Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Virtually Competent
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | PAROLEBALL | jam | 207 | 3.60 | 3.50 | 3.10 | 3.85 | 3.88 | 3.28 | 2.44 | 3.16 | 71 |
Very unique! Would be somewhat underwhelming on its own, but being able to upload my creation and see it mixed in with others is pretty cool.
Did you take the music from somewhere? It sounds really familiar. Either way, I dig it (and the cymbal crash when two coins intersect is perfect)!
Great art and chill music (reminded me a bit of FTL). Breaking rocks was exhausting, but once I started into the item trading/propaganda missions, I couldn't put it down. :P
Great art and music! I couldn't quite understand what was going on with the gameplay at first, but I won so I must have figured it out. :P
This is neat! Kind of reminds me of Meteos on the DS (thematically, at least). Could really use some sort of scoring mechanic (maybe display how far the ship has travelled? the number could increase faster or slower depending on how much fuel you're giving it) and obviously, having the blocks fall and combo off each other would be great.
I also might suggest a different key configuration...shift/spacebar are awkward to use together and I could never remember which jumped and which grabbed. Maybe change jump to the Up key?
Very haunting and relatable. Well done. :D
Couldn't get the fruit to work, for some reason, but the game is adorable! I love the beautiful art, and tamagochi style creature buddy pal is such a great use of the theme! Thanks for sharing! -CC
With tighter player movement, this could be fun! As is, it's kind of frustrating. With such a loose grip on what the character does, it's hard for me to feel like I could (or would want to) practice enough to gain a lot of skill competency in the game.
Wow, this one really blew me away. Great use of the theme and great design all around!
The boss fight was a really neat idea, but kinda rubbed me the wrong way in the sense that I couldn't really gain a sense of progress as much as I did during the first part of the game. There were points where the cat's tongue stopped flashing, but he still attacked a few more times before moving to the next phase...is that supposed to happen? I feel like he should back off once I've drained his "HP".
I gave it a good couple of tries, but ultimately I gave up on the leg part. I might have been a little more inclined to stick with it if there was a way to dodge if I picked the wrong side during the sweeps (or at least a better cue on which side to go), but I couldn't get it down well enough to get past it (and the one time I did, I got stomped on...which feels a little unfair since pushing too close to the edge means I die as well). I also struggled with the jumping issue that others had mentioned, which contributed to my death a few times.
Anyway, cat boss gripes aside, this is easily my favorite entry thus far and I'd love to see a little more polish on it. Great work!
This is great! Really funny stuff. Reminds me how sad I am that I didn't have time to add voice clips to my entry, but I'm glad someone else is picking up my slack. :P
Gameplay-wise, this reminded me a bit of WarioWare which is always good. I think some better cues about where stuff is coming at you from would be helpful.
Also, your invincibility protip was a little TOO helpful...I was able to spam the same channel button over to prolong it and was able to kick back and just enjoy the show.
Could be pretty fun if you tightened up the collisions and jumping a bit! I felt like I wasn't always able to jump on command.
Also, I like that you can keep replaying the randomly generated level you get, but it would be nice if I could generate a new one with an in-game button (rather than reloading the whole page).
Cute and unexpectedly difficult!
The first few times I walked through the doors, I didn't think much of it...but then there were a TON of doors and I walked through one...only to come out right next to it, still very much in danger. They're linked together in pairs!
Very smart little gimmick that makes for some interesting scenarios. Love the music, too. Great work all around. :D
Oh, and my best is 22.
Love the art and music! The F-bomb might have made me chuckle if I hadn't read the comments before playing, but yeah, I wish there was a bit more dissonance going on. The fighting aspects help, but I'd find the game more humorous if there was more of that "I'm playing this children's toy and wait what did it just say" feel to it.
Got stuck (like, physically, not on a puzzle!) on the second level, but the graphics are super slick! Wish I could zoom in a bit more to appreciate them.
When I took the boss down to low health, he stopped using his full power attack and started only doing the low power attack (which targets the highest HP party member). At this point, I pretty much just spammed heal and attack (my wizard died already) and I made more progress than the boss because he wasn't dealing enough damage to kill anyone else (also, he would sometimes still target the dead wizard).
I still lost to the timer, though! Should have picked those menu buttons faster.
Love the fog of war style platformer, the layout is interesting and I'm sucker for lots of little pixel detail which all looks great in this game! Great use of the theme! -CC
Watching the pixels piece together was pretty cool! Not enough going on to keep my interest til the end, though.
Best score: 184
I'm rating a little on the low end for innovation since I've played a number of games like this before, but you blew everything else out of the water! Slick art style, hilarious voice acting, and...a tutorial?! Really impressive how nice and polished everything is for an almost-compo entry. :D
These kids must think steak grows on trees
Love the visuals, and love the obscured level design, adds a lot of ambiance. Thanks for sharing! -CC
Wow! This is incredible. I'm a really big fan of this sort of BYOD multiplayer stuff (in fact, I'd be creating a lot of games like that if I had any idea where to start), so I'm pretty impressed with this.
