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Tombstones and Tribulations by Dillon 2018-12-15T00:57:01Z

Very interesting and creative idea with the use of multiple characters. I don't know if the repetition can be improved (it gets draggy when having to bring multiple characters all the way from the left side to the right side of the map).

I think I lost one too many characters to the spiky traps as I have one character who made it all the way up (double ladder climb) and he broke through the ground. I'm not sure how else to progress from here but I don't have another supporting character to carry me over. I wish there was a way to undo that without having to restart all over as it seems now I am unable to complete the level as I have insufficient alive characters. Unless there is another workaround, I think the game might be a little too unforgiving in this aspect.

It's also a little difficult trying to select the character I want. I would prefer a small interface at the bottom with coloured numbers to indicate which key corresponds to select which coloured character. This way, it would lessen the confusion of trying to cycle through the buttons trying to find the one I wanted to select as the game has so many characters. Moreover, having that interface at the bottom reduces the need for players to read the attached instructions and they can just jump into the game and get familiarized with the controls with what is displayed on-screen. At the start, I was confused as to how to change the characters (kept pressing spacebar, or Q and E), since there were no in-game instructions at all on how to play.

Other than those issues, I think this is a very interesting concept. I feel it would work better with shorter levels or at least have some checkpoints so that when I make a fatal mistake, at least I don't have to refresh and play from the beginning, which is something not many people have the patience to.

Lastly, there is a bug where if you jump on a character, and then that character jumps up to reach a new "screen", when he comes back down he overlaps with another character and a really buggy collision battle ensues. Then, that character is lost permanently. This is how I got stuck and had to refresh, which is why it can really spoil the fun if a player has to restart from scratch.

I also was unable to figure out how to reach the end. Some in-game tips or hints on how to move to the next area would be nice. Maybe even have a video walkthrough, which would be helpful.

Good job on the game! :)

Tombstones and Tribulations by Dillon 2018-12-15T00:59:31Z

As continuation from above, I would also like to mention that the graphics and atmosphere in the game are really well established and it really highlights the underlying dark tone of the game.

upgrades at a price by Nicso 2018-12-14T14:50:23Z

I really liked the art! It's very beautiful and I like that the different rooms have different coloured platforms so I actually know which room I have entered before and when I see a new colour I know I have to explore that. It's a very nice touch to help the game be more navigatable.

The appearance of traps when I picked up one of the upgrades is a really nice environment change that actually adds more depth and challenge to the game. I didn't complete the game due to reasons below but I hope there are more of these down the line rather than just increasing enemy speed which does not necessarily make the game more engaging or interesting.

I think the deaths get way too punishing. After picking up the upgrade that spawned the traps, the same room also had a very low ceiling. Combine the low ceiling height with how high the character's jump height is, it makes it very easy to fall into the traps in this room and the ones after as I always hit the ceiling and fall into the traps. And when I die, I get sent back 3 whole rooms! This made the experience slightly repetitive and possibly maybe too difficult. However, it just might be that I have not mastered the controls so you would have to check with other playtesters too.

I personally feel it was more of a game where you get benefits but the benefits come with a catch, which makes you disadvantaged, and not necessarily to do with the idea of sacrifice, but that's alright to me as it still makes for an interesting game concept.

I liked that the glow was used to bring attention to the traps, and also I loved the death animations/FX left behind by killed enemies. With the music, it sets a unique mood for this game, so good job on that! Keep it up :)

The Vegetable Farmer by broken-matrix 2018-12-13T23:12:00Z

Nice story. It would be nice to be reminded that there is a goal in the game (6000 blood), so those who skipped the instructions would know, or even display it so we know our current progress. I also think 6000 blood was a bit too much of a requirement but that's just me.

The instructions should also be toggle-able by a visible/clickable button since I forgot that there was a shortcut to re-enable it and had to restart the game to re-read the instructions. These are just some improvements I feel could be made to the game to make it so much better! :)

I liked the death animations. It's wonderful to see the enemies bleed when they get hit so you know you hit them, and it was a nice touch to have the bodies decay and leave a patch on the ground. I think they could be made smaller though, as their death sprites seem to have grown larger in proportion to when they were alive. I understand it is a perspective you drew to make them look like they are lying flat on the ground but it made it look like they grew when they died XD.

One improvement you can do is to have the enemy weapons be of a different colour since they are the same sprite projectile as the player's grey sword and easily mixed.

I read that you ran out of time, but I hope this doesn't discourage you from making more games! Keep it up!

Sacrifice Powers by sky_fighter 2018-12-14T14:26:58Z

Great entry. The buttons at the win screen seem to be stretched. This is pretty obvious on the 'Return to menu' button text which looks horizontally compressed. Both buttons also do not do anything when pressed. I am playing on Chrome if it matters.

The game also is a bit short. I also did not know what the third power does in-game until I read your instructions and even still I was still confused. The first two were intuitive, but not the last. I had to read the instructions a few times to understand that the third power seems to refund either of the first two powers when used. In this case, there should be some kind of feedback for when you use it when you use it, maybe a text that says "You gained Rocket", or if you already have the other powers, it should prevent you from using the power and say "You cannot gain any powers as you already have them." That would be more intuitive.

It would help a lot to show some damage texts as well when either player gets hit. I assumed the rocket does increased damage to the opponent, but the lack of damage texts and feedback meant I could not really feel or tell the effects of the rocket. In contrast, the effect of healing my HP was pretty obvious as I could see my HP bar go up, but I was not made aware that I would miss 1 round. I think having some kind of visual action or animation occur would be helpful to see when an action is being cast (be it attack, or healing) and to tell that an action is being skipped.

Generally, the negative effects of all the powers weren't very obvious or felt so that can be improved. I also think adding text descriptions when you hover the mouse over the powers to explain what each power does would be really helpful. Take note that not everybody will scroll down to read lengthy game instructions or descriptions, but having in-game popups or hover texts will help players understand the game better and that results in them to being able to enjoy it more.

As mentioned in an above comment, some strategic depth would be good for the game. At the moment it's simply just use up the rocket, then use heal when you are low on health and you are almost guaranteed to win just doing this without even needing the third power (I did not use that at all).

I also don't think the theme was felt very obviously in the game, but I think making the negative effects more obvious, impactful and readable might help in that area.

With that said, keep it up and continue to make games! :)

Kill chickens for better art! by loveapplegames 2018-12-14T22:48:49Z

It's nice to play a different type of game like this one once in awhile.

In the start screen, I thought this would be a game where I can change the graphics because the text at the top is really jarring. I am referring to the flashy, rainbow text at the top. It seems to be really distracting and almost the kind of text that you see being used in clickbait advertisements. It looks very out of place in this game but perhaps that was the point and your intention? The text also overlaps with the audio speaker button at the top left. This one doesn't look like it should be intentional - consider changing the placement of that button so elements don't overlap. Additionally, the cursor graphic also seems to have some tiny but visible white pixels surrounding the black stroke of the pixels that look very obvious against dark backgrounds. This looks like an anti-aliasing issue possibly? But this is more minor.

I really liked the flourish level. The branches very cleverly align to adjacent branches and the placement of the object encourages me to try out a spiral effect which is different from the previous levels. The game actually gets cooler the more I play and discover.

It's also super funny to see "59 chickens were harmed in the making of this artwork." I really enjoyed making artwork with this. I think it would be nice to have a Save as PNG option (without the UI & text) for those who are really invested in the game and want to use it to create some interesting wallpaper art XD. But of course, I understand this is a jam. Still, I would have loved a button that toggles the text and UI off so I can take a nice screenshot!

Thanks for the game and the fun it has brought :) Screenshot 2018-12-15 06.48.03.png I love games so I love the result I had with this pacman one. I think some of these results are wallpaper worthy.

Air Drop! by digitaldude555 2018-12-14T15:32:14Z

Some game breaking issues here: If you have thrown out all the passengers, and clicked Sacrifice, the dialogue window now cannot be closed as all the options to sacrifice are now gone, forcing the game to remain forever paused and the window to obscure the player's view with no way to close it.

There is also an exception thrown for out of memory when clicking on the Sacrifice button sometimes, or upon losing a life. But this also generally occurs at random after leaving the game running for some time even without performing any specific action.

That said, onto comments with the gameplay!

The instructions at the bottom right are also helpful to let us know what benefits we get from sacrificing so it gives the player the opportunity to weigh and make their decisions appropriately. It was also humourous to see the peoples' reactions when you choose to sacrifice them. I really enjoyed reading those and the little animation for when they fall out. It's cool!

