Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → zeh

zeh

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoCo
201430Connected WorldsPlug Planetoids Properlycompo17
201429Beneath the SurfaceEscape Enclosures Expeditiouslycompo4703.263.053.102.153.172.332.582.8859
20132710 SecondsHijack Humans Hastilycompo6103.002.882.763.033.362.182.672.8152
201326Minimalism2001: A Space Oculusjam20
201225You are the VillainFry Fleshlings Fastcompo2253.253.443.633.803.2524
201224EvolutionSurvival Of The Tastiestcompo4492.832.573.832.143.753.102.8045

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 zeh

LD23 — Tiny World

T in Y World by Tom 7 2012-04-30T17:20:00

What a great game. Great idea, art, execution, concept, story, dialogue. It's one of those rare gems of a game where gameplay is king and the production time was spent not on an a vein attempt to imitate life through an unbearable amount of polished polygons but rather on a new, abstract, transcendent metaphor. It screams its love for the medium, and it's a scream of unconditional, complete love.

The audio is great but it gets irritating after a while.

T in Y World by Tom 7 2012-04-30T17:20:00

Oh, and the title wins.

OWWW by moonmagic 2012-04-26T20:04:00

What is life but a continual search for escape of what ails us. The root canal as an allegory is a great way to cover the human condition. Bravo, sir.

Loved the mechanics, graphics and audio. Would make a great lengthier game, if only to reinforce the notion that life is not a short ordeal.

Escape from Minimars by Adhesion 2012-04-26T19:37:00

moonmagic, allow me to disagree.

Henry Thoreau once said that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". When you ponder this, it becomes clear that the fundamental metaphor this game envelops is not one of destruction.

Think about it. Men is on an eternal quest for the unattainable goal of happiness eternal. In this game, men - perhaps as an illustration of how diminutive our goal and soul really is - is represented by tiny little men of ridiculous competence. Their happiness, yes, their goal, is symbolized by a huge fucking laser robot.

They all want it. They are carelessly driven towards it. They don't care about cliffs, laser beams, rocket fire, or being stomped. But their goal is a lie; they can't get it. They die in the attempt; even if they manage to touch it, to touch the robot, to touch the object of their desire, they get so attached to it that there's nothing else they can do other than wait for their inevitable death, their imminent demise.

The sad truth is, we are not the robot. You think you're controlling it. No. You're just being taught a lesson by steering the end of your own life back and forth in time. No, we are not the robot; instead, we are the little, tiny men.

You see, the robot is not bringing death. It is bringing salvation, showing the tiny men the futility of their resolve.

Oh, I also loved the music. Thumbs up!

LD24 — Evolution

The evolution of Blocky by Digitalduck 2012-08-27T14:13:00

It is one my core beliefs that every human carries within their soul a trumpet. Think of this as a symbol of someone's maximal capabilities, if you will.

The unique challenge every human face is playing that trumpet. But the sad and inescapable truth is that manipulating this trumpet and carrying a tune to high heavens takes effort, and willpower, and resolution; for it is a very heavy trumpet, and manipulating it takes a great deal of mental and physical strength.

In out daily lives, it is very often that we dismiss our charge to play this trumpet that has been given us. We mislead ourselves into believing that the struggle is not worth it, and the melody it sings is not one the world needs. Alas, there are so many people already playing their trumpets, right?

The inexorable truth is that the hymn your trumpet creates is yours and yours alone. You must, defiantly, play that fucking trumpet.

I'm glad Digitalduck comprehend this plight so very well. Despite the lack of trumpets in the piece, Blocky's circumstances are indistinguishable from the challenges we, as human beings, go through from dawn to dark. Should we play? Should we clean up? Or should we learn, and raise the amplitude of our trumpet's song to 11?

(Spoilers below)

The stroke of genius, of course, comes at the end of the game, as Blocky's ultimate prize is the same we have to meet as our human flesh is not an immortal one. But even as he leaves the stage of life, he knows his trumpet has become part of the world score - and that's the best we, too, can expect of this mortal coil.

