A Helicopter Named Freedom! by Codexus 2011-09-02T04:49:00
Very impressive for only 48 hours.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Tulrath
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | 2 Tiny Gods | compo | 871 | 1.97 | 1.87 | 2.00 | 2.40 | 1.80 | 1.90 | 1.95 | 1.87 | 28 | ||
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Stranded: Episode 1 | compo | 366 | 2.50 | 2.60 | 2.75 | 1.88 | 2.25 | 2.31 | 2.55 | 2.71 | 2 |
Very impressive for only 48 hours.
Very original! I was able to get around 1 corner, but it really took a lot of work - very steep learning curve. Fewer joints to control and keyboard shortcuts for different joints would have really enhanced gameplay I think.
Really scary artwork, very original. But I couldn't hit anything -- timing when to shoot out the small eye as it is rotating around and while you are moving is almost impossible... well, at least for me.
Very original, would like to see a version of this with easier firing controls :)
Great game, I ended up playing this one for a long time -- it really proves that any game can be made "new again" with the right game mechanic. Really impressive, nicely done!
It took me awhile to figure out that you could un-select a prisoner by clicking their letter again. Once I figured THAT out, the game got a lot easier. Very challenging :)
I think I tried pretty much every option, even the really crazy ones. I couldn't always draw the line between choices and their outcome -- like I couldn't figure out exactly how not sleeping with a woman got me fired. Probably just missing something in the conversations, though.
Artwork was great, but it really made me sad :/
I liked how additional gameplay mechanics were introduced (climbing), but would have liked to have seen more added on as you go. Music and story were nice.
Gameplay was extremely smooth and very accurate. I just couldn't master the wall-jumping (mouse or keyboard), so I never got past the lava room. Most of the jumps are extremely unforgiving -- very little room for error. Also, didn't like rooms where I simply couldn't go back (falling from the ceiling for example). Would have liked to be able to explore around.
I love the lighting when you catch a firefly. Art style is great. This could really go places as a puzzle game - would like to see more.
Not sure if others have this problem, but I'm getting at least a one second delay after every correct door (but no delay after escaping from function key doors).
The challenge ramps up really fast, could never get past about 20 doors. Simple and easy to play, though.
Totally fun and easy to play. Nice music. wish I could have done more than just move around - but, it's a neat package overall. Nicely done.
Very interesting idea, I liked how the fire spread. Couple of minor tweaks I think would greatly improve gameplay: 1) Audio - had to turn it off, 2) Extinguisher should be much more effective, 3) fire spreads too quickly in the middle of the building - had to run around the edges all the time, 4) I couldn't ever find the exit - some kind of HUD with a pointer to the exit would be great.
Also, you didn't really have to take on the role of a bad guy since the fire seemed to start by itself :) Would really like to see this developed more.
Seems my web server is getting pretty hard after I submitted this. Please be patient, your request will go through.
Thanks for the feedback - it's greatly appreciated! :)
More great feedback, thanks!
@wbobeirne, you're absolutely right - ran out of time :)
@Benjamin, that's exactly what I was thinking -- but of course, ran out of time. This was my train of thought at 1 hour from the end :)
1) Change the ball colors and the fly colors so that you would have to jump from ball Blue to ball Yellow to catch Fly Green -- but in that case you could change the positions of the balls, either rotate the circle or swap two of them.
2) Create bonuses that you could catch that would change color of the ball you are either jumping from or jumping to in combination with 1 above.
3) Create obstacles that you don't want to have your web touch -- like fire. If your web touches fire, the fire goes back and disintegrates the ball you just came from.
4) Create "safety" bonuses that you can catch -- like water. Water and other bonuses could be caught and stored for later use. In the fire example, you would have to jump back to the ball where the fire is going to and click on the water icon in your inventory to put out the fire. In this case, the fire would have to move relatively slowly (but moves faster at higher levels).
5) More of 3 and 4, but with other opposites. Might be quite challenging to get the right combinations.
...and going along with the central theme...
