Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → tomlbarden
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | Corporate Mole | jam | 51 | 4.25 | 4.27 | 3.93 | 3.96 | 4.30 | 3.53 | 4.54 | 4.14 |
It took me a few minutes to realise that there was more to the game than I realised. I can see that there's a lot more planned for this than the time allowed for. I'd love to play this after another day or so of development.
One note is that I couldn't work out how to collect the wealth of gold I mined. I had to leave it sat lonely on the floor :(
I can't think of any other poem games, and I really like that premise! The environment is perfect and I love the aesthetics (though I'm a sucker for low-poly).
A few suggestions, and I'm only so critical because I really think there's potential here. - The footsteps are a little too loud for my ears; they're a bit jarring - Rotating the objects can be a bit fiddly, trying to get the game to register that I can see the word - The camera resetting to facing forward when you put down an item is a bit disorienting
My favourite poem:
"the solider slipped upon the bastard, a liquid glared from the overlord"
Also, it's silly, but I really like that you can use the door to quit the game.
Great work! I'd love to see a v1.1 with more words/items/environments.
I've not seen an auto-scrolling deck game before! I really liked the urgency it gave my decisions when I realised that the game was going to just keep going whether I was ready or not. By the time I'd descended a few floors I was in a pretty steady rhythm and found I didn't need to worry too much about which cards to use, so the challenge waned a bit. If you ever made a v1.1 of this game I reckon it'd be awesome to see some more choices for the player to make, e.g. descending down a left path or a right path.
This was some good, chaotic fun. The performance on my laptop wasn't great, but that may well be a me problem. I wasn't sure about the use of theme at first, but it's actually a pretty novel approach on the whole 'deep in debt' angle.
The presentation of this game is brilliant. Very well done! The art and audio really sell the arcadey feel.
The combat is satisfying, but a little simplistic. It's be great to see more functionality there, like a low kick or block. If I hadn't read the description I'm not sure I would have picked up on the how theme really ties in, so some extra in-game exposition might have helped there.
I like the idea here; I'm always a fan of physics-based games. Some feedback would be to have the worm follow your mouse a little more accurately, and to reduce the distance between planets. It'd be interesting (and fit the theme a little better) if the worm had to clear layers of a planet as it worked toward the centre?
Well, it certainly fits the theme! The controls feel great and responsive. I did find that being able to adjust my trajectory mid fall made it a little too easy at points. Also the healing animation actually moves you very slightly, which was scary to find out!
Wow! This was dripping with atmosphere, reminding me very much of PT. Unfortunately my laptop was running this at only a few frames a second, but even so I powered through to what I think was the 'end.' The aesthetics were fantastic, and I was pulled right in my the mystery of it all. I'd love to see more: more stuff to investigate, more text, more rooms?? Fantastic work, really well made.
The game had me on edge when I loaded in with its spooky atmosphere. That said, I ran in a straight line for a while and couldn't find my kid. From reading your comments I think I might just not have run for long enough 😂
Interesting mechanic! Seems like the kind of thing which would benefit from a tutorial since it's so novel. As @whynot said, the movement speed ought to be at least a bit faster. I also pressed R on the first machine I came across but I wasn't sure if it was cleaned?
This game has a fantastic mood, set by a great combination of visuals and music. I'd love to see this concept expanded upon. At first I wasn't sure how it met the theme, but I actually think it's quite novel! I can see that there's a lot of ideas here that you didn't get time to expand upon. Give the player an objective and a use for the souls and I think there's something here.
Oh, as a note, the UI does not scale to 4K displays. It was all far too small in the corners of my screen, but that's a nitpick.
The controls feel great, but the cost of losing is a bit too high for replayability. Would love to fly between lightning bolts and tornados, but without checkpoints I don't think I'll ever get there!
I love the art style! This game does a great job of building tone with the opening scene and music. I like how you're plopped in the ocean with no direction other than to dive down. At first I wasn't sure what I was expected to do, but I quickly assumed this was about the mood of the game and was intended to be reflective. I think it does a great job of that. When collecting the gold meant I couldn't swim up anymore it felt like a statement on my greed. I loved it! My only criticism so far is that it ends too soon! Let me dive deeper!
I really like the premise here. A lot of the lighting was great, very moody, and the story kept my engaged, moving along.
--- SPOILERS: PLEASE PLAY THE GAME FIRST! ---
One suggestion: The first stealth level was really engaging until I realised I could just run past them all with no issue. This seemed to be true of all the levels - you just had to get to the end. Some other fail state or incentive for not being seen would go a long way!
Also, I honest to God did not see the twist coming. Dual use of theme, descending deeper down the floors, and deeper into insanity. Nice work!
This is a perfect game jam game! A small, polished experience. Everything about the audio and visuals was amazing; the little rocket is beyond cute. It took me a few tries to work it all out, but once it clicked I had such a great time doing it. I only wish there were more levels!
I agree with @ithildin about having a bit of a zoom out feature so we could preview the route we need to take. I'd also love to see a little UI indicator for which direction you need to move the mouse to change the power level, but 72 hours isn't much time so I can understand why it's missing.
Fantastic job!
