Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → vgel
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | The Flock and the Flood | jam | 227 | 3.86 | 3.51 | 4.13 | 4.19 | 3.92 | 3.69 | 4.28 |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | The Fall of Mezentople | jam | 420 | 3.73 | 3.00 | 3.64 | 4.17 | 4.04 | 3.54 |
pros: liked the voiceover at the beginning, the aesthetic was cool, sounds were nice and crunchy
cons: the control scheme was very difficult to wrap my head around, it was very difficult to see where asteroids were coming from since I didn't have much of a view of the space around the planet.
The controls were a bit confusing at first, but once I realized you need to go all the way left and right, I got it. The art was gorgeous, but would have enjoyed just a bit more to it. Maybe some random events like a guy going by in a boat who talks to you but refuses to help you, or something like that. Just to break it up a bit.
Took me a few tries to beat it, but I really enjoyed it! Definitely stressful, maximizing your actions is necessary to win. One small change that would have made things much nicer would be making it possible to place the same building multiple times (e.g., place one power plant after another) without having to go back to the menu and click it again. Maybe hotkeys for the different building types, as well.
This is awesome! Really clever but simple concept, simple graphics and sound, but it all comes together perfectly. Flailed around randomly for a bit not getting very far before I realized a good strategy was to purposely let the balls count up higher before cutting them in half, to minimize doublings... that got me up to 30 seconds.
Cool concept -- took me a bit to understand what was going on, but I started to get the grips of things. I wasn't able to make the elixir of life, but I did make some other cool stuff
I found myself kinda frustrated with this about mid-way through, then really liked it when I shutdown the computer. It really established a mood with me. Even if the friend is pushy :-)
Also, I ran into a bug where the dinosau--person game kept spawning me directly next to a hazard, so I died instantly before I could jump.
Download link for Linux seems to be broken, I found it at https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD50/releases/tag/LD-Jam-Fixes -- also had to download Love2D, but then it worked! Ran a bit slow, not sure if there's a release mode I should have ran it in or something.
Was pretty cool -- I like the take on the theme, and the art was great, especially the conversation-profile art. Would have been cool to have more stuff to build that would affect things since it started to feel a litle samey cutting down trees and recruiting people. I accidentally threw the only piece of coal I found into the fire, and couldn't find a pick, so I couldn't make a coal bin.
Pretty fun! Felt like an old-school flash game.
Agree that the tutorial screen was a bit much, but it makes sense if you go through it -- blue guys destroy acid and lava, etc. I was expecting acid and lava to last longer and be more semi-permanent defenses -- since they got destroyed so quickly, I didn't see much point to them over the pump weapon. Also agree that a boss enemy would be pretty cool.
Good work!
Cool game -- I liked the spin on Nintendogs with the beeples, and I think it ties into the theme pretty well. My beeple suddenly died even though his health was above 0 :( RIP Gus.
Awesome game! The art and sound design was awesome and made the game feel really high-energy.
Since you got the same upgrades every time, the combination felt a bit samey on future runs -- it would be cool if there was some variation there, maybe you could only get certain upgrades on certain runs, or big unique upgrades you could choose between every X levels, or something like that.
The upgrades were fun, though! I kept clicking "reopen the rift" to keep playing with them :-)
Maybe it's just because I've been stressing about taxes, but I didn't expect this to be as fun as it was. I've played a few run-around-and-shoot-until-you're-overwhelmed games, but this was one of my favorites -- funny, good controls, and the spells felt awesome.
Loved the little details like the ticking-up tax bill in the upper right, and how the spells mostly went where you want but sometimes did little turns away or homed in on an enemy.
My only complaint would be that the upgrades didn't feel like much -- I bought a few and didn't really notice a difference. I think they should either be bigger in magnitude, or permanent so they could stack and feel more noticeable over time.
I think this might be unfinished based on the Itch description and the gameplay (nothing seems to happen if I die?), but even despite that I really like it: it feels great, very juicy, and I found myself playing it for a few minutes despite not having a goal just because it felt good. I really like the idea of a bullet-hell with only one huge persistent boss, too. Would love to see this game get fleshed out in the new Extra category!
@eboatwright Ah, I see! Went back and was able to beat the boss after a few tries (I am pretty bad at bullet hell games :-) )
Cool game! There's definitely potential, but as it is I found it really frustrating -- my plants kept dying in the early game if I would miss even 1-2 ghosts. I think the balance isn't *that* bad, but there's some UI changes that would really help things:
* Put the hotkeys next to the elements in-game -- I forgot the hotkeys for the trash can, for example, because I didn't need it that much, and having to click a button with the mouse in this game can be a guaranteed ghost loss, at least on a laptop trackpad * Make the missing resources for flowers more visually and auditorily prominent -- they're easy to miss since they're dark against a dark background * Allow the user to click on a flower and auto-buy the resources it needs, instead of needing to pick them one-by-one (this would definitely change the time management aspect of the game, though)
Interesting concept! I misunderstood the instructions at first and just thought I was protecting my paddle, so I tried to *avoid* the bullets, then realized after I died. The next run went better. Maybe the instructions could say "block bullets *from hitting the bottom*" for people like me :-)
This would be a decent amount of work, but it would be really cool if the paddle and hit area got slowly chipped away like the barriers in Space Invaders by each bullet -- would be a (scary) visual indicator of paddle damage and health.
Sound was great, and the graphics were simple but well-utilized and fit perfectly. Great work!
