Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Aaron

Aaron

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoCmCo
201122AloneAlone With Myself in a Boxcompo1383.163.092.801.982.982.792.562.142.77100

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by Aaron

LD22 — Alone

AB-ALONE by SonnyBone 2012-01-08T04:18:00

There's just a massive amount of content in animations and details, and I feel that you experimented with a lot of different features. Bravo. The game also seems to expect players to experiment as well. I definitely understand what you were aiming for, but that's a really big leap of faith (esp for a ld48). Think, one frustrating moment and most players tend to throw up their arms. I played and died several times without the guide and... unfortunately, I'm a bit slow in the noggin so there were plenty of those frustrating moments. Many nights had me just running away slowly in circles.

I'd totally want to see what your "dang good" idea looks like after it gets dressed with some careful playtested polish, moody artwork, and some more of those design features that got cut out due to time. I redid mine like you suggested: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43348544/N36.swf Your turn. ;)

An Empty Room by Cosr 2012-01-09T18:07:00

Wowzers, indeed. Wicked experience.

kuudou by summaky 2012-01-08T23:13:00

A game being too short is probably the best bad comment you can receive. :)

Companion by roBurky 2011-12-21T00:50:00

I really liked this. It had personality and mood in bundles, and I'm glad you experimented.

I think just a bit more feedback/suggested meaning would have gone a long way. I didn't know that I died (or could die), so I was staring confused at my screen for a good 5 seconds. The cube doesn't rotate to movement, making it a bit static until it finally interacts with something--not sure whether that was intentional. And I got into the experience, and definitely enjoyed it, but it didn't really pop because maybe I'm just not somebody who naturally self-imposes stories/meanings to visual interactions. Something more--like tiny hearts that popped up when you're nearby a cube (or maybe that's too bold)--would have really helped me out.

All in all though, pretty awesome experience.

Ydunn by Randomasta 2012-01-08T06:12:00

Gorgeous to both the eyes and ears, but the narrative is beyond my understanding (infamous 4 guys, shield, apples?). On top of the confusing shield (puzzle?), be careful with your cutscenes; add some more feedback that it's happening. I was often confused why the character stopped moving only to realize it was a cutscene.

I'm sad that the experience didn't develop as far as you wanted, since I would have really enjoyed platforming to such a lovely background. I hope you learned a lot more about platforming though, had fun, and I wish you the best of luck finishing everything you wanted with the next dare (4th is always the charm), because I definitely want to see a full polished game from somebody of your talents. :) Solid, moody entry nevertheless.

My Own Universe by Darkhogg 2011-12-22T02:31:00

This showed a lot of promise. The ending was sad, but I'm really sad you didn't complete it. :(

KIitty by Wiering 2011-12-21T22:00:00

>_< fell off the right side of the map and got stuck under the level.

I liked the art style, but was disappointed with the all effort put into the background compared to like two frames of tail animation for the kitty.

I read that you had a lot of trouble with the theme, but there's a lot of elements that could have be played on: having other kittens as checkpoints and a depleting loneliness meter, having to ask "are you my friend?" to various characters who chase you away except for the last, etc.

Nevertheless, solid work given your programming difficulties and design woes.

Final Trip Soccer by Benjamin 2011-12-23T00:28:00

Fantastic. Gorgeous graphics. Good translation too. :)

The Last Shadow by Justin Mullin 2011-12-25T15:45:00

I didn't understand the game after clicking through the tutorial the first time, walked around the level some, confused, refreshed the game to see the tutorial again, and then everything made sense. Perhaps pacing the tutorial differently, or adding a first screen that's like "This is a game about draining energy from appliances into batteries" and being able reactive the tutorial through [?] ingame. I'm saying that because this was a pretty novel gameplay concept for me. :)

I, like SLiV, felt that the difficulty scaled pretty quickly and never managed to successfully steal a 5+ energy. Despite that, it's a creative game with a solid execution and nice mood thanks to the lighting.

Robotic Friend by Wirtualnosc 2011-12-21T01:06:00

The title screen text got cut off on my screen, the "standing on the portal" sound is really annoying for me, and thus I began this game slightly underwhelmed... but then I found out how big your world was, the really nice tilesets, the precise platforming mechanics, and I was pretty blown away. AND a second ending. Nice work :)

I think this is a really cool game with a lot of small unfortunate details--such as the title sequence, certain sound effects, the lack of ambient background music--that keep it from being really, really cool.

