A Deal on the Moon by FisherGoodwin 2019-04-29T03:56:48Z
Did you change the title/URL on the itch page after submitting? I am getting a 404.
Edit: fixed!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Walkalope
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Gregg | jam | 1311 | 3.46 | 3.25 | 2.92 | 3.64 | 4.09 | 3.50 | 2.61 | 3.31 |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Break a Leg | compo | 276 | 3.30 | 3.14 | 2.79 | 3.14 | 2.98 | 3.20 | 2.79 | 3.14 |
Did you change the title/URL on the itch page after submitting? I am getting a 404.
Edit: fixed!
It works great! The astronaut character is charming. :new_moon_with_face:
Love the art and the animation. I noticed a bug where I went off screen and then I couldn't figure out how to get _back_ on screen.
I think this would work well with some more rogue-like elements like procedurally generated levels.
Nice work!
Neat idea! I would love to see more levels designed for this. Definitely a solid concept to build on.
Sick guitar! Love the powerups. I chose "dash" pretty early on - it did not feel intuitive (to me) for the dash to travel toward the mouse. I was expecting to dash in the direction I was moving. It got a little dicey since much of the game is spent running away from the badguys while still _aiming_ at them - I ended up dashing _toward them_ when I was trying to run away.
This was frustrating and hilarious. :D impressive that you used a neural network.
This was fun! It kind of scratches my _Offworld Trading Company_ itch in a smaller, prettier package.
I enjoyed the look of this one quite a lot. I was not very skilled at it, however :)
One potential bug worth looking into: it appeared that the boss's trail renderer component was rendering on top of him which looked a bit odd. You can see what I am talking about in this image:
Screenshot (43).png
Visual and sound design are fantastic. Discovering that my headstone blocked my movement and limited the build-able are was a nice surprise that added a great strategic dimension to the game.
@justcamh very creative! I imagine you've probably played _Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire_ by Nitrome? It has a very similar "draw to cast spells" mechanic. If you haven't played it, I recommend seeking it for some inspiration.
One design note: Once you've taught me the main mechanic of matching symbols, I don't think these need to be on the side menu anymore - I am not referencing them for any reason as the symbols I need to match appear in the play area:
Capture4.PNG
The music is lovely, the animations are satisfying. Fun game!
This was a satisfying, relaxing experience. Thanks for making this :v:
It was frustrating when unexpected things happened, but it was a perfect simulacrum for life.
Here's my "legacy":
Capture3.PNG
A charming twist on Pong :)
I did notice a slight bug(?) - I had selected 9 lives worth of upgrades but the text told me I was over the limit. See image.
Capture.PNG
@fishergoodwin you are absolutely right about the openings. That particular fix was on my "wishlist" after my wife had recommended it to me. I never got to it! >_<
Thanks for playing!
Thanks, @cubicode ! Just so you know, by default the "Skip Levels" option is turned on. Just press 'N' to go to the next level and 'B' to go the previous level. So if you get stuck on one, but still want to see what's next, you can just skip it :smile:
@fishergoodwin , @cubicode , @jani-nykanen , @saering , @syrapt0r
I've made updates to the game on a separate upload (not to be rated) based your feedback. Changes include:
1. The player now has air-control 2. The movement-smoothing has been reduced 3. The wait time before the level start has been reduced 4. The player now retains momentum upon leaving a moving platform 5. Removed all pressure plate puzzles - replaced them with new puzzles using a "leg-refill" mechanic
Thanks so much for playing and for providing feedback. If you want to see how the game feels now, check it out here: https://walker-p.itch.io/break-a-leg
It is pretty clear that you've downloaded this project: https://github.com/BlackthornProd/Boss-Battle-Tutorial seen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXefXSD2SM0 by Noa of Blackthorn Prod. You've slightly altered the colors and added some introductory text - that seems to be the only part of this game that you made yourself. This most certainly does __not__ qualify for the compo.
I played this for awhile! Lots of fun, keep working on this. Progresses nicely.
