FoonLudum Dare ExplorerUsers → Zachary Barbanell

Zachary Barbanell

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMo
202149Unstable👥Autoscriptjam7433.522.974.183.004.102.663.58
202148Deeper and deeperFlat Pack Pilescompo3.583.753.753.913.452.542.212.77
202047Stuck in a loopLoop Deletercompo713.903.924.184.263.182.922.562.97

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 Zachary Barbanell

LD47 — Stuck in a loop

Sushi for Robots by ludipe 2020-10-04T22:07:58Z

This game is sweet, but I can't figure out how to rate it.

Sushi for Robots by ludipe 2020-10-04T22:31:18Z

Ah, that makes sense, though it's a bit annoying. I'll have to save this for later then.

Sushi for Robots by ludipe 2020-10-04T23:24:05Z

Looks like ratings are open now.

Great game. Most of the levels were very tight, although I did end up solving 12 and 14 with an unused sticker. You seem to have the line about sake in there twice, and you're missing a word on one of the earlier texts. Also, I'm not a fan of how there's a left arrow portal and a right arrow portal, even though those directions don't mean anything as far as I can tell.

Overall, this is a nice, short little game that's still got some challenge to it, and the little blurbs on the left are charming. I like it a lot.

Dynamo by BoltKey 2020-10-04T23:43:31Z

I got the top score on your leaderboard by doing nothing but holding down right. Not exactly the most exciting game.

Dynamo by BoltKey 2020-10-05T00:19:09Z

Ah, I'll have to take another look at it. Thanks.

EDIT: Without keyrepeat the gameplay is pretty fun. I find it thematically interesting that no matter what you do you win eventually, but maybe I'm reading into it too much.

Thunder Rally by smilewood 2020-10-05T09:17:44Z

It's a little annoying that at a certain point you've got nothing to spend money on but the occasional repair, but the game's not even half over.

VintageTime by maskinmask 2020-10-19T20:01:19Z

Very nice game! As everyone else has said, you really need a restart button. This feels like it has a lot of room for expansion, especially with the more complicated puzzles that show up in the latter levels.

Round Out by foolmoron 2020-10-05T06:17:32Z

Big fan of the visuals, and I haven't seen any other games with this interpretation of loop.

BLOBIUS by chaoclypse 2020-10-05T06:23:12Z

Big fan of the visuals, and the enemy variety is very nice. I like how you did the "glitchy" effects without going completely overboard. IMO, the controls should be the other way around, but that's just me maybe.

Tempus Locus by MSiddeek 2020-10-15T04:08:47Z

Totally the most interesting take on "puzzle platformer with time travel" I've seen. Very cool.

Torus Tours by Jack Lance 2020-10-05T01:25:31Z

This is incredibly cool.

Minotaur's Labyrinth by JOrbits 2020-10-05T07:00:01Z

Very neat game, I like the aesthetic.

The game reminds me of another game I'm not gonna say the name of because spoilers but you can probably guess what game.

I almost wonder if it'd work better without the progress bar?

Minotaur's Labyrinth by JOrbits 2020-10-05T07:55:00Z

yeah, I guess no indication of progress whatsoever could be annoying if you're not familiar with the concept.

Infinite Gauntlet by oller125 2020-10-05T03:46:56Z

This is a very interesting concept, but all of the puzzles are very easy. Would have liked to see some more challenging levels, but it's still pretty cool mechanically. A button to speed up animations would be nice though, as it's rather annoying waiting 10+ turns for it to get into a loop.

Golden Ratio by eusekerci 2020-10-05T04:46:15Z

The gameplay isn't much, but this looks incredibly cool. Also, this is some sweet music.

Loop Robot by NickyKendy 2020-10-05T02:39:57Z

The idea of adding commands to the code while it's running is pretty clever. The game is really slow though, and I think that it'd be a lot more fun to play if there was some way to speed it up. Also, the audio is really loud for some reason. It's a cool concept, although it might have needed a little more time and polishing.

Tower of Madness by Eduardo Yukio 2020-10-05T06:04:55Z

Can't say I actually enjoy rage games, but this is a good example of the genre at least, you're got the tight platforming controls and forgiving hitboxes down.

O by Thomas_Bringer 2020-10-05T05:36:34Z

This game doesn't seem to load.

O by Thomas_Bringer 2020-10-05T07:05:24Z

Neat game, I like what you do with each move being a single note.

Arcane Forest by LadyMistLeaf 2020-10-05T04:09:47Z

If there's supposed to be some sort of hint in the game as to the path you're meant to take, it's too subtle for me to notice. I gave up after wandering around for a while without making any progress that I could discern.

LaserLoop by Neon Glass 2020-10-11T02:39:14Z

This was fun, but IMO the puzzles could serve to be a lot harder. Also, there were a lot of puzzles I finished with lots of leftover pieces and without using massive areas of the level, which suggests they might have been unintended solutions? overall, fun concept, could probably stand some more polishing tho.