Safety 91 by Grungi Ankhfire 2011-12-25T15:20:00

This looks really interesting, so I wish I could play it or see it in action. If you don't have the time to port a Windows build, capturing a gameplay video would also be a good way to highlight your game.

Margrets Runaway by daandruff 2011-12-21T03:43:00

Really polished presentation, very fun, and I appreciated your ambitious play on the foraging and crafting idea. But as with most of your other comments here, I agree that a brief info screen would have gone a long way for the first few minutes. Great work, and awesome game. :)

They Hunger by Cell 2011-12-22T04:13:00

Cell, I'm fairly sure you've spent more time commenting on every game I've came across than working on this game ;)

But the really fun gameplay despite that constraint highlighted how awesome your simple design was. I'm mentally battling against the thought that a game made in five hours could be this fun, but I'm physically writing you down for probably the best entry I've played yet. Good on you, mate. :)

One design sore spot: while randomly generating relics might add to the replayability, the one-health difficulty is a better fit in the "repeat until you've mastered" arcade gameplay of yore. Randomizing the relics seems almost like a kick after you're down, but maybe that's just me being a wussy.

They Hunger by Cell 2011-12-22T04:15:00

Oh wait. You can shoot? XD

Not A Soul in the World by BadgerPriest 2011-12-21T21:47:00

I'm on Firefox and things seem to work fine. I really applaud your chatterbot bravery and I'm really impressed with your visual presentation.

Unfortunately, I ran into the problem of being barraged with "I don't understand" or "I don't know what you mean". Perhaps it adds to the AI feel of the agent, but also adds a layer of frustration on my part. I tried, but I got bored after a duration of miscommunication. To my understanding, ELIZA and other successful chatterbots tend to ask leading questions (as to never leave the user in a completely open position of "what do I say now?") and address not knowing with open-ended responses like "Oh, really? Why do you say that?" (because saying "does not commute" is a tad on the ehh side). Perhaps a walkthrough for a couple of the progress goals would be helpful to showcase your efforts for people at me who just suck at chatting?

I appreciated the innovation and effort though. :)

Aloneasaurus Rex by jovoc 2011-12-25T15:18:00

Deaths seem a bit abrupt and could use a bit more feedback to make them less jarring. Perhaps a darker red/brown background (because the world tends to be on fire/covered with dust after a meteor strikes) and more intense music would be better suited for your premise?

That said, the concept is a clever play on the running game and the mechanics look fun. The art really brings out the personality of the game. And I'm glad you guys took the initiative to add it to the app store and make a video for us :)

Bomb Defuse by Kaphonaits 2011-12-25T18:09:00

Kaphonaits, I'm glad you came back with the experience you got from your first dare. :D

I'm not sure whether I could lose (I waited for some time), so I think the game lost a lot of immediate agency from that. As well, I'm also unsure how the theme relates--besides highlighting how lonely the profession feels. Addressing that through the game (perhaps by having Sam comment on your lack of social life, etc) would have really pushed the theme through. Otherwise, fun game and clever use of sfx. :)

Shadow Showdown by syrup 2011-12-21T00:24:00

Nice minimalist design, and I liked the concept of battling your subconscious. Some elements seem to work against your idea though: the bright background (if your mind is happy, why do you need to fight them?), the lack of agency for kills (it feels a bit anti-climatic), and the enemies don't seem to be much of a challenge.

Perhaps if you made the background start off being really dark and gradually brightening as you kill off the enemies, and add an AI for all of the enemies: when you kill one, they'll run at you, but if you run away, they'll also eventually run away (playing a bit more on that subconsciousness idea). I can definitely see how this game could be really cool.

Alone in Red-F Labs by Sempai 2011-12-25T15:47:00

Dig the concept. It felt like if you had more time to add content, you could have made something spectacular. At the moment, still a solid piece. :)

Sanity by shard123 2011-12-22T02:51:00

The effort to make all your own assets really showed in how integrated everything feels. I do wished you guys spent more time on the controls and gameplay though--that's how the player interacts with your world, right? You want that to be a smooth as possible. The small things added up and my experience wasn't quite so fun, but I definitely see what you guys wanted to do and I hope you keep polishing it. Solid work. :)