I think the game could use a bit more depth in relation to the sacrifices. I'm not sure if there is a reason at all to actually keep the people in the balloon since you get all the advantages by sacrificing them all. There is also no personal attachment to any of the characters aside from their names so it only makes sense for the player to sacrifice them all eventually. I liked that they had names and faces though, which adds a bit of question to the moral compass of having to sacrifice them.

Having health bars for the enemies would help to visualize that you actually needed two hits to kill them. Having a visual change for the damage enhancer upgrade would also be a good way to see the improvement your upgrade has. It can be as simple as making the bullet change colour, or making the bullet bigger - anything just so that I know my bullets are more powerful than previously, aside from relying on text to relay that information to the player. Compare this to the rate of fire enhancement on the other hand, which was a very visible and obvious effect that can be felt even without text.

The numbered texts at the hearts are particularly hard to read sometimes. In particular, the number '1' looked like a number '7' or a number '4'. I would emphasize readability for this text as it is the player's life counter and it is important for it to be read clearly afterall.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the simple idea and its humour. Keep it up! :)

Apotheosis by citsua 2018-12-14T13:38:01Z

This was a pretty fun game! The tutorial was well setup so I understood all the abilities and enemy types without any issue. I did die a lot in the start because I was testing out the different weapons and I personally just used the bow throughout the entire game after that. It was the only weapon that gave me an advantage of long range without the need to charge, which helps deal with those pesky blue mage cubes easily. I also kept the heal god since that was the most useful utility skill.

I personally wanted to see more utility skills (such as the heal, resurrect), rather than different weapons, as I think once people get used to a certain weapon, I'm not sure they may want to switch, which means much of the early game's sacrifices don't actually significantly impact or change gameplay since they are just discarding the weapon they did not use or used least. You can't also use the weapons simultaneously so it doesn't have any advantage to keep them. I don't know if experimenting with passive effects would help, such as maybe if you held onto the lightning sword in your inventory, but are actively using the bow, maybe the sword occasionally has a small chance to shoot out lighting when you attack or a small chance to activate their special attack? This way there is actually incentive to keep those weapons that you don't use. As such, the way it is now, I think the only skills that I actually retained to the last were the utility skills, like dash and the passive resurrect and heal in that order. (I think heal is without a doubt a necessity till the end.) It also did not help that most of the weapons given to us are melee and in terms of gameplay, I felt their use was a bit limited against the ranged foes. However, I must say that their specials are really cool to look at - shockwave and the hammer blast are very impactful and rewarding to use in their own ways. Nevertheless, I think the presence of a variety of weapons at the start can also cater to players with different tastes, combat styles and preferences too!

A minor issue, which I'm not sure if it's due to the perspective mode of the game or something else, but ranged weapons are slightly inaccurate when aiming at certain positions. The projectiles seem to aim and shoot slightly off from my cursor's position in the 3D space. It wasn't too game breaking, but still made aiming difficult at times especially with cubes that are right along corners of the maze walls.

What I loved about the game was the amount of juice - the screen shakes, particle effects, and my character even receives some knock back when hit by a huge melee boss! Very nice detail there! The first time I encountered the boss was also a pretty cool moment just looking at a giant cube storming down the corridor after me XD

I also appreciate the big door designs and door animations. It fits the game feel and makes me feel like it's this huge heavenly place with the gods.

Having some sounds would have gone a long way in adding audio feedback and since the visual feedback is already there, it is a waste that there is no audio to back it up to deliver an ultimate enjoyable experience and it would do a lot to give some weight to the special abilities as well instead of just silence.

The graphics are simple and effective in portraying the game too and well executed without major flaws. Keep it up! :)

Apotheosis by citsua 2018-12-14T15:06:13Z

@citsua No problem! The tutorial is definitely good at exposing me to understand how each weapon can be used and their unique traits. And attention to detail and effort is always a nice touch in a game even during a game jam! All the best for the compo!

Just eat just enough 2 by zeu31 2018-12-14T19:11:14Z

This seems interesting, but I think it could use a bit more depth to make the gameplay more fun to play. Right now it's rather flat - mostly dodge as much as possible and try to conserve ammo to make kills.

It would be nice to have different variety of fishes appear the higher your score is that have different attack or shooting patterns, rather than simply making more fishes appear on the map. Maybe there are bigger fishes that need more hits to kill. At the same time, perhaps introduce some upgrades for the player as their score increases to give a sense of progression while at the same time making the score useful. This would give the player short milestones and goals to aim for. Maybe after reaching 1000 score, they are able to shoot two bullets at once for the same HP cost. Or maybe they can shoot bullets that are bigger and do more damage to the later fishes which have more HP.

I appreciate the screen shake when you kill a fish. It is a nice little detail that makes the kill much more impactful. It's also good to hear that there are sound effects in the game which makes the game feel more alive. I also did not realist that I actually move slower the lower my HP is until I read the game description, but that is a nice touch to the penalty.

I personally feel that the theme could be used more creatively, since the HP loss for shooting felt more like a penalty to shooting and a game design to make the player actually make their shots count, rather than actually involving the player having to reluctantly give up something to obtain something else.

Still, good job and keep making games! :)

Urgent Sacrifices by vinzBad 2018-12-13T21:36:19Z

I think the objects to sacrifice should have been hinted at or at least clues should be given to the player about what sacrifices each god likes. For example maybe the god on the left is portrayed as having lots of pets around him to show he loves animal sacrifices, and maybe the middle god looks like a fat god so he loves to eat food/fruits sacrifices, and maybe the god on the right is full of materialism and likes wealth or materialistic objects.

Currently it feels like a game of trial and error. The game also forces a restart the moment you sacrifice a wrong object. It also means I have to rely on memory to win the game and I think that could be improved since I don't think this is meant to be a memory game like match the cards. A lives system would have been more forgiving for the player so they are allowed a few wrong guesses and would improve the game overall. Otherwise maybe a restart isn't the best idea to force the player to start from scratch.

There is a nice feedback for the sacrifices - I enjoyed the dialogue from the gods when I sacrifice something to them as I wanted to see their reactions to each object. I think even having dialogue for the wrong objects would be cool too, like "YUCK THIS GOAT TASTES HORRIBLE!" or "I can't believe you gave me this pathetic science book of nonsense!", which can also hint towards what each god likes, and provide each god some kind of character which makes the sacrificial objects make more sense.

Good job, keep it up and I hope you continue making games!

Sacrificial Forest Friends by TheCrittersCove 2018-12-14T01:10:27Z

Great game! Here are some of my feedback. Consider having some music play in the instructions menu as it is too silent there. The interactive tutorial is nice to make sure players understand before continuing.

Does the score I get at the end affect the type of ending I get? The text implies so though I got the same result (hellhound) twice. If there are multiple endings and if it is based on score, it might be worth it to add how much score I lack to get the next result. For example, "you scored 80! You lack 20 score to summon the next underlord being!" As score is the main "benchmark" reward in your game, you could possibly take this further by adding a counter that shows the player's all-time high score.

As for the ending, if the ending occurs after a fixed amount of time and the gameplay is time-based, then there should be a countdown timer as it was abrupt and I was taken to the end screen unexpectedly without warning. If the game ends due to time of day (does it?), it wasn't very obvious.

I liked that the spells had a cast time so it's not just mindless clicking, and I appreciate that they have different ranges and color. I also liked that the spells had 'charging' animation sprites as well. The huge contrast they have with the dark backgrounds and characters make it very readable. Also, it is possible to place spells in the air - you probably may want to disable that as it breaks the immersion. Screenshot 2018-12-14 08.58.27.png

It would be better and cooler if the different spells were more unique apart from cast time and range. Maybe the purple spell has a chance to leave behind some purple fire that burns for some duration, or the lightning would have a longer cooldown but the cooldown for the next strike decreases if you hit a more condensed area with more targets? Just throwing out some gameplay ideas to make the spells more different from one another and improve the game's fun and variety.

Overall, the animations were also well done and the graphics are clean and simple, easy to read. Great job on your first solo Ludum Dare! :)

Sacrificial Forest Friends by TheCrittersCove 2018-12-14T20:10:00Z

@thecritterscove You're welcome! It is awesome to hear that you had already put some of these feedback into consideration! I am sure after this experience, you'll definitely have learnt a lot and be on your way to make an even better and more awesome game next time around! All the best for the jam! :)

Sacrificial Love by Lazertrax 2018-12-14T20:33:54Z

Cool game! Especially with the leaderboard! I enjoyed the gameplay more than I thought, having to micromanage the character's stamina and the baby.

It's also a nice touch that headshots insta-kill, so it is very rewarding to have discovered that strategy, as it adds a small learning curve to the game aside from mindless shooting. It would be better if the shooting would continue if I held the mouse button down, as spamming left clicks isn't a very attractive way to use the mouse for such a game :)

I also appreciate the tiny detail in the background animations of the transitions from day to night and vice versa. It feels very smooth and the graphics overall are very consistent and pleasing to look at.