Remember to normalize your move vector, though!
A rhythm game! Amazing! Love the illustration and the beat was sick.
Somebody mentioned drawing the wave amplitude on the buttons and I think that is a great suggestion. Definitely would help to quickly understand which button to press when.
Cool game, great work!
An educational game! Love it.
Took me a minute to realize that I *really* need to hold out the dashes for a long time - longer than I was doing intuitively. It might be good to take that length down a bit... or have a section for people to "calibrate" how long the dashes should be held for.
I love your interpretation of the theme was an effort to keep a *language* alive... by making this quirky parody edu-tainment game. Well done :v: :smile:
The tiles for this game were delightful! Very cute sheep sprite and animations.
I was only able to get about this far: Annotation 2020-04-21 083647.jpg
Each time it seemed that the difficulty REALLY ramped up around there.
Well done on such a funny and charming game!
Gorgeous vector art, snappy controls, juicy effects - a simply lovely game. I will have to keep playing to look for something to critique!
Hi there! I played your game on-stream last night. I think you may recall that I had very little to critique about it - a very impressive submission!
It's unique, fun, juicy, satisfying - you've included a delightful amount of features in such a short amount of time (I was particularly giddy about finding out I could zoom and pan the game board).
If I had to find something to criticize; might be a bit of a *stretch* for fitting the theme? :shrug:
Honestly, this one clicked for me and I don't have much to criticize about it. I am excited to play more!
Neat game! I was able to kill two of the baddies. The graphics were beautiful and the setting/mood was delightfully grotesque. I loved your use of squishy sound effects :smile:
At times it was not clear when/where I could place a tower - and perhaps I did not do enough experimenting, but I was not entirely successful at controlling the character and getting it to jump when I wanted it to.
Overall - really unique and fun game.
Hello there! I played your game on-stream last night.
I love the synth-wave music and cyber-punk setting. They are truly my my favorite genres of music and science fiction (no lie). So this was a delight to play. The "coolness" factor was through the roof :v:
I love the visual style; top-down perspective, hi-def sprites, pinks, blues and greens. Gave me a sense of nostalgia while staying fresh. Very cool.
I found it a little difficult to read through all of the text on the screen between waves of robots - perhaps that was the whole point... but it felt a bit that my success was based on my ability to read quickly, which is not a skill that I am used to being tested in a video game. So maybe it's a good thing!
I think it could be great to add some sort of "hacking" gameplay as well. I know there was a passcode to discover within the dialogue options... maybe push that interaction into lots of different scenarios - and the "win" condition could be based on successfully hacking the robots, rather than a timer running out. Add some randomness to the puzzles and solutions - people can judge their skill on how quickly they complete the level.
Anyway - thanks so much for sharing. Fun game!
Hi there! I played your game on-stream last night. If you missed it, I welcome you to check out the VOD (link to my channel is in my profile).
Very impressed with the level of detail going on here - and I'd be interested to understand how you executed the randomly generated city, because it worked very well: no bugs to be seen with that!
At one point I ran out of energy and it got a little frustrating that I could not move. I spent about a minute or so just moving a few feet and pausing. Perhaps instead of stopping the player entirely, low energy should simply slow them down.
One other thing (if you continue to work on this) - it would be great to have some solution for identifying the player's position when they are occluded to the camera by a building. Perhaps moving the camera closer in those situations... or adding a silhouette.
Really impressed at the scale of game you were able to accomplish in a weekend. Nicely done!
Phenomenal lighting effect! I would definitely be interested to learn how you did that.
It took me a long time to find the axe... incredible mood and excellent visuals. I was spooked the whole time.
Hi! I played your game on-stream last night. If you didn't get a chance to watch, the VOD is on channel (linked in my profile here).
I thought this game was a tremendous example of strong, thoughtful aesthetic decisions having a *huge* impact even while being minimal in their execution. The entire experience feels pared down to its essence - very cool.