Leaf me Alone by AyCe 2012-01-08T06:35:00

I definitely enjoyed the strategy meets action gameplay and the punny title. :) I understand your enthusiasm, but having 4 of the 5 download links as your updated version was a bit confusing (though I am bad at reading). I was 10 minutes into the updated version, thought to read other comments, and realized that I wasn't playing the original since it had sound. :P

5 DAYS by matthias_zarzecki 2012-01-08T07:58:00

Pretty and atmospheric intro. I can definitely feel the Half-Life inspiration, but ultimately the pacing wasn't my cup of tea. Very impressive Unity work though. :)

Carry Meow Home by Luthwyhn 2011-12-25T15:53:00

Nice job soldiering through the dare despite illness AND a birthday, bravo. :)

I think the game's adorable and uses a clever mechanic on real-world adorableness (sometimes I pretended that I was the human carrying the kitty instead), but like the others, also feel that more guidance would have been nice--especially in a randomly generated world. How would you know if somebody's carrying you in the right direction? It ended up being a guessing game.

Crawl the Dungeon by Frib 2011-12-25T17:49:00

Solid entry, really dig the humor. :)
And +1 brownies for the nice Christmas edition too.

A.L.O.N.E: Always Lonely on Newyear's Eve by qrunchmonkey 2011-12-21T21:16:00

I did a I7 project a few months ago. Inform 7 is a tough thing to work with; the text-based adventure environment affords a really different idea of game design, that can seriously alienate a more modern crowd who aren't familiar with the idea. Bravo, sir.

Scored 79 out of a possible 200.

Sweet writing, very fleshed out world. Both passage of time and space is played on really well. I appreciated unlocking achievements, and keeping the scoring system intact definitely added incentive to keep playing the game.

Take said, the game still limits control visibility, inherent to IFs, for unfamiliar players--and I'm still one of those. For a large part of the game, I didn't know what I could do or how to do the things I could do. I understand that stating controls for everything could spoil the experience of figuring them out, but interactions like looking under a bed (I live in a life without space under beds) might be impossible to just know for some players. The phone took me a large portion of the game to figure out to work (type mail is a weird command, and I still don't know how to respond). Maybe a command list of used commands would have helped, given your audience.

Really cool IF though, and very impressive for one of your firsts. :)

Zolcan by drZool 2011-12-25T16:06:00

The web link took me to a text that mentioned controls and nothing else, and then the direct link took me to the game (skipping controls). Good thing I did those two in that order. :P

I would have liked the exit to be a different color (maybe a portal?) and I honestly thought the rock was a healthpack that teleported you to the beginning of the level--more feedback would have been nice. Also got stuck after the second rock monster--couldn't make the jump. Otherwise, solid platformer (not quite a shmup). :)

Soulroom by Kakset 2011-12-21T02:07:00

Whoa, large file. :P Congrats on your first Dare, Kakset. It was really cool, and I totally dig your sense of humor. :) Very nice.

Arzea by arkeus 2012-01-07T23:31:00

Sir, I'm upset at how epic this game is. There goes my next 24 hours.

Bunker by namrog84 2012-01-08T21:44:00

I think some atmospheric music would have went a long way (and laughter when you died to spinners). I found walking through doorways to be pretty difficult, but maybe that's just me being bad at it. Solid entry though, and I think the other 90% of cut content could only have been really refreshing on top of the game. Bonus points for excessive death particles. :D

Volcanox by leafo 2011-12-21T02:59:00

JayCFraser pretty much said my thoughts. Nice work though. :)

The Best Of Us by Zed 2012-01-08T03:42:00

While I applaud your ambition, creating many different elements (esp. in limited time frame) always always runs two big risks of being able to be criticized for any element and lacking coherence. Thanks to your art style and narrative design, you avoided the latter... but individually, the chapters got boring. Wonderful voice acting, theme & mood, so I wonder if the game would have been better if you spent all your talents on one element instead.

Still, sir, you are a brave man and a very cool one too. ;)

Dr. Autofober's Experiment by tcstyle 2011-12-21T23:59:00

Interesting play on the theme.

There's a lot happening at once and at quite the lively pace too, so I'm often blocking off two approaching subjects, notice another pair joining out of the corner of my eye, and know that I won't be quick enough to stop them. Maybe I'm just terrible at microing, lol.

Perhaps adapting a cooldown to the resources (ex: max of three kittens, getting a new one every 10s) and having placed ones just disappear over time will shift the gameplay more towards a fast pace placing game to fit the AI's pace rather than the current game's more intense pressure gameplay.

