*Some people say that the mind is a palace — reality has other ideas.*
Battle against the monsters in your mind as they slowly erode your sanity, but watch out — the longer you fight, the more damage your mind takes. Do your best to hold it together or you'll soon find yourself with no mind at all.
Visuals and audio are amazing - both adorable and unsettling at the same time, perfect for the setting; character exclamations are also a nice touch. Gameplay is a bit simplistic, but works well.
Good work guys! :) I really liked this concotion of art, particularly the characters made of plasticine which truly caught my mind. I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere that this game brought with itself, the music, art, everything fits really well and the idea to expand your mind gives a feeling of freedom that makes you forget your initial goal, inspiring you to defeat more of those monsters to collect larger and larger quantities of blocks of stone.
Great work! I really loved the art-style and the music, it fits perfectly to the general mood of the game. Reminds me *The Dream Machine* in a way.
The overall gameplay is nice, the first time I played I "died" pretty quickly, but after few try it was really cool. The *commentary* by the main character makes it feel more "alive" and that a good point!
The only negative thing I would say it's that the game doesn't feel "polished", like it's missing animations, lack of shadows or some textures feels stretched out, but it's just details and for a game made in 3 days, it's a really good job!
Thank you for the feedback so far, people! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
@hailburns I'm especially glad you thought the sound effects were cute — I'd never made any before this weekend :grin:
@unbonjusdefruits It's interesting to be compared to *The Dream Machine*! I only played the first level at an event once, but I loved it. I'm glad you thought the mood all fit together. And who knows? Maybe we might polish it up a bit more once voting is over.
The art is so unique! :D I really like the design of the main character especially, and I think the sounds you used added a lot to the experience. I had fun playing and would be so interested in seeing this with even more animations. Your team pic is awesome too by the way :)
When I saw a inprogress-update that someone was doing a claymation game, I just had to find and try it! And I am not disappointed! The style is great! Very solid work with the figures and the animations, good idea too keep them simple but expressive. Very impressed with the enemies, that have a very spooky feel to them. The sound, if a bit un-polished, works well in my opinion. Its all in the details, and like that most things have a sound or effect.
I do also like the game-play, for what It can be at-least. I found that it got me in a very good flow after a while: Shoot while moving around, collect bricks, repair, preemptively shoot the ghost before the arrive, repeat. A fun balance for otherwise very simple gameplay.
However, the problem became that I could never lose and the largest issue with the game is a extra feature that should NOT be there: the ability to repair already broken rooms. It makes it so that it gets very hard to lose, and also, sadly, takes AWAY from the theme. And even aside the thematic issue, I just feel like the permanent loss of a room needs to be there to END the game at some point. A important part of "endless-waves"/survival sort games is prioritising and resource management, but if I have endless resources there is really no urgency (I also count rooms as a resource).
All in all awesome work! I hope to see more claymation games. Might actually give it a try myself :)
@hauo Thank you for this very precise feedback ! I wanted to keep the gameplay simple, as long as the player kept saying to himself "I don't have enough space !".
I understand the issue you describe, I added this feature to solve a balance issue : without the ability to repair rooms, players could lose very easily and it would be very frustrating (I didn't want to slow the pace of the game by making rooms take more time to break). However, there is multiple way to solve this issue and as you said it brings other problems I didn't thought about, thanks for pointing it out ! :)
To be honest I don't really like this kind of art, but it fits very well the game and the atmosphere. Same for audio, it's well done and it gives the all thing a creepy/mysterious feeling and it's great.
I found the gameplay a bit too slow, but I like nervous and dynamic gameplays usually, so I'm not saying that it's bad, just my personal opinion. It also lacks feedbacks and details, maybe an idle animation, some camera shaking on taking damages or kills, some building particles. I know it take some time to add, and the spirit of jams is to have a short amount of time, but I think you can't ignore details.
Overall this is a very good game ! Had a good moment playing it ! Good job :)
Cool idea using real world things like claymotion and implementig pictures of them. So much love in the level design. I like it ! Keep going. Fits the theme!
I like the clay art style and the gameplay. A good game, the spell casting sounds is a bit loud and annoying, also spells will sometimes explode when casting near a wall.
Great character design! The sfx/music were a bit too loud but great game overall! I liked how moving to dodge and cast spells naturally balances against how many rooms you can see and fix.