Pretty cool! I was confused at the beginning and went the wrong way, I think maybe I spawned facing the wrong way? Maybe you could add a one-way wall across the finish line or something. The base speed also felt a little slow, once I got a couple speed upgrades it was much more fun whizzing past enemies. Would love to see this expanded upon in the new Extra format!
Cool game! I got a Celeste-like feel from it almost: "how is this area possible??" -> "ohh I get it" -> breeze through it in future attempts.
The movement seemed a little slow, though that could have just been lag in the web version (possibly the lights, which can be a performance hog -- an option to disable them could help).
Great work!
I liked the claymation-esque 3d graphics a lot, and the funny bits were, well, funny! I think the timer was a bit too long -- I ran out of stuff to do at the end and was just running around aimlessly. I think if it started at 30 seconds but there was something you could do quickly to raise it by 30 seconds, that would feel a bit more frantic and fast-paced?
Neat idea! The ending gurgle sound effect is... brutal :-)
The game did a great job of establishing a mood -- the music was maybe a touch repetitive, but damn creepy. I was pretty frustrated at first because I thought the walls would block the radiation -- I think they should, it would make the game more strategic and internally consistent (if you're building a wall around the reactor to stop the radiation, shouldn't the wall stop the radiation?). Once I got what was going on with the walls, I was able to win, and still enjoyed the game.
Cool graphics and music! The movement felt a little slow, though that may have been lag in the web version. I wasn't sure if there was something going on with the asteroid's gravity causing me to crash into it, or if I'm just bad :-)
Cool idea! Reminds me of the GMTK jam theme from a while back. Game was fun, but I wasn't really able to multitask well -- I just ended up getting shot while trying to fix the wires. I found a good strategy was to wire every key to shoot as well as whatever movement it was, to have backup keys for shooting if space was broken.
Really dig the aesthetic, it's cute and the sound effects fit in well, though I agree with @eboatwright about the pitch variation. It would be cool to see a bit more of an upgrade tree where certain upgrades are mutually exclusive, in a future update.
The mood was great, I jumped the first playthrough when I got attacked, and the second one I was creeping around (even though I knew I couldn't get attacked since I didn't pick up any candles), hugging the wall to find my way. It felt a lot like being in a real labyrinth. The sniffing sound especially was great.
Game mechanics-wise, the candles were definitely just a hindrance, the strat is to use the map to find your way and squint since it's still possible to see even without the candle. It might be interesting if instead of having candles, the map opening made a crinkling / folding noise that would alert the monster if you're too close? Especially if you had more control, somehow, over when the map opens.
Overall, really enjoyed it, the mood was top-notch :-) Made me jump, and I usually don't like horror games.
This felt really good to play. Hard as nails, but in a good "can't put it down" way, not a (too) frustrating way. The animations were really slick, the combat felt good, just great all around.
My only pieces of feedback would be a) my hits didn't seem to connect sometimes when they felt like they should have, and b) the slow-motion / freeze-frame when the enemies die feels a *touch* too long.
Took me a bit to get the hang of it -- the tutorial didn't quite make sense, I had to muddle through a couple of games before I was able to destroy both ships. The mechanics are quite interesting (though I don't understand why you wouldn't just either move or mark all 10 ticks as attacks?), just needs a playable tutorial or something like that (which TBF is a lot to ask of a gamejam game!)
(FYI: embed seems to be broken with the Godot service worker error, but it works fine on Itch)
Cute game! It was definitely stressful (in a fun way) being under the gun to guess what each person liked. I spent a lot of time scrolling through the options, it might be nice to instead have a grid to pick from so you could survey all your choices? I guess that's in tension with the time limit, though.
I didn't understand how the final scoring worked so I died on the 5th day :-(
Fun concept! Took a couple tries but managed to win.
Agreed @tengusheath that the enemies are too fast -- they can outrun you if they ever spot you during the day, and at night you can unfairly die if you walk into a monster's aggro range and then it turns day, since their aggro range is larger than your night vision range.
I did like the inversion where during the day you can see a lot but it's dangerous to move, and at night you can't see anything but it's safe to move towards what you saw during the day. I found myself scouting during the day and then rushing down the items I found during the night, which was a fun loop.
Took me 15 minutes but I finally beat it :-) really hard in places and took me a bunch of tries: being a salmon is truly the dark souls of fish, i guess
i really liked the jumping animation specifically. it was really satisfying for some reason.
Lots of spooky art and audio :-) quite spooked
It wasn't clear to me what the difference between the different types of towers is. Maybe you could add that to the Itch description?
Not sure if it was the point but I pushed the guy with the key into the door and it opened :-)
I like the art / vibes a lot, it reminds me of the "of the Killer" games, if you've seen those.
the vibes on this game are
i had everything except the SSR and was about to give up, then said "just one more" and it was the SSR :-) cute gacha game. would be nice to have something to do in-between the egg spawns, like interacting with the critters.
Fun idea! The choices for what was nerd-aligned vs jock-aligned was funny (art had both nerds and jocks). I think the choice of 10 seconds worked against you a bit since I found myself waiting around for the switch to pass into certain areas, and ended up giving up after collecting a few items after dying from rushing in too early since I didn't want to do all that again. I think adding a timer that shows when you'll transform would make it less impatience-inducing, and checkpoints are always nice in a game like this since it's not very fun to redo what you've already done.
Took me 6 attempts (not counting restarts when I got stuck on the level geometry with no way to progress). I think the hints were a bit too obscure in places, but the concept was pretty fun and with some polish and playtesting this could be really great, I think!
I really liked the arrow combat, it wasn't too hard at first but under time pressure it was pretty fun.