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Author Topic: DonationCoder thread for LudumDare34 Dec 2015  (Read 6867 times)

TaoPhoenix

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DonationCoder thread for LudumDare34 Dec 2015
« on: December 11, 2015, 07:10 PM »

Woohoo!

This time I am joining the #ludumdare channel at Afternet.org

This is the thread starter.


TaoPhoenix

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Terror Plant From Outer Space by Tetha
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2015, 04:57 PM »
Placeholder for a later writeup.

My first best pick ended up being an intensive playtester for a turn strategy game with developer Tetha.
Terror Plant From Outer Space

More stuff coming in a few days!

LD Page:
http://ludumdare.com...preview&uid=4995

Game page:
https://tetha.github.io/ld34/

TaoPhoenix

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LudumDare34 Dec 2015 - Honorable Mentions 1
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2015, 01:22 AM »
This is the first post where I'll list games too cute to ignore, but not my usual full workup.

http://ludumdare.com...review&uid=10665
http://verra.xyz/2direction/

These first couple games share some similarities. No life score, no timer, no exhausted resources, just puzzles (with some threats, sure) but no artificial pressure.

The first one is more disorienting, as it involves a lot of jumping in teleporters and toggling levers back and forth.

New for me in LD this time is visiting the IRC chat. This one is by Verra / Verrazano
http://ludumdare.com...review&uid=10665
http://verra.xyz/2direction/

This one is less confusing per se. You play a carnivore plant (deja vu!) that decides it wants to take classes from Tarzan. So you swing on a sort of telepathic rope-line to catch way station markers and swingyour way around the course layouts. Again the first few levels are nice and simple, though I ran out of energy because the difficulty jumps when you hit one of the spike levels.


Sector 9
alvaromartin / Alvaro Martin Lopez
http://ludumdare.com...review&uid=60100
https://s3-us-west-2...es/Sector9/game.html

As a reminder, this LD included a "half theme" of "(sometimes) only using two buttons for control" so that leads to an odd holistic feel if you're not expecting it. I felt it was one of the more "unstable themes" that could be hard to flow naturally, so one category is "endless runner" where movement isn't in the controls so your leftover two do things.

This one has an interesting gravity mechanic (which makes the first level when you reload the page a hysterical echo of the old shortcuts in Mario Brothers Nintendo series!). It's simple (I think so far!) and LD is about staying in scope to escape alive with a working game. Interesting grey-ness of the color scheme, and I wonder if that saved time because a joke in LD is "Damn I wasted 8 hours on my art and now my game has bugs and time's up!!"


2 Growing Buttons by psypol - Compo Entry
http://ludumdare.com...preview&uid=7155

Extremely simple game but per the site notes the guy isn't a coder, but found something and gave it his all, and made a game and I don't see any / many bugs. And it is the closest I've seen to a private joke about a program I made as a child some 28 years ago and now it reminds me of "avoiding random people here in New York City wandering around looking at their cell phones and you have to dodge them" : ) So that's fine for the honorable mention thread!

« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 10:45 PM by TaoPhoenix »

TaoPhoenix

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World Grower by rhebsgaard
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2015, 12:19 PM »
Placeholder for World Grower by rhebsgaard

http://ludumdare.com...review&uid=38348
Downloads only (someone remarked if this is increasing this LD!)

It's a fun cute mini-SimCity.


TaoPhoenix

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Full Metal Democracy by deepnight
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2015, 03:56 PM »

Full Metal Democracy by deepnight
http://ludumdare.com...preview&uid=2982
http://deepnight.net...ull-metal-democracy/

You control a pair of Giant Robots!  :Thmbsup:







( ... and they say this entry is not as good as this guy's other games?! Uh oh...)


TaoPhoenix

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Learning to Dance by WetDesertRock - Desert Rock - Art Piece
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2015, 01:07 AM »

Learning to Dance by WetDesertRock / DesertRock
http://ludumdare.com...review&uid=30221

This one is an art piece, with a little bit of soft interaction from the middle on.

It's not really a "game". But it's pretty sensitive, so it def will get a post, and I need a couple days when I'm not hyper to study it!


TaoPhoenix

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Ascending Roots by Tim "Blackbird" Beaudet
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2015, 12:21 AM »
Ascending Roots by Tim "Blackbird" Beaudet
http://ludumdare.com...preview&uid=1888
(Downloads)

There's a couple of different types of puzzle games - the ones with "sneak shots" where a player can get really frustrated (some like it though!) with obscure things to do to advance the action along.

This one tries to "play fair" in that it's about the pattern sequencing of the water vs the max capacity 6 drop cap and which way you go which direction and so on.

So I just ran through it with the help of the devs and with one exception once I got past "some funny stuff" I did just fine on all the levels except one.

More detailed stuff in a second post just to avoid walls of text.

The art is solid, there's some soft music, and the puzzles are ultimately very doable. There's one level in the middle Into the Trees that some of us think is actually harder than some later levels so don't get discouraged!

« Last Edit: December 16, 2015, 12:26 AM by TaoPhoenix »

TaoPhoenix

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Ascending Roots Cont.
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2015, 12:22 AM »
On the more technical side, a chat with the developer lead yielded the following "fairness tips".

- A couple of the levels have small sprouts that are really hard to see and know they're there. One idea is to just "burn lives" because there's no timer, no game over, each level has a restart, and no need to rush.

- Wander around just trying to water everything in sight to find out what grows. The game "plays fair" so it's about interlocking your water usage, not "find the hidden sprout".

- When you're putting out fires with the water, *don't stand on top of the "smoldering logs" * (that only catch fire when you cross over them once) - you have to stand to the side to put the fire out.

- Mushrooms and other "background" plant lichens don't grow - only the main green sprouts and vines grow.

- Wander around "wasting a couple lives" learning which are "legal" jumps and which are unsafe (you die). Otherwise you could miss a legal move because you thought it was an unsafe / illegal jump down (falling off a raised element.) Some work, some don't.


TaoPhoenix

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Ascending Roots Cont.
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2015, 12:22 AM »
More stuff:

- Because there's no time limit, no "lives lost", and full level restarts, go slow, use small taps of the movement keys, make sure you don't scramble your muscle memory trying to do some kind of speed run, because if you mis-click and lose a water droplet, don't waste your time because chances are you're hosed and can't finish the level. just start over.

- The level "Summit" isn't all that hard, but there's a vine on the top level in the middle that you can't see that's the finisher. This game "plays fair" so it's about the water droplets, not trying to find hidden vines.

Two strategy tips:

- The *implications* of only holding six droplets is that you can't "fill up with less than 3" so you waste the last drop you need somewhere else. So make "partial progress" growing something you need.

- In a couple of cases you have to run across a smoldering log and grab the water and back before the fire lights up.

- The trickier levels have "loops" so watch what order and direction you cross the smoldering log because that one's free but it wastes a water coming back and if you do the loop the wrong way you'll likely be one water short somewhere near the end.

Good luck!

I will also be reviewing this one over at DonationCoder.com with mostly a mirror of these notes, along with some other Ludum Dare 34 games!

https://www.donation....com/forum/index.php
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=42010.0