Asteroid Loop by Piturnah 2020-10-05T05:52:13Z

Pretty neat concept, I like it. It's very easy to lose track of the controls because they're relative.

Super Box Bot's Package Push by Honey Pony 2020-10-04T23:27:32Z

I like the mechanics of this a lot, though I found the robot voice extremely irritating. Also, I encountered a bug where after I beat the third level, I was taken directly to the fifth, which was rather confusing.

Loop Lab by LeGoLaZ 2020-10-07T23:13:32Z

Neat, but a little repetitive and easy.

Infinite Pinball by Nick Barrash 2020-10-05T02:51:56Z

My best time after 2 or 3 tries was a 1:10. I like the idea of infinite looping pinball, but in addition to the physics being quite janky, it felt like there were a lot of long stretches of time where I didn't have any chance to touch the ball. Altogether a nice concept and a fun little time waster.

Brainstuck by Tesseract 2020-10-04T23:53:50Z

I can't figure out how to interact with this game.

Brainstuck by Tesseract 2020-10-05T00:50:18Z

Quite cool, although as I mentioned before it was a bit difficult to figure out how the input works. I made it to this one before deciding I was done for now, I'm curious how close to the end this is:

+[[[-<+>]<<+>>]<<-[]>[->+<<++[<+<<<]>>>-[<<[<<<<<<]>>]>>]<]

Re:Live by Ciber_Turtle 2020-10-11T07:30:36Z

Quite a cool game and concept, though some of the levels have unnecessary buttons or areas that are a little strange.

Knots by Wallaby 2020-10-06T04:23:05Z

I couldn’t figure out how to get points, even after the tutorial. Also, it crashed.

The movement feels really good.

Knots by Wallaby 2020-10-06T05:26:19Z

Ah, I see. An arrow that points to offscreen enemies or something would have been helpful.

Hall Of Mirrors by cookie042 2020-10-05T00:17:49Z

The visuals and theme are very nice and I like the mechanical variation between the levels. The physics can be a little fiddly, and I had some performance issues, but overall this is very nice.

Blobs by GameFriend 2020-10-04T23:36:22Z

This is fun in an idle-game-y way, but a bit lacking in depth imo.

Time Gear by edubochi 2020-10-06T00:37:17Z

You seem to be missing some files on the downloads.

Debug.Loop! by Gironimo4 2020-10-05T04:03:51Z

I get that the audio is supposed to sound glitchy, but this veers into the realm of "actually painful to listen to". The gameplay is pretty basic as well, because you only have to look at the segment you're on and the one that's gonna be swapped to next. The core dodging objects gameplay works fine I guess, but overall it's pretty shallow.

Loop of Shapes by IronWood777 2020-10-04T23:15:59Z

Nice core gameplay loop, nice music. It's a little confusing how a mistake just kicks you to the title screen without saying anything and that it takes a minute to start spawning things.

Tunnels by CosmicPickle 2020-10-07T17:36:15Z

Even if the actual art is pretty basic, the overall aesthetic is nice. The camera controls could maybe use a bit more work. I like the way you keep returning to places that you've been with new abilities.

Stuck In A Loop by Wppjensen 2020-10-05T05:47:53Z

Your game appears not to be public, the link leads to a 404.

An Exercise for the Reader by Jordan Kelly 2020-10-06T01:18:03Z

Well, it was interesting to hear you talk about it at least. Personally I've been avoiding using any 'real' game engine because it always feels like I'm working around then engine more than with it. The idea of having robots call each other is really cool, maybe worth developing further? IDK.

Loop Deleter by Zachary Barbanell 2020-10-05T04:35:39Z

@gamefriend yeah I agree, unfortunately the font is hardcoded into the engine. I tried to be sparing with my use of text, but I felt like this mechanic needed some written explanation.

Loop Deleter by Zachary Barbanell 2020-10-06T01:03:13Z

@honey-pony yeah, the difficulty curve is not supposed to be totally monotonic - I put 9 in there as an easier break between some of the early harder levels, to give people a break and encourage them to keep playing. As for 12, some people get it really fast, others struggle a lot with it. (Level 14, otoh, is completely trivial because I added it at the last minute, oops).

Loop Deleter by Zachary Barbanell 2020-10-07T20:47:12Z

@dotsquare If you used an orb while you were stuck in a loop, that's what's supposed to happen :) (If somehow you disappeared without using an orb, that's totally a bug, but I'm willing to bet that's not what happened).

@wormholegames Yeah, I tried to cut out as much exposition as possible, but I still ended up with a bit more than I was going for. I feel like I need to explain the mechanics at least somewhat, since they're not all incredibly intuitive.

Crawloop by SH80 2020-10-12T21:23:43Z

That was neat. It would have benifited from some sort of key repeat though, because especially on later levels you have to basically mash the arrow keys.

