, it was just a lot for the whole duration, while it would have probably helped to have moments of relative calm to have a better pace and make the "a lot" moment stand out and also not get boring and annoying.
Minor things, the click here to close button could have just been a properly scaled X without any other text annoying the player while watching the beautiful intro! Second one, since UP is not used, u could have made up also jump together with space, so people can pick their preferred one. After a while I realized that the rocks were the checkpoints, maybe some visual thing happening when u touch one could make that more clear. Besides, u should opt out of the humor category for the jam, I mean it doesn't hurt but it will not have a huge rating in theory since there is no humor in your game.
These are all suggestions related to the gameplay, but I want to remark how I am impressed by the artistic work on this, amazing work!
ROG LD53 - Relic Courier by Rocktavious 2023-05-18T18:01:58Z ♥ 0
As first, I would like to say that I really appreciate that the game has a complete flow and works till the end without issues. It is something that is not to be taken as granted for a jam so good job on that! You also have lots of stuff, animations, UI, levels, a menu screen with credits and options, a combat system, the minimap, and so on, which is a lot to handle and balance, but is can also be a problem, as I will explain later.
I think that the atmosphere is kinda good, and the ambient music was very nice albeit simple.
At first I did not understand what was going on with the controls, but quickly figured out it was grid based. I like the idea of having it grid based, with this wolfenstein sort of feel, but I also think there was something off with the controls, maybe some lag due to the transitions, especially while turning, and also because of the close 3rd person view, which was maybe too close.
The combat, it works very well on a technical level, and it looks good at first, but is first shallow, and get boring fast. The red enemies, which are basically the same as the others, are a pain just because of how many hits it takes to kill them, and kind of halt the pace of the game too much. As someone else said, the parrying was also super easy, which made the combat even less interesting, but at least made it not a pain to get over, not a good thing tho since it means it was not funny
Visually, the trees are nice, but it made so hard to navigate in the grid. I used the map often, which btw I think it is very well done, but it not for good reasons, just because it was so hard to understand what path between trees I missed. It is almost always not a good indicator when people look more at the map than the game. I would have also made it so u would have discovered one more cell radius speaking, sometimes I had to go back because it seemed that a cell may lead somewhere while it was just a corner.
The game is visually nice, but it is kind of a double edged sword, since the UI is so bad in comparison that it makes the huge difference very jarring. You could have made the dialogs smaller, removed the close button and just close them on a generic button press, and picked a better font. Not much time required and it would have looked less bad!
The credits, it is just 4 people, I think it would have been better to just show them without scrolling, which was kind of hilarious, especially since it takes so long to even show the first name. I see you put effort in adding the scroll with the mouse also.
I'm also a bit sad that the web version did not have full screen option, especially since u had so many for other things. I think that unity automatically adds that so it was kind of weird.
I would also advise you to opt out of the humor rating, since this game does not have any, it does not really make sense.
The first level, that works as a tutorial, is a good idea, but I think u had planned only a specific enemy to trigger the combat tutorial, which I encountered almost as last, so it was kind of pointless. I guess either u trigger the tutorial on any of the first encounters, or just put the first enemy on the only path u have at first.
Overall I appreciate the effort on lots of systems, which is a good idea to test your skills and try something new, but I guess this came at the cost of the overall polish of the game. Not inherently a bad thing, since u are now more skilled at a lot of different things, and will probably manage to have a more polished game the next time while also having all those features!
Retro Space by Bullex 2023-05-17T18:08:13Z ♥ 0
It's very well done! Very polished, I can see you really cared that it was completely working and to feel like a sort of complete game. Visuals and sounds are not that great but works well.
The in game "point to learn" is very smart and makes it easy to learn how to play without having to read stuff prior to play, I really appreciated this! Straight to the game and learning as I discovered things.
I really liked to explore and collect resources to upgrade my ship, and I was also sort of scared of the red ships which are very aggressive indeed ahah
I would have liked maybe a purpose, like defeat every red ships, or something, because at some point I felt like it was a bit pointless, it seemed like there wasn't anything else far from the planet. It's not a must, but for a jam game I think it's sort of smart to give a purpose to make your players want to complete it, it shouldn't be hard either otherwise they will just go to the next game and bye bye. This is true for a normal game, but for jam game there are some ways to do it more jam friendly like that.
Related to the game, I think that the player hitbox should have been way smaller, like at least half, since the bullets git me in parts where there wasn't even a single pixel. It is frustrating because for me it was like I dodged it! Usually is better to have it small for the player (and bigger for the enemy).
I also found frustrating, not much that the enemy could destroy the packages, which was very cool and made them feel smart, but that it was so easy to mistakenly attack the planet while trying to hit them, especially because the camera is so close to you that it is hard to aim and dodge while also trying to not hit the planet. I can understand it can be a point that the stress is good, but it felt too unfair, and could be adjusted.
I would have also avoided the E to interact with update and would have made it like the sphere near the planet that gets highlighted, it is way more clear and visually nice!
A thing that I liked is that u slowly discover more stuff, first u gather the resources next to the moon u spawn at the start, then u can see your home so u go to that and learn a bit about it, u explore and found out about upgrades (which btw at first I did not understand but used the point to learn feature) and u can encounter your first enemy ships, then u have the attack to your home. A very nice pacing!