All in all, pretty interesting concept. Unfortunate that you didn't get all the features in that you wanted but good work nonetheless. :)

Happy Land by Vilborg 2011-12-22T00:01:00

I wasn't able to run it either. :(

Last Stand by John Conrad 2011-12-21T03:09:00

Perhaps I'm just used to last stand styled games that rotated the character to the aim so when the game began, I didn't think to use the mouse. On a similar note, the gameplay could use a bit more feedback (flashing effect/thump sound for getting hurt, etc) as shooting didn't quite have the kick that it could have. And bullets coming from the gun instead of my chest. ;)

Small details aside, I liked it and I'm sure you can really polish it up with just a bit more time.

December is a Good Month for Dying by sstrandberg 2011-12-21T03:28:00

Nibelung and Phen said my thoughts pretty well. I applaud your ambition to do a multiplayer game, but to show off all the effort you put into the game, perhaps a standalone version with AI might have been apt. I really dig your character design though.

Lifeless by DragonSix 2011-12-22T00:28:00

Really like the art style. Excellent mood :)

alone I art by Make A Game 2012-01-01T05:35:00

The mechanics are smooth. You guys mentioned some trouble with Flixel, but that doesn't show at all in the final game. You guys mention wanting smarter AI, but I thought the guard AI was more than decent (they pathed, they chased, what more could a thief ask for?). On top of that, you guys had some pretty sweet ideas--I was in love with the gallery feature, it adds a lot.

But I felt that the level, that tied all the gameplay together, didn't show off the mechanics as well as it could have. Having one exit does constrain the player, but the execution became a bit more "walk forever, do this, walk forever, do that" instead of an intense thief game. Perhaps multiple exits, time cap, having a bit more time to design the level (your journal suggested that final level design started ~5h left), features that just makes use of all of your existing, fun systems could definitely add a lot.

Flixel's definitely an interesting environment. On one hand, it gives you things like pathing. Unfortunately, that makes you reluctant to do other kinds of AI. I think the trick is to make sure you have all the powerful tools in your belt (like saving: http://flashgamedojo.com/wiki/index.php?title=Saving_%28Flixel%29), try to take advantage of them in clever ways, and never waste time trying to fight against how Flixel does things. :P

It was immediately obvious that art is one of you guys' greatest strengths, and this game was a fun, clever play on the theme and a tribute to your talents. From all the humor, I can tell that you guys enjoyed making it--and it's really nice to see a game that just shows off the team's personality so much. Good job, guys! :D

DiggyDig by wzl 2011-12-26T00:16:00

FrameBuffer incomplete, FrameBufferUnsupported errors thrown before crashing upon running it. On Win Vista. Alas, it looks fun. :(

A Blind Man in the Darkness by Thomas Pritchard 2011-12-20T05:09:00

Quite an interesting experience. I really enjoyed it. One unfortunate point to note was that I had to look back and forth between the text at the bottom of the screen and my character (to avoid obstacles) as I was just moving through.

Left Alone by Static_boy123 2011-12-22T00:25:00

Not bad for your first LD. Welcome to the compo, Static_boy123. I hope you learned quite a bit from the compo so you can really take it to the next level next time. :)

Santa's Survival by TerranLol 2011-12-26T00:07:00

Lol. But also, didn't use original art assets. ;)

Forever Alone - The End of Colors by gebirgsbaerbel 2012-01-05T18:31:00

Congrats on your first dare, gebirgsbaerbel. I looks interesting. A big section of us are PC (including me), so a playthough video or the like really lets you show off your efforts (especially your music/sfx it seems) for an otherwise Mac exclusive entry.

ZED Survivor by faijdherbe 2011-12-26T00:25:00

On Win Vista and getting to the title menu, but pressing continue breaks it. Although I'm not a fan of your button mapping choices (select with space/back with ESC rub me a bit weird), but it was showing a lot of mood and promise. Sad I didn't get to play it. :(

A Date With Zombies by someone9999 2011-12-21T22:29:00

I agree with gimlll that the presentation could have used a lot of work and the initial process is way too slow. Also, the next level sound was a bit annoying for me. But it's always fun to mow down zombies. :)

Ego Sum by Nanofus 2011-12-21T22:34:00

Congrats on your first dare, Nanofi. :)

As the others have said, try to make sure everybody just understands how to play and what they're doing--especially for small games like LDs. It has some pretty cool mechanics, so you really want everybody to be able to see everything.