Personally, I don't think the game fit with the theme as it feels more like it was a shop and that I am spending points and being branded as sacrificing. Sacrificing implies the idea that I will be put at a disadvantage when I sacrifice the points. But as I see it, there is more incentive to spend the points on upgrades than it would be to keep them as keeping them only affects the high score I believe but does not offer any in-game benefits for saving them. In this aspect, the points feel more like expendable currency.

Some ideas if you wish to adhere to the theme more might be that you could voluntarily sacrifice the baby (omg), or parts of your house/important furniture like the bed to temporarily stop the zombies, but would have an adverse consequence later on. For example you can throw the bed out the window to instantly kill all the zombies gathered at the left door in a dire situation, but now without the bed you have to sleep on the floor which recovers stamina slower. Of course, that's just an idea if you wish to adhere more to the theme. Especially with the challenge of the game, that could be a possible incentive for players to make those sacrifices.

But of course those are just my thoughts. This is a great game so keep it up! :)

Sacrificial Cards by Howard Duong 2018-12-14T21:40:12Z

Great game, I feel that fire rate is generally too slow and makes the game feel sluggish. This is especially apparent in the third wave, "Nightmare". There is a whole swarm of enemies following me which I am trying to run away. I am able to kill them in one shot yet my weapon fires at a very measely rate and that stage wasn't very fun. When I restarted, I picked all the fire rate upgrades, but it was still feeling very slow. In general the game needs to have faster firing speeds even if the damage has to be lowered to compensate.

As others have pointed out, there is a lack of contrast between characters and the background. The patterns on the background are also rather distracting and need to be more subtle.

The health bar also looks like a stretched graphic. Compared to the clean pixel art of the other graphics, the pale green pixels of the bar seem to be have some stretching on them causing a blurry gradient which looks unintended with the art style. The art in general isn't very pleasing to look at. I would suggest if you are going for pixel art or emulating its feel, try looking at some tutorials on pixel art and its appeal, and practice with having a certain style. The choice of colour palette can also dramatically improve your visuals as here everything just seems to blend together and nothing really stands out. Great colours can make your graphics pop out from the screen but right now I'm not really feeling excited by the graphics.

I'm happy to see that some basic visuals of shooting were added - muzzle flash when shooting is nice, and a tiny impact sprite lets me know that my projectile has hit an enemy. These are little stuff but it matters in a game :D You could take this further by having some blood splatter or some effect when an enemy dies, instead of them disappearing completely like as though they weren't there.

In terms of gameplay, I liked the concept of having to sacrifice certain stats for others, while generally still improving the character so you still feel a sense of progression. Having music and sound effects also helps the immersion of the game.

I notice that at the end screen, the texts seem to blur when they are hovered over and scaled up, leading to a pixelation of the font. The background used for the ending screen also seems extremely pixelated, as though it was the background but scaled up by a few times. This pixelation is inconsistent with the text which makes the whole screen very jarring to look at.

Lastly, the arrow to view the stats isn't very obvious nor does the graphic on the button give information on what it is for so it felt rather out of place. It also was one of the last things I discovered in the game because of its obscure location and colour. Furthermore, I think it would be nice if the stats of the weapon and character are actually displayed by default on the screen every time the cards come up. That way we know that the stats screen exists, but also more importantly we are able to make a comparison on how the values of the stats scale. Does 2 damage matter when I have 20 damage? I was also confused when sudenly the cards were now referring to the center weapon, instead of the character, and now the values were completely different, with high values like 400HP etc. The only way I understood it was that my character only had 50 HP so there was no way I could spend 400HP.

Nevertheless, great job at making this game. It is a wonderful concept and I hope you continue practising to make more games! :)

Sacrificies Delivery Service by cenullum 2019-01-01T00:04:34Z

I'm not sure how this game won 2nd place overall.

The 'crosshair' in the center looks like a glitched square graphic. The UX feels horrible as well. Upon starting the game, I am bomboarded with lots of distracting visuals making me confused as to what I should be focusing on. There is a distracting stickman animation in front of me who is actually my character - also why is he on a walking loop animation even when I am not even moving? And why is the camera strangely offset in a weird way from the character.

The start screen is also filled with lots of text taking away my attention from the actual important element - the 'START' button.. or text, whichever it is. The camera control is weird. It feels locked at the center, pivoting around the center, yet it follows my character who is awkwardly always placed on the left side of the screen. It feels like I am controlling an invisible object in the middle of my screen when the camera should instead be focused on my main character or the action, not the strange glitchy cursor. The camera scroll speed is very slow too, and there is no setting to change it. The start location is plagued with interface issues before I even get to the game. About the game...

Shooting is very weird. If you look at third person shooters, the bullets always fire from the same spot, and hit near where my cursor is. In here, it feels totally random and hit-or-miss, causing me to miss my shots and die unfair deaths. The bullets spawn from as randomly as from my front, to from an invisible location beside me. Even shotguns have an element of predictability and consistency to it. I had to die a few times before actually being able to progress. Also at one point I had -1 lives... seems like a bug? Also what is the point of the sword? I cannot shoot it, and there is no description indicating its purpose - does it give a damage boost or what?

I'm also mystified how the game got so high in the graphics category. Screenshot 2019-01-01 07.54.06.png The textures and visuals look haphazardly drawn in MS Paint (which doesn't do the software justice as I've seen much better pixel art games). Take a look at 'Eternal Home Floristry', it does the pixel art and retro feel so much better that I don't know how this game was rated better than it.

In terms of UX, there is no feedback for when I get hit, no visual feedback for if I have successfully hit or damaged something. For example, the red cloaked mage couldn't die. I thought he was invincible. Only until I eventually killed him did I realise he actually had a lot of HP. I can't tell if my shots hit or missed.

The lighting looks flat and uninspired - it looks like just a few point lights scattered around the scene. You can see how the dark areas that are in shadow look very flat - there is no ambient occlusion or shadowing to make things pop.

Overall the game feels very amateurish compared to past top winning entries. I also do not understand why this was made into a 3D game when it brought nothing new or innovative other than trying to maybe be 'cool' that it's 3D? It feels very unpolished. The menu also did not have to be 3D. Combine the messy visuals with the slow walk speed and the menu now looks poorly navigatable to have a practical user experience. The title says it is a 3d spelunky but it feels more appropriately titled as 'low quality 3d spelunky'. I wouldn't call this a 3d spelunky.

In terms of gameplay, there is no exploration or depth. While the levels seem to be randomly generated, the content in the levels remain linear - there are no hidden rooms or secret artefacts. After a few floors, the repetition is obvious and uninspired. And I start to feel the character has a really slow walk speed now. Did other players manage to get to the ending? I personally found the game too unforgiving and hard as I didn't manage to get to the end after a few tries. I didn't even meet the dragon. Consider taking a look at what made spelunky fun and good in terms of game design.

Continuing in Part 2 below.

Sacrificies Delivery Service by cenullum 2019-01-01T00:05:35Z

(Review continued from part 1 above)

As for presentation, the GIFs look very horrible. They look like a time lapse of the game, but I cannot get any information on the gameplay because the GIF is so fast. Also, you should get rid of the 'No Cameras Rendering' frame at the end of your first GIF. It looks like you accidentally disabled the camera in Unity during your recording and accidentally captured it. It looks really unprofessional.

Also, I could not find what the gold coins were for. I initially thought the red mage was a shopkeeper as he had text saying 'selling' something, but he turns out to be an enemy and was shooting me? It's very confusing. I could not find where I could spend my coins or what their use was. And the text from the red mage (his speech bubble?) is also overlapping with the 3D environment when he stands close to walls. You need to fix that as it might be better to render the text on top of nearby meshes.

Overall, this feels like a game I would not expect to see in the top winning entries. Perhaps those who rated highly on the game could give some insight and clarity into their experiences as to what made their experience so ground breaking and innovative and fun compared to the other games here.

Sacrificies Delivery Service by cenullum 2019-01-01T05:18:05Z

@archimagus I am puzzled too. I am not one to judge as this is merely the first Ludum Dare I have participated in and I am not an expert at how game ratings are determined. However, from the looks of it, if the game's ranking is purely determined by the average of a quantity of ratings then it will be easy for someone to exploit the system simply by getting friends to rate. If so, this is rather disappointing as Ludum Dare, being a very famous competition, seems to be using a rather 'shallow' and biased rating system and if this game can 'cheat', then certainly other games can :(

Alas, I hope I am wrong too, as I had high expectations for the winners of this round compo/jam, having participated in it and was very looking forward to seeing the innovation and quality of the winners of this round. However, the top games from this round of LD don't seem to have the polish that I've seen from previous rounds. :(

Save the Sheep by Laien Pathfinder 2018-12-13T21:13:14Z

A simple and cool looking game! I liked that the sheep and the man and dog have different movement speeds, forcing the player to slow down. I think one improvement would be the sacrifice mechanic. I personally feel it didn't have a huge impact and wasn't really motivated to use it as I led the entire group to the finish line without using it. Nevertheless, it's a great game and keep making games! Oh, I also loved the addition of sounds which adds to the atmosphere. :) Oh another nice touch is the click and drag to select all the units. It's definitely so much better with it than selecting one by one manually. I appreciate the nice quality of life thought put into the design.