Concentric by Scraggle 2020-10-05T08:59:57Z

Neat concept, it'd be nice if there was some sort of fast forward button since there's s lot of waiting.

Loopoban by Joel Fox 2020-10-05T23:13:44Z

Some very clever puzzles in here, and the ending is great. I kinda wish it were longer, but what's there is great.

Collateral Damage by Michael Parrish 2020-10-05T07:11:13Z

Neat game, though it's a little frustrating that aliens in the second ring move at almost exactly the same speed as you.

Oscillator Panic by tjm 2020-10-05T05:20:21Z

This is pretty fun, it's a bit trial and error but that's okay. Also, this level of visuals in a puzzlescript game is insanely impressive.

Time Princess by doomerismo 2020-10-05T03:54:52Z

A neat concept for an idle game, but there's not that much interactivity and the fact that if you die you lose all your stuff for real is super punishing. It seems like it takes too long to become powerful imo.

LD48 — Deeper and deeper

Y-Sokombanator by --0 2021-04-30T06:47:59Z

Amazing game, my only issue was that some of the songs seemed significantly louder than others,

Gone Diggin' by XeduR 2021-04-26T19:46:48Z

Neat game, though it's a bit weird to have gold get sparser the deeper you go. I got as high as 54 in the handful of runs I did.

Flat Pack Piles by Zachary Barbanell 2021-05-04T22:40:54Z

@euler-moises Yes, there is an end, when you reach (what I believe to be) the highest possible score.

LD49 — Unstable

Make Me Rich by jk5000 2021-10-06T21:09:52Z

_This game is terribly ugly, and even though it made my eyes feel some incredible pain, it’s still not as bad as the games incredibly annoying music. Sadly the gameplay is more boring then reading the manual to my last HP printer, and if it was not for that music, this would have been greater at making me sleep then a really strong sleeping pill. And by the way, why the hell do you make multiplayer games, when no one has any friends? So overall I can only say, that this game is a really bad experience, and this is definitely the worst game ever made. Have a great day, even though you ruined mine._

In all seriousness, looks pretty neat, though I don't have anyone to do local multiplayer with at the moment, might come back to it later

Breathe in Puzzle out by glimaleite 2021-10-06T20:55:35Z

Very pretty game - personally I think it would have been nice if the theme played into the puzzles a bit more, as opposed to just making you stop what you're doing and play hot potato for a minute, but the gameplay felt very solid nonetheless.

Hiding Heisenbugs by ultrarat 2021-10-06T07:18:25Z

Neat concept, though as mentioned in the description, would be neat if there was more interaction among the bugs, as far as I can tell the one on level 1 is the only one. Bet you could expand this into something with some really interesting puzzles, especially if you allowed bugs to modify the properties of the scanner.

Divine Intervention by YogurtTheHorse 2021-10-10T00:45:28Z

Amazing visual style, and great gameplay to boot. My only complaint would be that there's no reason not to leave the light on the whole time in task 2 - the first one felt much more fleshed out with taking the lid off affecting the temperature. If you were looking to further expand this, I'd suggest adding more 'familiar' tasks ala job simulator - it's funny that making pasta is hard because I know what making pasta is like, but it's not that funny that running a mars rover is hard because I don't have experience running a mars rover.

Void Jumper by Platyp 2021-10-04T23:58:31Z

Neat game - I kinda wish the shadow was a little more defined since the isometric perspective can make jumps pretty confusing, though maybe that would remove a lot of the challenge. The physics are just fun to jump around in.

1000 Shells by MabraX 2021-10-15T20:22:25Z

The puzzles seem neat, but the controls feel incredibly unresponsive - maybe speeding up animations if the player has pressed a key would be a good thing to do?

Elbatsnu's Brewery by Feraligatr 2021-10-05T02:29:48Z

A deckbuilder seems like a pretty ambitous choice for a jam game, but I'd say this succeeds - your instructions could be a bit clearer though, took a while to actually figure out what I was supposed to be doing.

Oudo by Tarek Creations 2021-10-06T21:06:54Z

Cool game - the one thing that harmed the experience was that on some of the bigger levels, it could be hard to pick up certain objects, since the mouse position required to do so seemed precise, but also not perfectly aligned with the object's visual location.

Batscape by agameortwo 2021-10-05T05:33:30Z

platforming controls feel very solid, but got pretty lost with the map layout.

The Door of Illusions by 2CCs 2021-10-21T01:04:53Z

Just a general tip for LD - you probably want to have the link specify that it's an HTML5 (web) game, since more people will play those.

On the game, this is sweet! I like that you play with 'troll game' concepts without making something overly punishing, as those games tend to be. I do think the fact that you have two action buttons could probably be cut down - there's so few puzzles where opening are relevant that it could probably be always caused by knocking? Just a thought.