Names are Hard by Lerc 2018-09-03T18:29:19Z
I think the platforms should still be collidable under water.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Trevor Hayes
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | Trench Elves | jam | 1694 | 2.92 | 2.52 | 2.77 | 3.75 | 3.72 | 3.42 | 2.89 | 3.32 |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | 👥 | Viking Snow Fight | jam | 439 | 3.51 | 3.43 | 2.92 | 2.23 | 4.09 | 3.53 | 3.71 | 3.25 |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Bandwidth:Zero | jam | 1140 | 2.79 | 2.62 | 2.48 | 3.04 | 3.25 | 2.48 | 2.53 | 2.64 |
I think the platforms should still be collidable under water.
There is a bug where you can complete the level while your dead. It's exploitable as a shortcut to levels where the door is above you. Simply close in both walls so that the red strip is in line with the door, then close either one the whole way crushing yourself. You bounce off the walls upwards to victory. (If you are not the developers make sure you play normally first this game has excellent design.)
The game saves your progress and is not replayable! It feel like that was a deliberate creative choice and not a bug though. I played again in a different browser to experience the planets I missed. 5 stars for mood on this one. Nicely done.
The music is really great, but the shield hit ping sound is too shrill and loud. Someone sitting beside me thought it was the fire alarm at first, and I'm wearing headphones.
The pixel art is really good. The gradient on the "Back to menu" button is smooth and out of place with the rest of the games retro banded aesthetic.
Overall I enjoyed the game, and rated it highly, well done :)
- Moves: 1330 - Time Spent: 69M 23S - Resets Used: 156 - Hints Used: 7 - Blocks Lost: 1271
I think my scores indicate that I didn't really stop to think ahead and just kept trying things. Level 10 was the hardest for me to get over for some reason, even though it's actually pretty straight forward and basically level 7 again :S
I'm impressed the game has a soundtrack and not just a single song. :) When I first play the game in Chromium, Version 68.0.3440.84 (Official Build) Arch Linux (64-bit), there is no music from level 1 to 5. It starts playing on level 6. I thought this was by design at first, but if you restart once the music has started there is then music for levels 1 to 5.
Source code is more so we can read it if we are interested not the main deployment option. Is there any way you could host the node server yourself?
For a post ludum dare verison I would turn off gravity, it feels wrong to fall down in space.
Cool concept. It didn't really feel like they were scared of me no matter what I did. In the end I threw all the furniture under the map, so guess I win in my own way :) I think having just one button for pickup and drop is more natural. It's what I tried to do before reading the instructions.
I like the concept, but the controls are frustrating. I ended up using a gamepad thumbstick to reach the end. Clicking the button at the end with the mouse was unexpected. I would prefer the standard WASD + mouse controls that most first person PC games use.
I liked the silly vocal noises :) Controls need a bit of tweaking. When you are next to a wall you can't throw the shield, it feels unresponsive when that happens.
Your daughter did a good job on the art. If you two have time make sure you play and rate other peoples games. It will make yours more visible on the site.
Good job on this one :)
I didn't upgrade my reactor the first time through, didn't notice I could, and it felt too long. My island was so massive by the end that I was the real mainland, and I had no concerns for half of the way there. My second try I upgraded the reactor. Arriving sooner felt much better so I have to disagree with @thefunattic. As long as the objective is to reach a destination speed is a relevant choice. @thefunattic may have a point about making engine upgrades more crucial to the gameplay though. What about having the island slow down with the increased weight as it grows so you need to upgrade to keep moving along, or have it so that you need to upgrade it to unlock higher tier structures.
I would also like hotkeys to pick what I'm building.
I think you have a bug where pressing W and SPACE at the same time jumps extra high.
@sebastian-m I noticed the music transitions, very nice :)
I loved it. That was quite the witty theme interpretation. Well done :)
Art an animations are really good. I think some knock back and a bit of camera shake would add to the game feel.
