Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Train27
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Codename::GreyHat | compo | 383 | 3.54 | 3.41 | 3.64 | 3.89 | 2.75 | 2.83 | 3.28 |
:heavy_check_mark: I've truly never seen it snowing 30 meters underground :cloud_snow:.
I'm totally astounded, this is great! Everything seems so well **polished** and fits so nicely together.
The **atmosphere** on the second level with the robots lying around is eerie and even a little frightening if you're in the mood. The sound effects really give it a 3D feeling to the whole experience.
Also, it was really well thought that, after playing the game, it automatically opened the LDjam page for it, would you care to show how did you do that? :P
:x: My only gripe with it is that it's so **short**!
:heavy_check_mark: Definitely an **innovative** piece! Seems like the perfect definition of "*thinking outside the box*". Although I think the concept this time is quite the opposite of the theme, for instead of going deeper, we go "*higher*" up the abstraction ladder.
I gotta say I admit I knew there was something fishy even before going it, but I expected it to go a whole different way. That's to say, I expected *something*, but not this :laughing:
I thought it was funny intentionally mixing up different measurement scales just to mess with people's brains :thought_balloon: hahaha
:x: Figured pretty much everything kinda fast, but got stuck for a solid 8-10 minutes on the same thing that @thesambassador , the final collider *seems* to be working and everything, but nothing happens, I had to read your answer to find the final piece of the puzzle.
Sometimes the zooming mechanic felt a little weird or tiresome, particularly when you get lost and have to go continuosly back and forth.
:heavy_check_mark: I've read every Gurk novel, and yet none of them had prepared me for this. Gurk absolutely steals the show, such power, such magnificence, such moves! Truly a hero worth his title.
Now really :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, the visuals are nice, Gurk is an adorable little goof with googly eyes, so I guess it's fitting that the enemies are giant eyeballs :eye:.
The atmosphere was good, misterious and somber. The last room was cool, it's sad you had to cut out endless mode :slight_frown:.
One question, what are coins for? I didn't seem to find any way to spend them, nor did collecting them proc anything special.
:x: I'm not sure if it's only me*, but the game played kinda laggy. It looks fine if you stay still, but the moment you move it's like the framerate is dropping or something.
I aggree with @neonjeff , the attack/death animations were a bit confusing, took me a few tries to realize exactly how they worked.
Not gonna lie, it took me a while to beat the game :laughing:
:heavy_check_mark: The game was truly infuriating, but in the good way. It is difficult, but not punishing*.
The visual style fits very well together, and the sound effects are good too, although a few of them seem to be missing (like the "cannon" trap).
The "torchlight" upgrade was HUGE, it's like a different game with it.
:x: I agree with pretty much everything @mexou has said: - the traps cycle is very hard to determine because there ir no sound feedback or anything like that - as there are some hard spots close to new checkpoints, it feel bad to die just before one, which sadly happens multiple times :slight_frown: - all the floors feel a little samey, differentiated only but the (scarce) use of the power-ups, and a greater number of traps
:heavy_check_mark: The ship's movement is kinda cool, moves very fast and it feels very smooth, there could be potential here to be a really fun fast-paced combat.
I think the idea of having to fight a system-wide infasion freeing it planet by planet is really neat, maybe this could be expanded upon by giving it a heavier narrative element.
:x: I'm not the first one to mention this, but it's really easy to cheese through the levels by sniping the enemy ships from outside the screen.
Maybe this could be much more interesting if the enemy ships were moving all the time (even if they're not shooting while off-screen) instead of standing completely still until they get on screen.
@eboatwright there's also Wine for Mac :P My girlfriend uses it all the time to play The Sims 4.
:heavy_check_mark: The **visual style** seems very cohesive.
The soundtrack and the atmosphere do help give that feeling of a **whimsical experience**.
Props for the **random map generation**, I'm sure it must have been quite a headache to implement.
:x: The character **moves way too fast**, at least for me. And the camera movement doesn't help much either :( It's like it makes sudden movements changing the perspective of the player on screen, making it really hard for me to follow its movement.
I'm not sure if it's supposed to happen, but sometimes you can just jump endlessly upwards, and other times you can't :shrug:. When you're up against a wall you can always do that, and sometimes on mid-air as well.