Great concept, if somewhat repetitive.

Caveman Evolution Story by davidllanos22 2012-08-27T15:05:00

Ah, the human body. The final frontier. How to we change ourselves? How do we make ourselves better? How do we *evolve*?

Since the dawn of time we have wrestled with these questions. We have found no answer, for the question itself is not a valid one.

The harsh reality is that we do not evolve. Or, at least, our physical body doesn't; our flesh starts its decay the moment we break free of the womb. The absoluteness of life is that we are all going to die, eventually.

But we still should not fret. What liberates us is our sapience. If there is one thing we can evolve, it is our mind; if there is one thing that is always increasing, it is our wisdom; if there is one that is endless, it is our knowledge.

Hence why our protagonist's quest is a fool's errand. Rather than try to regain youth - and as such, *devolve* his body - he probably should instead he keeps his mind sharp, and not go falling into holes in the goddamn lawn.

Very linear, very challenging sometimes, controls were a bit hard. Overexplanation of what's going on feels like a cop-out and breaks the mood a bit. Beautiful washed out pixel art at times. Not sure I reached the end; tunnel was blocked by rocks. Performs better in Firefox than Chrome.

Battle Arena Evolution! by Markavian 2012-08-27T15:22:00

The Borgs - contemporary philosophers of the latest 20th century - coined a saying that goes roughly like this (translated from Borgin): "You will be assimilated". This is certainly the doctrine this piece subscribes to, as assimilation of other species is at the very core of the mechanics at play here.

The twist in the anecdote is most apt, though, for assimilation in the fable depicted here is achieved through submission and genocide. It is a sad tale that should teach us well, as the desire for mindless extermination of lesser species is an inflexible property of the less evolved parts of our brains.

Interesting concept. The queue wasn't that obvious at first. Sound effects work well. Would love to see a postmortem with your impressions of NME.

Planet Evo by dick_claus 2012-08-28T02:38:00

Good gameplay. Took a first run to understand what I was supposed to do. Makes you think and plan your next move. If a bit more challenging it could be a great puzzle-ish game.

Uberi: it uses Flash 11.4, which was just released officially. Google Chrome may take a few days to update, or you may need to make sure you're running the latest version by going to the "About" screen, or even doing "about:plugins", opening the "details" view, and disabling the old version if you have two versions installed (which happens sometimes).

Survival Of The Tastiest by zeh 2012-08-28T17:24:00

Thanks guys.

dick_claus, you're absolutely right. Some pastas can be pretty dumb. One of the things that were missing was for a Pasta to realize their own plate is being conquered upon respawn and then start attacking the enemy Pasta instead of just flying away. As it is know, if the enemy Pasta is not in the range of their sauce, they'll just ignore it.

Part of the strategy of the game is knowing *when* to spawn new pastas (since you need to defend your base), but indeed, when your newly spawned Pastas just ignore the enemy and fly away, it can be frustrating :)

Badass by Sos 2012-08-27T19:35:00

Ah, hierarchy in the animal kingdom, my favorite topic of Discovery Channel documentaries.

Of all the mammals appearing in documentaries, the humans have to be one of the most curious when it comes down to that topic. The dominance hierarchies are subtle and somewhat contrived, often inconsistent between different groups, and subject to numerous influencing parameters.

Also interestingly, each tribe or clan wants to exert its own dominance over other groups, in a sort of meta-hierarchy. It is not surprising that recently recognized groups, like the American Hipster, has a low ranking position in that scale. Whether bound to us by biology or by cultural factors, we always want to find a group to pick on.

Through the use of interactive mythology, this piece exemplifies the complexity of the issue pretty well. The storytelling acumen is fragrant here, and by putting the player in the seat of the aggressor - the alpha male, in its eternal quest for control - it raises the question of whether perpetuating the hatred is a worthy quest, as it is one without an end.