First thing last night when I was tired I tried to play your itch.io page header... It has the dimensions of a game and even says PRESS ANY KEY TO START. It's a good looking title, but you might want to crop it.
The mouse cursor is easy to lose track of. I'm on linux and with my desktop setup it's blue and blends in with your game. I feel like it would actually improve the game quite a bit if you added your own targeting cursor on the arena floor much like the indicator under the player. Cause of death was usually just losing my bearings.
The graphics are good, and you have established a mood with your particle effects, lighting, and music selection. Overall solid entry, great work guys! :)
Hmm, I need to work on 7 and 8 kanji recognition. This was a useful and pleasant experience :)
Once you get to the later stages it becomes obvious due to the alternative options having less digits in the kanji then the correct answer. You may want to mix up 10, 100, 1000 kanji positions so you have to read them too, but then again having them the way you do may help people learn them easier at first.
Also there is a WebGL memory bug that crashes it out at some point.
Thanks @ajayajayaj, I did make the music. I used Cubase with Omnisphere and Massive VSTs. Totally agree with you and @xanderread about the death, the player didn't die at all until 5 minutes before the deadline, I think I will prioritize my time differently next time :)
@tacohej Thank you for posting the captioned screenshot, glad you made it :)
Thanks @luca1152, our third team member was unable to join the jam as he has been without internet for over a week. We used his situation as an additional theme.
Hmm, I will have to investigate this audio issue. It works on my machine in Windows 7 and Linux, but I just tested on a Windows 10 machine and sure enough no sound. Thanks for the bug report.
Thanks for the bug report @luca1152 and @bloc97. I found that there was an issue with the version of SDL2 that comes with emscripten where it would not resample audio if your devices sample rate was different than requested. I have rebuild the game against SDL 2.0.8 instead of using the emscripten port.
Does that fix it for you guys?
I like the art style, and the music.
Make sure you give ratings and feedback on other games, if you want ratings and feedback on your own.
Good use of the theme, and not bad for a jam game.
Solving the last level required a lot of trial and error. It was not clear that the button was a button, that it would remove the food/pill thing, and add a laser at the end of the hall. It's better to have the effects of items happen in full view of the player, at least the first time they are used, especially when there is no sound. Also the button should just activate the laser for clarity.
Change the way growing kills the player, you should have to be squished to die. Growing should just push you out of walls if you are too close, but there is still room for you to fit.
It was not clear that the box in the bottom right of the screen had to do with how the player was going to grow. It's far away from the grow timer and the player. I didn't notice it until the last level. I think that would be better indicated on the character itself.
It's a fun game.
There is a lot to read, maybe look at cutting down on the text in the shop, the clock is ticking even in easy it's difficult to read about everything before the game ends.
For example: "Kit containing everything that you could need in order to repair damage caused by landfalls, can also be used to expand your island, It will allow you to place 1 tile." It's flavorful but could be just, "Landfall repair kit - allows you to place 1 tile (click empty tiles to use)"
I only play web builds, but I thought I would let you know I don't see any build on your itch.io page. Once you upload your build make sure you rate other games to get ratings on your own.
Hey it's a start and you made something on theme, so be proud of that. Just keep practicing. Do some tutorials on your framework. As you improve maybe come back to this and polish it up a little as an exercise.
Here are the issues I would start with: - You can't lose, you just get so big you collect all the pieces. - You want to make the unused area around your characters sprite transparent. The white background covers your platforms as he grows. - Since the character is pixel art you want to use nearest neighbor scaling, linear is causing blur.
Once you have the basics in order you are going to want to start looking at making things juicy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-Qe66AvtY
Also the lack of ratings and feedback on your game has more to do with you not rating other games than the quality of yours. Rating other games increases your games visibility on the site.
For exposure on your game you want to start rating other peoples games ASAP, aim for 50 ratings given if you can. Heads up though we are approaching the final rating week and last time the Smart sort order was swapped out for Danger as the default during that time.