When I died the game said I slept "21% through the dream", does that mean the butterflies are limited, and there is an end to the game? If so, I think it could be a good idea to mark with an arrow were they are or something, I kept getting lost all the time :cry:
Thanks for the feedback!
@temulgeh support for that was actually planned, but had to be dropped eventually due to time constraints :slight_frown:.
@dhim no, there isn't, I'm really sorry :confused:. In fact I've deleted the WebGL version because it wasn't working properly. @falke I'm sorry to hear that, could you be more specific on your issues on desktop? Which version did you download? Was there an error message? Any help is appreciated :slight_smile:.
@kieron-woodhouse I'm painfully aware, it was my first time making a dynamic UI so I stuck to what was simpler: absolute values. When running the desktop version it should, by default, run at 1080p (I think).
Support for feature-complete relative paths was also planned, but I guess you know the rest :confounded:. Neither "./" nor "../" work, which is why, as a counterpart, all terminals are very flat (that is, their file hierarchy is very short, with only two folder levels at most). If you ever get lost, you can: - Use **pwd** to show the absolute path from the root directory you have access to in that terminal.* - Use **cd /** which will take you to the root directory you have access to in that terminal.* - Run **list-commands 1**, **list-commands 2**, or **list-commands 3** to show what commands are available to use, and then **help [command]** to get information specific to that command.
I'm sorry if the gameplay is a little confusing, I tried implementing a lot of command help but probably didn't manage to facilitate a seamless introduction to the game :weary:.
**That is, if you connect to a Bank, for example, you (obviously) don't have full access, so the root directory you have access to is actually a specific directory in that terminal (meaning you only have access to THAT branch of the file hierarchy)*
@kieron-woodhouse I'm glad you could enjoy it, even with the annoying interface issues! *That* particular ending got dark real fast, I know :scream:
I might try to fix the scrolling/resolution issue (would that be allowed?) this week, as well as making more ports of the game.
:bug::hammer: The scrolling issues are finally (*mostly*) fixed! The command **clear** still throws your input upwards, but at least new command outputs won't mess it up. I've also added a visual aide in the form of a small arrow in the bottom-right corner that indicates you when the input is off-scren due to a large command output :arrow_down:.
:thinking: Currently I recommend not using **clear** at all, since you want to have previous information easily available anyway :stuck_out_tongue:.
:gear: I've also modified the UI elements to resize and position in relative fashion, instead of working in absolutes. This should provide compatibility with all screen resolutions. The build uses the native screen resolution at launch, so you shouldn't have to worry about any configuration :slight_smile:.
**Version 1.02** is up and running, feel free to replay it (or play it for the first time!) and tell me what you think :)
Thank you all for the feedback! I actually posted [my brainstorming phase result](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/codenamegreyhat/theme-brainstorming) during the compo :P I always come up with lots of crazy ideas, and always end up having the most trouble implementing them :laughing: . Weird thing, since I'm supposed to be a programmer :thinking: haha
Looking back on it, I think the usage of arrows to cycle through previous commands might not have been that hard to implement anyway, but I simply ran out of time :weary:
@dhim good news! The game is now playable on any resolution :slight_smile: I'm unsure whether or not the linux build works properly, so let me know what you think of it if you play it :wink:
Thank you all for the feedback! Those little usability/QoL issues really are my achiles heel, it just pains me so much to know that I had them planned :weary: and I ran out of time haha
@swordfish I'm glad to hear you got the good ending! I planned for the story to be even deeper, and also planned to make some (optional) puzzles about ip masking and subnets, but maybe that was too niche even for this game's standards :laughing:
Btw I don't know of any Hack run, but this game is inspired by others such as TIS-100 and Hacknet :P
@glitchman What is the issue? Is it the scrolling? It seemed to work when I tried it, both on Firefox and Edge. Have you tried going fullscreen to see if the scrolling is available? :slight_smile: You can scroll with the mouse wheel up and down the terminal.
Thank you all for the feedback!
@ithildin good to know the feeling of discovering and connecting to new ip's is satisfactory, it was a big part of the experience from the very beginning :slight_smile: The 'clear' command ended up not working as intended, so I actually started advising not using it at all, at least until I fixed it post-jam voting.