It took me a little time to understand that I have to stand in a collapsing room to save it. I thought it would kill me. I was also slow to pick up the bricks. I'm kinda game-dumb. I liked the art style, although I don't know why the player character was hunched over with her arms out. I like the music and audio effects. Everything seems to work the way it should, which is not true of many game jam games. Congratulations!
Hey ! Great work there. I have to especially give credits to the fact that the character is speaking and saying stuff during the game. It realls feels like we should care about it, since it is afraid and tries to repel the monster as much as we do. Graphics are good and you quickly understand what you're supposed to do (especially with the rebuild interaction, so congrats for that), SFX are great but a bit too loud. The music suits well the game.
I think you should have worked on adding something more to the game. The character is already trapped and running out of space. Maybe a timer or a way to escape the area would have been great, it would have been able to suit well the theme while giving the player an opportunity to "win the game". I'm pretty sure you worked on something like this but, well, ran out of "time" to implement it. Overall, it's a pretty solid game, and you made it in no time. Good job !!!
@saering I know what you mean with the game feeling a little slow. I can personally get quite into it for a while, but as someone said above, there's no real urgency or end-game unless you start running out of resources or time a repair badly. We had plans for more mechanics, but sadly not enough time to implement them (we thought we'd stick to the core mechanics). Thank you for the feedback!
@anthony-dunlap and @uncannyvalley Apologies for the loud spell-casting sound — I hadn't used Unity in years and didn't know how to adjust the volume in the editor (I probably should have readjusted them in Audacity)! (Definitely something I'll look up if I ever end up making sound effects again!)
@wrenpirate Standing in a collapsing room does kill you, but only if you haven't begun repairing it. I probably could have made that a little bit clearer with some more explicit dialogue the first time it happened.
@demn Thank you! I'm glad you liked the little dialogue bubbles :grin: There were a few ideas for more mechanics and/or a win condition floating around, but yes, we did run out of time to implement them — or really to hone those 'extra' ideas much.
I really love the visual aspect (remind me aardman work, obviously) even if I find it a little bit under exploited, but the game concept was cool and catchy ! Like Demn says, the little dialogue box is very clever !
That kind of game is very hard to balance but it was playbale and quite enjoyable so well done !
The art/animation was very unique and super cool! Some of the sound effects felt a little out of place tho, like one of them sounds like meowing? And I was kind of hoping to have more areas to explore, but it was large enough to not feel cramped.
The art is really great, I'm curious though; did you digitally model the characters or actually build them out of clay and then photograph them?
The music is really unsettling and it really adds to the mood though the gameplay gets a little boring after a while frankly. There isn't really any sense of urgency to keep me engaged.
Overall really great, and really innovative either way you did the art I've never seen anything like it.
@team-infernus I think you're referring to the sound effect that plays when you get hit, which is basically me saying 'Ow' into the microphone and adjusting it in Audacity afterwards. I'll admit I wasn't too satisfied with that one, but I wasn't sure what else would fit the situation!
@swordfish — @0xff0000 made everything by hand — the bricks, character, monster, walls, floor etc. I think he has some 'making of' posts he might be able to share.
While simple the gameplay worked very well, the game just needed a goal or purpose. Now i just quit because it seemed to be going on forever and didn't get any more difficult.
Great game ! I immediately fell in love with your distinctive art style, as well as with the general mood of your work.
Pros : - Unique, beautifully crafted graphics - Great background music make the mood even better - Easy-to-get-in gameplay loop, with an intuitive control scheme
Cons : - Difficulty curve a little too flat (maybe kill the player when he has no brick and gets hit) - Hitboxes are not always consistent
Fantastic game. I really love the graphics and the humor in the audio. Really well done. My only concern is that even if the redness on the floor indicated when it was getting dangerous it was kind of hard to know exactly when the tile would disappear. So I would suggest something like the redness flashing a second or two before it would go, then I would probably have been able to be strategic about it. Now that part felt a bit unfair. It was also a little bit hard to understand what happen as the breaking down of the tile didn't give any visual feedback. And give how well made the rest of the game was, I was really expecting it :wink:. But I get, it's hard given the time restriction.
conceptually, this is really good. The feel could use some polishing, as the controls felt sluggish, but it was a very interesting job! The use of plasticine made sense but I don't think works that well at that resolution. Look for games like "the neverhood". But the whole idea of killing to get resources to get the space back is very interesting! well done!
Art concept is amazing! However, shooting was a bit annoying and I got stuck outside the room. Other than that, congratulations for the great job on the art!
