Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → VDOgamez
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Ablate | jam | 633 | 2.71 | 2.63 | 2.94 | 3.44 | 2.30 | 2.19 | 51 | |||||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Compactor | compo | 619 | 3.11 | 2.89 | 3.68 | 3.46 | 2.59 | 1.12 | 1.75 | 2.30 | 65 | |||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Tiny War | compo | 364 | 3.09 | 3.21 | 3.09 | 3.00 | 1.95 | 1.07 | 1.29 | 2.50 | 71 | |||
| 2011 | 22 | Alone | Catspace | compo | 572 | 2.14 | 1.64 | 3.14 | 1.79 | 1.93 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 37 |
VDOgamez leaves an average of 20.4 feedback comments each event.
This was a very nice take on the theme, and the story had a very Flatland feel to it. The graphics were really well done, even the simple ones, and the game generally played nicely. I didn't really like the whole concept of going back and forth between places that much, and there were some rough spots with the item system, although some of the puzzles were neat. The ending was a neat idea, but it seemed a little rushed graphically.
I love games like this, and you've certainly done well on it. The puzzle difficulty curve was well-done, which is an important factor in this kind of game. I ended up having a good challenge on the last puzzle and I'm not entirely sure I completed it the correct way (are you supposed to be able to put sprayers in the exit?). The graphics look nice and do a good job to facilitate tile placement, and the little bit of audio you have is effective. You've made a surprisingly good puzzle game for the amount of time given, and it's one of the best games I've played this competition. Good luck on your post-compo version, I look forward to seeing more levels in this.
From a very simple core idea you've managed to make a rather frantic and fun game. I really like the art style, and the music is nice too. After a bit of a slow start the difficulty began to ramp up quickly and I was soon overwhelmed by enemies too great in number to hit accurately. The flipping mechanic really adds to the game and makes it require a lot more skill. The only complaint I have is that the hydra takes two rows worth of space but is only vulnerable on the top one. While this makes sense mechanically, it caused me a bit of confusion in trying to dodge and aim.
This is a neat idea, but it's extremely difficult and unforgiving. I don't really like holding down the spacebar to charge the shot, either. The graphics are very nice looking, though. I feel like the timing on the boss or the speed of the ship or the one hit or something just doesn't fit well enough to make it a fun fly-around-and-dodge-the-attacks fight.
While ranged chess is a neat idea, I don't think this is the way to go about it. The pieces all just go forward and don't really affect anything not in their column. They also all have health, but don't have any indication of how much they have. The game doesn't really have a lot of strategy, either, you just march your pieces up the board and keep them possibly doing more damage than the two guys in front of them. The core concept is neat, and it would be interesting to see more done with it, but a more chesslike implementation might be more effective.
The art for this game is the best I've seen so far, and it's well animated too. I can see why you were so insistent on using the audio, too. The series of events you're supposed to do to progress is a bit nonsensical at times, so you kind of just need to use everything with everything then. There's a lot more stuff in the room than what was used, so I'm looking forward to the post-competition release. The interactions with stuff that there were were very nice details, so it would be nice to see that kind of stuff with more of the objects. The ending was rather silly and certainly not what I was expecting.
The core mechanic of this was very unique and fits well with the theme. The graphics and sound were also extremely good. The game was fun to play, but it starts to become somewhat repetitive. The game is also somewhat hard, especially when your towers disappear and disrupt the pattern you were planning on the shot following. It's a shame you didn't get all the features you wanted in, I'm sure more levels would have added some variety to the gameplay.
This is similar to the classic game of dividing off space from bouncing balls, here generating a pretty image and an amusing take on the theme. Being able to control the slower movement instead of just quickly cutting off a straight wall makes the game more, but this mechanic can easily be abused by making tiny segments repeatedly across the screen, which are too small to be usually hit by the ball. There's nothing really enforcing not doing that, so the player kind of has to decide not to do it for themselves.
This was a pretty amusing entry. It looks amazing, and plays well for the rather simplistic concept it has. Looking at some of the distractions the player has to deal with, what the heck kind of work are they doing? Really, the game-
Ok uh I should get back to work and stop playing all these games.
This plays very smoothly and looks nice, though I agree with it feeling a need for sound. I'm impressed by the inclusion of a pretty functional level editor in this, that isn't something I expected. It does seem to suffer from being kind of short on levels, which are something that a game like this needs a lot of.
This is mostly nice, though I eventually came to a part that killed me because the fireballs fired from further up than the enemies were. It's very pretty and has lots of decent sound effects, and I like the mechanic of charging mana.
I really liked the idea of an anti-katamari game. Triggering things breaking off was a bit iffy, sometimes a collision would do nothing. Aside from that the game was pretty good. It looked quite nice, especially with all of the debris floating around.
The AI's a bit too fast for me in this, I can't seem to win. What the game really needs I think is a better ability to automatically target nearby enemies. I've noticed that my penguins will just keep fishing while the ones next to them get killed off. It's at least somewhat effective to stay on the edge of a big squad and pick them off without triggering aggression from the whole group. I really liked the art in this, and I thought the limitation of penguins on the ice holes were a good choice to influence expansion of territory. Overall a pretty good implementation of minimal RTS mechanics, and I think despite my frustration at the difficulty it's better to have the AI be too hard than too easy.
