Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Vinay Rao
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Contract Cleric | compo | 340 | 3.17 | 3.03 | 3.45 | 3.10 | 3.23 | 2.45 | 2.63 | 2.83 | |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Foothold | compo | 348 | 3.13 | 3.25 | 3.31 | 3.31 | 2.72 | 2.89 | 2.85 | 2.91 |
The level design here is good in that it doesn't quite allow for clearing the levels so quickly as to be unsatisfying. That it had an introduction, game body, and ending made it quite enjoyable.
Speaking to the game body, it's an interesting game mechanic. The music and sound effects helped the atmosphere without coming across as repetitive or annoying.
I found no bugs.
Kudos on making a short, but very refined experience.
The control scheme is a little difficult to master, that's for certain, but it grew on me a bit. Tricky control schemes can be a feature. This could well be the Dark Souls of the flight-go-right genre.
:octopus: is an unstoppable killing machine, haha.
A nice take on the theme! The key sacrifice mechanic did well in assigning value to each team member.
I'd suggest using a different keybind for swapping team leaders or splitting the group up, just on account of it being a bit out of the way to use the mouse, move, and hit keys on the right side of the keyboard at the same time. Perhaps the keys around the WASD controls or scroll and mouse buttons could take over this functionality.
Enemies do feel a bit bullet spongey. I think they could do with a bit of health reduction in general. I don't think I encountered any bugs other than what was already mentioned, but for as much art and time spent on the level design as this game seems to have I imagine the looming deadline didn't leave much opportunity to catch and fix bugs.
Speaking of time...
Wow, you got a lot into this game in 48 hours. Color me impressed. That had to have been some rapid sprite asset generation, and even had some little details like rubble trails on underground enemies.
A solid little narrative with good audio and visual presentation. Excellent use of text effects to add flair to the character dialogue. Sprites were well animated, and your use of particle effects with the character's movement helped sell the walking animation that much more. Sometimes it's the little things that make the mechanical experience rich.
Excellent work on the game assets!
While it wasn't a game about making world changing decisions out of extensive dialogue trees or anything of the sort, as a short story it's rather thought provoking without the need for puzzle elements or dialogue mazes. I think it works the way it is. Concise, and to the point. It hits the theme hard, projects a strong mood, and does so without getting mired in puzzle elements or fetch quests.
Wouldn't change a thing in regards to delivering the story as is.
Regarding functionality, it seemed rather solid to me. I might suggest trying to lock the player character in position while interacting with world elements. It's a bit weird that one can trigger the introductory dialogue by walking back near the start position, or skip over it and trigger it again by returning to that position. Perhaps use the interact key to start dialogue with characters rather than triggering it by proximity, but this is a very minor issue.
For all that I've said about this game, there is one thing that I think satisfies me about this game at the very core of my being. I find it to be the single greatest accomplishment of game's creator and the greatest source of satisfaction I have derived from the entirety of the brief time I spent with this game. Read emphatically, perhaps the depth to which I enjoy this small- no, big - detail of "A Walk in the Neighborhood". And that thing is the following:
I got to press X to bark uncontrollably. I pressed X many times while I chased my tail.
You got quite a lot into this game in 48 hours. Music is stuck in my head, haha.
Solid.
Interesting game. Could quite easily expand upon this one I'd wager, yeah? More events, more options, more upgrades.
Tack on a few art assets and you have yourself a nice little survival game.
Wouldn't hurt if there was a way to see what upgrades do after they're collected.
There is a sense of discovery this game touches upon that I love. There is a simple satisfaction found in puzzling out what are the basic rules of the game.
What can I touch? How do I defend myself? What is my goal?
The rune text I think brought back some memories of playing games when I was young and not really understanding them too, so job well done on reviving that old feeling!
Quite a pretty game. The wiggly little animations ooze style and the audio is pretty pleasant to boot.
It does seem a bit difficult to lose naturally. I found I could preserve just a small section of the tree to keep the game going indefinitely. As a few others have mentioned, I think a time limit might be the ticket. Something to push the player take more risks rather than let the tree produce fruit and slowly build frogs before going for one big doubling session would help add a bit of tension to the experience. Without a sense of pressure, I felt the only way the game would end is when I was satisfied with my high score and chose to end it myself.
I think what is nice about adding a time limit is it opens the door to adding new stages. With new stages can come new mechanics! Population goals for each stage? Maybe fruit can start rotting on the tree, making frogs sick? Perhaps the seasons change and there are fewer leaves to work with? Maybe there are predatory snakes hiding in the tree's leaves to shoo away? Something to think about if you're continuing with the development of this game, perhaps.
I rather like the click to pop mechanic. The game is pretty fun given that core mechanic alone. I could easily see this game becoming even more fun with a few constraints, destabilizing elements, and goals.
Good job on this one! It looks fantastic, it has a simple and satisfying core mechanic, and it's got plenty of potential to grow into an addicting tapper game!
As many others have stated, the physics are awesome. I was not at all prepared for the level of bounciness I encountered, and it made me smile the whole way through!
This game is fantastic.
My Bloops have died. While I am beside myself with sadness, I can't say I didn't enjoy them while I had them. Quite a lot of fun out of a very simple mechanic. Well presented with audio and injects a fair amount of personality through art to what would otherwise be just a table of jumping spheres.
I felt every Bloop's pain. I think I need to be alone now.
Well done on the game though, I rather enjoyed that!
This one feels like it's well on its way to a commercial release, wow. It's been said, but it's graphically very appealing. It took me a minute to grasp the game mechanics, but once I figured them out it was quite an enjoyable experience.
The slowdown feature didn't quite come across in my first few goes. Once I discovered it, it felt right. Level designs present a good difficulty curve.
I encountered no game breaking bugs.
All in all, a beautiful game. Great job on this one!
This is one good looking game, which plays well too. I might have to get my brother in here for some 2 player in a bit.
Curious, I noticed it's possible to midair jump, was that intentional? Honestly, I'd keep that in, makes for some interesting play. Feels less like a bug and more like a feature to me.
That was lovely.
The game didn't seem to have any game breaking bugs. The music loop was pleasant without becoming annoying. The dominos had some personality to them which set the mood in a way that I think just placing bland dominos would have hurt the game's mood. Chaining the detonation of the kings is a satisfying mechanic. The game length in terms of number of levels available is good, and pretty easy to expand upon if this project should continue.
The gameplay trailer was a good addition. Had a good idea of what I was in for before even accessing the game.
If there was anything at all to nitpick on, perhaps the camera rotation speed seemed a bit slow to me. But maybe that's just my mouse?
Kudos, this is a very fun game!
Graphics and audio are top notch in this one for a 48 hour game. I didn't notice any bugs either.
Great job on this one!
As others have mentioned, it does open with quite a lot of enemy fire. It feels a bit harsh for the first few enemies to soak multiple hits, though perhaps that's just years of conditioning in side scrolling shmups messing with my perception. Once you get through that though it starts to feel better. I found the projectiles a bit hard to see. Nothing a couple of slight changes couldn't fix though.
I like the sacrifice mechanic you've got going with the toll booth thing. Though on my first time encountering them I managed to convince myself that the big purple cubes near the toll gates were the way to pass through rather than the clearly visible passages next to them. Not sure how I managed that one.
The audio is good. A bit on the loud end, but not a whole lot've games have time to make a volume slider when we're scrambling to cram in gameplay mechanics.
Just a few tweaks to the game balance and I think this game would curve out a lot better.
In 48 hours we're often lucky just to get something out at all! A few changes to the enemy health and projectile visuals would go a long way.
It's a solid side-scrolling schmup foundation, so good job!
I was quite a fan of lemmings, and lemmings 3D, so it made me pretty happy to see this.
I ran into a few bugs. A few times the Haggis would die when dropped out of the spawner (on the second stage). Builders sometimes would finish their build and turn around rather than climbing up their steps.
Could do perhaps with a restart button ("Give up" didn't restart the stage when I tried it) or a speed up button.
All things considered though, not bad for a 48 hour game!
Played this a with my brother a bit ago. I had to go fetch him after a round of single player, haha. That I thought to bring him over to play with me should speak to the success of this game. Much better with the second player, haha. Music is good, art is good, controls are intuitive and responsive. The game mechanics are quite interesting. Trading defense for offense is a pretty satisfying mechanic, and coordinating shots with another person to take down purple enemies adds some satisfying depth to the gameplay. Spinning lasers are a bit brutal, but I think they add a good amount of chaos to the game. The revive mechanic is also a good addition for co-op play.