@antbrl @flying-dog-fish @kotzi @adrupen As it stands now, I think we can all agree (and it's pretty obvious) that the main issues with the game are **usability/QoL problems** :slight_frown:. I've taken notes of all the feedback to use on further development after the jam.
Probably could've managed time better to be able to improve on that, but I maybe spent too long building a robust-ish codebase that maybe was a bit of wasted effort for a jam game. I'll try to make my 2nd jam game will be easier to use :smile:
@blubberquark I genuinely didn't even know about those, I'll give them a look but right now Unity is the tool that I'm most comfortable with, and I originally wanted to add menus and music to the game, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.
:heavy_check_mark: Great game! Short but not too much.
I finished the game and found the true culprit. The interface is nice although it would've been great (*maybe an idea for a follow-up*) to have the character' sprites react live to what you ask them.
I'm assuming the similar naming of the characters was intentional? It was really cumbersome :laughing: I kept mixing them all the time
*PS: I've noticed our games share a similar concept, even if mine is a bit more crude :P *
:x: Definitely agree on the intro speed, I had mute it :slight_frown:.
I'm not entirely sure how the reactivity bar affects the game. You can ask the same question a lot of times and the reactivity would go up, but it doesn't change the answers given.
:heavy_check_mark: Nice! Of course, the music of Kevin McLeod is great as always :laughing: but besides that, the experience is good.
The texts were nicely put, didn't disrupt at all visually, and the graphic style seems very cohesive.
:x: Nothing really negative to say, besides a couple of deaths at the beginning while I was understanding the game I've been able to beat it with relative ease.
I'm not going to rate the game because it'd be unfair to do so without *properly* playing it (I had to make due with the walthrough), hope you understand and share my view.
Again, a real shame that you used Facebook for this, knowing that it is such a problematic social network.
In any case, it seems like a great cross-media concept, and I wish you all the best.
:heavy_check_mark: The concept is great, I think there's a lot of potential here. I'm frankly amazed by how smooth the game goes even at the **ultra rapid speeds** you reach.
The music :musical_score: is fine, a really **upbeat track**. Definitely inline with the tone/fast-paced design of the game.
Reminds me a bit of **Barrier X**, with the concept of having to dodge obstacles at mach-speed.
:x: I was also very **confused** at the beginning, like @cavedens I wasn't sure exactly which upgrade did what, or how much each upgrade costed. Maybe if they were introduced or presented like a path to follow or a recommended order it'd be much more intuitive.
Maybe it's because of the "upgrade path" that I chose, but the game goes in a few turns from falling down avoiding obstacles to simply waltzing through everything full on upgrades like a rugby player on meth :laughing: .
:heavy_check_mark: Even if it isn't finished, the camera movement when dashing is **outstanding**.
I think the idea has potential, maybe as a fast 2D-action game. It's hard to tell because it was very tiny, but the design of the character seemed pretty cool.
Also, yeah, don't worry about code quality for a Jam, I'm a programmer myself and my game's code is truly a mess :laughing: which is even made funnier by my game being (*sort of*) about programming haha.
:x: Besides from the obvious of not being finished, I barely even knew what was going on when the game suddenly finished :slight_frown:. Maybe it would've been a good idea to add sound/visual feedback whenever you hit an enemy, to reassure the player. Ideas for further development :)
:heavy_check_mark: As they mentioned before, it's nice that the cannons don't fire while they're out of the screen, I think it helps feel less saturated.
The graphics are nice, there seems to be something of a stereoscopic vision going on, which gives it a distinctive touch.
I liked the usage of the boxes, they seemed to move very fluently, but it still proved too hard for me haha
:x: Dying over and over again always with the same track made me very tired of it very fast :slight_frown:.
:heavy_check_mark: The **music is fantastic**, easily the best thing from the game. Upbeat and funky, I could listen to it for hours :musical_note:.
Props for making the game in **C+SDL**, I can't wait to get my hands on that code, always wanted to see some SDL in action in a small game :P
:x: The game design seems to be that of a rather slow game, which is why it seems weird to me that it's paired with this type of music. I think you should either speed up the game by changing the concept, or maybe suit it with another kind of music to make it more of a relaxing/chill experiencie.