Redshirt Air-Patrol by GettingRekt 2018-12-13T21:47:38Z

I think the game could have been made a bit more intuitive to play. It was very confusing as to what I was supposed to do at the start. There was nothing going on at the screen so I just kept hitting + to sacrifice since that was the only thing I could do, aside from moving the waypoints which did not seem to do anything other than the visual changing of the paths.

I think an in-game instruction would be helpful or some kind of countdown to when the UFOs fly in for each wave so I know that something is going to happen. I am immediately confused by the text and numbers at the bottom. I'm not sure what production does as I am capped at 3/3 - 3 of what? And what does the percentage actually affects - what does it increase? I also see ships docking at my island with a money ka-ching sound yet I don't actually have any money or currency. Is it increasing production? If so maybe that text could highlight or bounce when a ship docks to show that it has an impact.

Nevertheless, the sound effects are pretty humourous and I enjoyed seeing the UFOs slowly flying in to invade my town. I think if I understood what was going on, this might be an interesting game. But it might be that I am actually a pretty dumb player though. :)

Cake Hunters by bbaf 2018-12-12T21:30:47Z

Awesome, I didn't know I could click the people at first (I only read the part of the instructions that said to click on the insects to kill them). But once I did, they started spinning and killing the insects, which is pretty cool! And I agree with the above comment saying that their happiness should regenerate. That would be a cool addition since the spinning people are actually a pretty cool mechanic in this game which separates it from being a normal clicker game. Keep it up and continue making games!

Bokeh by arron-fowler 2018-12-14T01:53:04Z

I really like the visuals and aesthetics of the game. It feels really inspired and inspiring at the same time. The screenshots of the game are mesmerizing. Unfortunately at the start, I didn't quite understand the gameplay even as a single player. I had tons of questions like where was my HP bar, how do I shoot? This was made even more confusing by how there appeared to be visual feedback for pressing 'R', yet nothing was happening even when something was coming out from my character. In-game controls and instructions could have gone a looong way here since most players may not bother with scrolling down to read long game descriptions. Even till now I feel like I am still missing out some elements of the game.

After figuring out that I had to press in rhythm, I thought the idea was genius. It is such a waste as I almost left the game due to confusion and am not sure if there are others like me who might not have had the patience to try to understand the game.

But moving beyond that, this is just my personal opinion, but I think it would have been better use of time to focus on a single player game during the jam and not actually do the AI but maybe have a stationary/static boss? I found it really wonderful to just keep shooting blankly at the other player and watching the projectiles fly as that has its own charm. I really wished that the other player had infinite or more health so I could keep doing that :D Of course I understand you have your own vision of the game as well and if taking it beyond the jam, you can definitely have the second player/AI implementation if given more time. I don't have a friend to play with this so I cannot comment on gameplay or give a rating on 'fun', but if the gameplay works well, I can imagine it could look really spectacular with two players!

The music was great and combined with the mood it makes the game very relaxing to look and listen to. I actually left the tab open and continued listening to the game's music.

Good job on the game! Definitely very innovative with the graphics. :)

Bokeh by arron-fowler 2018-12-14T15:11:13Z

@arron-fowler No problem! I am glad that the feedback is useful to you and that you're happy with the new version of your game. 72 weapon options does sound like a lot. Great job and all the best for the jam!

For The Gods by Jamscript 2018-12-12T20:58:15Z

Looks like a pretty cool concept of having to sacrifice animals to appease the god. I think the game does need better instructions as it wasn't very intuitive to get started and the help menu is overlapping (aspect ratio issues?) which causes the text to be covered and certain text unable to be read. I was also confused at the start as the left mouse button did nothing, and it was only until I tried right clicking did I realise that was the primary key to interact with the game. I think it would be better if the left mouse button was the primary key. But nevertheless, interesting concept! :)

Volcano Island by Arvejeitor 2018-12-14T00:34:51Z

Great music and sounds for the volcano! It felt really peaceful until the volcano erupted! I actually lost because I clicked on a person who was overlapping with another person beneath. Maybe the clicks should also check who is on top and only throw that person in. This is a great example of a well executed game that revolves around a simple, already existing idea and turning it into something refreshing.

Also minor point, for some reason the game could not load on Chrome (black screen) so I had to use Firefox. This was before I read the warning. Maybe the URL could write it as firefox only as it is may not be common to read the bottom descriptions.

The Path to Vegetarianism by PhillSerrazina 2018-12-14T22:23:47Z

Interesting game! I liked that the character actually changes his appearance with each level. The facial expressions given to him also emote a lot about the character which is really cool as it doesn't need to have animation.

At the level where the meat first appears (level 2?), there was a very jarring camera snapping motion when I jump onto the platform with the meat. The camera would snap upward. This was very distracting and confused me for a bit as it also caused the game to restart, which I realised was because I had eaten the meat, when I am not supposed to.

The text in the game is interesting. I am always looking forward to read the text that appears and the levels even reveal some story. I like the level's twists and surprises, even if they cause me to restart with frustration. For the longer levels, I would prefer if there were checkpoints. It starts to lose the fun when I can lose unreasonably by something I am never able to predict or foresee and can be deemed as unfair by the player so you may want to minimize that frustration with checkpoint intervals. Having checkpoints also makes the game be more forgiving to player and open to more casual players, unless you intend this game to be aimed at hardcore players only.

The controls need improvement. They feel very clunky and the character feels too floaty, without any weight. I would also appreciate if holding the jump key actually made me continuously jump, without having to release the key and tap it again to perform another jump. There are also instances when I am on the ground, but I cannot jump. This usually occurs when my character is standing near the edge of a platform. I'm not far enough to fall off, but I am somewhat considered by the game to be floating and therefore cannot jump. It caused this level below in particular to be very rage-inducing as I simply could not time my jumps properly and therefore did not bother continuing. Screenshot 2018-12-15 06.21.50.png Nevertheless, this is a cool idea and I hope somebody makes a video about this game so I can see what happens after this level. I love the music too. Good job on the game :)

Platform43 - Die to progress! by Firesplash Entertainment 2018-12-12T21:22:54Z

I am playing the latest version with the bug fix and the spacebar only nudges my character upward very slightly. Due to that, I am unable to play the game or even get any score (highest score was always less than 10) because I cannot jump beyond the 3rd platform. As such, I cannot comment on the gameplay which is a waste as it looks really fun:( Nevertheless, nice graphics and the character even has a little animation and sparkly effects. Cool stuff!

Dilemma by Jzjerry 2018-12-12T20:49:47Z

Unique graphics. I have some suggestions for improvements. I think the instructions (WASD,E to interact,Space to start train) could be placed in a permanent text somewhere in the main menu, as some players may not be patient enough to wait for the entire talking man's dialogue to reach the end, and the most important instructions, the controls, are placed at the end, which is not very intuitive. The Start button being unclickable also made me think it was a bug at first, until I eventually learnt that I had to navigate the menu with the arrow keys, which is not very standard in the main menu of video games and there is no indication of that too. Nevertheless, after figuring out the controls I could get to play. Keep it up and keep making games!

The Lost Company by Whismirk 2018-12-14T19:57:16Z

Hi there, this is a rather interesting concept! Here is what I felt. For me, the game felt confusing at first, even with instructions. I also wasn't sure what the goal of the game was. Was it to repair the radio? Push the rebel advance to 0%? Survive and last as long as possible? Starting off, the big "Proceed" button is the largest UI element of the screen, yet clicking on it does nothing. It should maybe only appear after all tasks have been assigned to the soldiers as it is currently the first thing that captures my attention when I start the game.

When selecting a person and sending him off on his mission, sometimes multiple characters would then disappear. I later realised that I had accidentally sent them all on that mission as left clicking stacks the selected people. However I think this wasn't very obvious. I understand that the soldiers play a hand up animation when selected but I was distracted by the animated speech bubbles that I didn't notice that. I think having some indicator like a circle underneath selected soldiers would be more visually noticeable so it is clearer to the player that there is multi-selection.