This game had a very nice feel to it. I liked the exploring dark weightless corridors looking for enemies, and the lighting was a really great touch, as were the bullet effects and enemy death animations. My main criticism for the game is that it's occasionally difficult to search the whole level for the last five enemies, although the lights really help that by letting you see which rooms you've been in. It would be nice if the lights didn't alternate states with every bullet, however. Also, the player looks kind of off. It is just a triangle always facing the camera in the 3D world.
I enjoyed that a lot. The way the shapes were rendered really works well for this, because they kind of look like 2D shapes transitioning into each other. I've played games like this before, but this one is especially nice because of the way it's streamlined so that you're not trying to find the perfect angle, but just rotate it to one of a few, so you can complete the many levels in quick succession. It has a good flow to it. I liked the ambient music, too.
I liked the idea of this game, but either the controls are too finicky to construct your amalgamation perfectly, or the goal is too strict to handle the controls. Most of a level is spend slightly trying to adjust things by a few pixels, which then gets thrown off because the rotator isn't entirely conservative.
That's a pretty neat game idea. The biggest problem I have is that it seems to be a bit too simple and predictable, such that it is easy to make a strategy that wins every time. Like tic-tac-toe.
I didn't really understand how the game was working, but by pressing the arrow keys you just keep going up indefinitely. I don't really think there's a way to lose unless you just let go of the keys. However, I think if I was playing it right (and if you had enforced that so I knew the right way to play) then I would have had a lot more fun, because you say it's apparently challenging when played correctly. Nice job for a first time participating, though.
The core idea of this was pretty neat, but it ends up both being too hard to tell where the ball is going, and too easy to accidentally fall off and land on the massive goal. There weren't enough levels afterwards to give a lot of material to explore the mechanics, and it all came down to dumping the ball off the level so it misses the platforms and hits the goal.
This was great. You have a solid one-button platformer here with simple but sufficient graphics and a whole lot of well-made levels. My favorite part is the discreteness of the different jump heights. It means that I can really get the timing on the jumps down a lot more effectively, and better replicate my previous attempt. This almost makes the game act like more of a puzzle than an action platformer, deciding when and how long to jump. And at the end, when you see all the previous attempts, you feel very rewarded. There was obviously a whole lot of work put into making good levels that are organized in a way that flows well for the player. This is one of my favorite games in the competition so far.
This was a very silly concept, executed pretty well and minimalistically. The achievements were really what made the game, getting the player to try all sorts of different ways to play. Without that, it isn't much of a game and more of a tying people up and killing them simulator, but the achievement hints give it a bit of a puzzle element.
I really enjoyed the musical effects in this game, and the particle effects were well-done too. That said, it got frustrating trying to find the single point that was a win condition, and this was compounded on by the fact that you go back a level when you lose. The obstacles that affect your ability to scope out the exit were a neat twist.
It was neat to have a competitive game of life thing, although I felt like I knew too much about how it worked for it to be much of a challenge. You can just stick one of the stable configurations in the corner and let the other ones die off
I was amused by how quickly the jump height escalates into rocketing straight up unto the sky. My main complaint is that some sections are really unforgiving compared to the rest of the game. Once you have enough jump height it is extremely difficult to navigate the pit of spikes at the beginning, for example. Still, pretty good game.
That was pretty amazing. I really liked the interesting graphical style, and the puzzles were fun to solve. I ended up going back a second time to get all the potatoes. Great job for such a short period of development time.
I tried this from the executable jar file and then downloaded it onto my phone and I have to say, somehow tilting the phone around makes this a whole lot more fun. To anyone rating this, I would recommend trying it on an android device if they can, it's pretty neat. I've always liked maze generators like this, and this is pretty polished for being so, well, minimalist.
This is very reminiscent of meat boy, although a lot floatier than I'd like in the controls. Especially when you're touching a wall and you don't want to be hugging it. I also felt like the walls that shoot blobs at you were a bit too unpredictable to avoid well. The mini games in between levels were a nice touch to break up the game, although the tron one seems to be bugged a bit in its AI. You've really made a lot of game in this short a time, I'm impressed. One thing of note is that when you beat level 16 the game gives you a button to go to level 17. I pressed it, hoping for secrets, but it just crashes the game. Also, when you've beaten all the levels and collected all the potatoes, it doesn't seem to say that you have 100% completion. It just says something like 91%. Nice job.
It took me a while to even figure out how it was interactive because there were so many balls on the screen that seemed to be content going up themselves. The green platforms turn out to be the worst ones to hit, because you lose the big group of balls you've collected.
While the graphics are a little silly, looking, this is a pretty neat maze idea. The fact that your ability to move a direction can get taken away again adds to the depth. It's kind of unpolished, and short, but it's definitely creative.
This is a good implementation of a really neat premise. It reminds me of a documentary I saw on how some blind people use sound. I was already sold at the beginning, especially with the really cool visual effects to represent the sound, but then you had to go and add monsters. It's a really wonderful mechanic to have your only way of seeing the maze also attract monsters, and make the way to avoid them be blinding yourself and withholding the mechanic you just got attached to using.
This was a very enjoyable game once I learned how to play it. It does a great job with the theme as an extremely minimalist game, but takes those mechanics and does a lot with it. I think one of the things that really made this game stick out was all of the levels you were able to make, which gave it a lot of gameplay time. The graphics and sound were very simple, but fitting for the style (though the wall color was a bit grating). Ending the level was rewarding too, to get to see the tendril you made break up into sounds. The only real criticism I have is that the difficulty is a bit haphazard. There was one level near the middle shaped like a sideways S with boxy rooms and narrow corridors, which was easily the hardest level. Then right after that there were a bunch of levels with straight passages to the end. So far, this is the best game I've played in the competition, despite its deceivingly simple look and premise. There's enough skill and finesse involved in playing for it to feel like a challenge, but it's generally not so hard as to be frustrating, and ends up with a pretty good balance.
This is a pretty interesting variation of tic-tac-toe. It has the same kind of simplicity as the normal game, so it was neat figuring out the winning strategy all over again. The AI doesn't quite seem to have it down, which makes it harder to analyze but is probably a good thing, because it looks pretty easy to force a win.
This is a very original idea, and I really like it. It fits in well with the theme, too. The puzzles are interesting to solve and difficult to play out, although my one major complaint is that they're often made far more difficult than they should be by the game's reliance on being able to act quickly after looping to the other side of the screen. I may just be bad at it, but it took me forever to get past a level that required making a quick u-turn on the first square after looping across the screen, and then doing that repeatedly. Aside from that one source of possibly unnecessary difficulty, this was a very enjoyable game. The noises it makes when clearing the level out were pretty great, too.
I don't really see the appeal of this. You push blocks of different colors into each other, but you keep having to change your color to avoid taking damage. The color changing doesn't seem to do anything for the game except acting as busywork. Additionally, the blocks can all just be stacked into a single square without paying attention to the colors, so that doesn't really seem to come into effect either. There are some cool things you could do with pushing different colored blocks around on a grid, but making them all overlap isn't one of them so much.
The controls are a little hard to manage, especially the way that you fall faster than the blocks, but in general this is a pretty good implementation of a simple concept. It felt like it needed more levels, but I don't know how much further you could take the mechanics. The blocks shifting into the holes when they were close was a welcome feature.
The biggest problem I can see in this game is that there's a single dominating strategy that pretty much guarantees you to win. By spamming workers in the little safe area you start off in, you can just sit there while they get thousands of units of nectar. Then you can just ignore workers for the rest of the game and just run into the middle of enemy territory dropping soldier eggs. The units don't seem to play nice with corners, and the workers kind of frustratingly run into swarms of snake things when they smell nectar. And then your queen can just hide around corners and never get hit and keep spawning things. Overall the gameplay kind of suffers from the lack of polish due to the time constraints. More time for playtesting and fixing gameplay flaws, along with perhaps a bit more depth and reason to control territory and not just hide your workers in one spot would greatly improve this.
Still, it's nice to see that you pulled through and finished your game.
I liked that. That was a really creative way to arrange the rooms and it fits the theme nicely. The fighting was a bit repetitive, and mostly involved tapping the controls until you got to a spot where you could hit the enemies from their blind spots, but it was quite entertaining nonetheless.
Wow, that really WAS a pretentious game. I feel bad for doubting you. That's not to say it wasn't good. I liked having to figure out the change in mechanics from the text. The music is good, too.
Oh, wow, I really like this. It's a really original idea, and the game has a lot of polish. The only criticism I have is that it's a bit too easy if you start off placing enough workplaces, which led to me finishing hard mode far faster than easy mode. The game's very pretty, and a lot of fun.
Interesting idea. This is a neat break from most kinds of tower defense type games. It just seems like it ends before it really gets to any kind of challenge, and you can just build houses in a box where the enemies start and never have to do anything. Had it more levels and more challenge to it it would have been pretty neat. On one level I tried a strategy other than "spam houses" of "use trees to funnel people into lava to cull the homeless population" but it didn't work. It would have been interesting if that were way to do certain levels.
When I try to launch it, the executable shows a white screen and doesn't respond. Unfortunate, as it looks cool.
It's a bit buggy and there's not a whole lot to do in terms of a goal, but the fact that you made a game for GBA is pretty amazing, and it's not a bad game, either. For some reason I couldn't access the menu after a while.
This is an extremely pretty looking game, though I feel that there's a significant lack of feedback with the fighting, such as to how hurt you are, how hurt the enemy is, or if you're even making contact. It also feels like you really aren't really in that much danger if you ignore the enemies. I assumed the enemies were going to try to attack the statue but if you leave them be they just stand there.
It's definitely pretty, and I like the way the protagonist moves, but the controls are a bit confusing and I eventually got stuck in the level where you can collect the five brown triangles on the right because when I tried to use the door the game froze and the door unloaded, and I couldn't leave the area. Someone said I had a knife and I couldn't figure out how to use it. Z just makes a dialogue box appear that does nothing.
I liked the nice arcadey style that this had going. The only problem I really had was that the moving left-right stopped in the middle, unlike the up-down movement, so you couldn't get over fast enough sometimes, and eventually I just picked a side and went up and down. It was also a bit hard to see when the stripped parts were coming, if they were above you because the sparks are on the top, or even more so below you because the lower wire is completely covered.
I didn't figure it out until the boss that I could shoot. I don't think I would have liked it as much had I known I could do that. The controls seem a bit inconsistent. Holding left or right, I could add up or down to go diagonally. But holding up or down I couldn't go diagonally by pressing left or right. At the boss, once I figured out how to shoot, it seemed like you shot slower when you were further away from him, probably because only one bullet was allowed on screen. The boss health meter showed up for the entire game for me, too. I did like the gameplay of trying to trick the zombies' AI to get past them, and going between the tiny planets. The music was neat and the graphics were nice too.
I liked the idea, and it was really neat trying to get the shots onto good trajectories. The graphics were nice too, I liked the kind of dynamic look they gave to the targets. It's like I was destroying a real world!
I can't get it to run with either version. I click on the .jar file and it starts loading something but no window ever opens. It's a shame, this game looks very nice.
This was kind of amusing to figure out how to play, because I misinterpreted the instructions. So I was trying to make the middle planet win and got a game over and then I eventually came to realize that I WASN'T supposed to be killing things. That's a nice twist on the game mechanic. You're not just defending one side on the war, but all of them. I really liked the idea, although I was bad at it.
It was a neat platformer, but there seemed to be some really bad bugs with the jumping. Sometimes you can't jump when you land making you fall off a platform, and sometimes if you hold down the jump key you do a jump as you touch the ground, or even in midair. One time I got a triple jump. But that's just an engine problem, and it doesn't hurt the game too bad. Aside from that it was a nice little platformer, although it was a bit easy to get lost in how big the world is. As was mentioned, I didn't get any tutorial text about the blinky probe thing, either, and the graphics were kind of flickery. However, I think the biggest thing that would have made the game better to play is some kind of indication of when you have all the parts. At one point I just decided I probably maybe had enough and went back to the spaceship. And then I got some kind of hitchhiker's guide reference and the game said "fine" and ended, so I guess that means I had enough? For building an engine from scratch, however, this is quite a nice game. Good job on that.
Very pretty game. Kind of hard to avoid things with an object that isn't symmetrical when it turns, though, or perhaps I'm just terrible at avoidance games (very possible). I really am impressed by how polished you got a game in 48 hours.
It's hard to really tell where the enemies are, and they come at you so fast that you can't really do anything about it when they're after you. It's too hard for me to really get anything. The game just game-overs when I go to the portal on the third level, is is supposed to do that?
:( why do people make installers for games that won't last longer than ten minutes? One star rating for the installer. The game, however gets significantly more stars. It's a small and short game, but it's got a neat mechanic that gives it its challenge, because you can't hold in the direction you want to go like a lot of games, and instead have to try to put yourself in the direction of the target and stay there so you don't run out of fuel. I liked the little tune it had in the background.
It's quite difficult and a bit rough, but a nice concept. It feels like it needs a lot more polish, though. I can't see a unit's health if it has an ability, and it is hard to tell who's unit something is if it's partly captured. The battles tend to be a lot of micromanaging of moving microbes away as soon as they're about to die, and there seems like there's a lack of balance on the strong-attack enemy. A bit of tweaking and balancing, and some more accessible graphical indications of what's going on, and no ms paint girl throwing up, and the game could be pretty good.
I always liked one-screen platformers, but this one feels like it would be a lot better with some kind of challenge. The only jump you really have to make is the one around the middle of the map on your way up. It's a bit frustrating that the only way to screw up is the one that's forced upon you, and even if you just put more jumps like that one that only make you backtrack if you fail, it would still be a much more entertaining platformer. That said, it controls nicely and has good looking graphics. The music is a bit annoying, but it would be much less so if the loop was smoother.
That was a good variation on this type of puzzle. Restricting the rotations and positions of the mirror/combiners allows for some interesting puzzles. The levels seemed to be well-made and progress nicely, except that level nine and I think level eight both were passable without using the parts, which I think means that there was an easier solution than intended.
That was cool. I liked the bunch of self-contained games thing it had going, it was a creative interpretation of the theme. The parts themselves were rather unextraordinary, but they come together to make a rather surreal game.
This looks like it would have been interesting had it been finished.
Oh, that's neat. Having the planet not directly follow the mouse makes it more interesting, and much more difficult, because you have to pay attention to its movement. Having multiple planets all in orbit just compounds that even further. Once I had three planets it got too hard to pay attention to all of them and they all went out at once. That was fun.
As has been said, the mouse controls are a bit awkward, but this game is a neat idea. I feel like it would be better with more kinds of things populating the universe than some planets that increase stats and some planets that make you die and some planets with health refill- erm, intelligent life. Exploring games are better the more stuff there is to find.
It took a bit to figure out what I was doing, because I assumed that the doors were where I was supposed to go, until I lit up one of the blocks. The game is painfully bugged, however. The lasers don't hurt you, they just kind of make the character bubble for a moment and make a noise, and it's difficult to turn because you keep getting stuck misaligned from the hallways. Halfway through lighting up blocks I inexplicably got a message saying that I had won, and I'm still not sure what's going on. The graphics are kind of nice looking, especially the spaceship on the title screen.
A big game with really pretty graphics, especially for a 48 hour competition. It has a really big open world that takes a long time to explore, and is full of things to get. The game's a bit too hard for me to finish without dying, but I could just be bad at this kind of game. One thing that seems a bit frustrating is the lack of indication of the enemy's health, which led to capturing them being a game of trying to capture every time you hit an enemy. What happens to your captured creatures when they run out of food? I managed to bring some back when it said I was low, but there seems to be a finite amount in the world, so eventually I would have run out if I hadn't died. I'll probably go back and finish this later.
A nice implementation of the classic "connect the points with nonintersecting lines" puzzle. It's hurt a bit by some control issues, namely the lack of a dedicated deselect key, so I kept accidentally selecting a different color and overwriting stuff when I meant to deselect. I felt like the locks could be used in a way beyond level pacing for actual puzzles. For example, since you only need to connect two things of the color to activate it, you could connect two blue blocks on the accessible side of the blue lock to get past, then later have to connect them a different way that's now available from open locks in order to make a different connection past them. Or something. What I'm saying is that you really want some more complexity or difficulty to set the game apart, because right now it has a pretty weak and inconsistent difficulty curve, and stays rather easy the whole way.
The tiny lizard is moving around but it doesn't seem to do anything. Little things sometimes try to follow it but disappear. Are there any instructions?
Very neat idea, I really like the way the powering up by combining things mechanic makes the game work. Part of me wishes it had more levels to make the platforming more used, but another part of me feels that that would get too tedious. But there has to be some way to make the game have more different types of levels without making the amount of grinding for combinations skyrocket. I also felt like the flying mechanic sort of broke gameplay a bit. A lot of the appeal of the early game was the platforming, but once you could fly you just kind of went straight towards the molecule with no regards for anything, repeatedly, until you had everything you needed. Still, great concept for a game. This is definitely one of the better polished ones in here.
This was a nice ambient platformer, and it had really pretty graphics and music, except for one thing I'm confused about. Why a green square? It feels like it's a placeholder and really doesn't look good. I also feel like the blocks that you reveal are a bit too discrete. I do like the ambient kind of style that the game has.
Very nice. I liked how some of the tiles would do things if you left them alone, like growing grass and trees and apples, or just spreading like those brain looking tiles did. The enemies were either really easy or really frustrating, and if I ever got a level with a bunch of those pink shooty things together I pretty much had to give up. Still, it was fun going around and digging for loot in a blimp.
I couldn't really figure out any gameplay to it. What was the goal, exactly?
This is pretty neat. I've played a game a lot like this, but by making certain missiles super damaging against certain layers, it adds a lot of complexity to the game. I also thought the dynamic planet terrain was nice. It was a lot more fun than the last game I played like it.
I don't like how it tries to install itself, but the game is really neat. I like the way the actions are balanced between "retain speed" and "lose speed but gain more in the future". It's a simple concept, but it's pretty interesting.
A very interesting way to do this type of game, and it was fun for a while. I just have one problem with it, and it is that every time I try I run out of one piece at the end, and since I only have a one in three chance to get it, I keep getting more and more of the pieces I don't need, so the entire board is greens and blues.
An interesting concept, using social interactions as puzzles. I just can't really get into the game because you have to restart from scratch each time you screw up. I ended up finishing, and it was neat, but it would have been better if you could restart to at least the point where you can start making decisions.
I really didn't get what the point was. You just erase all the enemy tiles and draw everywhere with your tiles all the time. The ants are barely a factor. If you wanted to make the ants more important, take out the ability to paint tiles, and let the player indirectly influence the ants through pheromones or something, or just do something else to what the player does so that their power doesn't make the ants background noise.
Every time my units try to go to sleep they get caught on a building. I can't really do anything with them after that, because they won't let me make them move.
It's amazing that you made a functional MMO in a single weekend. I probably spent more time on this than I should have...
There didn't seem like much to do in this game. Walk around, talk to people, kill rats. Someone made a comment about "the final boss" which I dismissed as a joke, because this game was too simple for things like "goals" to exist. But then I saw the box. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I wanted it I needed it I need it I need the box why can't I have it... I think I'm going to go lie down.
I really enjoyed the way this game played. It had a very nice pace and was effectively balanced. The best part was where the house fell over, which came right after five blue carrier-looking ships overwhelmed me. Does the game have an ending, or does it just get impossible? Good music, and a very fun arcadey type game. It kind of goes to show that a really simple concept of "shoot enemies before they get to this place" can be entertaining if executed well.
Very nice looking, but rather easy. You get the rocket launcher on the way there and a bunch of ammo, and the boss dies without even touching you. I actually didn't realize which way to go and assumed I would find a thing or get attacked BY the boss, so I just wandered off and wondered where the powerups went. Then I walked off the map and the game crashed so I tried again and DID follow the red and the game was much better that way. I did have a problem with jumping onto walls, because if you bump into one you get knocked up, but otherwise the game played fine. I'm a bit confused at why the world was so huge if there's not much in it, especially considering the theme. That threw me off quite a lot. The rest of the world is completely devoid of enemies all the way to the center pit where the boss is. This is a good game, just really easy and sparse.
It really needs a cursor. Aside from that, I couldn't really figure out where I was going. I built a nice little base, and anything anyone tried to build nearby was immediately destroyed, so there wasn't really anything to do. There should be some method or incentive to either attack the enemy or ball up and defend yourself. It's not bad, however. Just kind of aimless. And cursorless. Add a cursor, is what I'm getting at.
Aside from three times I got stuck and had to start over, two from two separate floor tiles that I couldn't get out from, and one from when I piloted the second large tile to the center and I somehow got stuck outside of the ship I was in and flew away, this is an extremely good game and a really novel maze idea. The graphics look good, especially for the vehicles, and the sounds that things made every time they moved sounded appropriate and not annoying. I do feel that the end notification felt a little empty, and was a bit sad that getting the last purple tile didn't cause something special and rewarding to happen, but it wasn't mood-ruining either. I was just expecting something to happen analogous to the normal behavior of the putple and red tiles to your character, or had it been a red tile, the entire base. Anyway, this is one of the best games I've seen so far at the competition.