Great audio; very uplifting. Voiceovers are top notch. Beautiful graphics. Controls somewhat confusing. Missing hipsters with fixies. My best rated game on LD #24 so far.

Badass by Sos 2012-08-28T14:11:00

Zed: I dare say you are right. This is a multi-layered game, and you just uncovered a new one; it's what makes this game a masterpiece. I'd boldly say we're just starting to see its genius. The different levels of interpretation are the gateway drug we need for a review of our very selves as members of society, and our contribution to the wellness of humanity.

Death Cell by fohx 2012-08-27T20:07:00

When I was about 11 years old, my dad bought one of those books with listings of BASIC programs. In the absence of reliable, cross-platform recording media, a book was the safest, nay, the ONLY way to store a program; if you were willing to spend a day re-typing a program, and if if you typed it correctly, you could enjoy about 15 minutes playing it! Of course, it was a recipe bound for disaster, as none of the games met the expectations created by the airbrushed art that often accompanied the source listings.

So my dad brought home one of those books and lo and behold, it announced right there in the cover, it had the source code for THE GAME OF LIFE! Having enjoyed many a hour playing the tabletop version of Game of Life with my sisters and cousin, but not owning the game box myself as it was considerably expensive for a 11 year old out-of-work boy to purchase, I was sure excited with the promise of playing the game right there, in my Brazilian ZX-81 clone, the almight TK-85 with 48kb of memory.

I painstakingly typed the code in one afternoon, ran the game, and it was with utter disappointment and a sadness only 11 year old boys can muster that I watched squares popping in and out of the screen. In and out, on and off, in seemingly random fashion. Is *that* the game of life I was promised? Black-and-white blocks are showing up and disappearing. It is not fun. I am not even interacting with it - how is this a game? I was crushed.

Then it dawned on me.

Conway's genius was not of creating an expensive tabletop game with beautiful plastic cars for the house dog's to eat or pins representing your beautiful wife that could be easily lost under the run. It was a genius of showing you that life goes on, whether you want it or not, and there's nothing you can do about it. That it is not necessarily fun, unless you learn to recognize the patterns that are taking shape in front of you. This *was* the game of life, in many more ways than I could count.

In that moment, I unsubscribed to the plastic tabletop game doctrine. Now I write code.

Great game, brilliant idea. Could use some scoring system and some powerups, maybe. Regardless, this is what Ludum Dare games should strive to be: an amazing idea with quick but flawless execution. Bravo!

EvoBit by Vennril 2012-08-27T18:35:00

Great! Beautiful graphics, very well done! Great challenge too. With better performance and some polish, would make a great arcade game.

Death Death Evolution by Adhesion 2012-08-28T03:03:00

Rubbish. Crap. Shit. Those are not words I would use to describe this entry, because right at first glance it's clear that what's at play here is love for the videogame genre, with a bit of perfection sprinkled on top.

It was once said that insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. This piece manages to subvert common wisdom by presenting us with different parameters, and as such a different outlook in life, every time we try.

This turns out to be a valuable lesson. In modern culture we are only now coming to accept those truths, but what this allegory in the form of JavaScript code teaches us is that we not only have to accept failure, but we have to learn for it. For learning from our missteps is becoming better versions of ourselves. Like the phoenix that starts life anew, our unnamed little rodent protagonist lives to see another day - successfully, this time.

Why does he go on? We don't know. We don't know. But the message is simple: you can too. You have to go on. We all do. Thanks, little blue rodent.

Great graphics, great gameplay. Art and music are surprisingly good. Performance is great, much better than all other HTML entries I've seen (especially in Chrome). Looks like a perfectly finished game to me, great work for a compo. Go team redmars, can't wait to see what you guys come up with next!