As for instructions, it will be nice if hovering over the some buttons in-game could show what the effects are. For example, with a soldier selected and the mouse hovering over the 'Rest' or 'Eat' button, it could perhaps show the boost it would have to health, or morale bars to the selected soldier. This is also a possible improvement as some tasks are vague until you try them out - what does repair do? What is it repairing? A hover tooltip to say "Repairs the radio to enable communications" would help slightly or even hint at any negative consequences a task may have (Execute could say that this would make your soldiers unhappy). These will help to make the game a lot more understandable. Since you already have implemented the hover on soldiers to display their info, having this for the buttons would be great as well.

The text illustrating the happenings at the end of the day could also animate faster. After a few times, the player will have gotten the flow of the game and would not necessarily want to read or wait through the crawling text to read what happened and move on with the gameplay. Perhaps left clicking once should instantly show all the text, skipping the animation, and another click would skip the screen altogether.

Some sounds would also help to establish the mood of the game as I didn't know how I was supposed to feel (dire?) in the game. Some ambient sounds would have easily set up some atmosphere and made it so it wasn't silent all the way. You could take this a step further to have some sound effects for when people leave or die, to make the consequences or sacrifices more impactful.

Introducing a "feed all" when there is sufficient food to feed everyone would introduce some quality of life as right now the player would need to select the entire army one by one to feed them, and then select them one by one again to distribute tasks. Otherwise, a click and drag to select soldiers would be useful, though this may be slightly more technical to introduce.

Lastly, I lost the first time but having an option to restart the game at the end would be nice and also unlock the ability to skip the introduction text in subsequent playthroughs as we have already read it and we don't have to wait for the animation to run before we can start the game.

Thanks for making this game. It is interesting to see a decision making game like this one, as I have not tried one like it so far here! With the above improvements to make the game more intuitive to play, the experience would definitely be a lot more enjoyable. All the best with the compo! :)

Dark Villagers by AwiX 2018-12-14T16:59:53Z

From watching a few seconds of the video it initially looks like an amazing game with awesome graphics, but the in-game instructions and help wasn't very useful in helping me to understand the game. The lack of tooltips and explanatory text to what the buttons and structures only furthered my confusion. I kept trying to recruit more fighters, but only managed to recruit one and the next thing I knew, the attackers charged at my altar, killing everyone and I lost. No matter what I did I just kept getting slaughtered.

When I figured I could click on the rock to build structures, I had no idea what the 4 options are, or what they do, so it became more of a trial and error in figuring out what they did instead of building with intention and purposeful decision. Again, tooltips would've helped here, as well as description of what the different resources do when we hover over them as we have 4 resources to manage. I am spending gold but I don't know how to increase the +2 gold gain because I don't know which building or option lets me do that. It also wasn't very obvious initially that the rocks were clickable too as they seemed like part of the background.

The UI icons are also terribly small which not only hurts the readability of the icon, but also makes it harder to click on them. Combine that with the lack of visual feedback of when a button is clicked and it becomes hard to tell when I successfully pressed the button.

After a while, I unfortunately had to move on as I wasn't able to understand how to play the game. I understand that instructions are provided on the game description page, but not many players may be patient enough to read long text descriptions before playing and it is not easy to relate to instructions outside the game. For example, what is a Dark Church, what are sectarians, and nomads? Which ones are those? Which ones am I hiring when I click on the in-game button? The instructions use a lot of vague terminology that I don't get introduced to in the game. A better way to structure the help would be to have a page on the units, then a page on buildings for which you can show an icon of a building, a text to what it's called, and another short text to what it does. For example, *icon of Church* "Chuch, +2 gold/s" I guess? These are just my suggestions.

I had a friend outside of Ludum Dare also try this game and who also mentioned that the game looks like it had the potential to be a top game or at least be really fun but seems wasted by the bad UX. Nevertheless, it's a nice looking game and the dark atmosphere definitely shows in the art.

Be The Bridge by Codesity 2018-12-14T00:48:10Z

Cool idea for the game and nice unique take on the theme. The game was actually very challenging because when discarding the armor pieces, you also seem to suddenly get pushed away from them, often unfavourably. I died many times due to faulty collision boxes or physics.

Decreasing the field of view the more you sacrificed also introduced a very unique gameplay challenge to the game of not having as much screen space to move your 'pieces' to which was a cool constraint to make the player sacrifice as little as possible and definitely more creative than having some numerical score system that doesn't mean anything.

Great job! :)

Monarch`s Bully by kirroyal 2018-12-13T23:31:00Z

Sounds would have gone a long way in this game since it is entirely mute. Having just a sound for the bullying action would've emphasized the effect. I was also confused initially - did bullying the coloured person make that colour bar go up or down as it sometimes did not seem to have too visible an impact.

As for the starting cutscene, I felt each sentence stayed a little too long on the screen, and I wanted a button to just move on to the next screen or sentence, rather than a skip button which completely skips all the dialogue, which was what I pressed because the dialogue was rather slow. A next button would have been more useful. Moreover, the game does not need to show the intro every time I lose the game. I think just having it play once when the game launches, and thereafter when the player loses and restarts, they just need to respawn with the score reset. There's no need to replay the intro to the player since they are likely to skip the story intros anyway after the first playthrough.

I really liked that other people could 'witness' your bullying, which makes the AI and the game world feel much more alive. The art is really consistent and neat too and the colour palette looks good. There was even time to devote to finding a suitable font for the score, which is nice detail for a game jam. I found the movement a bit snappy initially, but eventually got used to it. Personally, I found the mouse controls okay and not an issue for me unlike the previous players it seems.

Nevertheless, the idea is simple and creative since it is unlike any game I've seen here so far. Good job.

Ranch of the Gods by Vodish 2018-12-13T23:49:27Z

Very cute little game with lovely animations (upside down animals as they are lifted made me lol). It is a very simple idea but very well executed with polished graphics.

It would have been nice personally if there was some kind of goal to the game aside from just trying to get a high score. Maybe as an example, have a happy ending to the story when you reach a certain score? It could just be simple text and a camera shot of the guy being happy, but this would really go a long way to give the game a sense of accomplishment for goal-seekers like myself as I tend to prefer having something to work toward to aside from endless repetition. (Edit: It appears you may have plans for that, so good job!)

Nevertheless, the weather effects and 'debuffs' help to occasionally spice the gameplay. I wish I could see more of them or trigger them more often as I didn't get to play long enough to get to see all the debuffs. Their impact wasn't very visible in the game either and I had to read the text description of your game to see what they did. Perhaps having a popup when they are triggered, and some simple text like "-50% birth rate for 10s" would again go a long way to describe what is happening and eliminate confusion. I initially thought the weather didn't actually do anything and it was wasted because the buffs/debuffs are actually a pretty cool concept!

Otherwise, maybe the buffs/debuffs should have a greater visible impact - such as improving the character's speed, or temporarily appeasing the gods. Those are effects that I am able to feel without the need for text explanation, which would be pretty obvious to the player too.

With all that said, it is a great game so keep it up! :)

Oh and nice job having music to set the mood too.

Ranch of the Gods by Vodish 2018-12-14T14:54:25Z

@vodish Great to hear that you are taking this idea further! Good job on the game so far and glad to see that you have plans to improve it :) All the best to you and your team!

Sacrificial Shot by PurpoAppo 2018-12-14T03:49:33Z

A simple idea that works. I felt it was quite easy since every enemy kill drops health packets and I never die unless I get too close. I eventually got tired of winning so I stopped, so maybe health packets could eventually become a bit random (but deterministic) drop rate instead with diminishing chances the more levels you play so the game gradually gets more challenging and forces you to plan more with your shots. Right now I am just holding down my left mouse button almost all the time whenever I get a clear shot at the enemy.

It would also make the game more interesting to have different enemy types that maybe show up after some levels? Like maybe a few levels in, you start encountering either a faster enemy or a tougher enemy that looks different from the basic enemy so it adds some spice to the game and gives a sense of progression rather than just me feeling like I am replaying the same level over and over again with just a different map layout. It also adds some variety and depth to the game too.

Good job on the game! :)

Views by arnau 2018-12-14T00:37:16Z

Cool mechanic! My score was 1120, not as high as the others here, but I loved the simplicity and the very short and concise tutorial that doesn't try to over-explain with wordiness.

I don't know if a shortcut key to trigger the bomb would be good to have. Since the player's cursor and mouse are preoccupied with the swiping, having a separate keyboard shortcut to trigger the bomb would have minimized the need to break the flow.