A bit more polish, and you could have been really onto something.

lonely robot by ericdpitts 2011-12-26T00:43:00

The ending was really clever, and gets a couple of extra stars from me by itself. I wasn't sure how I feel about the dialogue stopping the action though.

Congrats on your first dare, ericdpitts. I hope you learned a lot and had plenty of fun doing it. :)

Node 2F40E by Arowx 2011-12-26T01:21:00

It's a really neat idea, but (unless I was doing it wrong) the "figuring out" process was a bit too tedious for me. Without watching the gameplay video, I wouldn't have gotten that far. Maybe a few smaller puzzles to get users use to the idea first? :(

Alone on a raid by adventureloop 2011-12-21T02:28:00

Perhaps a gameplay video will show off your efforts for those of us who don't have the hardware requirements? :)

Leave me alone! by gustavla 2011-12-21T15:39:00

I could never really get into the more grindy arpg genre games, but the polish alone made it pretty enjoyable. Kinda of got bored though after I got to the point of farming big slimes for a diamond weapon, and it felt like I was in a repetitive process of take damage, kill, until I needed sleep breaks :(

Fantastic work with how cleaned up you made the game. Bonus points on the death effect.

I Was Here by yosh 2012-01-07T23:20:00

It's really cool for you to include snapshots of the paper designs. I would never have the time to do those, did they help?

TREPANG by danbolt 2011-12-26T00:56:00

Random generators are always tricky--easy to generate a lot of content versus unable to balance/test possibilities. My first attempt swarmed me with enemies from the get go, killing me before I knew what was going on. My second attempt seemed to only have a single jellyfish enemy the entire level, but shooting crashed the game. My last attempt had a much nicer balance, but it showed some of the holes in your game design.

Like the others, I like the novelty of your concept but the unbalance kinda rendered it pointless. I think small tweaks are all it takes to make this into a fun game. :)

Glow by StarLight 2012-01-08T06:20:00

Glad that "what went wrong" on your postmortem was only packaging. I'm sure you'll be just fine with that for the next go around. Artistic level design principle that I recommend: use neutral colors for the bg, warm colors to shape what's interactive (like platforms and the ground) separate from the bg, and highlight your character. Though impressively moving work for your first game (in a ld48 nonetheless!). :D

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2011-12-20T01:51:00

That's something I didn't notice after hours of playing it until just so use to the starting positions/subtle color differences. Thanks for the feedback, Wiering! :)

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2011-12-20T04:37:00

qrunchmonkey, I'm glad you liked it! To my knowledge, the all time high level score isn't much better, lol. In restrospect, I definitely agree with you that a marker (perhaps different/more bold outline color) would have really helped.

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2011-12-21T23:46:00

tcstyle, thanks :) I wanted to reward players for interacting with everything, so I added that incentive to promote destroying stuff. It's not very obvious, but taking out walls while there are still clones shooting at you also rewards more score and money.

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2011-12-23T18:51:00

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I really appreciate it. I'm continuing to fix the game up on the side, and all the feedback's helping tons. :)

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2012-01-08T03:48:00

Thanks for enjoying it, guys. :) I interpreted the theme as to be just yourself--but clones count as yourself too, right? Bit of a stretch, haha. In reflection, I regret not balancing it just so you guys can keep having fun and not remembering to communicate the theme inside the game. :(

Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron 2012-01-09T14:53:00

Thanks a lot for the detailed criticism, Cosr. It's awesome, I really appreciate it. :D

void by diux 2011-12-21T03:53:00

Awesome game :D Tough and fun. For a first LD, super impressive.

Zombie Street by Keevor 2011-12-21T01:34:00

I had lots of problems understanding what I was doing and what was happening (besides squishing everything) at first. After playing it a while, I was like... is this everything? So I looked back on this page and was like: oh, there's people. I think a quick info screen--[img of car] "you", [img of zombie] "squish", and [img of human] "save"--would have gone a long way. On the same note, I couldn't tell if I was getting damaged (or could be). I didn't quite figure out what the three numbers on the top left were... (lack of formatting symbols like X:XX, HP, $). Better yet, revamp the UI (maybe health bar on top of car, money/time at top/bot center of screen). And a "ahhghg" scream for the human. And the lag. Lots of small details.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it. That's why I took the time to comment on everything. With a bit of polish, I can see this being a really fun game. :)