I'm sure getting iOS devices to work is probably not an arbitrary task, but I'd love to see it happen (my roommate and I both have iPhones, but luckily I bought an Android tablet recently so I was at least able to try it out). How many players have you been able to get together in one game?
Wasn't able to load the game, got a Dropbox error. Just a heads up!
Great use of the theme! I'd love to play a fuller version of this game with lots of puzzles. I could see beam/pip puzzles and well as some interesting combat/bosses with this setup! I hope you continue work on it :D -CC
Incredible. Just incredible. Great production values all around and super tight gameplay. I can't believe you managed to make a Metroidvania on THIS theme AND in only 48 hours. Wow.
The best part is how much it kept surprising me...there were so many moments where I was like "how the hell am I going to get over there?" but for every one of those moments, there was another moment of realization that allowed me to proceed. Having the entire map laid out in such detail (however small depending on distance) always gave me enough information to figure things out. I never got frustrated with dying because the checkpoint system was so clever (and if I did get into a mildly frustrating situation, it was because I used my sticks unwisely...all my fault). I'm really struggling to believe this wasn't rigorously playtested over years of development...it's just so polished and perfect.
I didn't expect to find my game of the year on here...but, well...here we are. :O
I laughed out loud the first time I ran into a fence and read the word "shit" like it was delivered in a totally dejected manner. Props for getting a legit "lol" out of me.
I like games that force the player to figure things out on their own, but I think it's a lot harder to do so in a timed setting. With failure looming overhead, I become more stressed about losing than curious about winning!
Really impressed with how much is going on here, especially for a compo entry! I had a weird bug that happened when I was looking away from the window...my character was in the dungeon, but his suit of armor was still outside (and it was lower than it should have been...there was an armor-sized blank space where it should have gone). Hitting "Leave Dungeon" got it back on track.
Very cool! Are the errors completely random or is there some strategy here? I felt like I was getting more when I mashed the keyboard too quickly...or maybe if I pressed the same keys too many times?
I'm probably overthinking it. :P
Hey! I like this a lot. I agree with calavera that there's a lot of wheels to manage and it might be helpful to scale up as you go (maybe reduce the number of slices, too), but I like the concept. The color-match scoring is an interesting idea, but as the others already mentioned, it's easier just to focus on the white/black segments (but maybe that's what separates the skilled players from the beginners?).
Also, it seems like the rate at which the balls appear and roll doesn't reset after retrying, so I felt like I needed to restart the whole thing to feel like I could play at a decent pace. I also noticed the color wheel didn't re-randomize, so I threw a couple games while I tried to see if I could maximize single color frequency in each row. I couldn't. :P
My best was 69,354. I'd love to see this fleshed out a bit more.
Clever idea! I think the core gameplay could be tightened up a bit, but the dungeon scaling mechanic has a lot of potential. :D
Super retro! Love it! Would be cool to see some random generation on the map maybe, but other than that it felt solid and looks pretty and by the time I had explored the whole dungeon to find the boss, I felt like a badass. Good fun! -CC
Nice take on the Binding of Isaac formula and nice moody background music. I really liked the way the items you picked up would become part of your firepower.
Would be nice if enemies flashed or responded in some way to being shot at. It was hard to tell if I was doing damage or not until they died (which was fine for the eyeballs once I got a feel for it, but frustrating for the skeletons, which could not be destroyed).
Very awesome game with some great pixel art and lots of little secrets. Perfect for the theme! - CC
Cute little snowman! A bit harder than expected with him sliding around like that.
Would be nice if there was a time bonus or something...as is, there's no way to do better than 2400 (which is fairly easy to get).
Made me chuckle the first time.
Cute little car game with very fluid controls. Love the colorful art and winter theme!
A little too slow and repetitive...could be fun with some work, though! I think it would give the player a better sense of how well they did if it was timed or something. That way, I would feel compelled to try different strategies to complete the game faster.
Ha, this is exactly what it says on the tin! I appreciate that. :P
Local multiplayer is always a good thing so I'm happy to see this, even if it is impossible. Reminds me a bit of Kururin Squash, but obviously much more unforgiving. I'd actually be really interested to play a version of this with checkpoints.
Was a bit weird, first try with the Katana, couldn't kill any enemies, second try with the bazooka went better, but when the time limit hit 0, it started going negative and had crazy weird screen effects...not sure if that was on purpose or not. Just now noticing it's local multiplayer. It may have been more fun with another couple people! The controls worked really well though! -CC
I dig the music and the spider web animations. :D
My swatter didn't seem to always work...not sure if my mouse lost focus on the window or what, but either way, very neat idea. I also love the literal use of the theme! I joked with my artist about doing something similar.
Nice take on Flappy Bird. I feel like the consistency of the flapping makes it much easier than actual Flappy Bird, where you would always start plummeting really quickly without another tap. Health and repairs also make it a little easier.