I don't mind the lack of narrative or real objective (unless I missed the objective) - I think I only wanted some music and some sound effects to push the immersion a little further. And your level generation was lovely - well done!
Hi! I played your game on-stream last night. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD (Twitch link is on my profile).
I quite liked the graphic style of Hellianthus - the pixel-perfect arm rotations were a nice touch. And I really dig the "tall sprites with one-pixel-wide legs" style of characters.
I had trouble understanding the mechanics and what I was supposed to do. I *think* I was doing the right stuff - but the various mechanics did not have enough visual feedback to let me know that what I was doing was working.
Nice audio and animations - I hope you continue to work on this one!
Hi there! I played your game on stream over the weekend. What a juicy game you've carved out!
The game is quite lovely to look at - although too much bright red can start to be hard on the eyes after awhile. But the consistent style of the viruses, the syringes, the health pickups - very thoughtful and coherent design :thumbsup:
There were little touches that added major value to the excitement of the game: Like how the only way to heal the heart is to give it some of the player's health - this requires a bit of strategy and adds a balancing act rather than a straight forward "just don't die" type of gameplay. Also how the player's bullet's actually interacted with the the physics of the health powerups! A skilled player could anticipate it and avoid shooting the powerups, while a newer player might "spray and pray" and as a result end up shooting the health packs away. A more thought-out approach to playing is rewarded.
I think that the game is very juicy - but you can always add more juice! Maybe some voice-overs... floating damage numbers... camera shakes... whatever. You've got a solid foundation of a game, polish is the only thing left.
Thanks again for sharing!
Hi! I played your game on-stream last night. Thank you so much for sharing your game.
The music was beautiful, the instruments were fascinating, the world was engaging and immersive, the characters were adorable. Even considering a couple of moments where I wasn't sure what I supposed to do, this game was truly remarkable. I loved just "jamming" on the instruments. The background music was phenomenal and the ending was bliss. Thank you again for sharing your funky amazing game!
Hi! I played your game on-stream. Well-polished and good-looking game! The pacing of it seemed just the right amount of frantic. I loved that I could pick up the cows.
I think I did not use the platforms above me very much - but I liked the possibility of "verticality." I would suggest putting a high-value cheese machine up there... give the player a reason to risk jumping up there from time to time.
And I hope you add some juicy sound effects for the post-dare!
Nicely done!
Hey there. I played our game on-stream last night. Thanks for sharing it!
The voice-acting was splendid - I got a good laugh out of the absurdity of it all.
This game had a bit of an original Playstation vibe to it that I really dug. Could be the color palette. You mentioned that the steaks were meant to award points and there would be points-tracking to see how well a player did each round. Love that - definitely put that in the post-dare.
Thanks again, and keep up the good work!
@nitero - you are right about distinguishing between foreground and background. It's something that was on our list of things that need attention - but didn't get the treatment it deserved. The same can be said for aspects of our game that "teach" the player how to play (such as showing them what the portal looks like).
We will upload a post-dare version in the coming days and I hope you will check it out again once some improvements have been made :v:
Thanks for checking it out!
@bredcrumb - thanks so much for playing! Yes, there are still a few bugs with how the turrets get spawned and *sometimes* they seem to shoot from very weird angles.
@bostor I think there is also a bit of a bug that spawns the teleport *inside* a block instead of on top of one... that may have been what happened there. Thanks for playing!
@zguba Thanks for playing! Yes the "moving before the level finishes loading" thing is definitely a bug. We are currently working on a much-improved version (not necessarily bug-free...) that will address this issue.
@antti-haavikko in fact, the player gets loaded into the scene pretty early in the generation process. The loading screen is just there so people don't watch all the blocks spawning into place. We've adjusted it in the post-dare so that the player is the last thing to be spawned in, and will not be controllable until the level starts. We've also addressed many of your other critiques as well, so I hope you will check out the post-dare version!
Hi there! Thank you for updating the compression method so I could play. I really dig the art-style of this game; animating the sprites by "bouncing" them in space rather drawing frames had a hilarious effect. The two main abilities (shooting and mining) were responsive and satisfying to execute.
