Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Zaron
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Lost World Lucy | compo | 35 | 3.69 | 3.69 | 2.56 | 2.60 | 3.81 | 3.50 | 3.22 | 1.80 | 7 |
Zoom is interesting but refuses to stop scrolling the page. Not sure if this is Chrome's fault or what. Also, mouse + arrow keys would be great as an only option if I was left-handed, I guess, but for the rest of us, for future reference, WASD and arrows is not a hard pairing to allow.
Fun. c: Fast-paced and an editor is a really nice touch given the time-frame. No real complaints here.
difficulty curve is pretty spastic, especially given how little is there.
Also, for future reference, 800 pixels of height is more than most *present* laptops have. This thing came with a 2 gig vid card and the screen still only goes up to 768, and that res seems pretty normal regardless of screensize lately, for reasons I don't fully understand since my last lappy had "screw HD and make it cry in the corner" for a screen res. : | So I couldn't see the bottom of this~ but still figured it out pretty quick. .-.
The visuals are mildly confusing, but workable. The collision is sticky as hell, though, and given how tight the winding halls are, that's kinda a game-killer here.
Not too bad. Good idea, plays okay, graphics all work together well enough. Objects move a bit weird when dragging them around, which made one level more difficult than it had to be (push the block to push your guy to beat the gate shutting). Sound got a bit annoying pretty quick.
Same as last guy. Would think nVidia would support open GL on a new card but ho well. Interesting concept, at least, cool to see the escaping being done by someone other than the player for once.
A bit bummed this isn't more fleshed out, seeing as it's the sort of thing I'm totally into.
If you decide to flesh it out more, might I suggest either slower movement or a Touhou-style "focus" button that slows the movement down for finer precision? It's not a huge deal here, but if things carried on too long it could become one.
Also, bullets show up under the player...? Can make it a bit hard to judge their relation to your little hit box.
But for five hours, not bad.
Particles seem a bit overdone, honestly. There's a lot of them at all times and until I played survival I didn't even realize enemies could fire at me. Aside from that, getting hung up on little guys that run at you as your health rapidly drains is why I die, consistently, and the fact they basically trap you so you can't evade honestly ticks me off a lot. The basic concept is decent and there's a lot of variety and small touches here that help keep things interesting, and I spent more time with it than most any of the other things on here so far, so there's that, but it certainly has some flaws.
Not bad. Time limits give me panic attacks like little else, so the constant threat of drowning was always-present on my mind and marred things a bit, but aside from my initial run where I managed to just muck things up thoroughly (didn't get the double jump in time :/) it was an enjoyable and well-constructed game. Good platforming, solid controls, even a semi-interesting boss fight towards the end. Had a few points where zombies just murdered me due to where they were entering the room, but that's the only thing that rose any legit red flags for me.
Controls are pretty much awful. Neat art style, but difficult to play as your guy tries to run away instead of kill any of the 18 dudes on top of him I'm wildly clicking on.
Gave up on island surrounded by lava. Wrist hurts, slippery movement twitchiness not helping, 3 AM! You win, I quit.
Not a bad concept. The controls are just too slick, though. Kinda wondering why spacebar is used instead of a mouse click for placing mouse-aimed bombs, too.
Upgrade system is nice. Level layout is more hit than miss, but there are a few points where the difficulty darn near convinced me to give up, before it... ultimately did exactly that. I might have pressed on if I wasn't so tuckered, but I played enough to know it's competent, just needs some refinement to be totally solid.
Interesting concept, looks decent and plays well. Figuring out that timing is the most important thing does tend to make the game a lot easier though.
I've seen similar done before, but you balanced the speed of the lava quite nicely to keep one moving but not domed if they pause for a millisecond on the corner. Five stages is pretty short, but works well enough to give some slight difficulty curve (I notice the lava gets a bit faster each time) without becoming completely impossible or anything.
I'mma call this a job well done.
Right click as a main function in a web app is not the smartest move, dude. :/ In this case, it renders the game pretty much unplayable.
Entertaining, if a bit brief. "Boring Girl = Boring Ending!" made me a smidgen sad, tho. >_>
Good graphics, interesting idea, but random level design doesn't do it any favors. Way too many situations where I'd restart a level after realizing I'd wound up stuck on a block that had no chance of connecting to anything else an time soon, and the frequency of the shifts mean that even when a path presents itself you can rarely act quickly enough to take advantage of it. Allowing certain tiles to have just no boards at all doesn't help alleviate any of this, and tens o encourage players to try and stay on boards with the most potential exits possible regardless of if that's going to take them closer or further from their goal. I'd also frequently wind up off in the middle of nothing as two boards disconnected during a shift.
Maybe try adding a little visual warning of some sort (water currents or something?) to let players know where boards are about to shift, and give them a quick warning it's going to happen. As is, it's a giant test of patience, and while not being in control of the environment is fine, as is there's not a lot of strategy or reason to the gameplay. You just move towards your next goal and hope for the best, then wind up waiting a lot, and it isn't very fun or rewarding, as even in victory you never really feel like you did anything to contribute to that.
Car turns really slowly for a top-down racer. Since that's the only thing to the game right now aside from what could of been, that leaves a lot to be desired.
Keyboard controls are almost useless in a dogfight, and all it takes to bring your plane to it's knees is one bad encounter. This would be more of a problem if most of the game didn't feel like you were the only one on the ocean.
Looks nice enough, though, so there's that.
Apparently nobody can scroll down and read instructions, though it would be nice if those had been included in the game itself instead of underneath it. It seems nobody looks down there, which is good to know.
I did't find it particularly difficult or confusing at all, though. Was a bit sad it was over so quickly, would love to see this expanded on down the line. c:
If you break chamber 20, you're one of the better players.
If you break 30, you're elite.
If you break 40, I bow to you, because holy damn.
Wrist got tired from molesting the movement keys due to the character's slippery handling. The grappling hook is a neat idea, but having to blind shot things constantly and never being sure if I was going the right way or not got old pretty fast. Only found one gem, and the big door-looking thing that shows which you've gotten.
I understand the darkness and lack of direction is part of the point, but with such an open area some sort of distinction to where you are relative to where you're going would be helpful.
Fun little thing. Would have loved to see the map layout change, if only between difficulties. Digging down is slower than sideways, which is a subtle touch to stop people from just trying to drill down forever.
Purple dudes were aggravating beyond words, but otherwise this is pretty solid. Rooms are well thought-out. The fact keys don't reset when you die is the only thing that got me through it, though, thanks to the rebound shots just being infuriating.