6) Mutations! Each bug represents a different DNA code, catch the bugs in the right combination and your spider gets a temporary mutation. For example: Fly-Fly-Ant-Moth-Ant = Thicker Web, you web becomes much thicker so that you can more easily catch bugs.
...then I was thinking about varying the core gameplay mechanic in Bonus Levels...
Bonus Levels:
A) A swarm of locusts is trying to get past your web, and you must stop them by maintaining at least X number of strands. As the locusts fly past, they sever your strands, so you have to keep rebuilding them. The number of strands you can spin is unlimited, but your web inventory only regenerates at a set rate, so you need to be extremely strategic with your jumps so that you don't accidentally re-spin an existing strand.
B) "Bad" spiders (they got a dose of the wrong combinations of mutagens) are trying to capture you. They build sickly green webs, and if they can build a strand to all of your anchor points, then they've caught you. To undo their webs, you have to jump on the balls where they have a green strand anchored and cut it, which takes a little bit of time. Any strand that is cut in this way will ALSO remove any green strands that it crosses.
...but I simply ran of of time :)
Thanks for the feedback - it's greatly appreciated, gives me lots to think about.
Follow me on Twitter @tulrath to get updates on Stranded Again - my updated version of the original Stranded that includes Episode 2. Also check out Zombie City Planner at lakehomegames.com :D
@Susan, sooo completely agree - I wish I had even the tiniest bit of artistic skill to really give players a well-deserved reward at the end :)
The platforms in caves reminds me of Terraria :) Too bad this didn't get further along. The falling mechanic is difficult to work with, though, because you have no idea how far a fall is going to be before you jump. I tried to hug the walls when falling, but sometimes I just picked the wrong side and died just from bad luck.
Really big cave system, though, would like to see more :)
Woohoo 59 To-Do items FTW! Neat interpretation of the theme. You should take it a step further and give the player a tranquilizer gun to take out bosses from a distance (and make it so the bosses have to get closer to you to give you work). Changing levels would have been nice too.
I'd really love to see this game developed further, I think it has a lot of potential :)
I noticed the zombies were pretty good at finding their way to you, which is usually a feature -- but half way through I was wishing I could get them stuck on walls :)
Also nice that the zombies "gave up" after awhile, but I ended up spending a lot of time "herding" zombies just so that I could get them all to rest in a corner while I searched buildings. In future games, you may want to make it a little easier for the player to disengage from combat.
For combat, you may want to make all weapons have a cone-shaped damage area (use Physics.RaycastAll or SphereCastAll) and damage everything in front of you. The reason I'm suggesting this is due to the situation where you have multiple enemies occupying the same space. In that situation, it doesn't matter how fast you attack, the "next one in line" always gets through and hits -- so it's always a losing battle if you can only hit 1.
I look forward to seeing your next LD entry :D
Good match to the theme, fun to play. Have to agree with others though - creating the path is initially a complete mystery (even with instructions). Click-drag to draw, or just clicking anywhere in the field to draw a line from last point would have been a major improvement. I found myself playing this much longer than I thought I would :)
That was fun, good implementation of the puzzles - I liked how the game kept you updated with timed events like the water rising. Good artwork, like the music too.
Really nicely done!
I found myself playing this for a very very long time... getting new (and sometimes bizarre) objectives as you go along is very compelling. It would have been nice to have a clear (not obscured by fog) panel with the current objective on it.
Overall, though, very fun :)
Ran fine, but after I drowned it just beeped at me :) Still fun though.
Very fun to play - I also like the odd ways of getting through each puzzle, the weirder the better :)
Collision, combat, inventory, hunger - that's a LOT of systems for such a short compo, I'm impressed you got them all working! Fun to play, the hunger mechanic makes it pretty challenging too.
Nicely done!
I liked it - agree with everyone (I think) that in-game instructions would have helped a lot. Would have liked more challenging gameplay, that's a good thing :)
I really played this game a lot - very fun. Great music (I know that was Bowie, but you played it well), fun visuals, I liked the style too. Trying to steer against the wind when you had no way of knowing how it was affecting the ship was frustrating. I actually found that the most successful technique was just tapping the steering randomly and only occasionally making obvious corrections :D
Overall, though, this was a really enjoyable game.