Bottom line: We had fun with it, so mission accomplished on making a fun game. Good job!
Love me a good physics game. Didn't spot any bugs or showstoppers.
Nice touch with the character chatter on each stage. It made for a stronger atmosphere to the game.
Cheers!
Fun game. I did have to use that restart button a few times for getting stuck with no possible moves, but that's par for the course with a puzzle game. Music is good. Graphics are simple and make for a good aesthetic.
Might be handy if a controls reminder for the restart feature was included to pop up when no moves are available. I had to come back to this page to see if there was a restart key.
Good job on this one, was fun!
Pretty fun. I do wish it started out at a faster pace, but quite a neat idea, and very well executed. The tutorial was top notch. Well done!
Quite a zen experience, if you manage to forget about the whole squishing thing. Would be interesting to see more interaction between the evolutions.
It is a bit difficult to control the squirrel, especially when crossing from one box to an adjacent box. I was a bit disoriented after each transition. Perhaps swapping boxes would be better on a deliberate key press? I had a few cases where I bounced off snails and did bit of an anti-gravity dance. Perhaps we could kick the snails or scoot them along a bit faster?
I could see this becoming pretty interesting with a tighter control scheme and some stages of increasing complexity and mechanics. I like the idea of playing with gravity in each compartment. This is a puzzle concept that can go places. Good amount of potential here if you keep iterating on it.
Simple and fun. The beginning was a bit slow, but it wasn't too much of a slog. The later levels were just right. Good job on this one!
Looks good, difficulty is just right and the audio is nice.
I think the unit count display could be a bit bigger. But I made the display in my own game a bit too small perhaps too, so I'm not one to nitpick, haha!
Quite a lot of fun though, so job well done!
This game has a nice classic feel to it. The slow paced start really didn't prepare me for what was to come! That got out of control very fast, and I can't say I didn't like that.
Nicely done!
Killed it with this one. It's quite a lot of fun. Aesthetically pleasing (for a game largely based upon being in the dark), mechanically appealing and well built around the theme.
Would love to see this one continue with more stages and mechanics. Job well done on this one!
Knocked it out of the park with this one. Good concept, the movement was spot on, the obstacles were varied and interesting.
Could do with some audio or soft music.
I find myself wanting more stages. Which isn't a bad problem to have in a hastily made game. Had a blast with this one.
This gave me a strong Hotline Miami vibe. The teaser video really put me in the mood for what the game delivered mechanically. Good call on that.
Sometimes a game doesn't need much in the way of art assets to sell itself, and this is one of those cases. The mechanical foundation is solid, and I should think if the project was to continue art assets could always be added once the gameplay content is complete.
Nicely done for a 48 hour game! Plays well. Didn't notice any major bugs.
Quite an interesting idea, sacrificing game features between playthroughs, and having unlocks for new features. I found that playing without the ammo feature was quite crippling. Perhaps the base ammo amount should be a little higher. I also found it was pretty easy to find "safe" areas in the map where it was rather easy to infinitely stave off the enemies, in particular, underneath platforms. A couple changes to level design to encourage movement, or different spawn locations for rounds when sacrificing movement might help the game flow a bit.
Just a few minor suggestions really. Overall quite good!
Well done! The art and audio was good. The projectile effects were impactful too. I enjoyed this game.
Hmm, I can't seem to extract this one from the given archive. Looks like the itch.io for it isn't functioning either. The art on this one looks quite nice though. Will check back again later to see if it's been fixed.
Hmm, I gave it another shot, but the google drive link leads to a Rar file that I can't extract ("unknown format or damaged"), and the itch.io link leads to a 404 page not found.
I can see your profile at newbee110.itch.io, but I don't see any games associated with it. Perhaps it's still in preview mode and not published?
Yep! You start with 400 tiles. Every tile you break enters your reserves, which get placed as you move near pit spaces. However if you land direct hits on the Munchars, or get bitten by a Munchar, your total number of tiles go down. If there are more placed tiles in the world than you are allowed to have, you'll have to make up the difference by breaking some yourself.
If you detonate a blob too close to yourself, you might fall into a crumbling tile before your reserves can pick it up.
There is a good chance I'm gonna continue with this one to iron out the display a bit. Too late for this build perhaps to put up a more urgent display for the amount of tile debt, eh? Would be handy to know that on the fly. I've dashed into a lot of pits for not realizing how low on reserves I was.
Yep, being bitten puts a 10 foothold debt on your reserves. The higher your reserves, the faster your score ticks up. It also means that there are 10 less potential footholds to stand on for the rest of that game. Blobbing a Munchar directly has a similar effect, but it only puts a 2 foothold debt on your reserves.
The scoring is a bit complicated for a quick game, haha. Essentially you want to sacrifice as much ground as possible without taking too many hits, or landing too many direct hits.
In Footfall 2.0 I'll be sure to add a few slide tutorials explaining it properly.
@seed42 There is quite a lot of truth to that. When I take a second pass at the game, I'd like to try to allow for a little reaction time by tweaking the spawn distance or perhaps nudge the destroyed tile positions from close range shots to be a bit more forgiving.
I'd say an unlucky point blank shot is probably the leading cause of death in most of my playthroughs.
Thanks for the feedback!
@timeshapers Negative reserves are intentional. In an "early" (as early can exist in 48 hours) version of the game, they actually caused your score to drop, but I found that caused me to want to just throw myself off the edge to save my score. Quite a sacrifice, but perhaps a bit too much to be fun, haha. I figured there had to be some way to ensure that the player aggressively had incentive to break tiles. Else, one could run around a hole in the center and passively rack up score. Putting the player into tile debt, rather than starting at zero, ramped up the tension over time.
Falling when you have reserves due to movement isn't intentional. Blowing an enemy up within 4 tiles of you might make you fall if the tiles destoyed chain back toward you. Perhaps those should be covered by reserve tiles. Worth trying out.
@Quackqack As for the enemies spawning too close, I totally agree. In 2.0 I'm certainly gonna make the spawns more fair. Right now they actually serve a bit of a purpose in keeping the pressure up to break tiles, but it doesn't feel too fun or fair. I think perhaps this is better accomplished by having more fair spawns, and adding some more enemy variety in future iterations.
Thanks for the feedback!
@andrea Thanks! Totally agree with you. I think some kind of clear visual indicator would have been good to work in for when you're out of reserve tiles. I wasn't terribly in love with that display in the corner. Kind've draws the eye a bit too far from the action to be healthy.
@takayamushi I think you might be right on that. The instant fall from shooting too near yourself is pretty harsh. Delaying the time between when a tile starts to crumble and when you can fall through it would probably feel a lot better. Any blob detonation with a chain of 4 or less tiles that leads back to you has a chance to cause that to happen. If an enemy unexpectedly spawns near you, it is uncomfortably easy to fall into an instant game over. Being able to walk on a few frames of a crumbling foothold would probably feel a bit better.
Thanks for the feedback!
@kddressel That's a game mechanic that certainly deserves some exploration. Come to think of it the starting area is perhaps a bit too big. I was thinking about giving it a circular shape not too long ago. I can imagine that changing the starting tile arrangement would have a pretty drastic effect on the game flow. It's something I didn't really experiment with during those 48 hours, but I'm absolutely going to for 2.0.
Thanks!
@querk Thanks! Having played it more than anyone, I agree it certainly could do with a bit more depth of play in the long game. I should think a few more enemy types/behaviors, tile starting configurations, and perhaps even score goals to advance to new stage configurations might work to help alleviate a bit of the repetitiveness from playing the same 400 tile square every game. I've found in testing that altering the initial shape of the map has a rather dramatic effect on the game flow. I'm looking into more destabilizing elements to shake up the gameplay. I'm also playing around with the idea of powerups which add new abilities at the cost of consuming a small number of reserve tiles.
I feel like with a little time and experimentation, 2.0 is going to shape up well!
@birdwards Hey, thanks for the kind words!
I've been playing with a few branch builds of the game. I first focused on producing a better enemy spawner, but that made it painfully obvious that I'd need something a bit more threatening to the player.
I tried the brief delay on dropping the player when the floor is crumbling as well, and while it helped, it didn't feel quite right. In general, I found never destroying the immediate tile on which you are standing feels a lot better. But that made it even more apparent that there needs to be more pressure on the player to keep it interesting.