LD25 — You are the Villain

Fry Fleshlings Fast by zeh 2012-12-26T14:05:00

@voidstar69, @recursive frog: after each laser is fired, there's a bunch of sprites that are created to draw the laser trails as it burns the ground and added do an overlay over the terrain. Hundreds of sprites can be created with that and of course after a while it starts making everything slow (even if they're just instances of the same texture). I have implemented a mechanism to flatten those sprites into a single texture after a number of them are spawned (and then removing the original sprites), so it'll save on performance and carry on creating as many trails as needed...

...but that fails in some situations (both desktop and Android versions). Something to do with the GPU mode/Stage3D version and the Context3D type possible. And I wasn't able to find a good solution for that in time so it's something that still exists. Sorry for that.

Spy Trouble by Sos 2012-12-18T04:52:00

Very well done! Great music too.

O TUTT'I CAVI LESI by Capro 2012-12-17T01:12:00

Pretty good idea. Nice art too.

ECHO CHAMBER by Loren 2012-12-20T00:11:00

That's a great, and innovative idea.

the BRINK by radmars 2012-12-18T20:50:00

Another masterpiece. Bravo.

Atomic Creep Spawner!! by deepnight 2012-12-18T02:01:00

Perfect in every aspect. Bravo!

Bad Driver! +1 by uncade 2012-12-18T02:06:00

Reminds me of Stunts.

LD26 — Minimalism

2001: A Space Oculus by zeh 2013-05-01T14:30:00

Thanks for the support guys. I realize I was restricting myself quite a bit by making an Oculus Rift-only entry, but so it goes with experiments.

I'll probably have a non-Oculus version ready by next week.

There's also a couple of other Rift-ready games. I'm surprised by the low number, considering how easy it is to create a Rift experience in Unity, but they still seem fun (haven't tried them yet)! Full list here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?sortby=default&q=oculus

2001: A Space Oculus by zeh 2013-05-03T13:41:00

Sorry Prelucid. It may be a Unity Oculus SDK problem, considering it has just been released for OSX. I'll test it out on Macs next week.

Jet Pack Radio by SystemMenu 2013-05-17T00:20:00

Lovely idea. Reminds me of Hero for the Atari. Mechanics very well explored.

LD27 — 10 Seconds

Elemental Siege by DWallin 2013-08-27T01:30:00

This is a great concept. Pretty novel idea. A little bit unpolished as only a weekend game can be, but something I can really see working, given enough care for animation, user experience and the alike.

Overall, good job!

GLITCH by TravisChen 2013-08-27T22:57:00

Shaders of gray.

Incredible entry.

Warped by Catmoo 2013-08-29T01:34:00

Pretty solid shmup for a LD. I approve of the UFO use.

Macgoober by Richard Rice 2013-08-29T01:27:00

A little hard to understand the interface, but nice idea.

RUZH by syawqy 2013-08-27T02:04:00

Very interesting idea. Pretty good bullet hell.

I'd say making it bigger would make it easier to play, though. Plus, it has some severe lag on Chrome. It's fine on Firefox. I wouldn't rush into blaming your code, given Flash is not exactly stellar across browsers, but it's something to consider.

Space Janitor: Custodial Marine by radmars 2013-08-27T01:52:00

A cosmic tour de force, and a great way to honor cleaning engineers everywhere this side of the galaxy. Bravo.

Get Out! by LordHellMaX 2013-08-29T16:10:00

Awesome entry. The ghost scared the shit out of me.

It's time to Cow by Wulo 2013-08-27T01:37:00

Nice idea. Need some polishing, specially for a Jam entry.

One quick usability note: it took me a couple of tries to realize I was actually finishing the level. I thought the end marker was an obstacle and kept clicking "retry" until I realized it had a "next" button.

Oxy by hbocao 2013-08-27T02:18:00

Dave nooooo!

Great first entry. It's a great game, with a very good idea. Awesome mood and music. Perhaps just a bit too difficult. It took me a second run to understand how the oxygen is re-filled.

Killer by tchem 2013-08-29T16:12:00

Great minimalist entry. Very well done.

10 Second Roguelike by BadgerPriest 2013-08-29T16:06:00

Great little idea. Interesting twist on roguelikes. Well done!

