Kiln by ohsqueezy 2017-01-03T02:54:00
Really enjoyed this one! Loved the GB/game-and-watch vibe and neat twist on sokoban. Took me a minute to figure out that blocks could push one another, and another minute to figure out that that was sometimes a problem! :P. Puzzles were well thought out, and I thought the sound and graphics were really polished. As with any puzzle games future iterations could include new mechanics, but I would definitely play a hundred or so of the puzzles like yours without getting tired of them. Great job, hope you enjoyed your ld!
LD38 — A Small World (8)
SpermoKart by Erick 2017-05-16T03:32:53Z ♥ 1
hey fun game and super polished for a weekend effort!
the animations and UI were totally solid and I liked them a lot. The colour pallette was super simple too and popped in all the right places. The theme got some lol's. The one track was cool, and something that I thought would add a lot of replayability without a whole lot of extra track design would be couch co-op (obviously given more time extra tracks would be a big plus too). Good job bailing on anatomical correctness :P
I thought the UI seemed pretty solid, they didn't do too much of crashing or getting lost, so it felt like a decent challenge. I laughed at the names they all had too.
By far the best part of the game was the BGM, it was varied and super professional. It added a huge amount of polish to the game and got me amped up while I was playing. I especially liked that there was a win track at the end. I think some more SFX would be a great touch too for a future iteration.
Only other thing i could say is that the controls felt a little floaty in the corners, and could probably use some tightening up. Maybe adding turn animations might help, since I sometimes found the white background added a little to my difficulties there.
Overall I really enjoyed your game and thought it had a high degree of polish. Really felt like a finished game that took longer to put together. Hope you enjoyed making it and are having fun with your LD. Hope to see you again in the future! :D
Bug to the Footstep by eddynardo 2017-05-16T03:25:02Z ♥ 2
Hey fun game! I really liked the use of the theme and the puzzley/perfection vibe of it. The ability to flip asymmetric bugs was a great thought and added a lot of depth. I liked the graphics a lot too, especially the use of colour to help you tell bugs apart right away. The UI was strong all over in my opinion, from colour, line weight and location right down to choice of font. I was a fan of your UI for sure and it felt really professional.
I think some sound and especially BGM would go a long way to wind up the polish on the game, and that would be a great target for a future iteration. Some more variety would also spice things up down the road.
The best part about your game was the tutorial. It was really well thought out and demonstrated a clear knowledge of teaching gameplay to your players without pandering to them. I thought that was really professional too, and the UI through the tutorial was really intuitive. It was also a great length. Fantastic job there.
Thanks for your submission, I hope you had fun making it and are enjoying this LD! Good luck and I hope we see you back again in the future. :D
Über Connected by ohsqueezy 2017-05-16T03:17:52Z ♥ 0
Hey thanks for the submission! Really enjoyed your game once I got the swing of it. I really enjoyed the trippy graphics (especially on the characters) and cascade effects. The colour choice was also great and gave the game this sweet mood. The sound effects really added to it. Some BGM would really round it out but overall I thought the presentation was pretty polished.
I think that the weight of the car really felt right, so for the most part it felt like misses were your own fault. The control felt really tight. One thing I did notice though is that sometimes pills would show up that were just impossible to catch no matter what you did, which didn't really feel fair. Maybe there could be a maximum range/time between pills based on the player's momentum, and to increase difficulty the size of the pills could shrink, or the rate of incoming pills could increase more quickly or something.
The only other thing was that I found the very beginning really confusing. Maybe there should have been a grace period with no pills at first to help the player clue in on where the sprite is, especially with the trippy graphics. An intro animation to help them focus on only the car might have helped too; I just found at the very beginning the screen was busy and I didn't pick up on what I was supposed to do right off the bat.
Overall a blast to play and addicting. Really felt polished to me too. Great job on the entry! I hope you enjoyed making it and the rest of the jam! Thanks for your submission and I hope we see you again! :D
Cubic Explorer by glitchy-pixel 2017-05-16T03:07:15Z ♥ 1
Hey I really enjoyed your game! The ruleset generator was super interesting and made for a good read. But that wasn't the only strong point of the game. I thought the graphics were really great and added a lot of highly professional polish to the game. The UI was also really solid apart from a few minor typos. I liked the sound effects a lot too, and the addition of the (really nice I might add) BGM was yet another stroke of polish that really assisted the game.
A couple of possible improvements I could suggest: (1) Enemies don't seem to have i-frames even though they do flash, so you can hack them down really quickly. They could probably afford to be a little tougher too. I liked the range of animations on them a lot though. (2) As mentioned earlier in the thread there were a few bugs, although one I noticed is that sometimes you enter doors while not walking toward them (just by getting close enough, as though there's a square hitbox right in front but it doesn't check whether you're walking "north" w.r.t. the camera).
Thanks a lot for the cool and really interesting submission! Great luck on the rest of the LD and on your thesis submission. Hope you enjoy the rest of your LD and we see you again! :D
Devoured Intellect by BoobMarley 2017-05-15T03:57:26Z ♥ 1
Great game! I loved the art and music. They're varied, professional and add a lot of polish, especially for a game made in a weekend. I also really enjoyed the idea of the game. Reminded me a lot of the voight-kampff test from Blade Runner, but the fantasy twist was funny and entertaining.
Really polished game! Would be cool to see some more levels or something down the line :D
Thanks for your submission. Hope you enjoyed your LD and that we'll see you again another time!
Of Course I Remember You! by GaiusJulius 2017-05-15T03:49:05Z ♥ 2
hey really liked your game, thanks for your entry!
i was a big fan of the throwback art style, it complimented the point-and-click vibe really well and looked great. I also really liked the sound. The different voice samples added a lot of polish and I'm a big fan of the BGM. Overall really well-polished there. Only things I found could really use improvement were: (1) the UI was sometimes a little unclear about which key to use to progress, in particular the first time I needed the Return key. (2) I think the flashlight mask could be a little bigger and maybe gradiented with transparacy around the edge for a smoother-looking effect.
I also liked the unique gameplay style. It was a great mashup of styles with a unique combination, and I liked how you had to look at the scene but also x-ray the character. The bathroom thing reminded me a lot of Parappa the Rapper.
Had a lot of fun playing your game! Hope you had fun making it and look forward to seeing you back at LD again :D
Sling Ship 🌏 by Quoclon 2017-05-15T03:40:18Z ♥ 1
Hey great game for a first entry, welcome aboard and hope you have a lot more fun and success with LD! Thanks also for your review of my group's project. My ideas on your game follow:
Graphics: Really liked the graphics on your game. The background was nice but not distracting and the planets were varied and interesting. They added a great touch of polish which is a real differentiator for LD games. Some suggestions I would have would be to match the resolutions of the game objects, and settle the colour palette down on certain levels. I found the screen looked a little busy at times. Also, I think that making the player ship a slightly more complicated shape (e.g. a triangle like from Asteroids) might help the player guess the trajectory of the ship when they let go of the beam.
Audio: The sound effects in the game sounded really professional and the BGM is a great thing to have. The little touches of polish always go a long way to set your game apart. One comment I would have here is to match the gain a little more closely - some sound effects were much louder than others (and the BGM), which prompted me to turn the whole thing down.
Gameplay: I liked the difficulty of the game, but there were a couple of things that would make gameplay a little more intuitive and fair. Like many of the above, I think that the tethering system could be a little more intuitive. Many suggested using the center of the planet, although I like the idea of the surface, since your velocity gain can sometimes be more the closer you let yourself come to the planet, adding a risk/reward element. This clashed a little with the limited beam time mechanic however, and frequently I found I ran out of gas because the spin was slower than I expected. In keeping with the gas use theme, I think the beam could recharge quickly when not in use, incentivizing minimum use but not punishing you for the sometimes unintuitive physics. Also, I think that the radius at which you can attach to the planet could be made more clear, as did many previous commentors. Some polish elements you could also add: (1) let the player choose when to launch the ship. Since it launches automatically I was caught off guard the first few times and since I didn't recognize the ship's shape right away I was confused at first what was going on. (2) add a 'restart' button. The countdown timer is too long on most levels and you can become stuck. It's no fun to refresh the page when that happens, and waiting is kind of a pain too. They're easy changes to make a big difference to the UX!
Thanks a bunch for your submission, it's really polished and a great idea for your first entry. Looking through your To-Dos, I really liked the level editor idea and score system. I agree with you on those. A ghost racing system could be fun too. Hope you had fun making the game and enjoy the reviewing! Hope to see you back at LD again :D
Scaleshifter by loveapplegames 2017-05-15T03:24:24Z ♥ 1
Hey neat game, and thanks up front for your review! Hope you enjoyed the bratwurst :).
I liked the graphics of your game a lot right off the bat. Varied enemies and great use of colours. The backgrounds were interesting but not intrusive and didn't clash with the colours of the other sprites. The UI elements were sometimes pixellated.
As far as gameplay, I liked the idea of growing and shrinking the world. I think some fine-tuning would really assist a future iteration. Damage from enemies should probably be less when you outsize them (I figured at first you could just step on them to kill them without being hurt). I suspect grow/shrink tiles are randomly placed - they sometimes stacked up causing you to shrink, then grow again (or v.v.) and consume both tiles. Maybe if fewer were placed and they weren't consumed on use. To the missiles, it felt like their speed relied too much on the player's momentum. A lot of times they would just go sideways if you were strafing so it felt like i had to charge the enemy, back off and repeat leading to a lot of hits. One thing that also might help there is if the player took up a little less of the screen, giving you more room to see the action at the pace it's going.
I liked the sound a lot. Again, it was varied and sounded professional. The menu sounds added a really nice touch of polish, which is one of the things that really differentiates LD games imo. If time permitted adding some BGM would be the icing on the cake.
Thanks a lot for your submission and review of our project! Hope you had a great time and have success with your entry :D