There are certainly a few dominant strategies, like the one you found, that are too safe to be interesting with less aggressively positioned spawns and self destruction prevention. To that end, I've been messing around with alternative forms of destabilization.
Some things I've been playing with in branch builds:
- Ranged enemy units. Though I'm not quite sold on their spawning rules yet. They certainly do keep you on your toes.
- A faster enemy unit which will avoid walking into pits until they have gotten within a certain distance of the player, where they will start to power up into a short dash (even over small pits) periodically. Right now they wait if they are isolated from the player, but try to get as close as possible.
- A better warning system regarding your reserve tile count.
- Adding tiles to your reserve only after they have fully crumbled. Good suggestion there birdwards! It became especially exploitable after suppressing tile destruction immediately underneath the player.
- A toggle to cycle between building and shooting mode. This was a pretty drastic change to the game flow that I've been toying with. The idea being that you don't rebuild footholds unless you specifically go into a building state at the cost of being able to fire shots. Adding a delay on your ability to transition between the two has been pretty fun. Could still use some work, but it does give some relevance to all the sparse pits one tends to make all over the place. When the pits aren't dangerous to you as you rapid fire to fill your reserves, it just doesn't feel quite right. Swapping between building and shooting as a deliberate decision makes the game feel more engaging. I think I might have to limit the amount of time one spends in the building state, perhaps with some recharge time mechanics in there.
- Creating more varied start conditions to see how they affect the gameplay. The game feels very different under different starting conditions. To keep the gameplay from becoming stale, I would even consider using stage transitions after meeting certain milestones (time survived on the current stage, perhaps?). It would also give a bit of breathing room to introduce ramping difficulty, rather than setting up your favorite dominant position and staying alive as long as possible, would you hop into a portal to go up to a new stage with less total footholds, different enemy spawning rules, or a less convenient map shape for a point multiplier increase? This opens the door to a lot of possibilities. Stages could be persistent, where one can fall form higher stages with big point gains to lower stages.
- Pickups. Currently just point boosters, but I should think I can change them into whatever feels right given the state of the game as I iterate upon it.
Balancing a sense of progressive destabilization of the playing field while keeping it fair is a bit tricky. Often I find that the best way to chase the desired "feel" of a game is to identify what is preventing you from evoking that "feel", be it something that you've made that gets in the way or something that is missing entirely. Splat out a few prototypes that you think might get you closer to that "perfect" version of the game and see what rings the most true.
Speaking of which...
The feedback here has been great in channeling my focus toward areas of improvement, thanks folks! I'll throw out a 2.0 bonus link when I've got juicy new mechanics at play.
@yorsh No disagreements here. I'd hoped to fit a few tutorial bits in there to explain the game in more detail, but just ran too short of time to make it happen. In the second version of the game, yet to be unleashed, I'm going to make sure to include a tutorial and improved user interface to make the scoring system more understandable. As some others have mentioned, the sudden deaths are likely the result of two game mechanics working in tandem to end games in a rather unfair manner. Namely, enemies which can spawn too close to the player, and the tile immediately underneath the player can be destroyed when a shot impacts an enemy near the player. When these two mechanics combine the player can lose quite suddenly. Both of these mechanics are seeing changes in 2.0.
Not sure why I didn't think to do it earlier, but I should probably add a bit of info about the scoring system in the description. Will do so now.
Thanks for the feedback!
@levidsmith I hear you! Explaining the way the game works as a wall of text wasn't my first choice. It's what I had time to throw in at the last moment of iterative development. On account of the game having a rather unconventional scoring system, a hands on tutorial would go a long way to making it clear how the system works. The HUD doesn't really do enough to show how the footholds, reserves, and scores relate to each other either. Improvements in both of those areas is assuredly going to go into the 2.0 version.
In general, the enemies don't "damage" you. The only way to lose is to fall off the stage. What they do is consume tiles out of your reserve tile pool. Your reserve tile pool multiplies your passive point generation over time for simply surviving, and is also used to replace walkable terrain. Having zero or a negative reserve pool means you won't be racking up any points. It forces you to shoot and sacrifice more tiles to transfer them into your reserve pool. When your reserves are positive it triggers point generation and the ability to passively rebuild tiles near you by spending reserves.
Over time, taking hits is going to reduce the overall number of tiles in the world, since you can't rebuild the world with tiles that the enemies eat out of your reserves. This makes it a lot trickier to avoid being hit. It also makes it a lot more likely that you will accidentally destroy a tile beneath you and end the round instantly, though that aspect is being changed in version 2.0 as it doesn't make for a particularly fun ending to a round. Tiles beneath the player will no longer be destroyed by player shots in version 2.0.
There is a certain balancing act to consider in Ludum Dare game building that I feel more clued into after this, my first, experience. While I think I got pretty close in this rapid prototype to achieving the feeling of the game that I wanted to make, it came at the cost of being too complicated to explain in a short period of time without a hands on tutorial. That's something I should probably take into consideration when the target audience is not going to be spending much more than a few minutes playing the game. A few 'first play' micropauses to highlight the results of actions like destroying tiles, hitting enemies directly, being hit by enemies, the ebb and flow of the reserve pool in relation to your score and so on will go a long way to making the game objective and obstacles more clearly understood. In many ways I think this game challenges years of conditioning that top down shooters have drilled into us. Recognizing that, I should try to make a more organic learning experience of how the game operates rather than shoving a wall of text on the title screen. This likely means rebuilding the HUD to work in tandem with a new in game tutorial.
Consider your point taken, haha! I'll be giving the game another proper pass sometime after the scoring period, though I've been messing with it ever since to improve upon it. I'm thinking that perhaps remaking it from the ground up, less hastily, will do it some justice.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll put it to good use in the next version!
The graphics, music, and audio are all really well done. The trigger was a bit hard to understand at first. I think a simplified shoot button would have done the game more justice. For the purposes of the LD, having an AI opponent option would have been nice too. When I played, I didn't happen to have anyone with me I could share the experience with.
Still though, this is a fantastic little game to settle and argument with. I'll probably give it a revisit the next time I have an irreconcilable difference with someone.
Pretty neat! Good job!
This piques my nostalgia for the top down action adventure games of old.
While the player character's sprite is very minimalist, they are very effective in representing motion. I thought that was pretty cool.
The game flow is pretty good. Fast character speed, short attack range and enemy speed make it a little difficult to avoid taking damage at times. However, that does open the game up to a good cadence of baiting out attacks and counterattacking with the slime enemies. The flying enemies could probably do with one less hit to defeat.
I encountered only one oddity while playing. I noticed you can interact with the detrimental dialogue gates more than once after making a selection. Not too big a deal, as you can just ignore them and move on after making a choice.
Good job on this one! It had a solid atmosphere around it which reminded me of older dungeon based adventure crawlers of this style. I had fun with it!
Satisfies that old school text-based role-playing game itch. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit playing games like this.
Sounds like you were a bit low on time to add features to this entry, but I'd say it's a pretty solid foundation for a larger text RPG grinder. The arms dealer should probably say something when there are no further upgrades to purchase. I also think I'd have liked to actually fight a big boss at the end. But I suppose that would have also required a bit more time to dial in the game balance. In general, the experience seemed a bit low risk. Just about the only time one feels a sense of danger is after purchasing an upgrade. Even then, I don't think the player's life points are likely to drop below 20.
I could see this going places though. A little compass based navigation. Quests to find new arms dealers. A trip or two to some dangerous dungeons (bunny dungeons... bungeons?). Some puzzle elements perhaps. Oh yeah, this could go places.
Bottom line though, it's pretty fun. Good sense of humor to it. Would love to see it expanded upon.
I'm a sucker for "what would you do" style games. This one has some impressive visuals. Good job on that Rodrigo!
I did 3 rounds of it. On the third I came to notice that it seemed like the events that I was encountering weren't built off of previous events. Choosing not to turn on the contact radio or explore the planet still resulted in a refugee alien event, which seemed a bit odd. Seeing some player agency to influence subsequent events helps sell the narrative experience. That said, the ending screen payoffs were pretty awesome! I got the planet BoB ending, the stranded in space ending, and the riot ending. That you managed to get 10 different endings in the game is impressive, especially if they're all drawn and written as well as the ones I've seen.
Good stuff! I've only run into one other game in this genre in LD44, and I wish there were more of them!
I rather like the day/night cycle thing you've got going in this game. The audio was quite good as well.
I did have some trouble with getting stuck though. I couldn't quite figure out why, but the player character would sometimes stick to surfaces.