Overall I really had fun with this and I am surprised by how complete it feels, amazing work!
Wormpocalypse: Battle for Chornobyl by Emty 2023-05-16T17:58:03Z ♥ 2
At first I was like "ok kind of nice" but when there was a second part I was legitly surprised and was not expecting it, well done!
The music fits very well, and the visuals, albeit very simple, kind of fit the game. The car could be more funny to control tho, it felt very slow and could very easily stop, maybe trees could have been destroyable with the car (with them skyrocketing for more fun factor?). Throwing the bombs manually instead of just pressing the key to have it automatically go in the hole could be more interesting, even though it might make it too complex.
Having some extra visual effects for when the worm is close would make it more anxious (in a good way) and adrenalinic. You could also get rid of the radar this way which would improve immersion. I had some issue with the resolution (I have a 16/10 display) and could not see the entire screen, so the radar was cut a bit out and I could not understand the numbers in the top right (which I could only see partially).
The second part is very funny and I felt excited and anxious, the music was perfect. The car was a bit bugged but not a big deal because I was so excited by not expecting this second part. I did not deployed the bomb, which was not very clear. Maybe you could have given a bigger window to do that. After all, the player spent its time to reach that portion and it is a bit of a let down to reach the end and discover u didn't put the bomb because u didn't press the button in a specific point. Yeah it maybe makes u replay it, but I think, being a very short game, that it is generally better to make the player feel rewarded for having invested the time in it, since it's not meant to be hard after all but enjoyed (this game in particular, from my point of view).
I enjoyed the small but funny story and how u managed to present it in a very funny and handmade way!
Nice work <3
Edit: after a few attempts, all ended because of a soft lock bug when I replaced the truck inside the worm, I've finally won the game ahah
Delivery! NYC by Obe Dot 2023-05-16T17:34:52Z ♥ 1
I had more fun than expected, thanks to the hook mechanic. It was kinda funny and exciting to pull yourself through the city.
About the hook, at first I thought that I had to keep it pressed to be pulled until released. I think it is also fine to just click it once but at this point maybe it should work on mouse press DOWN instead of UP. Also, if u press it again in mid air it stops your movement, which kind of ruins the moment, because it feels less fluid and fast(and furious). It is also very bugged but still funny.
I would change or tune down the volume for the shoot which was instead very annoying to hear, I'm not sure how you could have tested with that on lol Also, I think that the draw distance for the beam should be increased, I was not understanding why I was not able to see them and they (maybe) should always be visible, even from afar!
Not that this is important as much as the other things, but the cover for the game is kinda of weird, it might looks good but made me think this was a 2D pixel game.
Orbital Delivery by b4ux1t3 2023-05-09T19:54:20Z ♥ 1
I'm giving you some points in humor because your description is actually funny
The game, is not very playable honestly. I've just understood after a while that the red thing was the actual target (and not the earth) and that I had to use the orbit of the earth to hit that. It is too slow overall and miss some visual effects that could make this look more dynamic. Also, the fact that the Moon moves, sometimes makes it be in a position where it is harder to even get into the earth orbit, and that is a bit frustrating. This makes it even harder to predict what it will going to happen, making it way too hard to master, making you feel more like u are just throwing them at random just hoping to it the target.
When u get to the solar system, things seems to get even more slower and therefore even less exciting. I've also felt like it was more random, just pressing space. I'm also not sure if spamming it instead of trying to be precise punish you, which I would sort of expect to give u am incentive to play well.
Maybe it should have been more like a fixed thing with like rocks in between the target, so the orbit was actually needed to curve the trajectory and avoid hitting the rocks! With the chance of being able to throw the package from all around the moon. Or you could make it more interesting on the simulation side, having a cool orbit setup that makes the package spins a lot in cool ways on the screen.
You could possibly add that the arrow keys make the sliders go up and down so you don't need the mouse? Besides that, when I pressed the "switch to solar system" toggle, with space u keep toggling it, but this just solves if u click anywhere.
GobEx by WeirdBitGames 2023-05-09T19:31:24Z ♥ 1
The game visuals are very nice and sharp, like them a lot! The music was also cute, and the sound effects kind of worked.
The tutorial, albeit clear, is probably a bit too long and the game seems more complex than it probably should be.
I felt like I was getting thrown too many items right from the start and felt overwhelmed, but the thing is that there was really not much of a challenge in just filling the packages and throwing them out. After like 20-30 seconds of actually playing it (knowing how to play) I was hoping for the goblin to get angry and call it a day.
What I thought is that the object u had to fill the packages with were also coming to you instead of popping by pressing the numbers, maybe that would have been a bit better. Maybe the "create the package" part of the game could be more interesting! I also guess that there was too much going on in the game, u have to avoid the goblin getting hit, you have to unpack, then pack, then deliver the pack, then check the letters, and so on, but nothing felt really important, just a list of things to take care. I mean you can make any game sounds boring this way, but I think in this case it really feels like that, to me of course.