I'm not sure if you tried this, but if you wanted to adhere to the theme more, you could add sounds of people screaming (but not too much) and possibly people jumping off the sides of the building as it is being destroyed (again, does not need to be very big). The people jumping off does not only add a sense of you visibly sacrificing people, but also add an additional layer of visual feedback to the game and makes it feel rewarding for destroying the buildings. Personally that would make the game feel a lot better. However, I understand that you didn't have a lot of time for the jam, so keep it up!

I also think you had a nice tip in the comment to say to slice vertically. I think this tip could be added as text in the game's end screen after 1 or 2 losses, as reading that tip actually gave me the incentive to push for a better score now that I knew how to better "exploit" the mechanic :) Haha, of course that is only if it's your intention. It's a really nice game already.

Brink by Bottersnike 2018-12-12T21:13:22Z

Great game, and it even has audio! I spent a bit of time wandering around the place before realising I could actually dig up the ground for resources haha! (I was looking for trees to dig and pigs to slaughter initially). I was also confused on how to craft because when I pressed C with the objects selected, nothing happened. I don't play minecraft so I'm not very familiar with crafting systems. Tried drag and drop and nothing happened too. So then the enemies with the eyes came and I died, but I learnt that the map has changed (procedural generation?), which is pretty cool since it might add some level of replayability for some players. I personally didn't get very far in the game but others might have.

Apothecary by huf0001 2018-12-14T01:27:58Z

A great game idea. I feel it could've been ultimately executed better as it had potential. I found myself at the start just randomly guessing what worked against which illness, which wasn't much fun.

While I understand the idea of the game is about trial and error, purely having random guessing through trial and error alone doesn't make a game fun as it isn't very engaging. Most players wouldn't have background knowledge on herbs or what they do, so perhaps some text on the herbs, and hints would actually make it based on players' intuition and reading skills and actually be more rewarding/fun to match the herbs to the illnesses. This is just my opinion though!

I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a strategy to the treatment of the patients. I ultimately resorted to just selecting every herb and giving it to every patient just to unlock the all the "answers" in the treatment research book to avoid the trial and error as I figured that was the fastest and most efficient way as the only other way was with random guesses.

It might also be possible for the UI to be improved as it isn't very intuitive to navigate. At the start, I was looking for the close button at the start to close the book when it told me to, but eventually I think I could just click outside to close it.

I didn't really feel the use of the theme strongly but nevertheless good job on making the game and I hope that you continue to make more games in the future! :)

Dungeon Sacrificer by Ancalagon 2018-12-13T21:23:57Z

Great entry! For the amount of time given, the character art is really good, as well as the painted background art. I got really confused as to what to do in the game though. I first wandered up around the town wondering what to do, then ventured down. When I was in the dungeon, I just kept attacking monsters until I got really bored. I wasn't sure how to exit the dungeon or how to spend the gold, so I think some time could have been devoted to making the game more intuitive or instructions to guide the player. I tried pressing ESCAPE and all the keys but it seems I was stuck in the dungeon, and there were too many monsters to slay so I got pretty lost at that point. Nevertheless, it's an awesome looking dungeon crawler with a nice concept, and even a story! The opening sequence really wowed me.

Total Party Kill by adventureislands 2018-12-14T17:51:03Z

Flawless game. Unlike most games which don't really have a conclusion, this game nails it with a really cool ending and a really lovely message... until he comically ripped the paper apart :) I had a lot of fun with the puzzles in this game! Very well executed with a very strong retro feel in the music and graphics.

Sacrificed supplies by EddenSoft 2018-12-14T22:05:48Z

Hey, neat game and indeed this Ludum Dare is one big challenge ;)

I wasn't sure of the goal of the game at the start. As the hunger and thirst bars went up, I tried to feed the man by dragging the apple and water bottles to the man, but I think this ended up getting fed to the hot air balloon instead, with the water actually lowering the fire. It feels unintuitive for it to work that way so I wasn't sure why it was made as such. Was I supposed to accidentally do that and throw everything to the balloon? If so, what was the point?

After I used up everything, I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to do except wait for something interesting to happen, but the game seemed to drag on for a while. I tried clicking around and finding something to do but there was nothing to do at all. Consider engaging the player in some way. If it's meant to just be a long waiting scene, considering maybe having some birds that fly by that you can click on. Or maybe the hot air balloon has some mini interactable elements that you can discover more and more as you click around the screen. Otherwise, it may be better to prematurely end the game or speed it up when there is nothing left for the player to do. The bar values move very slowly for me at this point and there was just no point in playing except to wait for the bars to completely empty or fill up. After that, the game over screen appears, which isn't a very satisfying ending after the long wait too. Maybe have different messages based on what the player sacrifices or his score. That way I am encouraged to play again and am curious to discover more about the game - what if I sacrifice all the apples but kept water? What if I made him die of hunger? Etc.

Also, can the hunger and thirst bars be influenced at all? I notice them increasing at a constant speed. I'm not sure what the point of having the bars are if there does not seem to be a visible way to change them. This is also in stark contrast to the fire bar which is able to change. I tried keeping the supplies, and hoarding it, but I don't know if it changes anything. If it does, it needs to be more obvious.

As for the art, the character's and sky's pixelized style seems inconsistent with the rest of the world. Their pixels look rather big and scaled up compared to say the apple and the thin pixel outline of the balloon. Try to aim for a consistent look so your character and world blends together in your game. The character also looks like he was drawn with just a few pixels but scaled up massively as he appears to have a much lower "pixel resolution" compared to the other objects.

A minor point but you should consider renaming the zip used for the submission to the title of your game. I downloaded the zip, then could not find your game because the zip name used was a very generic name (LudumDare43.zip?). Considering there are so many other games, renaming your zip to a distinct name is a small thing to help your players.

Great game and I'm glad I got to try something unique today :)

City Building Similuator by stolA 2018-12-14T18:58:43Z

The controls seem particularly confusing. The UX design does not seem to help either. Even after reading the instructions and seeing the goal of the game, I don't actually know how I am supposed to win the game. I am not sure if there are mouse controls, or if there aren't. It's not clear exactly what I am controlling or what I am doing.

I keep pressing Z, but nothing is happening in the map and I am getting the 'invalid position' error. Is this location based on my cursor? If it is, it isn't clear and there should be some kind of hover or visual selection to see where this 'position' is, and maybe even a warning or prompt to state why it is invalid eg "There is already a building here.". If it's not based on my mouse position then an indicator should be pointing to what it is referring to.

When I press X, I am using my mouse to click the building but nothing appears to be happening and there is no visual indicator to tell me that I have something selected either, which is really confusing.

I don't understand the two bars at the bottom right that are constantly going up and down. There is no explanation in the game as to what the bars represent and how they affect the game. Or if it does, it's not very visible and some visual effect should occur when the bar is filled or depleted. Or if not, even a simple text that says "You ran out of food!" would make the game clearer. My gold(?) income is also continuously going up but there are no indicators of where my gold is coming from. Maybe try a '+1' floating text to see where it is coming from if it's from the people?

Nevertheless, the graphics don't look too bad, but the building icons appear to be too pixelated as compared to the rest of the UI such as the gold coin icon and the humans. If the game has clearer instructions, it might be more playable. :)

City Building Similuator by stolA 2018-12-14T20:04:42Z

Hi @stola , thanks for the explanation. I hope that it will be useful to subsequent players who are trying this game out. It would be nice if more time was spent integrating the instructions or working on the UX and controls for the game as not many people may actually read lengthy paragraphs of texts before trying out a game to understand how to play. Prioritise spending some time designing a game that is intuitive to play, or even having a tutorial inside the game before the game starts would help get players invested into learning about your game and playing more, rather than relying on text instructions.

Edit: If possible, it's also a good idea to get some friends to playtest your game to see how they react, to see at which parts they got confused, so you know what needs to be improved. This will help you learn a lot about your game too.

All the best for the jam! :)

You tearing me apart! by dominikDeMentor 2018-12-13T21:56:21Z

This is honestly one of the coolest game concepts I have ever seen! I loved the visual feedback of blood spraying out when a body part is detached - it really makes me feel like I am losing blood without the need to refer to the blood number indicator. Being able to select which body part to detach is so cool, and the loss of body parts limiting your bodily functions is a nice touch (eg unable to jump without legs)!

The more I played, the more I enjoyed it. There was even a moment where I was so low on blood level yet so close to the exit and yet I made it just in time which was so suspenseful. Good job!

Baby Grenade by publicidadeba 2018-12-14T16:33:42Z

Very humourous with the voiceovers and interesting art choice. Could be just me but I think an indication that you need to collect the grenades first would be useful, as after reading the instructions I did not know I was supposed to move to collect the boxes, THEN use the left mouse button. I was stuck confused why my left mouse button did not do anything initially. But that's a small issue.