*PS: if you're into coding and linux, you might like my game, it's a bit niche so that's why I'm personally recommending it x)*
:heavy_check_mark: **It's as if Luftrausers and Downwell had a son!** And I mean it in the best possible way :)
Amazing gameplay, really polished and **smooth**. Whenever you die you really feel like it was your fault, you simply could've done better, it's not unfair at all.
The **missiles** upgrade is super fun, a great risk-reward mechanic!
:x: I was very confused during the first runs because I had seen your gif and I assumed you could shoot from the get-go.
The upgrades are not sorted by cost, so it's easy to think you don't have enough money to buy anything when there's actually something cheaper down the list that you can buy.
:heavy_check_mark: This was **AMAZING**, it truly has potential as a follow-up game after the jam.
It seemed really well **polished**, with a smooth control and great mechanics.
The **gun** feels SO good. The sounds, the particles... This game felt like what a 2D Resident Evil would've looked like back in the day. I want to play more!
The little "puzzle" is also very nice, my only regret is that I remembered the solution right as I was finishing the game, I'm an idiot :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:.
I don't know how many people participated in this, but **Kudos** to you all :clap:.
:x: My only (*tiny*) beef with the game is that the "hugger" enemy is very tough, particularly the first few encounters when you're still learning the ropes and you only have the knife.
Also, very minor, but I understand this might be a thing for keeping the suspense and whatnot, but maybe try to encourage the player in some way to **use the gun more**. In the end I think I still had 20+ bullets left, because I was always saving them expecting a bigger threat to appear next!
I feel like, for a game like this with such a focus on its **magic spells**, they are pretty much what make or break the experiencie.
:heavy_check_mark: There is **variety**, two (three, taking into account the "*finisher*") spells for each book, with four books, for a total of 12 spells. The texts are funny, and it's nice that each book specializes on one way of fighting.
The **movement feels nice**, the character doesn't slip or get stuck anywhere, and its movement is fast :runner:.
Programmer art never gets old, and the best thing about is it can only get better :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.
:x: It starts getting **repetitive** very fast, it gets to a point where every room is just a wizard, two-three chests, and two-five blobs of different colors.
The fast movement and spell-based combat seemed to be indicative of a fast-paced action, but the enemies move so slow and there's just two kinds of them (*I know the slimes have "elemental" typings of sorts, but in the end a slime is a slime*) that it turns into something a bit tedious.
Sometimes the **spells wouldn't activate**, even when I had more than enough mana. Or so I though at least. Maybe it could be nice to slightly change the color of the spell button whenever you have enough mana to cast it :thinking: , since there are no (visible) numbers given to the player.
The ice book's second spell only works sometimes for me, and I don't see anything happening on screen :slight_frown:
:heavy_check_mark: The track is good, although in two of the levels it glitched out and there was no sound at all.
I always love me some Pizza and some Vampires, so the mix naturally has to be great! :pizza: 🧛
:x: Many enemies were outright glitched :laughing: Some didn't do any damage at all, making you think they're harmless, only for them to kill you in the next level.
The moving platforms are waaaay too slow. It's particularly painful in the vertical level where you have to use many of these to get up :slight_frown: .
:heavy_check_mark: It seems amazing that you could make a NDS game in 48 hours!
Special props for also recreating the NDS games style to perfection! Both in visual style and in sound.
Maybe it could be expanded with additional gameplay, but I'm not sure of its reach with being a ds game.
:x: I feel like the manual could include an example for keyboard/mouse, since it's the configuration most people is going to use.
:heavy_check_mark: The original approach to the theme is definitely the best element here! Not to dismerit the rest of it, tho.
Even if it's programmer art, it matched really well with the sunset and the soundtrack to create a nice atmosphere.
:x: My main issue with the game is the same I always have with those whose main mechanic revolve around language: it's (*obviously*) bound to a single language, meaning it's a bit alienating for non-native english speakers. Even when fully understanding the language, it's just not the same. I'm not sure I'm making my point clear :thinking:
:heavy_check_mark: Pretty fun! Simple and effective. The track seems like a short loop but somehow manages to not sound repetitive :slight_smile:.
The abilities are a nice addition, but it seems weird that the immunity has such a low cooldown, and the parachute such a long one. (*By the way, does the track slow down as well when using the parachute, or is it just me?*)
One thing I noted, if the game screen is so long, why not place the character a little bit higher to give a bit more reaction time? My 2 cents.