This is really cool, although I'm not entirely sure what's happening. I can't tell how the orbits are being modeled, so I can't really tell where to detonate the plants to affect the orbit the way I want. Also it took me a while to realize you weren't supposed to detonate the plants themselves, because then you run out of fruit, nearly. It's a very nice concept and is not the kind of gameplay I was expecting. Also, how does the combining the planets work? The world seems to get a bunch of grey material where the asteroid hits, are the planets dynamic or did I just get lucky to have them appear that way? One thing that I think would make this better would be to make navigating to other planets necessary, because when I started I assumed I needed to do that, and orbited my guys to the other two bodies, only to find nothing really there, and the game ended up just being about blowing up charges on the prograde and retrograde ends of the planet to make it hit stuff. Despite this, I enjoyed the gameplay, as well as the music and especially the graphical style.
It's just a maze, but what gameplay there is feels nice and smooth. I don't know why you made the goal of the game finding a toilet, but the guy has a nice little animation to him.
I'm confused a bit. I can play the game, but there doesn't seem to be much too it. I can move blue guys to the sides and up and down with some really strange controls, and make the red guy hit the bomb, but there are some weird things going on.
Nothing is actually centered on the planet if you go up and down, the things just rotate around an arbitrary point that can be moved. In level 1, the ships go through the planet, in 3 onwards, though, your ships get destroyed if you touch the planet, with no penalties, so you can make the red one hit the bomb at your leisure. Level 2, uh... There's some kind of weird 3D physics based collision somehow. I guess it's because you're using unity? I am so confused right now.
Interesting concept, if a little easy. I do like the challenge in having to deal with the tiles that can't be changed. It feels like this game could be made much better with a little added complexity.
The graphics seemed really inconsistent. The rat and the background and the kittens were all of different and clashing resolutions, and the animations were a little jarring. The gameplay seemed like you were just holding right and jumping occasionally. The premise beyond that seemed a bit nonsensical, and the engine seemed to struggle with collisions.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing. Most of the buttons don't do anything, and the ones that do don't really affect the game especially much. I assume that I win when everyone but green is dead? But the game did that on its own with no input from me.
The game feels rather artificially hard. It's difficult to find the UFOs and the bullets move too slowly to hit a moving object. It's like you have a ping pong ball gun where the balls don't fall out of the sky because of minimal gravity and no air. Speaking of gravity, the mechanics of moving around on a planet where jumping can send you into orbit ended up being more fun than the actual gameplay, at least to me. If there were more to the game, being able to jump high over your enemies and let your momentum take care of movement as you shoot at them from above might make the game quite fun.
The instructions do not tell you how to move units. This is extremely important and not something you can assume players know how to do. I almost gave up because of it. Anyone else trying this game, press right to move. And I assume that the hammer heals units faster.
Aside from that, it seems extremely difficult to survive initially, because all the other regions tend to destroy you before you can do anything, unless you get extremely lucky or you have a boat flee the country into the arctic. If you do that, nothing can eliminate you, and you'll keep producing units to slowly take out the enemies without ever getting wiped out when they die. It's a bit frustrating to have to restart the program when you lose, although I am glad the cutscene at the start can be skipped or that would make things worse.
Overall, I think that the biggest problem with the gameplay is that it is rather shallow. This is something to be expected with a 48 hour competition, where it can be hard to even finish, but I feel that the game would be much better with even a little gameplay expansion.
Not bad. Somewhat short but amusing. The engine seems to have some bugs, especially with the jumping, (and the running off the edge when you find the head thing) but everything looks pretty and I like how he "made a friend". That is worth at least a few extra points for humor.
Really nice game. Nice use of the theme, and the minimalistic graphics look super nice. It also looks like there's plenty of room to expand the level design without having to add new mechanics. The game just feels good.
Who sent this poor thing into a cave without any diamonds? That's just mean. (There seems to be a bug where there aren't diamonds for me)
This is the craziest game I've played in a while. I can figure out how to play pretty easily, but as for what's going on I don't have a clue. In a good way.
Easily one of the most fun games I've played so far, and the graphics and gameplay are neat. The only criticism I have is that I can't see where the theme comes in.
Not at all related to the theme, and for some reason it lagged immensely, but it looks nice, the audio is amusing, and it's just fun to play. I never fount that gem thing, I just hit an invisible map edge and eventually got bored. I'm going to play it again when I'm on a better computer and see if it's more tolerable there when I'm getting more than 4 FPS.
I don't really enjoy this. It's not necessarily bad, but I don't like this kind of arcadey run around get points and kill things gameplay myself. Not when there's no goal. It's also too easy, there are way too many items so you can just keep dropping mines and healing whenever bad guys appear. (Alone except for all the bad guys?) As was said, it's also a little buggy. It's actually quite interesting, because I don't really like it now, but if there were even the small addition of some kind of thing I was supposed to be going for besides killing things and getting points, to give a sense of progression, I'd enjoy it a great deal more.
I liked it. In general, for a short game, it's really enjoyable all-around, although it really feels like it needs more depth. This was a 48 hour game, of course, so that's nothing that is actually expected, but I just don't seem to enjoy the wandering around and picking up stuff too much. It feels like it just needs either more puzzle like or more action based gameplay, because the sparks are really just an annoyance. Don't take my criticism wrong to think that I don't like it, it's just that it feels like it could have done more. I really liked the graphics and stuff, however, especially in the opening and ending scenes. They're way too cute to dislike.
Really neat, I liked the atmosphere and stuff. Really fit the theme. The endings were also good with the theme but it didn't stop me from trying everything to get a "good" ending.
Hahaha, very clever, sir. I was just about to post to tell you that the game has a bizarre crash. You sure got me.
The game itself wasn't the best thing, but the graphics and engine were phenomenal, so I can see why there wasn't a whole lot of time to flesh out the game. Still, quite a wonderful concept, and briliant visuals.