It's a very simple game but I think it could be better if there were other ways to strategically avoid the girls. Right now it's very simple as you just need to run away in any direction away from them. But you could maybe add some low-lying obstacles like short walls to maybe trick the girls into a trap or simply to avoid them, rather than just having an open arena where there isn't much options aside from trying to get the next grenade to throw and running randomly. With Unity's built-in NavMesh system it isn't too difficult to set up pathfinding AI as well.

Have you also tried experimenting with a third person perspective? This might be an interesting idea since it feels unfair to have an enemy sneak up behind you and causing a loss, as is what happened to a player above.

Nevertheless, interesting idea and keep making games :)

A Man and a Dog by YYZ 2018-12-14T02:30:20Z

Hi @yaen, thanks for the awesome feedback! We were going for something resembling a jump scare for the bear trap, being written as a counter-trap that activate when you attempt to break free from the bear trap. Sadly it appears it did not seem to work very well for you in this case.

In our initial story plan, the third ending was a bitter end, but I felt I wanted to end the game on a more positive note, and also set the third ending to be different from the rest rather than have them all end in a terrible bitter end. Nevertheless, I understand that this also clashes with the idea of sacrifices as the 'final' ending ironically involves the least sacrifices. That is why we also had the quote at the end, to hopefully explain the idea of having to sacrifice for the first two endings to get the 'good' ending.

Thank you for trying the game and for the thoughtful comment :)

A Man and a Dog by YYZ 2018-12-14T12:42:18Z

@badpaul34 @leorototo Thank you for such kind comments and for the enthusiasm! We are glad that you both enjoy the game! And yes, unfortunately we only spotted the issue with the text after the submission as well. :) Still, thank you for pointing it out to us too!

Torcher by Evergreen Games 2020-04-21T06:10:06Z

I liked how the checkpoints in this game work, it's creative aesthetically. I think controls could be a bit better in regards to when I'm trying to use the propulsion to jump to certain places.

There are also times when I thought I would for sure be hit by the water because of the visual droplets, but I actually am able to get through without getting hit, causing some ambiguoity in when I can go through and when I cannot. I think the area could be defined a bit clearer visually, maybe the water droplets should not fade out across a long distance.

Other than that it's pleasing, I enjoyed the new mechanics that got added as I played. I didn't manage to finish it because I got stuck at one of the parts and it got a bit frustrating. I think some playtesting might have helped to identify parts where people get stuck at, so you can adjust the difficulty accordingly and create a more enjoyable experience.

Good job on the game!

Planet Defenders For Hire by paulhocker 2020-04-21T07:14:52Z

I like the concept, I like defend games and this is the first one here I've played.

Mouse wheel might not be the most intuitive control. Not only does it scroll the webpage up and down and deterioriates the experience, it also isn't the most obvious way to control the game. I personally didn't read your page and assumed the instructions would be in-game. I read the in-game ABOUT page in the end but there is no back button to exit the ABOUT page and I had to refresh.

I think there's some kind of progression system with the coins but I always lost so I never got to explore that, and I also couldn't really figure out how to play the game correctly as I always die, which is a waste as it looked like I could purchase upgrades. I think the first stage (if there are stages?) should be easier, else it is demoralizing to keep facing defeat. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to destroy my shields or not, and since the large rocks destroy an entire shield, it feels like it's unavoidable that the shields will all be eventually destroyed in time.

The satellite was quite distracting at the start of the game. Before I knew about the mouse wheel, I kept trying to click it. I think the game could get rid of certain elements to keep it clearer at the start so I know what I'm supposed to be focusing on, what I need to look at and what I need to pay attention to. Some explanation in-game definitely will help, as most people will hit the PLAY button first before they click ABOUT. The UI is the most well done part of this game and I liked that the game had a very consistent style in its visuals from the Earth to the UI. It looks very complete.

Overall good job on the game!

Planet Defenders For Hire by paulhocker 2020-04-21T22:35:28Z

@paulhocker I personally prefer if the controls were Q and E to rotate. Personally, I find standalone builds may seem to help but standalone builds are more disruptive to play since it requires a download so I mostly prefer to play the games with web versions when a game offers that and not bother with standalone. I suppose the option can help people who don't mind downloading.

Ah I see. I understand what you were going for now with the satellites so it's great effort nonetheless. Great job once again! :)

Edit: Ah thanks, I didn't know I could use W/S and A/D

Cowboy and Robot by techsec 2020-04-21T06:46:12Z

The game needs in-game instructions. I wasn't sure what spacebar was doing or what I was supposed to do. I understand that you write the instructions on your description page, but not everybody will read your page before launching the game and you can't assume all visitors will do that. Displaying some in-game tooltips would have gone a long way to alleviate my confusing starting experience, especially when first impressions of your game are crucial to the audience.

The map design isn't too interesting. I get the feeling that the map should be smaller OR my player needs to walk faster. I spent more time walking and finding things which isn't very exciting.

The game also needs to provide me with objectives or some points of interest on the map, or some kind of feedback to let me know I'm going the right way. Otherwise players will easily feel lost and unsure what to do.

I liked the attention to detail in the player sprite. The cape fluttering is a nice touch. The pink robot contrasts very nicely against the dull, brown background, and it's bright colours helped me establish that he's a friend not foe, which is subtle but much appreciated.

Overall, I can imagine if the same effort on the characters went to the map, UX and gameplay, this would make for a very lovely game. Nonetheless, good job and all the best! :)

Find my friends by xWilQ 2020-04-21T03:53:09Z

I liked the ambience and having the enemies' eyes glow is a nice touch.

The gameplay however is pretty simplistic and could use improvement. The "enemies" don't really hinder me much personally and I would have liked some kind of bonus or drawback when you get more friends so the gameplay gets spiced up as you progress. For example, more friends = increased radius for your light, but you attract more enemies toward you. This makes the gameplay not so repetitive at least and introduces variance to break up repetition. Nonetheless, since this is a short game, I understand it might not be one of the priorities.

Since there's not much to do in the game, I would appreciate a counter for how many friends I need to find. I wasn't sure if I had found all of them, or if the game simply didn't have an end for finding them. I couldn't see any more on the map. Having a counter would also give me a clear goal to what I have to work towards in the game.

About the map, I think it should not allow infinite scrolling with the arrow keys. Given the game screen is mostly darkness, it is easy to accidentally pan too far and lose your sense of space and direction especially since the game encourages you to "explore" the map.

Overall, good job on the art and mood.

Edit: I have to add that the movement broke the first time I tried it, which confused me for a few mins on how to play until I read the comments that it breaks at random, so for those who have trouble, refresh the page. Not sure if dev is able to fix it.

Rodent Crossing: COVID Edition by YYZ 2020-04-21T06:59:59Z

@leniwabula glad you liked it! the diagonal jumps are done by rapidly pressing two arrow keys at the same time. If successful, you will be able to cross diagonally without falling into the water even if they're not adjacent!

@ohfiddlediddle thanks for the suggestions! I was also thinking if the sounds were too repetitive over time, thanks for playing!

@timetravelhamster yes we were inspired by Crossy Roads. I wish we had more time to add some mechanics like a permanent upgrade system and other cool ideas. We were late to the competition and couldn't add as much as I personally wanted :( thanks for playing too!

Rodent Crossing: COVID Edition by YYZ 2020-04-21T21:36:06Z

@yamgent thanks for playing! it's not intentional but unfortunately we didn't have time to fix it. however, there is a trick where if the coin is adjacent to a lilipad, u can hop to collect it and quickly press the arrow key to hop back to safety if u hit the key fast enough to not fall into the water XD (also works to hop diagonally)

@olafstromberg there is a target at 200m, but I think the game should maybe mention that as a goal to be clear! we used 'R' as the restart key since up arrow was used for movement but I get what you mean! thanks for the feedback!

Repair-it Roger by somethang123 2020-04-21T06:19:46Z

Great job on your first game!

I have a few suggestions that can help improve your game.

Firstly, the character sprite is hard to see - black strokes against dark grey backgrounds lacks contrast, making it hard to see, consider making it white since he's a ghost.

Holding down the mouse button should fire the weapon constantly, instead of having to click rapidly.

The minimap is nice but again it is difficult to see my avatar due to the contrast. Same for the score text, didn't know it was even there.

The Up or W arrow key should also make me jump unless it has another purpose. I only discovered I could jump very late on.

I also then discovered I could go down by pressing DOWN, and only after I saw the minimap had platforms below me. Maybe some in-game text should appear for a few seconds at the start to establish the game controls. Not everybody will take time to read through your ludum dare page or game page description for controls.

Personally, I would like a smaller map and greater spawn rate so it's more action packed. Later on I spent more time walking around the map than killing stuff, and it's hard to keep track of your home when the map is large as well.