I was really BAD at this game - but I don't think the difficulty needs to be adjusted at all. I think games like these - where the challenge is high, but there is little to no delay for allowing the player to re-try the stage over and over and over again - I think these games get their appeal from the challenge. It really makes it that much more satisfying once the player has memorized every little event in the stage and finally beats it like a total pro.
I think I would spend some time thinking about the ricochet and friendly-fire - whether or not you really want that to be a mechanic of the game. It seemed like the fact that the bullets could ricochet only ever resulted in a negative outcome for me - I could not successfully use the ricochet to hit anyone but myself - that got a bit frustrating and made it feel like I had an unfair disadvantage to my enemies.
Keep up the great work, and thanks for sharing!
Hey there! I played your game on-stream last night. Thanks so much for sharing it!
The setting and narrative were intriguing and immersive. I really got into the role of leading the revolution against the GVRNMNT.
To me, after a single playthrough; the game felt pretty decently balanced and well-paced. That's pretty impressive! I am sure you can continue to tweak that from now on as well... and it will only improve!
I did notice a few typos which I think you are aware of - and I would add some juicy sound effects and some satisfying animations to the whole thing: Little "shfft" sounds when drawing cards... riot sounds when you play a violent card... camera shakes... particle effects... just adding general "flash" to it all.
Well done - this was genuinely fun to play!
Hello! I played your game on-stream last night. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD - my Twitch link is in my profile :smile:
First off - I love the gumbo theme. I love gumbo. And I love games that are about cooking - so; "check, check, check." I'm super impressed that you were able to get a leader board set up as well! My top score was... around 195, I think? I was not very good at it, lol.
I think it could help to really push the visual contrast between empty plants and growing/grown plants. And I would remove the text and signs entirely. Often I would just see the word "tomato" and run there only to find that there were no tomatoes.
I also don't think it would hurt to slow everything down a bit. Slow the emptying of the pot, that is.
The music was super fun and I think it would be neat to make lots of levels of varying difficulty with lots of different cajun/creole recipes. Some really neat New Orleans music and art would be fun to include as well - really lean into the setting, ya know?
Thanks so much for sharing - and well done!
Hello! I played your game on-stream last night. Thanks so much for sharing your game!
As a big fan of *Papers Please*, this game clicked for me in a great way. I would definitely love to see it fleshed out into a full, multi-scenario game. Maybe start off with just the Tamagotchi and the spouse - and slowly add more distractions and things to juggle.
For a game like this - where click, dragging and mouse interactions make up the whole gameplay - it's important to really make those interactions work smoothly and comfortably. Sometimes it was difficult to slide the phone slider all the way - and sometimes it was difficult to land on the right button with tamagotchi. Small tweaks to the mouse interactions and visual feedback can really make this game *juicy*.
Fantastic art, visual/audible style. I hope you continue to work on this one - it's a neat one!
Walker
Hey there! I played your game on-stream over the weekend. Thanks for sharing it with me!
It's a super cute game. A blushing pink baby and a heroic capybara; you could not have gone wrong starting with an idea like that. And you've created some simply adorable artwork for it as well! I would spend some time really making sure the animations read clearly; exaggeration can be your friend here. But the still images of these characters have a certain charm that I would do nothing to change :smiley:
There were a few glitches here and there, but nothing major - all things I am sure you are aware of and able to clean up now with more time on our hands. The only thing worth mentioning is the boss fight; the boss chased me out of the room and it took me forever to realize that I needed him back in the room in order to use the platform to jump over him and hit is weak spot. I think it would really help to seal the room once the fight has been triggered - and maybe telegraph the weak spot a bit more (to me it just look like a spooky spot, not necessarily weak).
Anyway - thanks so much for sharing. I love the Yoshi games; my wife and I play Yoshi's Crafted World together all the time. It's a fine series from which to take inspiration and you've made an adorable interpretation of its key concepts. Well done!