:x: It feels a bit unfair when you arrive at one of those intersections where it's very hard (borderline impossible, at least for me) to pass if not using the immunity ability, and short after another one of those follows, meaning it's still in cooldown :slight_frown:.
:heavy_check_mark: The concept is good, and I think it has potential to be very fun. The interface is clean and, in direct contrast with many jam games, is actually pretty well explained how to play.
:x: I have no problems with the art, or the sounds, or the mechanics, but the worst part is that it's currently impossible to play, too many spiders spawn way too fast.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but no matter what I do I can't manage to survive for more than ~15 seconds; even less stay in the shop because it gets swirming with spiders in an instant :slight_frown: .
:heavy_check_mark: The vocal sound effects completely steal the show :laughing:.
The **rope** mechanic was also funny, although it seemed kinda weird to control a helicopter through a cave.
Explosions :boom: are always good, Michael Bay approves :thumbsup:.
:x: Sometimes the little man got stuck on top of the helicopter and it was very hard to get him hanging back. Also, on a few spots it's actually a bit hard picking up the dynamite because of it.
Maybe make it so that the helicopter can pick up dynamite as well? :bomb: :helicopter:
:heavy_check_mark: Really cute game! Loved the visuals, not only the plushes, but also the neon lights.
I didn't find any bugs (or at least not that I've noticed), and the game played very nicely.
:x: My only gripe of the game is that there's no challenge at all. I could understand the aim to spend as little money as possible, but sometimes the push doesn't seem to do anything at all, and sometimes it pushes very strong.
:heavy_check_mark: The visual style is great, reminds me a bit of Baba is You.
I think the idea is good, and has potential to be expanded later on :slight_smile:.
It's interesting to see temperature :thermometer: as a mechanic encouraging movement, usually that would be used for hunger so for a change of pace it's nice.
:x: I'm going to get in the train about the difficulty, even after five attempts I've barely been able to reach 440 steps or so :sweat:.
:heavy_check_mark: Nice relaxing and chill game. The **atmosphere** varies greatly based on the lightning.
The little blob seems kinda **cute**, I wish I could play the violin that good :pensive:.
The **feeling** is great when you're digging through nothingness, and then an opening appears that seems like a natural occurrence, or there are some lights out of nowhere that give a **cozy** feeling to that area.
:x: As @threeli I coudldn't figure out how to use anything from the **toolbar**.
Sometimes the blocks of "nothingness" are too big, and you're simply sorrounded by total darkness. I don't know whether this was intentional or not, but that part of the experience was a little **claustrophobic** :confounded: .
:heavy_check_mark: The lightning is sublime! I think it easily steals *spotlight* (pun intended) in the graphics department for this game. I'm so grateful you implemented a run mechanic, even if it comes with a stamina bar. More options to the player are always good :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: .
:x: One thing that I have to mention, is that having only sound effects and no soundtrack makes it feel... weird? Empty, eerie, barren even. Although on second thought, maybe this is intentional, given how you're supposed (I guess) to be deep underground :thinking: .
@geniye I got stuck for a bit in that room as well. What you have to do is place the box in one of the switches, and then stand by yourself on the other one. The gate takes a bit to open, so wait there for a few seconds and it should be done :slight_smile: .
:heavy_check_mark: Man this is great! I'm personally a great fan of lofi music so it was really pleasant playing with that soundtrack in the background. Could you share the song's title please? :relaxed:
It took me a bit to figure it out, but once I got the hang of it, playing **it was really a blast**. The gameplay loop is great, so much so that I think I'll probably keep playing for a bit longer :grin:. This one is definitely a candidate of mine to be on the top games this jam (for me, at least).
I don't know exactly what it is, but playing it there's just something that... "clicks" in your brain, then you disconnect and start going at it pretty much by instinct, just chillin' & drillin'...
The art is **simple but elegant**, with a reduced color palette and simple shapes. Great idea, great design, and great execution!
:x: It took me a couple of failed "runs" to **understand** how do the ship's mechanics work (particularly its health and fuel attributes). The game's description both here in its LDJam page and in itch.io is very lackluster, I think it could be improved.
The first few times I kept dying because I thought drilling through certain blocks was achieved by matching the color of the ship's drill to the color of the block. If it serves only a cosmetic purpose consider informing about it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.