Neat idea, chill music. I have a few concerns that I'm not seeing others note, however, so I wonder if it's just my device (Samsung Galaxy Tab S):
-The goal point was in the top right corner of my screen every time I grabbed the green orb. Is it supposed to move around or just stay up there?
-The chime noise that happens repeatedly when I'm holding the green orb was a little abrasive. It's nice to have a sound cue to let me know I'm caught the orb, but it could be less frequent.
Mouse is way too slow! But otherwise it's a neat idea. I couldn't delete viruses after selecting them (delete key would just bring the level 1 folder back up) and typing the letters would be a bit more intuitive if they were actually words, I think (I'm a hunt-and-peck-er, though, so maybe I'm not the best person to make that claim).
Tested on Mac OS X.
Nice job on this one. Using the darkness to change the obstacles is a smart way to work around the "one screen" limitation and keep things fresh. I felt like the tutorial at the beginning really didn't explain enough (and while the voice acting was a nice touch, it was a little too long).
Would be nice if you had a health bar or something so the spikes weren't fatal...there were a few times where I thought I was being careful enough, but those spikes pop up really fast and close!
Very cool! As some others had mentioned, it would be nice if the colored balls had their values on them. I think it would still be difficult for me to do the math and deal with all the crazy motion and colors going on elsewhere, so it wouldn't detract from your sort of "sensory overload" angle. :D
My best score on the first song was 20, but I wish it was a bit shorter. Having to commit to such a long single play session in a game like this is a little exhausting.
A bit simple, but works perfectly for the theme. Could probably do without a "menu" button, and instead have you click on things within the scene to change the movie or hire staff, etc. but I really like the classic sim feel of the game.
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I'm glad people are enjoying the game.
DefectiveMelon: We added those flippers in pretty late (I was using flippers from a Sonic game as placeholders up until the last hour of the jam), so it's entirely possible that the collision boundaries are a little wonky.
6DownStudios: Glad we could inspire you! :D
Flying Jester: Interesting...I've never had any issues launching the ball. I wonder if it's getting stuck on something?
MurrayL: I tried to resist the urge to fine tune the physics too much (I probably could have spent the full 72 hours doing just that...), so I may fix the "floaty"-ness, but I also think it makes it a bit easier to aim at the robots. Of course, if you don't have a gamepad, you can't shoot anyway so I suppose it doesn't matter to you. :P
udo: The center lock-in point randomly activates one of 3-4 events, one of which causes a number of flying enemies to spawn and you have to destroy them all with your laser canon! That's probably the one you're getting stuck in. Unfortunately, you can't shoot on the keyboard...I plan on getting keyboard controls at least functional in the future, but the nature of the game is much better suited to a gamepad (and that will probably always be the case).
Thank you all for the kind words! It really means a lot to us. I've patched in fixed keyboard/mouse controls so the game is now fully functional without a controller (but I do still think controller is the best way to play). I won't be making any further updates to this version, but you can keep an eye on our itch.io page (http://virtually-competent.itch.io/paroleball) where we'll be working on a waaaaay better post-Jam version.
Basim: There's no high scoring saving features yet, but you can save a screenshot at the end of your runs by clicking the camera icon! I'll certainly be adding something to that effect in the post-Jam version I'm planning.
puppetmaster: Sorry! Can't please everyone, I suppose. I'll keep custom mapping in mind for the non-Jam version, though. :P
Chris: Did you download the Linux standalone or are you playing the web version? I haven't tested the standalone builds so there could be something wrong there.
Have you tried holding shift on the keyboard to launch?
Luke: Thanks! Some of the things you mentioned don't sit well with me either, but I'll revisit them for the post-jam version. The spawn/launch differentiation was carried over from testing (can't remember why exactly) and the limited enemy types are all we had time to implement (Colin made a handful of enemy sprites, but we only got those two in).
I need to think about it some more, but I would like to work out a touch control scheme that would still feel pretty solid. The game looks great on a display that's the right orientation for it. :D
Cool idea! I'm a fan of wave-based gameplay. The spread of the flashlight creates some interesting strategy opportunities...I tried to back up into a corner so I could get the widest spread but didn't pay enough attention to the door right next to me.
Just a personal opinion, but I think these top-down move and look sort of games work best on twin stick gamepads. I'd really love to try this again with Xbox 360 controller support. :D
Nice classic Mario Bros-inspired fun. The goofy 3D penguins really make it. I was able to make it to 1450 before calling it quits.
Thought I spotted an animation bug, but no, it was just gas. :P
(BTW, the fact that your screenshots line up perfectly makes me smile)
Reminds me of Steel Battalion, trying to get a grasp on what all the buttons and switches do without dying. I failed the first time because I spaced on the countdown, but luckily I knew where everything was the second time so it didn't take nearly as long to get started.
I was expecting something to go wrong near the end of the trip, after I was told to relax. I'm glad it was smooth, but it would have been a nice test to see how quickly I could hunt down whatever button I needed to get out of a bad situation.