Hi there! I played your game on-stream last night. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD (my channel link is in my profile).
After a few experiments (and a few bad endings) I think I understood my goal. I personally like that not a lot of guidance was given at the beginning - I like that I was allowed to make mistakes - and I was rewarded (in a way) with learning that each time I had found a unique way to fail - complete with its own title and everything!
After that, it did begin to feel like each day I had to repeat the same tasks over and over again in order to proceed. I may have not experimented enough to understand that there were other things I could do, however. How many possible endings are there?
The visual style of the game was just lovely. It's such a neat and effective treatment to use two or three pixels alone to represent the characters - it lets the imagination fill in the rest. A very nostalgic experience.
Thanks for sharing!
Hello there! I played your game on-stream last night. Thank you for sharing it!
My favorite part of this game is that - on the surface - the main mechanic appears simple and understandable... One might take a look at it and think that they may be about to play something familiar and approach it casually.
But the game is full of surprises - thinking about the rotations of each weapons, the direction of the rotation, the color of each weapon... and also remembering which weapon I have *equipped*; it forced my brain to think in ways that not many video games have. There is no muscle memory here - a brand new skill to learn. Fun!
And on top of that, there's a whole delightful narrative to follow throughout!
I think some "quality of life" improvements could push this game even further: Add a highlight to indicate which weapon the player has equipped so they do not have to take their eyes off the play area. Maybe add some logic to the random color changes so the asteroids will not change "red" or "blue" after it has passed the distance that it can be hit by those weapons.
Thank you so much for sharing this wacky game :smile:
Hi! I played your game on-stream last night. Thanks for sharing it!
I love the high-octane action vibe. Motorcycle shootouts on a desert highway at high speeds; what's not to love? Congrats on your first game jam - you really rocked it!
I found that sometimes if I needed to back up a bit in order to hit a helicopter that was too close, I would have to actually turn around and shoot in the wrong directions for a few seconds in order to position myself correctly. It might be neat to try a version where - instead of only being able to aim in 4 directions based on the direction the motorcycle is facing - you allow the player to aim with the cursor and shoot in 360 degrees regardless of which way the motorcycle is facing.
Great submission - quite a thing to accomplish in 48 hours! Well done.
Hey there! I played your game on stream this past weekend. Thanks so much for sharing it!
I was immediately able to understand the goal of the game and how to achieve it. You've communicated the main mechanics and game loop clearly and effectively. And the simplicity/accessibility of the concept makes it tempting to play over and over again.
I think you mentioned that you had the idea for the "ball" to actually be a cat that the player is trying to keep from falling - I love that. A charming narrative and setting can only add to the tantalizing gameplay in a good way.
I would add a bit more "juice" to it - maybe some subtle shake animations whenever you "plunk" down a platform - some movement in the background - all of the visual interest I am sure you are planning to add once you've applied your cat theme to the game :smile:
Great submission - thanks for sharing!
Heya! I played your game on-stream over the weekend. Thank you for sharing it with me!
It's extremely well done - I am *sure* you are sick of hearing nothing but praise for your game :wink: but I am truly beyond impressed. You've created an *exceptionally* unique and fun game within some monumental limitations.
The music, @starerik , is fantastic - I mean you nailed the genre for this particular type of game. And I would be very interested in whatever software you used to create it!
If I had to pick on one thing - I would wonder if you could add bit more "juice" to the landing when the egg hits the haystack... I have no idea what the limitations of the Gameboy entail - but a little camera shake would be nice.
Well done, folks! A very fun game!
Hi! I played your game on-stream last night. Thanks so much for sharing it!
What a unique combination of mechanics - add that to fresh and bizarre visual style; what you've created is a truly singular experience.
I loved the very first level the most - where there were just a few enemies. The one-shot-one-kill pressure was balanced well against my ability to act quickly at that point. And it was that level that reminded me most of Hotline Miami - I do encourage you to look into Hotline Miami for some inspiration for your level designs if you continue to work on this.
Well done! I hope you *do* continue to work on this.