It's pretty fun, but parts of it get extremely frustrating (GHOOOOOOST MAAAAAZE!) and the game wasn't very rewarding. It felt a lot like traversing a blocky slippery maze and it really felt like it could do with some kind of story or other appealing elements. The controls were a bit slippery, and made me kind of dizzy. I did like the game's progression, but it just didn't feel especially good. The combat was kind of superfluous feeling, although I don't know if it would have been better without it. Overall I have mixed feelings about this game, but it's definitely among the upper tenth of the ones I've tried.
This game is pretty amazing. The graphics are charming, the gameplay is fun, if a bit easy, and the characters are made surprisingly endearing by making them more than faceless guards, possibly by having them have relationships with each other (it's adorable how romance driven these aliens are). I played another game that tried this and failed, but this one really made them like people who I felt too guilty to kill. I really like the aliens in this, they're imaginatively designed and feel like they've been thought about much more than most people think about their game enemies (which coincidentally reflects one of the points of the game). It's definitely not without its flaws, though. I'm bugged a bit by how the guards can't jump high enough to climb around their own base, and it's kind of difficult to maneuver them. The fact that only like a third of them fire at you is also a bit confusing, and although I noticed that they're the ones with violent personalities the other ones probably wouldn't just walk up to the dangerous alien that breached containment to say hi and make friends. I also felt like the controlling guards mechanic wasn't expanded on as far as it could have been, and I can imagine it being more puzzle oriented and successful. Still, these minor detractors are more than expected with the limitations of the competition, and I must say that this is my favorite game yet. I'll be sure to look you up and watch for more of your stuff in the future.
That was neat, and I think I won, but is there a better ending?
I can't get F6 to display the rules, so there might be something I'm missing, but from what I can see the biggest problem, and it's a huge problem, is that the level generator is totally random, and usually makes impossible levels. Try making a procedural generator that assures that the level can be done.
So... is there a good ending? I don't have the patience to exhaust the tree.
I like this, it's a lot better than the screenshot looks. The controls are nice and smooth, although a little buggy when something lands on you. That should probably kill you, because the game is way too easy right now with no noticeable difficulty curve. The gun also seems a bit overpowered, and it feels wrong to have the falling blocks NOT fall when you shoot out the bottoms of them. The music is nice and the game is fun, and I also really like the little tree patterns the block tower makes.
It's kind of fun, a neat concept, although the level design needs a bit of work (and obviously longer). I can skip most of the level sometimes by just jumping over stuff. Also, for some reason the new game button only plays the first three levels and the play button plays the next three. I was almost ready to quit before I tried the play button. Also, there are some major bugs when you load an invalid level (you get stuck and have to refresh) and a minor one when you open a door that a laser has already hit above (it doesn't extend). I also don't see the point of collectibles. Still, quite nice, and I like the style.
That was amusing, and very well made. I think I suspected what I was supposed to do after the third key I tried, but for some reason I felt the need to try all the keys anyway. I don't know why. This was clever, polished, and a bit funny, although it was really short, even for a ludum dare game.
The atmosphere for this was great, if not a bit radioactive. Heh. Seriously, though, the mysterious feel of the game really made me feel like I was discovering something. The gameplay itself was fun, although a tiny bit annoying on the more difficult platforming sections. Overall, I'm glad I clicked on this game out of the random sea of games.
How to get the key: Throw your "girlfriend" in the freezer. She turns into an ice cube, and you can use her to jump on.
I noticed that it let me discover atomic energy without nuclear war, even though my peace was at -255.
I don't see what was so wrong with the results that he felt he needed to take them away. I would be happy to see that.
That was excellent. I really liked the concept of repeating the time loop over and over until you figured out what to do. Is there only the one ending, or did I miss something?
I was really hoping for a game that actually involved string theory...
LD29 — Beneath the Surface (24)
The Westport Independent by Double Zero One Zero 2014-05-05T03:25:00
This reminds me a lot of The Republia Times, in a good way. I do have a couple of criticisms, though. In a lot of cases, I have trouble telling whether statements are good for the government or good for the rebels. For example, if the government shot a bunch of rebels, is that going to be taken as "You're trying to get the public to feel like they're being oppressed" or "You're trying to show that the government can handle this threat"? I suppose that that is part of the gameplay, but it would be nice perhaps to have the style guide at the beginning describe exactly what the government wants from the player. Additionally, despite the game's largely storytelling focus, the endings all feel a little underwhelming. Maybe if they had a second page's worth of conclusion it might feel more like it means something. The art for this game is wonderful, and the music is also good.
MANIFOLD by microwerx 2014-05-01T00:16:00
I really liked the fast paced gameplay, even though it made it hard to aim. It made the game feel really fun. The game felt like it was missing a failure condition, however, something to be trying to prevent. Also, the aiming controls seem to not respond all the time to the last direction you pressed, which is a bit frustrating.
Game of Roots by BubuIIC 2014-04-30T21:36:00
That was interesting to play. There's definitely a good tradeoff between the benefits and risks of splitting a bunch. If you're better at the game you can get away with splitting more and thus collecting more stuff with less cost. There wasn't an option to make the screen smaller, though, so I had to hide my taskbar to see the whole thing.