This was beautiful. The art and audio really struck a chord. It was much more heartful than I expected, which was a lovely surprise. It seems the core of this game is really the narrative, so I wouldn't want to see too much added which gets in the way of that. Instead some small moments of interactivity could really elevate the game, such as handing the biscuits to tulip! Just some little elements to draw the player in even further.
The premise is actually pretty interesting. However, it doesn't end up being particularly fun or engaging. The game unfolds a lot like an exposition dump of the events which led to Hitler's rise to power and WW2. Now, is that a bad idea or a bad thing? Not at all, however I feel the executing could have been more interactive and engaging. @bereg hit the rest on the head quite nicely.
@dezom Thank you so much! ♥ I can't tell you how much time I wasted just swinging at the worms while playtesting...
@luddegodofpain @erkanec @stlunatick @sandcastlesstudio Thank you all so much for the comments! @fizzbark Thank you, I think @joedev did a perfect job of scoping the game.
@smelly-games @freixo Thanks for playing! @simul Thank you so much! Sorry to hear those pesky worms gave you trouble like that, we'll see what we can do about them... 👀
@madr Thank you so much, that means a lot!
Oh my God, so many more lovely comments! Thank you all so much ❤
@badpiggy Thank you so much! Really glad you had enjoyed it. And yes, those pesky worms have better eyes than you'd expect 👀 We did consider adding a little Skyrim-esque stealth indicator, but it was one of those things that got away from us in the time limit. To be honest though, I'd probably want to spend more time designing either clearer levels or more predictable enemy behaviour instead of a UI indicator. I worry that displaying a binary "yes you are seen/no you are hidden" would make the game less engaging. *Is that guard gonna see me hacking into the mainframe?!* But yes, sometimes the Worms are a little overzealous 😅
@bea You're so lovely, thank you! 😭 We would have loved to have more levels, but we wanted to make sure the ones we did have felt polished and were at least a bit thought out! We've got ideas for plenty more levels and interactions, it's just tragic that 72 hours isn't as long as it sounds...
@assertfailure Thanks for the feedback! I completely agree with both points. I'd love to have diminishing returns on spamming the same Worm task over and over, and the game would certainly be just a touch more immersive and easier to control. Glad you had fun with it all the same!
@juliestrator Thank you!! It was amazing to get to watch you play through the game. Interestingly, yours was one of the most bloodless playthroughs I've seen 👀
Well, this was incredible. Far more engaging than I went in expecting. I'm always impressed by jam games that have proper upgrade system. This is something I'd easily see on a phone or tablet. One of my favourite games so far.
Well, this is certainly much better than my first game jam game was! Before I get into the gameplay, I really want to commend you for the polish; this feels great to play. Menus, SFX, audio options, scene transitions... All this stuff is a real winner in my books. Great work for finding time to include them! The itch link implies you made this in a day and a half? Well done! Hard to believe this is your second game.
I really like how simple the core of the game is. You did well to limit the scope for the game to something achievable and well polished. I'd of course love to see more gameplay variety, as simply descending does get stale without some other motivation.
What I'd love to see in a v1.1 release would be a little tutorial screen which explains both of the flashlight functions. When I first played I completely missed the scanning function and wondered why I kept dying! I did also find that I could take my time pretty well. It'd be awesome if there were like ghosts or something slowly forcing the player to descend...
Love the models for this! Did you make them all yourself?
A suggestion I would make would be to remove the 8-directional movement in favour of a full 3D movement controller. I think that would aid in making the game feel a bit smoother.
By the way, I ran into a weird bug in which my character ended up running around above everything else; I was running over enemies and couldn't hit them!
Hugely impressed that this is your first game! I love the use of hand-drawn and scanned art assets. The gameplay is simply yet satisfying platforming. I would definitely say that the game is a bit too difficult at the start, and some of the hitboxes for things which kill you seem a bit overzealous. But all in all a fantastic first game jam! Hope you stay for many more.
@joedev sent me this because he got so addicted. I've gotta say, I can see why! One bit of feedback: the controls aren't very laptop-friendly. I wasn't able to play using a track pad, since I can't click and hold to drag a piece AND right click to rotate. Otherwise, this is brilliant.
This was cool! Despite the tutorial it still look me a little bit to work out exactly what I was meant to be doing, like how I lost my weapon and didn't realise! I suspect this plays better using a gamepad than it does with a keyboard, but even so it was good fun. The art is great, and the SFX give some satisfying feedback. Would love to see this idea expanded upon.
Thoroughly impressed that you managed to knock this out in three days. I particularly want to note the polish; it's always great to have proper menus and SFX. There are some AI bugs here and there, but in three days what more can you expect? Great work!
This reminds me a lot of some of my early game jams: too much ambition! I saw above that you said that jam was frustrating, which is such a shame. I absolutely love game jams, and I hope you don't give up on them. I'd definitely recommend tackling an idea with a much smaller scope next time. Hopefully that'll give you more time to really hone the experience and give it some extra testing and polish.
Also, we used the same elevator music in our game! Really confused me when I heard it in yours 😂
This is great fun! I agree with everything @abigailcorfman said. It'd be great to see some sorts of power-ups in a v1.1 of this game, especially something which would let you temporarily bust through all kinds of blocks and increase your speed. You could also build some little platforming sections with the slash bounce mechanic! See, this is the problem with game jam games I like: I always want more of them, scope limits be damned!