The stun time on being hit is also a bit much. A good number of times where I took a hit during the mining phase turned into chain hit deaths, even with relatively few enemies involved.
Otherwise I think this game is pretty interesting. Will have to give it a revisit soon.
Making a fighting game is a daunting task in its own right. Doing so in an unfamiliar language is doubly difficult. Stack onto that that it's a 48 hour compo entry, and it's actually rather impressive how much you got in there.
A number of modern fighting games have taken to making use of mutators on the game rules to add some spice to the game play. The power up system here is a nice take on that mechanic.
The opponents in this game actually remind me a bit of bonus stages in fighting games. Those intermittent bits in fighting games where you break barrels, wood planks, deflect flying knives, etc.
As it stands its pretty fun. The spike guy wrecked me in a corner.
With a more time, this game could be pretty awesome.
Good job!
This experience oozes with the theme of this Ludum Dare and sets a strong mood. That music was perfect. You'd mentioned you were playing with 2D lighting in this one, and I'd say it turned out pretty well.
Good job! I await the spam E-mail, haha!
This makes for a pretty cool card game. I'd say it's a very solid foundation for more content to be added.
There isn't much to criticize about this one, it plays well.
I think we both likely ran into the same time trap regarding visual feedback for actions taken. In Contract Cleric, I didn't get particle effects done in time to signal a successful heal. In ShellShark, the floating text for when units are hit is nice, but doesn't draw much attention to the sources and recipients of damage. If you're paying attention to what the creature cards do, this isn't too big a deal. Though it'd be nice to see the crab hit a target on his left or right diagonal, or have a visual representation of the narwhal's piercing effect. I certainly fell into that trap harder than you did, haha.
In such a short development cycle that's probably outside the scope of what there was time to implement. If you continue with this project, which I hope you do, maybe calculating the damage values and showing some preview arrows before ending the turn would be a worthy addition. Given the underwater motif, I could see this being a pretty neat campaign driven card game.
The card art was great. The Bob art was even better! I'm glad I looked up at him to see that shirt and tie. It gave me a laugh.
Good job!
The visual appeal of the game is very strong. I found that the basic sword that you start with is a bit too powerful when upgraded a good amount. However, when I played with other weapons the game felt a lot more balanced. I ran into only one real issue, which was that the slime guys can push the player through closed doors, locking them out of progressing any further. Not really a big deal though. That's what I get for cowering near doorways.
This game was fun, the audio was good, the mood was properly atmospheric for a dark hellscape, and the theme was well represented.
I'd count that as quite a successful game! Good job!
Once again, cute characters making difficult decisions. You've really got this self-reflective micro-narrative thing down to a science.
The graphical and audio elements do well to set the mood. A bit more buildup to the flower decision might have been good. Life is full of people who will try to sell you on the "right" way to live, it may have been a good opportunity to add more characters and dialogue to the game. I don't know that the experience needs to be any longer, but adding a bit more biased dialogue might help provoke more thought and add weight to the player's decision.
As it is, I'd say it works just fine in achieving that state of mind. It's more that I've been playing primarily action games for the jam in rapid succession, so this experience came as a bit of a sudden change of mood. I suppose that's not a bad thing.
Short, but with great impact.
Good job!
It's killing me that I don't remember the name of the game, but this game reminds me of another game where you manage a company building and employees. I haven't seen the game mentioned in the comments yet. That's going to bother me for a while.
In any event, this is a pretty fun game. Looks good, sounds good, and plays well.
I found there were a few times where I had nothing to manage. Typically after all my floor slots were filled, I didn't have anything to do but collect money and wait for new hires, unless the floor was already being worked to near capacity. The game I mentioned earlier solved this issue by causing stations to breakdown over time, requiring attention from an IT department that could be micromanaged.
Still though, in 48 hours this game managed to recover a memory of a game I loved.
I may not be able to remember what that game was called, but this game scratched that itch of mine.
Good job! Pretty awesome to see an office/company management simulator game after such a long time.
Seemed to work just fine for me on the HTML version.
I found it difficult to notice when I was being attacked though while using the tractor beam. If there was more time I figure a little audio signal would've been perfect for that. Repairing the ship is a bit prohibitive when the cost scaled with the amount of damage taken. It might help the game flow a bit to have a 1 cost repair and a full repair option.
The visuals and user interface in this game a quite good. The dock for the shop screen is a nice touch. Also, the people looked like delicious freezer pops, and I approve of that.
It's fun, good job!
Slick looking game! I feel like the turning radius threw me into the borders rather often, but that's likely just a result of trying to go too fast into curves. I thought I was going pretty fast to get a time of 3m10s but it seems some folks have it down to around 2m30s, yowza!
Anyway, the graphical elements of this game are really slick looking. Given more time, I think a few of them would be better served as 3D models integrated into the track rather than floating 2D sprites above it. Given there was a hard limit on time though, I'd say the use of 2D objects was just fine. They're all well drawn.
Audio is good! I do love me some developer voice-overs. Would like to have had more lines recorded.
I dig the amount of 3D animation you got in there as well. Hopping into the car at the start was a pretty cool touch. I also liked that you folks got the blood gauge animated when braking. Just a couple polished subtleties that I thought were pretty awesome.
Good job folks!
Quite a cool game. Though I didn't see it myself, it's pretty awesome that you managed to sneak a second ending into the game. I love when a game manages to fit polished elements like that in. I think the game could use a little more feedback when taking or dealing damage. It was just a little difficult to notice when damage was being dealt.
Had fun with this one, good job!
It's got to be said, this is one good looking game. You managed to make quite a lot of 3D assets and do a good amount of scene dressing in this game. Wow.
If you're familiar with the game 'Overcooked', this game gives me a bit of a vibe for that game in terms of potential. Running around collecting ingredients and then serving them up to order makes for a fun game mechanic. I think the potion making process could have used a few additional steps to increase the complexity of the game. The hard time limit of 1 minute is a bit restrictive too in terms of going for a hi-score, as Evan M pointed out. It felt like it was over before I got started.
That said, I think this game has a lot of potential. Potions that can be used to streamline the potion making process would be interesting. Maybe in addition to potions to be completed and sold, some potions are consumed for bonuses! How about a potion that you can splash to make a portal between two locations for a duration? Speed boost brews? Slow down time (increase game length) with a brew? I could see this game easily being expanded upon!
The wizard hat wearing roller-skate wolf was enough of a hook for me. 10/10 character design. I wonder, I suppose there wasn't much time to animate the wolf, is that why he's on skates? If so, that's a happy accident for the time constraints, haha. I think the skates are rather endearing.
Seems like a solid foundation for a "made to order" style game. Good job!
A pretty solid card game foundation I'd say. I'm glad that you're continuing development on it a bit. The post-Compo version has some nice improvements over the original!
I think the one change I'd like to see more than anything is a means to burn cards out of the deck permanently. Though I suppose if the player has access to burning cards too often that could be a bad thing. That's the thing with card games I suppose. Takes a while to dial in the right game balancing measures.
The art is pretty cool, and the audio is solid. As others have mentioned, a little mood music would go a long way. For a Compo entry, I never seem to find the time myself to even attempt music. Maybe that's a goal for LD45.
I'm going to have to revisit this one later to see if I can't top my previous score. I know I can do better!
Good job on this submission!
I love premise of this game. The court size is just about perfect to keep the player constantly engaged. While I'm certain there was no time for it but some player character models, even very simple ones formed out of primitive shapes, would have been nice. I don't think anyone can fault those not being in though. The geometry and textures of the court, hoops, and confetti crowd were plenty in the graphics department. The user interface looks quite slick as well. That logo is awesome.
At most, I might have toned down the accuracy on shots from long range. It's a bit too easy to land full court shots. Speaking of shots, I love the exaggerated jump height and high arcing shots. It reminds me of "NBA Jam", a basketball game I used to love.
I don't know if you plan to continue with this project, but I'd say this game has 4 player party game written all over it. If it was ever to go so far as to have online multiplayer, I think this is a fantastic candidate for it. Throw in quarter breaks and apply bonuses for the team which is ahead, and also bonuses for the player on a team which is behind and you've got a formula for a sweet online party game. Who doesn't want to steal credit from a friend for an otherwise perfectly accurate shot with an unnecessary alley-oop? Just a thought that popped in my head while playing. I'm just spit-balling ideas here.
Great job! Super cool idea. Would love to see this one explored further. It's already fun as it stands.