Go find some friends by x2l2 2011-12-22T00:10:00

Congrats on your first dare, x2l2. Interesting idea. If you played around with more mechanics and polished it up, I think it could be pretty fun. :)

ALONE with K.I.T.T.I. by pbdiode 2011-12-25T00:30:00

Congrats of your first dare, pbdiode. Interesting story. I can see where you took your inspiration from, but roguelike controls/UI only seems to fit a slow-paced, "requires thinking of what action you want to do next" style of gameplay. I found myself wishing that I didn't have to spam buttons to just move around. Mapping health and adding some more on screen feedback for being critically injured, etc would have been nice (since I was just flying around killing things). Though for your first, solid job. :)

The Place by Snuffypot11 2011-12-21T01:58:00

Congrats on your first LD, Snuffypot11 :)

To be honest, I'm biased against GameMaker so I sighed after I saw the icon of the download, but then you surprised me in a good way. The game used some clever designs, like the question marks, that I really liked and your introduction of elements was really nice. I'm sorry that you didn't get everything in that you wanted (part of everybody's first dare experience, of course), but you did a pretty good job considering that. :)

Phil: A Search for a Friend by Bullseye8841 2011-12-25T00:17:00

Hey guys, congrats on your first stressful dare. :D Thoughts that ran through my mind as I was playing:

It's obvious that a lot of art time was spent on characters and the eating animation was really cool, but the missed visual details really stole my attention: people levitating 5 inches off ground, really big doors and trees, and lack of reaction to me.

Eating is cool, but by itself, just leaves me wanting more to the gameplay. From what I can tell, it's really bare-bones without any sense of challenge (was there another level?). Out of loneliness, I jumped off to the endless pit on the right.

And speaking of which, the theme was not conveyed well (something I regretted with my entry too). If it was a game about a zombie wanting to be friends with people but finds out that everybody he hugs just plays dead and ignores him--even if he eats them--or something. But you have to tell your players that. Some way of expressing his loneliness rather than just a description (especially because the game's music clashes so much against that).

All in all, I can definitely see where your heart was. You guys did a solid job for your first dare, and for future entries, I recommend really focusing on the theme itself and making use of your new time management skills to give yourself plenty of time at the end to make the experience more polished. As for continuing this game, I would really like a lot more feedback and a lot more challenging elements. I think you guys have a pretty nice set of mechanics set up, and I wish you the best of luck going forth. :)

lost, alone by grobitbox 2011-12-20T05:17:00

Congrats on your first Dare, grobitbox!

I didn't really understand quite what I was doing, and I just wandered around for a while... quite enjoying the wind and the nifty footstep effects. Excellent mood. Despite not getting everything in that you wanted, you did a fine job in creating a cool experience. :)

Do NOT Hug Me! by ziomorti 2011-12-22T02:14:00

Hey, ziomorti. Congrats on your first LD and thanks for all your work commenting and reviewing games. I'm returning the favor. :)

I really liked how different weapons changed the gameplay, and the animations and audio gave the game lots of personality and likability. It was pretty hectic and fun at first, but I ended up (like others) just wanting more depth.

Also, not being able to avoid damage is something that stresses me out quite a bit. Once the map gets crowded, I can only run to a corner (taking damage by running past enemies) and fight them off one at a time. Either knockback or maybe jumping adds a layer of skill that I would have really appreciated.

All in all, great effort. I think you executed some things really well, and if you had a bit more time to polish and add another feature or two, this could have been a pretty fun game. :)

Hermit (unfinished) by Sparrow 2011-12-25T00:42:00

I like the graphics and advancing time (despite being a dev thing, I feel that a hold to speed up time for a farming sim would be a feature many users would want). I would also prefer having all the UI information without having to pause the game first.

I wish you guys had more time to add to it. I can definitely see this evolving into something really cool. :)

Alone in the Universe by KhaoTom 2011-12-22T03:20:00

Wowzers, that's a pretty space scene. :) While a bit more direction might also detract from the loneliness of space aspect, I also feel that a little more of something is needed.

Punished by StormForce 2011-12-25T00:57:00

Congrats on your first dare, StormForce. I understand that criticism can be quite tough, but please try to take comments with a grain of salt. Some critics might not understand that not everybody is as gifted as they are at art.