Overall, the game is polished and works well and I really appreciate this, but the game design or at least balance side of the project is its weakest part.
RIP: Ridiculously Injury Prone by theArtifacts 2023-05-07T16:49:40Z ♥ 1
The game is very rough, but I liked the idea of having to learn the "patterns" and be careful. After 2-3 attempts I reached the end and it was actually funny!
Maybe just adding a timer to know how long u took to reach the granny could be a nice idea to add a bit more replay value and "sharing" with not much extra effort.
Baby Bots by Congeesetador 2023-05-07T16:42:18Z ♥ 1
Congratulations on your first game! It's very simple but works fine. I'm not sure what the machine overload or broken machine actually meant and I'm a bit curious lol I've played the jam version on itch.io without issues! Oh I see, you have the same link for both Jam and Post Jam, so I'm not sure anymore if I've played the Jam or Post Jam actually!
Maybe having some more types would have made it a bit more interesting without adding much complexity to the development.
As a side note, I've found a bit weird that, instead of move with WASD, you specified every directions ahah
Good job!
The Pigeon Post Principle by cassowary 2023-05-05T21:56:40Z ♥ 2
This is a very well done and polished game! The art is cute, and the music fit it perfectly.
I didn't really like the "level won" sound tho, since I think it disrupt the relaxing atmosphere and the rhythm of the chilling background music. I think it should have been a more easy sfx that kept the music flowing instead of stopping it.
Apart for this, everything else is well done. You have some entry levels to explain the mechanics without being annoying, just a few mechanics that works well together, which is nice for a good puzzle, and the levels are actually interesting to solve, and also are made in a way that u can actually stop and realize how to win even without brute force. Maybe the order of the levels should be adjusted a bit, since the last level I think is way too easier compared to others.
The game is very nice, and it's very jam friendly, since it's entertaining but not too hard, and also knowing in advance the number of levels helps in the completion percentage, because players are more keen to keep pushing for some other levels if they know for sure they will be the last one (instead of not knowing if there ill be other 30 levels). Maybe the only thing is that it feels a bit too pre-made, not like u made this before the jam, but like built out of a checkbox list so to have a proper polished game for the jam. Not really a bad thing, since it's actually very funny, but something I felt like I wanted to note, maybe as a way to push you into something more experimental for your next jam/game, if u like!
Aspect Traveler by Benedict Ide 2023-05-05T21:19:42Z ♥ 1
As others, I'm not really into visual novel games, but I got involved into the story of this one, especially thanks to the resource management aspect, which helped keeping the tension high. I more or less managed to reach 3/4 of the path, but couldn't go forward and got frustrated even though I'm sad I didn't finish it.
I think the game is too punishing from the start, and even thou I like that u have to guess what every elements does by playing, it's really not very intuitive. For example, I realized that the last element is about fatigue and stamina, so I decided to take the long path instead of going for a more dangerous path (which I though would have required more """platforming""" and therefore more stamina) but taking the longer path was instead the bad decision, which, I mean, also made sense. Ultimately, it seemed like u just had to play and play again until basically u knew already every option.
Having to reload the page and not having checkpoints is too much for me, especially for a jam game. If it was a more intuitive thing, I think I would have though it was more on me not getting it, but there is too much randomness. I like that u don't (always) show how much stuff will cost, since otherwise it would be trivial, but at least should make a bit more sense, and should give you a bit more time to play in the first 5-6 encounters instead of being so punitive.
A more tech thing, it would be nice to be able to play fullscreen or at least full browser windows, it was painful having to play in a quarter of the window.
Becasse against the depths by Norah 2023-05-03T21:44:53Z ♥ 3
I really like the visual of the game, it's surely the main strength. I'm not sure if it was because I have a 4k display, but the text was all so small, and the recipe book text was also hard to read because the font was so thin!
The overall idea of the gameplay sounds fun, you have to check the monster and then fill the ingredients. It was frustrating not being able to see the monster while looking at the recipe book though, because the look is important and I had constantly to go back and forth (at some point I was lost on how to exit the book and clicked on menu instead). Also I think that the order should have not mattered, it just make it more complex for the small game that it is. I think without the order you would have still presented your idea very well and it would have worked better for a game made out of a jam. Don't be afraid that it will be too easy, for a jam game like this it's better that the game just flows!
A$AP Boxy by maxflav 2023-05-03T21:23:23Z ♥ 1
This is the first game I rate for this ludum dare, and as soon as I saw the classic puzzle script style I decided it should be it ahah
So, I like the aesthetic of the puzzle script games but I think this time u could have done something a bit better, maybe by choosing better colors. I see you have out out of graphics tho
The idea works and it could be a fun puzzle but I think it escalates too quickly, at level 3 I got stuck, it's maybe a bit too early. Seems I'm a bit used to puzzle games I sort of understood what the game wanted me to do but I had done so little experience with the mechanics that I didn't have the tools yet to solve the level, it felt like going directly to level 15.
I couldn't go past level 5, also because I got a bit frustrated by this. Having to see every time everything plays out is also a bit boring and annoying (thanks to the sounds too)
Overall it's a complete package and it works, I think that by just adding more easy levels add the beginning could be very helpful!