Classic shmup style, I like it. I do think that the base ship is a sluggish, but after a few upgrades it starts to feel better. That aside, the graphics and audio are nicely done.
Good job!
This has a really classic arcade game feel to it. Though the formula is simple, in that you just collect stuff, reach a goal and don't get caught. This formula is proven fun. The implementation here is good too.
The sprites are well drawn, the audio is on point and the game mechanics are fair and functional.
I'll agree that the game is a bit too hard, but probably only because of my own impatience. If you take the time to lure the children away before making a dive for the hardest to get coins it's not overly difficult.
I'll say this, having read your profile: Had I seen this game available in a plastic bag on a hook in my local computer store when I was a kid and bought it, I would not have been unhappy with the purchase.
Good job!
Beautiful looking game. I knew going into it that it'd be an uphill battle, as my voice never works with voice recognition properly.
So I improvised. I played this game using a harmonica! That made it much more fun! I won't say the audio detection was perfect, but it was good enough.
Quite a brave decision going for this form of control scheme. Very innovative.
Certainly one of the most memorable submissions I've encountered.
Good job!
@christina-antoinette-neofotistou
Oh, is that so! I figured during the short development cycle it couldn't have been THAT complicated. I thought it was listening for a pattern in the volume of whatever sound it was supplied. Like a hard "P" at the start of "Pon" or the consistent "ah" sound in "Wah". The shooting seemed to work alright with my voice, but I had trouble with the reload. I suppose going just by volume isn't a bad way to do things. It's a pretty compelling bit of player agency to have them calibrate the inputs themselves.
I'm headed to the library later today. I'll make sure to give this game a retest while I'm there.
(You'll be happy to know that it actually works pretty well with a harmonica!)
I've had high praise for games in the Ludum Dare that deliver "complete" experiences. Any game that has a beginning, middle and end to it's structure built in a quick game jam is something special. However, the integrated narrative throughout the whole experience makes this game stand out even among those "complete" experiences. Had the game just been a series of runner/platform segments, that would've been plenty. Threading the story into the game play itself, and rewarding the player for completing these segments with more story beautifully drawn interludes made it a whole lot more satisfying.
The driving desire to know what happens next was present here. That story hook was well utilized to grab and hold my attention throughout the whole game. The heavy use of voice-over was pretty cool to see as well. The visual style, voice-overs, and music (which was also amazing) really help set the mood. This game oozes style.
I have to dig pretty deep to find criticism for this game, but for the sake of it I'll try to offer up some kind of feedback in that regard. The level designs were all quite good. They were just varied enough that the game didn't feel stale at any point. There were a number of times though when I felt I was making "leap of faith" jumps. The game teaches the player that there are deadly pits they want to avoid, but also has them intentionally jump or fall into areas not currently visible to the player. During the bull chase scene I also think it'd be cool to try to fit more of the bull in frame as well to keep the tension up. When you manage to keep it mostly off camera it isn't quite as exciting as when you can see it's still coming for you. Both of these issues can be solved with a bit of play using camera zoom during each affected moment.
That's pretty much all I can come up with regarding criticism, and even that felt a bit forced. This submission is rock solid. Loved pretty much everything about it!
Great job Loki, you have outdone yourself!
:trophy: :dog2:
The rest of you did pretty darn well too, so don't sell yourselves short. :clap_tone3:
That was a very polished experience. The pixel art was incredible, the soundtrack was catchy, the work/play dichotomy was really good for the mood and theme. Bit of a sad ending. I even wrote a letter to Sarah at work to apologize for not being the man she deserved, and that I would try to spend more time with her and the kids. She still left me. :(
Well my digital marriage may be ruined, but this game sure isn't. Good job!
The addition of collection combos in this game made it a lot more fun than it otherwise would have been. Good innovation there.
The game looks good. Though if there was time for it an infinite background would have been a nice addition. I found myself creeping closer to the left when the police started to ramp up, which got me to a point where I'd see the characters running into the no-background abyss.
The audio is solid. The developer voice-over helped sell the mood and added some humor to the game's otherwise rather dark theme. The music is upbeat to match the game play as well.
The theme is well represented. The game is fun. What more is there to say?
Good job on this one!
Graphics and audio on this one are good. The game play is really quite fun.
The skills are all interesting, though I found I was using pretty much only the transfusion and explode skills after things got hectic. The sword and bow could do with some sort of additional effect to keep them relevant in the long game. Off the top of my head, maybe the sword triggers a temporary defense boost upon hitting a target? Perhaps the arrow spreads a movement speed reduction to enemies near the target hit?
Rather than cycling through skills to use them, I think the control scheme would be better served by binding individual abilities to different keys.
All nitpicking aside, this is a pretty awesome game! The corpse explode mechanic is proven fun, and this is a good implementation of it. It worked in Diablo, and it works here.
Good job! Would love to see this project continued.
The mercenary and enemy characters are well animated. The sound effects for all the laser guns are good. Shooting mechanics are spot on and feel satisfying. Really all this game needs is more content and balance tweaks. I never really felt like my crew was in danger. But that's nothing a little more time in development couldn't fix. Maybe the companion characters aim a little too well. It is a bit easy in that sense. Perhaps there just aren't hard enough missions or destabilizing elements to get the adrenaline pumping. Once you get a few crew members stacked on top of each other, you can clear the hardest mission without firing a shot. A few bullet sponges, tunneling enemies, or enemies that require positioning changes would be awesome in a game like this.
For 48 hours, this is a pretty darn solid game. There isn't much to add that you haven't already mentioned in your own development section on this page.
Fantastic foundation for a top down shooter with campaign elements. Kudos!
Very fun game. Quite a lot of movement and enemy variety keep the game interesting. Easy to pick up, hard to put down.
Good job!
The minimalist sprites work well for this game. It's cute. The mechanics are easy to pick up on, and the game play is pretty fun.
I eventually settled into a dominant strategy. I blocked myself in with a highly upgraded tower and was more or less 100% safe. I stopped around wave 58 because I noticed the game was slowing down from all the zombies. So I took the strategy a bit farther. Since a single tower was so powerful, it seemed like more towers would net more benefit than investing heavily into a single tower. I didn't take it as far, but I could notice that the zombies would have to spawn at a rather insane rate to deal with 12 enclosed towers upgraded 3 times each.
I think the game pace could do with some adjustment. Once you manage to achieve a stable setup, there is little incentive to ever leave safety.
CoL-D.png
My towers cannot be damaged insofar as I know. My character cannot be damaged. The kill rate is high enough that the game won't start to choke for quite some time. Perhaps the game pace needs to have room for a build or repair phase between waves coupled with structure degradation. If towers and walls naturally break down the player has reason to take risks to try to achieve a stable position. In the screenshot above, I couldn't escape my own fort even if I wanted to. I watched this setup run to wave 50, and the zombies could not even reach the wall. I don't think more big zombies would change that.
I think the foundation here is very solid. Just a few tweaks here and there would go a long way to playing to this game's strengths, which seem to be mostly in the uncertain beginnings. It feels good early on to be collecting the life shards and spending them on towers to try to find stability. Being chased while collecting bricks from afar is also a good and tense moment the game offers. Wouldn't hurt to crank up the destabilization factor a bit.
Hope you continue with this one silvervalegames. It's on the brink of going from good to amazing.
Good job!
Quite a fun card game. I rather like the upgrade and health regeneration mechanics. I missed out on the upgrade mechanic the first time I played, but the second time I played, it felt pretty good.
The trumpet fanfare, while nice, is a bit much after 72 rounds, haha. I think both our games ran into a repetitive audio trap, but at least your game wasn't quite as ear piercing as mine.
I think a display for ones' current health and regeneration would be handy if you continue development on it. It's difficult to tell how much health I will lose from playing a card or taking a hit.
I think this game has a lot of room for expansion, which is pretty cool.
Overall it's a pretty original game, and fun to boot I like that. Good job!
The weasel models and animations are cute! I could not bring myself to shoot any of them. The shop upgrades didn't feel meaningless, which is good. I also rather liked the gem hunt. I spent a few minutes trying to make the first set of pillar jumps without the boot upgrade, so when I did get it, it gave me a sense of satisfaction. That there was something at all to get in the previously inaccessible areas was good design.
Like some of the others, I didn't see much use for the gun. I imagine much of the time went into creating the environment, but this game would feel even better with audio. Nothing quite like a developer doing their best weasel noise. What do they even sound like? I haven't spent much time around weasels. It's a shortcoming in my life that this game has helped fill.