KunoNoOni's Magical Star Saga by KunoNoOni 2013-08-29T16:21:00

Very hard (I had to double-check the description to realize the jump mechanic). Maybe too much text in the beginning too. Nice entry though! With some amount of polish it'd be a great platformer.

Deathbed by airdeck 2013-09-04T01:37:00

Grim. Harsh with a hint of ominous. Austere and relentless. Rusthless, even implacable.

Just like life. I loved it.

ROBOT PLANET by GeorgeBroussard 2013-08-27T17:35:00

The mix of turn-based/real-time actions take some time to sink in. But that's just a small detail... very very good.

LD29 — Beneath the Surface

SUNK by GeorgeBroussard 2014-05-09T19:24:00

Awesome work as always. One of LD's highlights for me.

SimWarren by thenmal 2014-05-02T22:01:00

Nice idea. Learning was hard. My rabbits kept dying on me. Took a lot of tries to get it to actually work in a way that I knew what I was doing.

Escape Enclosures Expeditiously by zeh 2014-04-28T03:49:00

Thanks guys!

@andrewkennedy: you probably had to click the window first so Unity can get keyboard focus.

@archaeometrician: totally. FF Tactics, Tactics Ogre, etc were the big inspiration for this. They were, in fact, the reason why I built the project - I just wanted to build a Unity editor that allowed me to create Tactics-like maps (for a future project). The game I built around it is kind of a placeholder, although of course I'm very happy with it.

Fortune and Glory by cptalbertwesker 2014-04-28T12:48:00

Nice one!

Tenkosei ROBO by radmars 2014-04-30T15:58:00

A fine specimen as always. Getting my ass kicked by the final boss. I love it.

Infinite Island by Andrew Adams 2014-05-09T19:21:00

WASD movement is strange. Felt a bit clunky (too smoothed out?)

Regardless: what a beautiful, beautiful game. I'm impressed. Brilliant idea, and execution. This has promise. Well done!

Frictionless by Matthew Brown 2014-04-28T15:53:00

Great entry. Interesting puzzler. It'd be nice not to mix mouse+keyboard as much (things can get a bit confusing) but that's a minor thing.

the vole beneath by mcapraro 2014-05-12T20:59:00

Great entry, and awesome idea! Lots of potential here.

Pinger by Chris Mondok 2014-04-28T17:07:00

Great game. And not just because I'm a lover of all kinds of triangulation.

StrataGEM by ActionRemix 2014-05-12T21:08:00

Beautiful idea, good execution.

My #1 suggestion would have some animation for moving/rotating the pentagons, and (most importantly) for when they're removed. It was kind of jarring seeing them apparently changing color (at first I thought it was a bug) when I completed a ring.

BTS-1337 by icereci 2014-05-09T19:26:00

Nice concept!

Act Natural by LewisW 2014-04-28T13:01:00

Clever twist on the stealth genre. With time/assets/etc it could be an awesome game. Awesome first LD.

Word Digger by MattV 2014-04-28T02:37:00

Great entry. Subtle but good use of the theme. I'm not a fan of the timer, but I see you have rankings so it makes it worth it.

Drill Machine Go! by c1tr00z 2014-05-07T20:44:00

Actually, nice game. Love the graphics.

Some points:

1. Too difficult (frustrating) at least in the first couple of seconds. No time for reacting.

2. Took me a while to realize I was only supposed to be in the dirt and why I wouldn't move in the rest of the space

Beneath the Trolls by Dreauw 2014-04-28T01:30:00

Very well done.

LD30 — Connected Worlds

Grim Gateway by radmars 2014-08-26T17:13:00

UNF

World Jumper by miro662 2014-08-25T13:27:00

Wow. Great idea, actually. Very unique platformer. With better graphics it would have been a very solid game.

This Little Piggy... by InfectionTeam 2014-08-26T17:39:00

Incredible entry as always. And what a twist!