Fun Puzzler, the puzzles themselves and the humor in the comments were by far the best points. I have a soft spot for games that don't take their genre or themselves too seriously, so you're getting high marks from me :D
Fun to play, good match with the theme of the competition. You may want to be careful about the asteroid placement though - they are very often right on top of the planets, which makes it feel like there is no way to win. Early warning systems (or blue planet indicators) would help a lot.
I liked that there was actually just one control, and that Tom moved and jumped on his own. Could make for a good mobile game. The timing for the bridges though was extremely unforgiving - allowing a bigger area for the bridge operation would help a lot.
I made it to the end, that was fun -- I really like the music and the mood. Fun puzzles. Overall really impressive :)
This was really fun, I wish there was a way to reset the level or start a new game.
I liked the graphics, and it looks like you spent a lot of time on the polish for this game. But, I couldn't even get out of the first room :) I could slowly climb up the walls, but the character would always slip off the ledge right away no matter which way I tried.
There's a lot of potential here, I think you should keep working on this -- I was able to get the life support turned on, but that was it.
Lots of attention to detail, good artwork, had to turn off the audio after a few minutes though :) The green arrow pointer was a huge help, especially around enemy robots -- but an undo button would have been nice to undo plans before executing them. Overall, nice entry.
Great artwork, and nice lighting effects. The wall-jumping was eventually good once I got used to it - I don't think you really needed the slow sliding down the walls, the levels were difficult enough without the time pressure :)
thanks for the feedback everyone
Thank you everyone for the feedback. I ran out of time for more directions and for the mini-map :/
The sun/moon/raindrop icons on the right are a meter to show what types of powers you have available to you. Each power also indicates what bullet type you will shoot as you cycle through your powers. Each time you shoot, the next power in the meter is automatically selected - so you are always shooting 1 bullet of each power type every 8 bullets.
Different powers have different qualities for the bullets they shoot - like Speed, Range, and Damage. The weakest power is the skull -- the skull bullets have the slowest speed, the shortest range, and the weakest damage.
You can change your powers by staying close to planets (without absorbing the planets whole). When you are close to a planet of a certain type (indicated by the icon above the planet), your powers will be altered to that type. For example, if you stay in proximity of a Sword planet, your powers will slowly change to all Sword powers (which create sword bullets) -- replacing any other powers you may have.
This allows you to mix-and-match your powers for more effective combinations. For example, having a combination of Fast bullets with some Very Slow bullets lets you create a perimeter around yourself with the slow bullets, and then destroy enemies from afar with the faster bullets. There are 16 different bullet types in the game - and you can "stack" your power meter with up to 8 different powers/bullet types... so that's 4,294,967,296 potential power combinations.
Your ammunition is also your health - run out of ammo, and you run out of health. When this happens, your God "Falls" back to the previous level. It's very common to repeat the first 2 levels several times each until you get used to combining powers most effectively. Unfortunately, just "button mashing" works too -- so, I need to make the effects of powers more pronounced to bring out the strategy elements more :)
If you completely overlap a planet, you'll absorb it and all of your followers on that planet -- which will refill your ammo/health bar. You'll have to be careful not to immediately absorb planets that provide more advanced powers. More often than not, you'll want to stay in proximity of more powerful planets longer before absorbing them, so you can upgrade your powers.
I hope this explanation helps -- and sorry again for not providing more detailed instructions (just ran out of time there). Please post if you have more questions.
Nice original idea. Seemed like there was a few bugs - I think when the turrets got to 0 Health, they didn't explode or turn off. Made it to the large room with all the turrets around the center and brought all those turrets down to 0, but couldn't figure out how to progress the game further. Had to turn the audio off after a few minutes :)
I liked it, I was able to win on the first try and I have no idea how I won :) I'm guessing you automatically jump to a different planet when your population is high enough? In any case, I spent a lot of time playing this - nicely done.
That was really fun - of course, I died a few times before walking down and finding food :) Got as far as making the bridge, but kept falling off the edges after that. I think you probably didn't need the insta-death at the map edge, just having a fence would have been fine.