Quite a lot of ground to explore for a Compo game, well done!
Pretty neat game. The graphics and atmosphere are good for a "what would you do" style game, though a little mood music or audio would've been nice. Even if it was just lonely keystroke audio.
It'd have been nice to have a little feedback on what each decision would do from a cost perspective. Since the end result seems to be contingent upon keeping your resources above zero, partial information about at least the financial and welfare resource would have been good. Keeping the total results of an action hidden is still probably a good idea. I managed to tweet my way to a game over screen once because I assumed it would have no real cost.
The decisions asked of the player are good, and I'd say the game captures how dangerous indie developer life is. Was pretty funny too, for what is ultimately a tough way of life for some. If the project was to continue, it'd be cool to see some end screens about the game's reception and the developer's well-being.
Cool game, good job!
This game is fun, but I think the game balance is a bit off. After playing it for a little bit, I started to notice the element of danger quickly vanished. I think I've figured out why that may be the case.
The katana is overwhelmingly powerful for its cost, I never felt like I had to switch from this weapon. After entering the battle screen, it's possible to win without doing anything but left clicking, without regard to character facing with the katana. The BP loss from taking a hit is a too low after the first battle. Without attempting to dodge at all, you are assuredly going to come out with more BP than you entered with using this strategy. The zombies are rarely alive (or rather... undead) long enough to do any significant damage after the first battle using only the club. After the first outing, coming back to the fight screen with the katana is a bit game breaking.
The pistol, though more cost effective than the shotgun, is far more destructive since enemies tend to approach in lines. Though if you accept hits from the zombies to let them bunch up, the shotgun starts to outperform the pistol. Different weapons for different situations, I suppose. But because the zombies only come from one or the other side, the shotgun sees limited applications.
I think with a difficulty hike and maybe a few less predictable vectors for the zombies to attack from, this game would be pretty awesome.
The art is good. The music is excellent. I definitely got the Doom vibe from the music. Props for making perfect zombie killing music!
Pretty good overall, I'd say. Probably just needs a couple of tweaks to up the panic factor.
@norris-eldridge
I hear ya. 48 hours is exactly enough time to get overly ambitious! Hope you continue with this one. I think it has a lot of potential.
One of the best looking games I've seen in this LD. Music and mood are awesome. The game balance seems to be quite good. I played it about 10 times and all of them ended in close matches.
I figure there wasn't time for it, but it would've been cool if the cards themselves had individual sound effects when used.
Had a lot of fun with this one!
I gave the web version a shot, but had to swap to the Windows build as well for the same reason as Melmo. The inputs for the hacking mini-game don't appear on the web version.
The graphics and mood tie in well together. I remember seeing one of these machines in just about every arcade I visited, though I don't think I ever saw one used. This game is has a very unique premise, which is pretty cool. I think it's a good take on the theme.
The distortion vignette on the camera did make it slightly difficult to read the text on the board behind Zoltanya and on the customers. It wasn't impossible to read, but disabling or fading out that distortion to better see the text and symbols would be nice.
This game was pretty interesting. Hope you can find time to fix the web version's display bug. I think some folks might miss out if they play a broken version of the game.
Took me a bit to get into the swing of it, but I got used to the control scheme in this one. It's quite fun once you start to get the hang of it. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I rather like that you can issue another jump while in midair after colliding with a surface.
The graphics in this game are pretty awesome. It really sets a good mood with the lighting. The character blob looks properly bouncy and slimy, right down to the impact particles. The wall of doom and game mover screen are both really well done as well. The spikes can be hard to see under some conditions. Perhaps they need to be brightened.
The music floats well with the pace of the game. It doesn't get annoying after many rounds of play, and adds a little tension. The sound effects are quite good as well. I especially like that you put in audio and visual queues for when the heartbeat and oxygen gauge get low.
I can't really think of a whole lot of things to criticize about this game. Maybe a few of the high and middle road passages are a bit too tight a squeeze for good character movement, but in general avoiding places like that when racing forward is probably healthy for the game flow.
It's a tough game, but the good kind of tough. This game makes you want to try for a better result right after you die. After many slime monster men died in order for me to get the hang of it, I scored a 541.
Good job on this one folks!
@anion-z
The controls weren't really awkward in any way. Just the more you play it the more second nature it becomes to manage the resources. That's what I meant by getting into the swing of it.
Wall jumping sounds great. I can imagine some verticality to the level design in a game like this.
Your pixel art sprites are stellar. The music is good. The user interface is clean. The presentation is great.
I did manage to beat the boss on my first try by going all in on damage and resistance, which felt a bit too easy. Using other setups gave some better variant game balance, ranging from a nail biting close battle to a crippling and swift defeat. I also think it would be better if the shots fired tracked the mouse cursor position rather than firing at an offset, but that's a minor thing to adjust.
With the minor nitpicks aside, this is a very fun game! Who doesn't love a good boss battle? They're often the climax of a play experience, so building a whole game around one isn't too shabby an idea. With the varied attack patterns, this one feels pretty good.
Great job! I had fun with this one!
@saering
Ah, I think I figured it out. Camera movement from shake, knock backs, and boss movement alter aim naturally. But what I couldn't quite put my finger on was why some shots seemed slightly off aim.
I kept the player character still and fired a stream of shots looking for deviation, but what I found is that it's the orientation of the shots that makes the difference. I tried to take the screenshot when there was no camera shake, camera zooming, camera panning, or character movement. I marked roughly the position of the cursor with a red cross mark.
RashnessShotOrigin.png
It wasn't that the shots were affected by an offset, I just didn't notice that the shots' origin point was deviated slightly when firing in certain directions. It doesn't really affect the game play much. The deviation is so slight that it's pretty unlikely to result in an otherwise hit turning into a miss.
I now have to resume trying to land that one in ten-thousand shot.
Many attempts, but no success in landing the instant kill. I'm nothing if not tenacious!
This game is pretty addictive, haha!
It's been said before, the visual appeal of this game is fantastic. This game has a relaxing feel to it.
Took me a moment to get a hold of the game mechanics. Using the sky as a world map is pretty clever, though I found it a bit difficult to notice the blue pixel that represented me at first.
As I started to figure it out, I ran into a glitch where every sailor I touched seemed to transport me on contact without hitting an interact key. I think it was always triggering the currency -> life interaction with sailors on contact.
All that notwithstanding, this is one of the most appealing games I've played so far in this Compo.
Excellent game!
The audio and visual presentation is good. The game play is enjoyable. There isn't a whole lot to say, it's just a pretty good game.
I started out disliking the high knock back on the base weapon, I felt it pushed creatures too far back. Then I got the knock back upgrade. While it did lead to a couple frustrating moments of having enemies sent overly far away from me, I came to love the fact that it sent them to the moon while doing it. Wouldn't change a thing!
Good job on this one folks!
This game has a really old school vibe to it, which is cool. Exactly the type of game folks would play in the dead of the night with all the lights off, at least until they looked at the clock and realized how much time had passed. I like the mechanic of moving the incoming debris rather than simply destroying it. I didn't feel like I ran into too many situations where using the shield mechanic was worth it. More often than not the trade seemed to be "take one damage to avoid one damage". Could be that I just didn't use it properly.
Pretty fun though. There is a box of old games somewhere in my house that is full of games where this would fit right in.
The aesthetic is lovely. The theme is well represented. The game is easy to pick up.
I found that I was either grossly behind or far ahead of the amount needed to complete a level. Dialing in on game balance is difficult for a procedural game in 48 hours, but the foundation is solid to build upon.
Good job on this one! Looks delicious. If it was edible, I'd eat it.
The story was a little too real about predatory mobile games, haha!
I'm not much of a match-3 or match-4 player. That whole genre escapes me, but this seems as good an implementation of it than any. Colorful, both visually and in narrative.
Good job! Had fun with it!
Pretty neat. I'd like to echo the feedback that the buttons are a bit too strict in their weight requirement. I wish there were more stages with additional mechanics. The extra stage introduced those % obstacles, which was interesting. Unfortunately the game ended immediately after that stage. More things like that would help make the game meatier.
Probably just needed a few more hours for additional stages and content. However, it's not a bad foundation upon which to continue the project. Good job!
The game looks very clean. The visual appeal is crisp. The added bit of polish with the fish emerging from underwater to jump at the UFO is nice.