I recommend adding a web build. People like myself don't want to risk running native code from a bunch of strangers. Even assuming no one in the community would make something malicious there is still the potential of a virus infection on their machine. Web builds also have the benefits of being cross platform, and convenient.
You're actually in a good position to port your game to the web because you use C++/SDL. As long as you are using SDL or OpenGL to do your rendering. Take a look at http://emscripten.org/ to find out how. You are allowed to add additional platforms after the jam phase. Let me know if you do and I will be happy to play and rate your game.
This is so polished you almost forget it's a jam game while playing it. I'm curious about the torch light. Is there a bloom shader involved or just sprites?
I really liked it. It's one of my favorites from this Jam for sure. :smile:
I was almost at the end but I encountered a bug where I did not enter the train on the level with the larger monster. I kept trying to enter the train but eventually jumped really high instead... I then moved to the far left by choice to see if anything was up on the ledge and fell out of the level, where I was able to pan the camera back and forth over the level. I assume I was falling infinitely below the game screen. I was using a controller when this happened.
I noticed that the sound effect for hitting the ground got louder than they are supposed to be. When jumping in the train it starts out at the perfect volume, but after playing the first outside level and coming back into the train it's too loud.
I also feel like the enemies should start out facing left. Most of them are just facing a wall and can be ignored.
I played it again with mouse and keyboard and was able to make it to the end :smile:
I love the vibe you created with the music and art :)
That poor girl died of feet way too big to dance. :smirk: I enjoyed reading the patient descriptions, good job :smile:
Cool shader effects :)
Only thing I didn't like is the narrow FOV. It was very disorienting at first, but once I got used to it I was able to appreciate the level design. I liked that the power-ups are used immediately and you can pretty much guess what they are going to be from the area around them. Good job on this entry :)
I love the little details :smile: The elevator door says no smoking, yet the bear has a cigar. That honey drip screen transition, and persistent bullet shells, etc. Really fantastic job on this one.
I felt like I wanted the guns to snap to my thumb stick position faster. Sometimes an enemy would be at my feet and I would instantly aim the stick right at it but the gun has to make a slower turn toward that direction so there was no way to get them.
I also feel like the enemies should contrast the background more.
Make sure you add the HTML5 link to the page above so those like myself looking for HTML5 don't pass on this great game. I found if from your feed post about adding the web version.
Thank you @zetorama. Yes the horn signals a sacrifice in exchange for the snow gun :)
Thanks @firellon. The opponents are not able to get the snow gun and there is no way for the player to win without it. If the opponents hit the player it takes helmets away. If you have no helmets left when you get hit you are defeated and restart the level. We will likely be expanding on this game in the future, and adding a two player mode, if we do that both teams will have the ability to get the snow gun.
Thank you @corbak, I am glad you like the mood the music creates :) I made all the music and sound effects in Cubase Studio 5 using Omnisphere, Superior Drummer, and Massive.
I really like the increasing tension in the music and atmosphere. After many attempts I managed to get everything but 1 chicken. I found starting over after one mistake frustrating. I think a checkpoint after each sacrifice might solve that while still being difficult enough. I would like to see the ending so I will try again later :)
I came back, and beat it :sweat_smile:
I reached 646m. It was fun, but after throwing everything in the fire it takes awhile to reach your final score.
Great job. The sound and music really gave it a cinematic feel.
I played the Jam version and encountered a bug with scrolling once I got decently far down I could not always scroll to the bottom of my tree roots to continue. Scrolling up and down would let me get to the bottom at random. Bug aside it was pretty cool :)
Well done :smile_cat: I like the variety and creativity of the fish. I managed to get all but one type. The flash light option was not purchasable not sure if that was a bug or it just got cut for time. I broke the music transition a few times trying to dodge fish at the split point.
Stopped at the bottom of level 2 just to listen to the music. Was thinking it would be great if the sound track was available to listen to. Happy to see you have it up on soundcloud!