The weapon swap is interesting but maybe what would help are different enemy attack behaviours, so certain weapons are more effective against certain types - for example, some enemies spawn in groups so you have to wait for the shotgun to go and combat them, and you fight other enemies in the meantime. This would add strategic depth to your game, rather than just run and kill, run and kill, which gets boring really fast.

Lastly, the sounds should stop when I've lost. I keep hearing lasers even though I've already lost, and the laser sound can be rather ear-piercing when a lot of them are shooting at you.

Once again good job and keep improving! All the best for your game.

Repair-it Roger by somethang123 2020-04-21T22:29:14Z

@somethang123 I understand! this is a good game and from the comments, there are people who've found it really fun so you're doing something right! keep a positive attitude and keep striving and I'm sure your next game jam will be awesome! good job once again :)

Creature Coraller by brzyrt 2020-04-21T07:29:49Z

Good game! Spacebar to reload one bullet at a time isn't very intuitive, my first instinct was to press R to reload my gun all at once. But I got used to it.

I also was unaware what the black spider was. My first thought was to try to kill it, but I could not. Then I had no idea why I was losing lives even though they weren't touching me. Of course I figured it out later when I came back to read your page, so it was confusing at the start. Not everyone will read your ludum dare page before they play so it's better to flash the controls in the game momentarily at the start, and the game objectives.

I'm mixed about the reload mechanics - I understand that you need some kind of pause when reloading/shooting to balance the game, but at the same time my reload speed has no cooldown and is also based on how fast I can mash the button, so the pause ends up interrupting my combat experience. I'm not sure personally what would work best, so this is just my personal thoughts.

I stopped the game before I was able to lose because it got too repetitive to play and it was not challenging once you understood the reload mechanics. I'm not sure if the enemies spawn faster. Do they?

Some challenge and change of pacing would help the game be more enjoyable. The game at the start is the same game after 2 minutes. Most people won't play very long after that once they figure that the game is not changing significantly, unless they are aiming for a high score. I personally don't really see a point to high scores and prefer something more tangible. Maybe some goals, like maybe hitting a score of 1000, you get more bullets at once, or having different enemy types or stronger enemies that require more hits to kill. Or maybe your score is a currency that can be spent to boost my player's speed or number of bullets I shoot at once. Some kind of progression would go a long way to make me feel more powerful, like I'm owning the enemies, otherwise it's just click kill click kill and not very innovative.

Nonetheless the game does a good job of keeping a consistent retro art style and the UI is very clear and readable. Good job on the game and all the best! :)

Creature Coraller by brzyrt 2020-04-21T22:39:41Z

@brzyrt ah I see, glad to hear that you had already thought about it! I understand there was lack of time, this is still a great entry nontheless! Balancing is a very tricky thing indeed that I faced in my game too :)

Rebooting Flowers by Haoro 2020-04-21T04:16:04Z

You need to clean and name your build folders properly. I've only managed to play because I'm familiar with Unity and renamed your data folder so that I could play.

Anyway, about the game, I think it could use a better designed tutorial. The UX feels bogged down by the long, unskippable dialogue. Especially since I had to go through it twice after the game restarted at random at one point when I approached the wall, and couldn't skip it even though I've already gone through the "tutorial".

I also personally find it breaks my experience when the game constantly interrupts me with dialogue and takes away my control. As a game designer, you should try to minimize these occurences. People don't like having control taken away from them every so often.

I didn't get far enough due to the above issues, but some suggestions would be to have the keyboard controls/instructions appear when you get near the water tank/seed dispenser, as a world UI instead, easily done with triggers. By the time I got to the next step of the game, I already forgot the shortcut keys, and whether I have to use spacebar, or left mouse, or right mouse.

Considering the game seems to have some depth in its mechanics or gameplay, and a number of interactions, you should try not to make players memorize shortcuts especially since there's no on-screen button/instruction.

It was a confusing experience which is sad beacuse it looks like a unique game and growing flowers seems like it could be a cool concept to explore.

Nonetheless, all the best to your game! :)

floweressence by yamgent 2020-04-21T22:25:16Z

I'm a tower defense fan so this excited me when I saw it! It's a cool concept to play with the inverse TD mechanic, but I think it can be explained better.

I'm mixed about the slow tower, since it gave the mindset that I was supposed to STOP the particles from reaching the end point seeing as this game borrows many TD concepts. Also after the slow tower is upgraded, it becomes a haste tower, which is a completely different tower type from its base tower type, so I think the initial tower should just be a Lv 1 haste tower since I completely avoided slow towers until late-game until I put one for fun and realised that its behaviour changes when upgraded to be useful. It's definitely a noob-trap for first-time players.

I wasn't sure what the colours symbolise since the recolor tooltip didn't explain anything. I thought it was purely aesthetics and didn't see the point of it, but a waste of money. It was only until I selected a particle that I start to get a hint it had some gameplay element, so this could be explained in-game. I think this was the most confusing aspect for me when I played. The TD part is pretty clear since I've played TDs, but the colours is something unique so I wasn't sure what "recolouring" did. Even now I'm not so sure.

It also didn't help that I wasn't aware of the ability to select the moving particles. This makes me feel like the bars should be displayed above each particle by default so I can gauge visually without having to click on each particle, but I understand this may clutter the screen so I'm unsure about this. So then I figured that you had to balance the colours to keep it alive I think? Midway through I wanted to quit and re-read the instructions on the menu because I didn't understand what the colours do so maybe adding a help button in the map scene will be nice so I don't have to leave the game for help. I also wondered if the amount of life gained from each particle depends on how far the coloured bars are filled so I can plan better. I think this mechanic really needs more explanation, but it's just my personal opinion.

Since you have a contextual menu, you can make use of it to explain more stuff in-game. I was wondering why the number at the top was decreasing by itself even though I seemed to be winning. I think hovering over the pollen and life numbers at the top UI should say what those are - at first glance I thought 10,000 was the currency and 50 was the lives, since in TDs the currency is usually the bigger number. Something as simple as saying "This is your life, it decreases over time, and recharges when light particles reach you" will greatly explain the game mechanics to me since not everybody will read your ludum dare page before playing, and hovering over things players don't understand is a more intuitive action.

I think the default path could be more interesting, adding some corners and turns will add strategic depth to tower placement like most TDs. Otherwise, I just cram all my towers at the row adjacent to the path and the rest of the map space is not used which isn't the most fun way to play a TD. Definitely has potential for improving the fun factor there. The presence of tower types did help to combat this slightly.

Shortcut keys (1,2,3) would be a nice QoL since this is a strategy game and it gets cumbersome with the mouse to place or upgrade multiple towers. It becomes a chore to build/upgrade later on. However, I appreciate the speed up buttons.

Music is relaxing. There are some moments where the music lets out momentary high pitched squeaks that sounds broken/ear-piercing, but it's a small issue. I liked that the music "changes" during battle (seems like an overlay of 2 sfx tracks instead of a change). Nice nontheless.

Also, is there an end point to the game? I think that would make it a more complete experience, with the option to continue endlessly after that if you want to keep the infinite waves. Overall it's pretty creative and the colours mechanic is definitely something cool to explore with a bit more explanation to the player. Great game! :)

floweressence by yamgent 2020-04-22T06:16:17Z

@ianteo thanks for the explanation! I eventually got that the colour would deal "damage" to the respective coloured health bar, but I think the part that confused me was that each particle had 3 health bars, so I was unsure if the game's intention is to tell me that I had to balance them for optimum "DPS" or that I just need to focus on one colour to ensure the particle makes it to the end. So for me it was ambiguous if there was a need to fill up the 3 health bars, and if there is a benefit for doing so, or to focus on 1 since it is cheaper and it appears only 1 is needed for its survival.

Also, silly me! I tried the game again and realised I could actually build on the path to make it wind around, pretty cool. But then I realise given the design of the game, this is not beneficial since I want the particles to take the shortest path, so it won't make sense for me as a player to try and create an interesting path as the best way to win is to keep the path straight, unless there's a hidden mechanic I've not discovered.

I can imagine that if you were going down that route, you could have some "collectibles" on the map to encourage the player to build an interesting path, to guide the particles to go through those collectibles, or like special "health refill" spots for the player to aim for, but I understand there may not be time for exploration in a jam so I'm probably just getting carried away (I love exploring the potential of TD games haha).

I didn't make it to wave 20 as I couldn't quite figure out the optimum strategy so I mistook that the game didn't end, but great that it does. Good job to you and your team on the game once again.

floweressence by yamgent 2020-04-23T20:01:32Z

@ianteo yea no worries, I totally understand the idea behind your choices. I'm glad that my comment was able to be of help! always happy to talk with fellow game devs, maybe we'll get the chance to work together sometime :v: