Mindbane by LegacyCrono 2011-08-25T10:50:00
woah great gameplay ! :) hovering/floating/double jumping mechanics fit very well with each others, they provide a lot of control and skills to the player movements... nice !
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → TurboDindon
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| π₯ | 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Inside My Radio | jam | 4.30 | |
| π₯ | 2011 | 21 | Escape | Action Time : Escape from the dangerous explosive complex | jam | 4.18 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| π₯ | 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Mustache Armies | jam | Fun | 4.41 | |
| π₯ | 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Inside My Radio | jam | Audio | 4.78 | |
| π₯ | 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Inside My Radio | jam | Innovation | 4.37 | |
| π₯ | 2011 | 21 | Escape | Action Time : Escape from the dangerous explosive complex | jam | Fun | 4.12 | |
| π₯ | 2011 | 21 | Escape | Action Time : Escape from the dangerous explosive complex | jam | Graphics | 4.67 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Mustache Armies | jam | 4 | 4.35 | 4.41 | 4.03 | 3.10 | 4.55 | 3.96 | 3.74 | 3.77 | 100 | ||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Inside My Radio | jam | 1 | 4.30 | 4.00 | 4.37 | 3.07 | 4.54 | 4.78 | 3.07 | 4.06 | 89 | ||
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Action Time : Escape from the dangerous explosive complex | jam | 2 | 4.18 | 4.12 | 3.06 | 2.59 | 4.67 | 2.89 | 3.40 | 2.69 | 7 |
woah great gameplay ! :) hovering/floating/double jumping mechanics fit very well with each others, they provide a lot of control and skills to the player movements... nice !
Lovely pixelart and music ! Solid gameplay and nice level design too, interesting assets combination and presentation ("deceptively easy" ? eh :p) albeit quite hard sometimes (damn level 8) but that's the oldschool charm :)
Plus, kudos for managing to pull everything off on your own in only 48h !
yeah nice ! <3 the subtle pixel graphics and the overall mood of this game. As kinta said it'd be better if the humor category was replaced by something a bit broader like "mood" or something.
It would have been cool to have more events or some branching for other walkthroughs though (unless I missed something in the cave ?).
Very cool for a solo 48h LD, hope you'll be able to add more content/story later !
Thanks for all your comments ! Glad to hear you liked our game :D
As you said the game is too short and a bit b0rked sometimes, we've probably spent too much time on developing gameplays and integrating art rather than fully tweaking it (weird collisions, not enough feedbacks on hits and rewind).
This is our very first LD so we'll try to fix this in our future entries (longer game experience, more reusability of similar gameplays, less different gameplays but more polished...)
tgisola : hehe cool :D Our next one will probably feature HANG GLIDING, DINOSAURS and AWESOME EXPLOSIONS!!!!
Hempuli : ouch, it might come from the surfaces in gamemaker (or probably our crappy lack of coding skills, yeah well...). Maybe you could try with updated video drivers ? It fixed the issues on some computers. And for WASD movements we've planned to use it (as the "controls" screen says) but we just ran out of time and panicked, frustrating as it can be done very quickly :| I'll upload a new post-LD version later, with wasd and various bug fixes if you're interested :)
Cheers
I second that, nice concept and good job on the GUI and overall mood. Too bad it lacks a bit of depth and clarity (resources needed to upgade/fix should be showed when the cursor is over the button. Same thing for an attack, it'd be great if the consequences were displayed beforehand when the cursor is over the attack button).
Anyway, I liked it :) It reminded me a bit of desktop dungeons as it's all about choices and simple stats without pressure. You could check it out as a source of inspiration (to add depth while staying accessible) if you want to develop further versions.
Nice !
Hey thanks for your warm comments, they are really motivating. Glad you liked it ! :D
MadGnomeGamer: hmm I don't know how to fix this :( I have packed it with Winrar, maybe I should use 7 zip instead ? I'll send you an alternative link as soon as I've uploaded it.
emongev: Good point :) We were already concerned by this issue when we played it and the good news is that the game already features a visual helper ! You can display it by pressing F1 at anytime.
This info is displayed on the HUD at the beginning of the game but disappears after 1 minute so you've probably missed it. Maybe you can try it again with this visual indicator and tell me if it helps you ?
Thanks again !
-blemish
Hi and thanks everyone for your nice comments, it's really cool to see how much you liked it !
kddekadenz : this issue can come from different things.
- Maybe your video card doesn't support surfaces: updating drivers solve this problem most of the time.