Bunker Down by JuiceBox Entertainment 2014-04-30T21:22:00
This game seems surprisingly familiar! It's interesting to see that given such a vague theme multiple people have come up with similar concepts. The two things that I ran into when playing the game were that sometimes you can have too few resources to get to the pick or drill, and that when the bombs only destroy tiles below them then there's not much point doing anything except mining out all the tiles and building a ladder and a pillar next to it of walls out of all your materials, and then hiding under it at the bottom. The graphics were nice looking, and the need to build ladders made the digging more interesting. It may have been nice to have some sort of goal in mind other than surviving.
Square Rooted by adamwfindlay 2014-04-30T20:43:00
It was short, which is a shame because it's beautiful looking. I feel like the mechanic could be expanded if you made some sort of restrictions with rolling over already-planted flowers with the cart.
Beneath the Sky by GmacktheGummy 2014-04-30T20:36:00
I enjoyed playing this game quite a lot, but the enemy behavior felt a little too shallow for it to be much of a threat, except for the fact that the movement was imprecise enough that I kept crashing into them anyway. The boss ends up being easy if you just spam arrows at it. It stays in the center too much, unlike the miniboss. The graphics and music were nice.
Makeshift Mouse King by zkenshin 2014-04-30T20:20:00
The game's quite hard, but it's also well-put together. Nice job.
Bob by grayhaze 2014-04-30T20:12:00
That's an interesting if morbid idea for a physics game. It certainly looks like it might have been fun if you had finished it. I thought it was nice how the objects acted upon by physics when you moved them around so you could better manipulate them.
Miner by tuxxilla 2014-04-30T20:07:00
That was actually a much more clever and puzzly mechanic than I had expected. I had a bit trouble with the controls, especially jumping around.
Dig or Die by Joror 2014-04-30T19:58:00
That's a pretty neat mechanic, though I had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly how it works. The behavior feels like it's not exactly predictable if you don't know the exact rules. For example, if I just selected my main base and set it to transfer to the one a few tiles down, the population down there would stay at zero and just drain the surface population, unless the surface base was selected.
Dream of Depth by Cirrial 2014-04-30T05:11:00
I see what you were saying about a lack of balance. Despite the gameplay being unpolished, however, the game appears to be visually and technically excellent. I liked the mechanic of arranging the base with platforms on tethers. The character animations are amusing. I'm getting the impression from both my own experience and games I've played that complex multi-player RTS-y type games aren't the most effective in these short development periods due to how carefully they need to be balanced to keep power levels and interactions fair.
Tiny Haunt by rojo 2014-04-29T04:51:00
There isn't really much puzzle or challenge to beating any of the levels, but it was fun to play with.
Where Gods Sleep by Lissar 2014-04-29T04:36:00
That was enjoyable to play. It's difficult to figure out how to get around, but the visuals are very varied and interesting. For some reason the down key wouldn't work correctly in the ending room for a long time.
Turtle Simulator by chikun Dev Team 2014-04-29T04:10:00
My absolute favorite part about these competitions is discovering gems such as these. This is certainly a masterpiece of turtle simulation software that deserves a special place on my hard drive.
Evolve by Overkill 2014-04-29T03:35:00
This game is beautiful. I really like some of the touches that went into the effects, like the water surface ripples. It's also extremely unforgiving, even after you're able to defend yourself.
Enlightened by Marjie62 2014-04-29T03:21:00
This is a very novel game idea, and it's implemented well. I've only been able to play a few games against myself, not having anyone available in person, but even that I had quite a bit of fun with. I really like the mechanic of figuring out what's going on for the other player, and the abilities are well-thought out. It would be neat to see a version of this that allows more options than local two-player.
Firefish by Snicklodocus 2014-04-29T03:06:00
This was nice, and I liked the increased speed the game gets as you can work with more guys at once. Although I am getting the idea that you came up with this idea before the themes were announced and liked it too much.
Forgotten Sea by Incredible Ape 2014-04-29T02:57:00
The graphics and sound are perfect. I'm very impressed. The only issue I have is that the game seems to be sorely lacking in mechanics beyond the one present. I kept hoping to at least see torches being placed across a gap from where the player can access, or some place to reflect shots off of. Still, the polish wins over my vote.
Beneath the Surf-Ace by FatJoe 2014-04-29T02:39:00
The graphics on this are extremely polished. I also really like the clever take on the title. The gameplay is simple but goes smoothly.
Virophage by eerongal 2014-04-29T02:29:00
I really enjoyed this game once I actually figured out what I was doing. I made it to a score of 629, killed by a giant white blood cell. I can't seem to beat those even with multiple of the special attacks. The attacking mechanic is rather neat.
Villager by LukeZaz 2014-04-29T01:58:00
I really enjoyed this, it reminded me of A Dark Room. I had a minor bug where it showed two "upgrade" options. The ending was amusing and unexpected, considering what the game had gotten me into the mindset of. I think it was right about the right length. It looks quite nice for a text game. The text entry didn't reset when you submit it, which was both nice when you wanted repeated commands and annoying when you wanted to change it.
Volcano Dave by acehk 2014-04-29T01:43:00
This game feels really nice to play, even though I keep missing the jumps. The game's very hard. The graphics have a charm to them.
Atlantis Explorer by Integershift 2014-04-29T01:33:00
That was a neat little point and click type game. I ran into an issue though, if you get pinned against the left wall with a rock. I liked that there was some variety in what you had to do to get the parts.
Badass Pinguin by theundeadwarrior 2014-04-29T01:14:00
The jumping on this feels pretty good, although the random platforms have the problem of not always existing where the game spawns you, or where you fall to the lower area. I liked the snow effect.