I think it was a solid entry, specially for your first. One of my biggest mistakes on my first dare was not taking the time to make sure my game always engaged players as well, and I hope to encourage you to allocate some more time at the end to make everything extra shiny. You want to show off everything you did, right? Guiding the player through all the cool stuff you did in a way so that the player doesn't know that they're being guided--is kind of what good gameplay is. Best of luck. :)

Follow by Pixelbear 2011-12-21T02:35:00

Gorgeous on the eyes and ears, so I think you guys met your goal. :) Sightly on the frustrating side, but a pretty sweet experience nonetheless.

Forever Alone by sauronz 2012-01-05T18:53:00

Awesome:
- Obstacles collided in front of you.
- Watching explosions.
- Flame particles.
- Smooth controls.

Less awesome:
- After a while became just a game about sitting on the left side of the screen and watching explosions.
- Meteors increased after a point, but it was anti-climatic since they all got destroyed before getting to me.
- Not really having an incentive to go to the right side.

Alone Ozone by MadEqua 2012-01-05T18:37:00

Awesome:
Really clever, fun play on the theme.
Sweet music.
Nice level of increasing difficulty.

Less awesome:
How menu used different controls than the game.
Not having enough time to enjoy your game each level. Maybe a survival mode?

Sociophobia by cappelnord 2012-01-05T18:43:00

For your first dare, great job! Wonderful mood, very fittingly awkward art. Panic was a really clever idea. :)

The Climb by Fr0sZ 2012-01-05T18:59:00

The controls were too slippery for my liking (some jumps felt higher than the others, moving left and right went too fast, the collisions didn't feel "solid"), but the concept was really nifty: jumping under pressure. Added lots of mood points.

The Cheese Stands Alone by tSwitch 2011-12-21T22:11:00

Unfortunately, seems to freeze up my browser if I put too many blocks up. I definitely liked the high score feature and the variety of mechanics. As other have said though, perhaps a bit of peer playtesting would have worked out dominant strategies that might just make a lot of your features redundant and reduce your game to only one way of playing.

Alone in Translation by Gareth Jenkins 2011-12-25T01:13:00

Perhaps a video for those of us on Windows? :)

It's Space by EatThePath 2011-12-21T03:22:00

I'm impressed at your efforts. Your choice of sfx detracted from the loneliness of space, I think, but everything else was pretty cool. Wasn't quite sure what I was suppose to do so I just killed aliens, and I think that was a pretty clever play on the idea of loneliness: boring at the beginning, too hectic whenever you found other entities.

Gross.. AS IF!! by snowshovelboy 2011-12-21T02:43:00

660. Really, really fun :)

The cake is not a lie by Lythom 2012-01-07T02:45:00

Fun concept. :) A bit more feedback, maybe a "please wait" for the loading bit would have been nice. I really liked the enforced lack of erasing--it adds a lot more to the conclusion.

Alone in the Dark by Lolnut 2011-12-21T00:38:00

Congrats on your first Dare, Lolnut. :)

As for art: I liked your sketchy game graphics--they really add a lot of personality to the game. But the blue in-game background did kind of clashed with the title screen (which suggested space) and a sketchy hand-drawn font choice would have been perfect fit for your style.

There's not much to do in the game, but I still liked the mood. :) With a bit of polish, this could be really cool.

F_cked by kelp 2011-12-25T01:23:00

Very nice art, the style adds a lot of atmosphere and is really suiting. :)

Vestige by Quimby 2011-12-21T21:28:00

Congrats on your first Dare, Quimby! I definitely remember that poor tutorial/instructions and a lack of sound were my biggest regrets too on my first. Adding content gets addictive. ;)

Speaking of which, I'm impressed with how much 3D content you managed to add, and making runs back and forth gets to being pretty fun. I didn't really understand the theme in your game, and the barrel rolls didn't really seem to serve a purpose besides giving me a slight headache...

All in all though, great job in your first Dare. :)

Looking For Group by scottychips 2012-01-07T03:12:00

Funny and fun, agreed. Initially, I like really thought the converted players could transform into allies (something like a RTS), and I was like "Why am I killing you guys? I don't wanna kill you guys... oh." Lol. I'm definitely hoping you expand on the idea further. :)

Neukoelln Nights by desucrerer 2012-01-07T04:02:00

After the "at the corner of eisenbahnstrae and sackgasse" comment, both Firefox and Chrome froze. Which it unfortunate, because I really enjoyed it and wanted to play more, lol. Really liked the graphics, music, and mood, and it made me miss Europe. :(

I Am A Ninja by Frozen Fractal 2011-12-20T05:28:00

Controls had a learning curve, and a quick tutorial would have been nice to help. Also the walking speed feels a bit sluggish for a ninja game, but once I got rolling Spider-man style, I had plenty of fun. :)

Headphones On by ektoutie 2011-12-25T01:27:00

A web build or a video would be nice for us lonely Windows guys. :)

Motherless by sudojess 2011-12-25T01:33:00

Very ballsy of you to be competing with a new language, but it was pretty cool in spite of that. Always make sure you (or somebody can play though your level), especially if you're ramping up the difficulty of your game--I learned the same lesson this dare.