- Does it happen everytime ? When you launch the game ? if updating drivers didn't work you can also try to launch it in windowed mode: edit the file "zik.ini" and change the "fullscreen" setting to 1.
- Maybe it comes from an unsupported resolution, in this case try other screen sizes by changing the "width" and "height" value in the ini file (set it to 0 keeps the current resolution)
Let me know if the problem persists !
-blemish
Thank you all for your cool feedbacks!
matthias_zarzecki: Glad to see you liked our game! And kudos for remembering our previous entry :D Yeah we're pretty happy with this one as we managed to make it in less time and in a far less stressful mood... We've slightly reduced the scope in comparison to "Action Time" to provide something more polished and Joachim was there for the music this time around :)
Pierrec : Thanks a lot for your comment! It's funny you're talking about BitTrip Runner as it's precisely the kind of gameplay we wanted to avoid :) I love rhythm games so I naturally gave it a try but I was really disapointed by it too: a lot of style but very shallow as you must follow a pre-written score. And even there I think it's not as good as a simple Guitar Hero clone as you actually have to to "desync" with the music and anticipate everything... (Thanks for the review on your blog BTW! and also for the link to Sophie Houlden's criticisms regarding BitTrip Runner: it sums up pretty much everything I don't like about it).
IMO too many rhythm games follow the same GuitarHero/DDR pattern over and over ("a scrolling score you must follow", even BTR is like that but disguised as a platformer/Canabalt). It's OK as it's way more accessible than what we did with this game but jams are cool for these kind of designs as there's no commercial pressure.
Try Rhythm Tengoku/Paradise/Heaven on GBA and DS if you haven't yet! Best rhythm games (design-wise) to me :)
You're right concerning the theme too, it's really too far-fetched now ("inside a tiny radio world"). It's a poor excuse but as time went by we had to scrap the few elements tying the gameplay with the theme: an "open" (i.e. not linear) level where the player created a tiny world full of small dancing NPCS if he kept the rhythm (oh the joys of the first Ludum Dare hours :p). Anyway it was way too big for us and we would have probably came up with something shitty, so we've decided to focus on a smaller game, albeit less related to the theme. We hoped for something clever to emerge during the weekend, but it just didn't came up.
dr_soda: Actually, getting caught in the block and jumping out of it is more an exploit than a conscious design choice. Congratulations for finding it though =) The "right" way to finish it is to walljump before, like this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoryOpECjFA&t=10m37s (thanks to this guy for recording a walkthrough!).
Pavel Dlouhy and pythong: It's the same problem kddekadenz encountered, and I don't know if it's possible to fix it (unless by providing a "low detail" version where the surface effects are removed).
As I said earlier, it can come from different things:
- Maybe your video card doesn't support surfaces: updating drivers solve this problem most of the time.
- Does it happen everytime ? When you launch the game ? if updating drivers didn't work you can also try to launch it in windowed mode: edit the file "zik.ini" and change the "fullscreen" setting to 1.
- Maybe it comes from an unsupported resolution, in this case try other screen sizes by changing the "width" and "height" value in the ini file (set it to 0 keeps the current resolution)
Hope you guys will be able to play the game !
Cheers,
blemish
JonathanG : We had some similar feedbacks so yeah there's definitely something frustrating in this game for some people (even our musician had some difficulties at first (and he's a drummer). He got better during the weekend though).
I've set the timing tolerance to +/- 100ms, which seems already enough to me.
The music is set at 120 BPM, making a beat every 500ms. With this +/- 100ms tolerance you can only fail in a 300ms gap.
Making it bigger ruined the rhythm constraint so I've decided to keep it that way.
That said, other problems can cause this frustration:
- GameMaker : GM handles the draw events in a sequenced fashion in order to keep the FPS defined in the room (I guess it automatically waits a few ms before proceeding to the next step to keep a constant frame rate). As I've set it to 60 FPS, the draw event is called every 16 ms (in the best case scenario, where the computer is fast enough to keep it at a this frame rate).
So if you are unlucky and you've pressed the jump button just after the key strokes are registered, this lag can go up to nearly 32ms between your input and the visual feedback (i.e. way too big for a rhythm game IMO).
Maybe there's a trick to define a variable FPS in GM (calling the draw event only when necessary), it'd prolly help reduce the lag a lot.
=> If anyone knows, I'm very interested. Maybe set it to like 120FPS and render every 2 steps? Or use an high definition timer dll to detect when it's better to call the draw event ?