Phew, this is a tough game! -10 sushi per hit taken is a bit harsh, as it seems difficult to avoid being hit. That said, after a few attempts I managed to beat it by constantly moving to the right and rapidly alternating my fire direction from left to right. During a few of the progression steps I'm not entirely sure I noticed a difference in the firing arc of the UFO's weapon. I suppose it is likely that it had some effect I didn't notice while whipping my mouse back and forth.
Pretty good foundation for a game though. Just needs a bit of balance adjustment. If you were to go forward with it I'd suggest adding some defensive options as a more engaging alternative to the "fly in one direction and fire in two" strategy. Perhaps all that is needed is a little more telegraph time between fish appearing from off screen and slamming into the player.
Given how pretty the game is, I could see myself coming back to it with a few tweaks. Good job!
This game is pretty fun. One thing I've always found important with puzzle games that have failure states is that it's good to have a fast means of getting back to the game play. Very good call on adding a reset button. The first potion does a good job of helping predict the impact location of the other potions. Short of having a projectile arc tracer on screen while holding the button, this is a pretty elegant way to cut down the frustration of missed shots.
This is a very solid foundation for a puzzle platform game. A good bit of humor mixed in there as well. Perhaps Erdanon should've focused on stopping the bleeding and using conventional means of travel rather than bleeding his way through his quest. What a tragic story. Don't mess with the dark arts!
I would love to see more stages and potions.
Good job, and I hope you're feeling better after being ill!
@notb @pvp That's exactly what I was going for! Thanks!
@mika-la-grand
That's one of the features I regret not being integrated directly into the game. With the clock running short I was forced to settle for ability text descriptions outside of the game, which is never ideal.
The original plan was to use character banter to gradually introduce the abilities, but I was forced to scrap it for lack of time. The system was nearly ready, but I had no time to actually populate it with dialogue and timing it needed to fit the game.
While I'd prefer to have put in an organic means of learning what each ability does, I'm not sure that it's within the rules to go back and add in a "How to Play" button and page before the game to give a breakdown of the abilities and objective.
I'll see if I can't get a controls diagram to throw on this page with some ability descriptions. For now, I'll have to rely on the written ability breakdown on this page.
Thanks for the feedback!
@Yngvarr
Oh yeah, totally agree with you on that. In the game files I had quite a few particles ready to go, but just no time to actually rig them up with the skills. I'd hoped to get some generic particles for when the cleric is casting, particles for when the skills complete, and in the case of the third ability, a visible leash between the cleric and the target so it was more obvious when the range was broken.
Thanks for the feedback!
@dooda
Fair point on the audio. One thing I didn't get around to was normalizing the audio so that it isn't so much of an ear bleed. It's still a sight better than when, about halfway through development, I thought it would be a good idea to put in damage audio. Phew, that was a nightmare! :laughing:
I think most games that use audio for casting keep the audio low key because you're usually constantly using them. Since I didn't get a casting animation or effects going, I just generated a few sound effects to try to bridge the gap between pushing a button and seeing results. This was done probably a bit too hastily. The audio gets the point across, but a few of the sounds are too shrill. The charged heal has a nasty audio click at the end that I should probably cut out.
That this is one of your favorite submissions for this round makes me quite happy to hear. :v:
Thanks for the feedback!
@kevin-liu @exewin
Good call on injecting humor into the game. There is a little code in there I used for testing to spawn enemies in a set sequence, which was meant to double as a means to have the characters banter with each other. I very much on purpose didn't give Sir Whale a shield, haha. I had a few ideas floating around like Fatstacks the Hunter leaving to get arrows every so often, however I didn't have time to balance the game around these things or write all the dialogue and script the encounters to allow for less activity for the player to read the text. Something to think about for the next version.I'd like to get closer to the original idea which had some story to it, stage transitions, flying enemies, things to dodge to avoid casting interruption, and a couple boss encounters. I got pretty ambitious, and toward the end of the time limit forced myself to scope down.
Oh, and the game is tough as nails exewin, haha. It is winnable though! Sometimes a bad encounter and split damage output can be nigh on impossible to recover from. In theory an encounter can scale to infinity enemies, which is something I'd like to put safeguards in against for a future version.
Thanks for the feedback and kind words!
@exewin
Oh snap, you beat it? Shoot, guess I'll need to get working on the enhanced edition.
@exewin
Ah, what you ran into wasn't so much a bug, but a situation which isn't handled. There are scripted breakpoints to give the player time to clear the enemies on screen, though the total number of enemies that can spawn are based on uncapped dice rolls. Enemies will spawn until the enemy generator rolls a "break" encounter. The plan for the one skeleton + "clear all enemies" encounter is that using the character banter system that didn't make the final cut, the knight and hunter would refuse to pay the cleric if the last enemy on the board is a skeleton. I didn't have enough time to telegraph that this was happening, so I left it as it is. When I make the enhanced edition I'll be closing this loophole.
Good eye spotting that though! I was hoping that most folks wouldn't notice that exploitable spawning behavior.
Study hard! Good luck with that exam!
@caleb
Good call on the character spacing. I'll see what I can do about improving visibility in the enhanced edition. A bit of feedback I got outside of the comment section to that end is that it would be nice to see some more visual feedback on who is currently being attacked and by how many enemies. If I play around with layering and perhaps put in a bit of a depth difference to the characters in the scene, I think I can better show the player how many enemies are currently attacking a character.
An in game tutorial and tooltips to show the current state of an ability are absolutely on the expanded feature list. I never leave enough time for that kind of thing in game jams! :laughing:
Thanks for the feedback!
@copper-aardvark-games
Hey, glad you liked it! I'm feeling energized to work on a bigger and better version of the game. I'm not sure if I should wait till after the voting period or start messing with it now and throw out updates in a separate link on this page.
Thanks for the kind words!
@scottyseus
Thanks! I just saw the title of your jam game and I've got to admit, I can't not give it a try. You've got quite a hook in the title, haha. Will have a look as soon as I've got a free moment.
@c0d3d
You can't please everyone! No sweat. Plenty of people don't find healing enjoyable in MMORPGs, which is what this game is wholly modeled after. It makes sense that this game wouldn't appeal to everyone. There are a couple ways to exploit the enemy spawns that can make the game a bit stale too, as exewin discovered. If the player bypasses these tricks, the general intensity of the game is on average very high, though still prone to randomness. I'll be making sure to add some spice to the enhanced version to make the game flow much more lively.
All feedback is good feedback!
@tddawson
Glad you had fun with it! I had quite a lot of plans for moving the cleric around, but at least right now the cleric's movement only affects [3] Regenerative Leash. After the cast is finished, the effects lasts 10 seconds or until the affected target is out of range. It's possible for you or your ally to run out of range and break the heal over time effect. I'd have hoped to telegraph this more with some visual feedback (as with all the abilities). In the enhanced version, visual feedback is certainly going to be a thing.
I ran out of time well in advance of getting around to it, but the intention was to add some flying enemies that would drop bombs the cleric had to dodge. The bombs would interrupt casting and cause the cleric to become increasingly dizzy after subsequent hits. Thing is, the pressure of finishing something cohesive in the time limit made me cut the idea. In addition to all the assets and code to rig it up, I'd have to find a way to balance the game around being interrupted, which I felt hurt the overall balance in the game I'd already established.
Thanks for the kind words and feedback! I'll get that skill tutorial into the followup version!
@jimbly
Haha, thanks! Yeah, the 1 skeleton thing is patched out in a more recent version of the game I'm working on. Your allies will refuse to pay you if only skeletons remain. Since the character banter boxes weren't done in time, I didn't have a way to tell the player that was what was happening, so I left it out. All the same though, the game is tough as nails, so having one exploit in there helped test the win condition! The newer version of the game is going to do away with the old win condition and instead use stage transitions to tell a story from start to finish.
Good call on the cast time animations. The border color difference is difficult to notice. I'll try going from a one pixel dithered color change to something like a hot orange 3 pixels wide. On top of that, I'll be getting a proper casting animation in with some visual feedback. Some of the new stuff I'm adding requires more attention to player movement, so I think it will be important to try to draw the player's attention away from the skill bar once they're used to it.
If the theme is good for it, maybe I'll do a "Contract Necromancer" game next time. A skeleton in every home, and soon you will rule the world! :skull:
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the feedback! :v:
Nice take on a resource management game. I came in expecting a clicker game. After a few goes I managed to score an 8.