Deadly Robot Spree by PapyPilgrim 2011-12-22T03:55:00

Although I admittedly began playing the game a bit put off by the default Flixel art, I ended up (like many others) really appreciating your focus to the gameplay and controls.

I'm glad you started Daring. Flixel has quite a bit of power as you get more comfortable with it, and I look forward to seeing your future efforts. :)

Painkiller by @Micle2000 2011-12-20T04:51:00

Congrats on your first Dare, Micle2000. How the music keeps playing after the applet's closed is a nice touch to represent the lingering mood. ;)

I got stuck on the third floor (the one after the first enemy), but it was a pretty impressive first game. Definitely dig the dark atmosphere and the soft piano. Good job!

Alone in the War by ReikVal 2012-01-01T17:37:00

It seems you guys created a nice engine of features, but unfortunately spent too much time working on building an engine from scratch. The game shows lots of promise though, and I definitely would like to see what it could be if you guys continued working on it (if just to add instructions, as others have mentioned).

Solitude-Seeking Rock Star by David20321 2011-12-21T00:11:00

Dig the graphics and the guitar mechanic. I agree with Codexus that they clash with the colors somewhat (art and graphics say "jamming"), but I still really like the styles. I can definitely imagine cool things using this engine.

walkabout by mramaizng 2012-01-01T17:49:00

Windows Vista... no can do. :(

Spirit In Mansion by Drabiter 2012-01-01T17:25:00

Congrats on your first dare, Drabiter. I think some of the atmosphere was lost in translating the Fatal Frame formula to bite-sized chunks--perhaps it was inevitable, but I wonder how much darker backgrounds, darker ghosts, and slowly fading in enemies would have added. Solid job though, in light of your sprite troubles and having to quickly redo the sprites.

Barriers by FacticiusVir 2012-01-01T17:45:00

Page isn't loading for Firefox. Perhaps the bitly link is down?

Friendless by Homletmoo 2011-12-21T15:50:00

Congrats on your first game, Homletmoo :)

I admire your ambition to attempt a turn based game (although it didn't quite work with your gameplay). Usually I associate turn based with a lot more strategic elements--the gameplay emphasizes on taking the time to think--so perhaps just some more interesting features would have gone a long way. Atm though, maybe I just don't understand it?

I definitely like what you've done so far, and I think this is super promising and hope you'll continue building on it. :D

P.S. the gems might kind of look like poo...

Trapped by zanders3 2011-12-22T00:21:00

I have trouble playing Skyrim in first person, so this got me dizzy super quickly. x_x

Gorgeous though, and I wished, like the others, that controls were tweaked so I could have really enjoyed everything.

WEIRDLY ALONE. by xilefian 2012-01-08T05:16:00

As a guy who loves his GBC games, this is gorgeous. Solid entry. :)

Alone With a Phone by waynebeam 2012-01-08T23:23:00

Very impressive for your first dare, waynebeam, congrats! Perhaps a different approach to the endings could make quite a bit of difference. Instead of saying that you "lost all of your followers", maybe "you're still lonely in real life, but hey, at least you had 540 followers on twitter today" (a win statement) would have made the pressured gameplay a bit more rewarding. Solid job, simple but fun :)

BLIND by howieV (binarygirl) 2011-12-21T01:50:00

Awesome. When the theme was announced, I thought that a blind game would be perfect. I'm really glad somebody was brave enough to make one, and it's really cool.

The text and the flashing level images add a lot of your personality into the game, but I did feel that they slightly detracted from the mood. Perhaps the intro/instructions screen could have been a sign, then fade effect/bandana into a pitch black rest of the game? Then unfade back to vision for kitty, idk. :)

Very sweet game.

Dysentery by MisterDerek2 2011-12-22T00:18:00

Silly but hilarious. :)