- Visual/Gameplay feedbacks: Currently there's no visual nor gameplay feedbacks when you miss the timing. I've already developped a small v1.1 with better "miss" feedbacks but I don't know if it helps as nobody tested it yet. The screen flashes, the PC shakes and stops for a very brief instant. That way you don't fall from the platform if you missed the jump button. It's a small fix but it may be part of the solution.
- High difficulty level design: As we had only 48h we couldn't produce a lot of interesting levels. We've chosen to ramp the difficulty early and quite high :) The game felt more interesting to us that way, and more satisfying to beat but we knew it'd make it kinda "hardcore" and not accessible.
casnyk: Thanks ! Yeah I'll probably release the source code in the upcoming weeks. I'll just do a bit of cleaning before as the code is wayyy too ugly to be readable (lots of dirty patches and commented code here and there).
It's so dirty that it'd be better to start it from scratch if we want to push it further :)
Wow! So polished and well balanced. Impressive
Clever! The graphic style is simple but really efficient just as the gameplay mechanics. The game is really addictive but ... I was so bad at it. I only scored 11 points.
Very good game! Congrats
Great entry. The music and mood are awesome.
What a pity, I have an AZERTY keyboard (I'm French)... I have strong difficulties to play correctly with WASD.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
My best record is 4000!
Very good visual!!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very good visual style.
What a pity there is no sound and the game is lagging on my computer.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Good game. Song and graphics are very awesome.
It's sometimes very difficult to grab the shapes at the end.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe... you're a conceptual artist! ;p
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Crashes at the very beginning too.
What a pity, I wanted to play it! :'(
It seems to be a good visual experience.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Woaw it was very hard to kill the mammoth!!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
That's the cutest game I've played. The story of those two friends moved me, so I managed to get them together. Very good :)
Very fun concept.
I really like. There are many good ideas as the teleportation of the square, visual bugs. And I like sounds and colors of the squares!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
I can't played the game, it crashes when I open it!
I used the video gameplay to rate your game. It respects the theme and seems very fun. This might have been better with a few additionnal graphics or simple FX. :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Mwahahah, very fun.
I destroyed the hipsters door!!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
The concept is really cool. It has potential.
I'm a bit disturbed by the reverse controls!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Noooooooo, it's so great but so shooooooort! Nooooo.
I wanted mooooore. x'D
Very very fun and amazing.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
I really like the pixel graphics. :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Good entry, graphics and mood are very cool.
Maybe a bit repetitive after a time and sometimes very frustrating ; for example a few tubs are difficult to move correctly.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Mawaha! This is great great great, so fun!
Nice the hidden potato bullet.^^
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Mwaahahahah, you're a genius. The concept is just great. x'D
I laugh during all the game. The cat is huge.
You made my day.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very dynamic physics. It's fun to use!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
This is a very good playing experience. I love the art direction of your project. Very original.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Interesting exploration.
Player movements are a bit slow, what a pity.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Immersive exploration and environment.
Player movements are a bit difficult.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Simple but efficient concept.
The song is aweeeesome. Very dynamic.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very good graphics and atmosphere .
A little bit easy. I volontary killed myself after scoring 100 000. I shooted in the axis of the doors all the time. There was a cross of monster poos on the ground. x'D
What a pity because the challenge might be more harder with a simple acceleration of creatures. It also might be cool with a boss! ^^
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Simple and efficient. Very hard to play!
Is there possibility to restart the current level without restart the game?
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
One of the best minimalist art direction I saw for this Ludum Dare. Character designs are very good ; characters movements and shoot settings too. Very fun. I like to jump higher thank to the enemies body exploded.
What a pity there is no sounds! And controls are a bit difficult, maybe the jump with the -up- arrow might be better. And an item to heal might be a good idea too.
Sorry for my bad English.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Excellent soundtrack and graphic style! That game has a real personality. Great job!
Excellent entry! It's fun, coloured, animations are hilarious. Loved the intro, loved the art. Good to see so polished games in that competition.
5 stars of course.
Super bon taf, bravo !
Good idea. The physics settings are a bit laborious ; it's not easy to walk properly.
But I'm patient and I found the potato! :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very great, simple and addictive idea!!
It's not as easy as it seems to do a good score.
What a pity, the graphics might be a bit better.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Great graphics and mood.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Good mood and atmosphere. It's very fun to play and discover the environment.
What a pity, I never found the key. :(
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very fun.
I losed more than 10 times before discovering the wall-jump feature. Then it was really fun. The music is great too.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Great. I think this entry will win the jam!