The graphics are fantastic. Wouldn't mind sprite work like that in my own submission!
The audio is good. The music and sound effects are appropriate without being overbearing.
Many games I see that are similar to this one focus entirely on securing permanent upgrades for characters as they march to the right. Though there are only two affected attributes, health and attack speed, I think it works to this game's advantage. Being able to redistribute the resource from a character made this game a lot more interactive than many of the other games that I've played like this one. Using the same resource to act as player scoring was also a good way to improve replay value. I find this pretty innovative and fun.
Great job on this one! I enjoyed it quite a bit!
Pretty cool top-down shooter. Graphics and audio are both good. I too found the player movement just a bit slow. It's a bit difficult to gain extra oxygen to spend when the player movement is so slow. Perhaps crediting the last oxygen tank to the player when the final enemy is defeated will help with this? I had to play the game multiple times to afford and experiment with the different weapons, as I tended to break even on oxygen otherwise.
With just a couple tweaks up up the game pace I think this one is in a pretty good spot.
Good job!
Pretty darn good platform game. If it was just waltzing through a cave fighting giant monster rats, that would have been plenty be sufficient.
This did a bit more, in my eyes. The mood is well set with the music and visuals. Enemy placement, though in a few cases a bit harsh did well to keep me on my toes. That you have secret areas in your level design is pretty awesome. I felt pretty good about finding one such area. The unexpected "boss" battle at the end was rather neat too, though I'll admit I beat him by using the little ledge left of him to block his movement. I was pretty low on coins by that point to take him head on.
Felt like a pretty complete experience overall. Well executed!
It's a good looking game, but could use some balance tweaks. I fell into the same type of play that JoshAnthony1990 mentioned. It seems like the best way to survive is to focus entirely on dodging and avoid shooting. With a few adjustments to the fuel economy I think the game flow will come together nicely.
The user interface elements and game models are pretty slick. The game is pretty visually appealing. I figure with a parallax background it will look even better.
I'd say you've got a pretty solid foundation for a side scrolling space shooter here. It just needs a bit more experimentation regarding game balance and stage design to really take off.
Good job!
Pretty cool online quiz style game. The unexpected nature of the results of your decisions keeps you guessing, and leaves you with a complete little story. Even if the results often feel very random, the player's agency in making decisions makes it a lot more fun. My little simulacrum may have died broke and unpopular, but at least he was happy!
Good job!
This makes for a pretty good puzzle platform game. The art is good, and the storyboard intro and ending is cool. I find the aim and shoot mechanic is fine, though I probably would rebind the keys to my own taste. Shift + X felt a bit clunky to me. The moving platforms were also a bit tricky to jump off of when they were going down, but that's not too much of an issue given that the main mechanic is to use gold bars to gain extra height.
I loved that you managed to work a boss battle in at the end. I spent a good amount of time on the left side of the room shooting it before I realized I could walk through him. It went a long way to making this feel like a complete experience. It's nice when LD games manage to work in a beginning, middle and end to their games.
Good stuff! Good job!
I played one much like it in LD43 wherein you'd use your character bodies as footholds to progress. Though I think I enjoyed this one more. The saw blade obstacles, buttons, and conveyor belts add some spice to the formula. The currency twist in this one for unlocking levels is a good take on the theme, and adds something to the replay value of the game. The level design here is really solid.
Could do with a level reset button to cut losses and start over when playing a stage. I managed to leave enough bodies in one stage to make it difficult to clear on the first attempt, which snowballed against me.
Solid game, well done!
This game has a classic arcade game feel to it. The game mechanics are fun and well implemented. The flowing backdrops do a good job of selling the forward motion of the ship, which gives it a real sense of speed.
This game really made me want to play Space Harrier or Afterburner. That's not a bad thing!
Good job!
You've certainly killed it on setting a strong ambiance. The low light environment and music go a long way toward setting the mood.
Level design is alright, though I found that some of the passages can be a bit narrow which had me crouch jumping quite a bit. Not too big a deal, honestly. The game is solid.
Congratulations on completing your first LD! I'd say you did pretty good!
Wow, you crammed quite a lot into this one!
Audio/Visual presentation was fantastic. Among the best audio, if not the best, I've seen in this LD Compo.
The core game play mechanics are good, though I might've added a jump key bind to spacebar as well. By convention, I found myself hitting that button quite a bit to jump. Many spikes were run over as a result. If development is continuing on this one, more enemy variety, environmental obstacles, and varied focus on weapon selection will go a long way. This first level is looking very good already.
As others have mentioned mouse aim, I could see it going either way. I too think I'd prefer mouse aim, as I think it offers more design space for enemies and obstacles, but that's not to say that a rigid left-right framework for aiming doesn't have its design merits either. With the current enemies, many of which float just above ground level, a means to shoot them that doesn't involve repeated timing on jump shots would be nice. At the same time, those enemies would then also need a means to remain threatening to a player which is not likely to meet them at their elevation. This game might be a good candidate for limited directional aiming. Straight, 45 degrees up, and 45 degrees down and straight up could work too with some modifier key binds. It's something to consider as you expand the content of this game. I think even if you continue with the current aiming system, as long as the level design supports it, there isn't really a problem here.
Phew, that's one polished looking game for 48 hours. Color me impressed.
The controls feel tight and responsive. The character movement speed is just right. The action is just the right amount of stressful when there are many enemies on the screen.
The sprite work is fine. Given the level of zoom, I think the sprites work well for this game. I think if anything this game just needs some hit feedback. Maybe a little particle splatter or something for when enemies are defeated.
The music is on another level. The escalation of the soundtrack tied to the damage multiplier was an excellent touch. Very cool.
The game's pace is pretty good, though I did notice that if you manage to clear the entire field of enemies, that the first enemy that appears is one of those swarm pod things that spawn the 3 homing projectiles. If you get the game into this state, it's not too hard to endlessly kill that one enemy type without much hassle. However, if you intentionally let the last enemy live, the pace of the game is much better. As the damage multiplier increases, it becomes easier to fall into that easier game state.
This game is begging for expansion. A few hypnotic background elements, stage transitions, new enemy types, maybe a boss or two, etc, etc. Oh yeah, I could see that being a thing.
Great job folks!
Not too shabby.
I'd echo a few of the sentiments in the comments here. A background texture to give a point of reference for player movement and a "wave clear" message would help a ton.
I also feel like hard boundary collisions would work better than resetting the player position on contact with a wall. Hard boundaries would probably feel better overall, and be a bit less exploitable as an escape tactic. It would certainly increase the fear factor of being cornered by the giant soldier. With the upgrade stations positioned so close to the wall, being returned to the center before buying upgrades is a possibility.
A second keybinding for accessing the upgrade menu for WASD control scheme players would be cool too. Right control is a bit out of the way. Maybe [E] or [Q]?
It took me a moment to realize that the giant soldier's shield reversed the orientation of the scythe on contact. At first I thought this was a bug. Entirely possible I didn't notice it, but a hit spark or audio cue would be handy for when that happens.
The character and scythe sprites are good, but the enemies look a bit out of place in comparison. Then again, a 48 hour time limit'll do that to ya.
The music is solid. Not much to say here, it's good.
The game play features swinging a scythe around by swinging the mouse wildly... You can't go wrong with this formula. Spin to win, prominently captured in game form.
Be right back. I finished the game spinning clockwise, I need to do it again anti-clockwise to unwind.
Good job on this one.
I've always liked games that produce moments of discovery. Here, I have discovered something I did not expect, and cannot likely forget. I suppose being unforgettable is not a bad thing when trying to craft an experience.
The graphics and movement animation are spot on. The audio is good too. The mood is... good.
It's good? Yes, I suppose It's good.
Well done.
I'm going to do something else for a bit while I try to parse what I have just experienced.
Good job. Carry on!
A simple and very effective way to have fun.
Easy to understand: Check
Satisfying game mechanic: Check
Easy on the eyes: Check
Establishes a mood: Check
Developer's voice in game: Check
Can shoot off peoples' hats: Check
Tumbleweed quota reached in a Western themed game: Check
I can't think of anything to nitpick about this one. Even if there isn't terribly much going on the bottom line is that it's fun.
Well done!
Good to see that Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde haven't so cornered the market on Pac-Man game appearances as to not allow newcomers to hit the field. The intro sequence oozes with old arcade nostalgia.
Turns out a role reversed Pac-Man game is actually pretty fun. I'd have liked to see a few extra lives to play with, but otherwise the game play is solid.