Very complete and well-executed game.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Not easy to control but very interesting concept!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe, the castle with potatoes projectiles is a fun idea.
I love the penguin too.
Very minimalist but very immersive. I love the stylish.
Gameplay settings are good.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
The size of the game is very amazing and original!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Wooowoowoo, very hard platforming!
The character movements aren't easy and the game lag a bit on my computer.
The pixel transition at the beginning is a very cool effect. :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe, very fun. I'm happy because I managed the 5 challenges.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Great sound and visual atmosphere. Harrowing.
I used French keyboard so it's very hard with the WASD move... I couldn't survive for a long time. x)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Mwahaha, the idea is very fun.
I tried the post-compo but it's hard to finish the disorder.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
What a pity, I can't play. The game is lagging when I start playing. And finally it crashed. :(
Good idea!
The helicopter is a bit too hard and slow to control.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Unable to run the game for me too. Is there a gameplay video available (more long than your 10 seconds from the LD compilation)?
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very interesting entry. It has a lot of potential.
It might be more fun with a few other features.
Great atmosphere.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe, I'm a perfect potato idiot. I stopped around 300.
This experience is as fun as weird. I think I'm going to eat potatoes at lunch for vengeance.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe my personnal record is 54.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
I always fall in the water, it's impossible to jump correctly.
What a pity because graphics are attractive.
It's weird because the game window is reduced when I click on "Enter".
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Nice concept and very good Mondrian's visual touch.
Heheh, your game made my day. The idea is just amazing. It was hard but I managed to get not guilty!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Nice pixel graphics.
It's a pity that the game is a bit slow to play (as already onzephyr says). It might be better with more reactivity. :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
The idea is funny.
At the beginning, I had difficulties to throw pianos.
This is possible only with the upstairs right window.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
I love the concept. The atmosphere is poetic and uncluttered.
Extremely hard, I'm very bad! x'D
Very very very good entry.
Gameplay is crazy awesome.
It's a great experience like Portal.
Very hard also, I've not been able to solve the darkness room.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe, it's like Katamari but in the space.
Good atmosphere!
Playing with gravity is a good idea however, it's not easy to control.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Hehe the mood and music are scary!^^
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
This is definitively a very vey very very good entry. One of my favorite compo. The gameplay is very ingenious. Good graphics, good mood, good fun, good theme.
Congrats.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very cool graphics.
But very hard. I used more than 10 lives to finish the first level! It's very difficult to target the carrots correctly.
x'D
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Not easy shoot-em-up! :D
Is there a boss at the end of the level ?
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Great.
I spent 20 minutes on your game and then I was blocked ; I haven't solved the sixth (or seventh I don't remember) puzzle. I like the character movement settings, it works very well.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very sad and immersive. I really liked your game.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very moving and sad atmosphere.
Perfect mood and audio.
I played the game two time because I thought it bugged at the end.
Great entry with a perfect polish.
It's a bit hard to play!
SEPHY (@sephyka)
Fabulous adventure!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very good minismalist graphics and cool puzzle game.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Thank you all for your comments! Glad to see you enjoyed the game.
@Cell : Could you give us the name of the flash game you're talking about?
We would like to see how close we are from the "stolen" original concept. No, sorry Sherlock, but it's a pure coincidence. I don't think copying games fits with LD's philosophy and itΒ΄s not ours to.
Great graphics. It looks like a mix between Megaman and Evangelion for Gameboy. :D What a pity it's hard to target the cube because of the special perspective.
Hehe, very fun to play!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Interesting idea, but movements are very very very slow!
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Nice idea.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Ohoh, crazy potato boss.^^
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Ahaha it's a very good game, it was very fun to play!
I finished in 34 seconds. :p
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Fascinating experience!
Love atmosphere, sounds and graphics.
I lost the first time I played, but after I won all the time.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Sand patterns are wonderful. Very zen and poetic game.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very dynamic mise-en-scene.
I suck ; I can't win the first level of the game. I don't understand why.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Beautiful and poetic game. It look like a minimalist-2D-FEZ.
Wonderful atmosphere and music.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Very interesting aesthetic.
It's impossible to climb the mountain... too hard. '^^ Movements are not precise enough.
- SEPHY (@sephyka)
Cool game. Character movements are a little bit slow (not very reactive).
It's fun to shoot with the arc (but it's not very practical to switch keyboard to the mouse).
I was blocked in the dungeon because of the disabled button left... impossible to restart the map after a fail.
What a pity there is no visual feedback when using shield with down key. :)
- SEPHY (@sephyka)