The controls of the spells are a bit strange - easy to land a spell into a wall right in front of you and lose a brick... when shooting the other way round.
But other that this - a pretty solid and balanced game.
I liked this game a lot. The clay art style drew me in and once I got the gist of the game it was surprisingly fun for such a simple set of mechanics. There were a couple times when it seemed like I couldn't restore a room even though I had enough bricks, but it was never a significant problem as something else would always appear to deal with. It would be nice to have some sort of stats tracked, number of shots, number of rooms lost / fixed / restored, number of monsters killed, etc... Good work all around!
There aren't enough claymation games out there! I think gameplay-wise, there is some work to be done to make it more compelling. I didn't notice a difficulty spike and it was frustrating not knowing when I was in range to press E. I think breaking it down to discreet waves and making the enemies come from set paths so the the player can prepare. Maybe adding some deploy-able items and some different variety enemies to shake it up. Still, big props for doing clay!
Initially I thought the bricks were just part of the scenery and you could not pick them up. I also did not love that if I attacked enemies that were close that I would hurt myself but I think it makes sense for balancing reasons. The fact that if I was repairing a room and was not fast enough would cause me to die was a little sad, maybe an indication to bail. As some other people stated it was a little weird that you could rebuild rooms that you lost, it was uplifting, but made it so it might just make more sense to lose rooms then take the chance that you are repairing a room and it doesn't complete. Claymation is great, though, and the enemies had a scary and weird feel. Overall I enjoyed the game and it was fun to play.
It was actually a really fun game. Good job, you all! :) The music was pleasant and the graphics were nice. I did not really like the throwing sound, it seemed a bit loud and maybe out of place. Also, I saw that there were some clipping issues with the tiles (if you moved in some places, you could see very small but noticeable gaps between the tiles). I don't have any complaint other than these :). Simple and innovative game (did not see any game like yours so far).
@local-minimum Thank you! I think the visual feedback on the rooms about to collapse (when the floor turns completely red) might have been made a bit more confusing by the fact that the room can't collapse if you're repairing it at the same time. The floor does flash a little while, then it goes completely red — when it does that, you don't want to be standing in it. We had intended to add animations where the room would crack a few times, then disintegrate, but we didn't get round to it.
@carlos-giraldo The clay art is really cool — @0xff0000 did a great job :smile: . To repair a room you need to be standing in it. The notice to repair a room might be a little vague because you have to be quite close to it and the text appears off to the side. Which did you think could have done with a clearer range? (I think maybe we could have highlighted the notice or something when you get close enough and that might have worked.)
@tigerj Thank you for featuring us in your stream! I noticed the comment about the reticule — it was quite large because it indicated the explosion radius. Anything within the reticule takes damage, including yourself, which is why you kept taking damage (you only got hit by the monsters a couple of times, I think). Great feedback about binding the reticule to the mouse cursor, by the way!
@vulture-42 When I wrote the original feedback I somehow didn't grasp that this was all claymation! I mean how could I have missed that. Terrific feat in getting all that claymation done on this LD. We've done some claymations in the past and it is a lot of work for a LD. Claymation ftw! More claymation in LD! And again. Great work!
Lovely graphics! I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 42 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/VePoszPJyYA
Comments48
The overall gameplay is nice, the first time I played I "died" pretty quickly, but after few try it was really cool. The *commentary* by the main character makes it feel more "alive" and that a good point!
The only negative thing I would say it's that the game doesn't feel "polished", like it's missing animations, lack of shadows or some textures feels stretched out, but it's just details and for a game made in 3 days, it's a really good job!
So yeah, congrats again, great game!
@hailburns I'm especially glad you thought the sound effects were cute — I'd never made any before this weekend :grin:
@unbonjusdefruits It's interesting to be compared to *The Dream Machine*! I only played the first level at an event once, but I loved it. I'm glad you thought the mood all fit together. And who knows? Maybe we might polish it up a bit more once voting is over.
I do also like the game-play, for what It can be at-least. I found that it got me in a very good flow after a while: Shoot while moving around, collect bricks, repair, preemptively shoot the ghost before the arrive, repeat. A fun balance for otherwise very simple gameplay.
However, the problem became that I could never lose and the largest issue with the game is a extra feature that should NOT be there: the ability to repair already broken rooms. It makes it so that it gets very hard to lose, and also, sadly, takes AWAY from the theme. And even aside the thematic issue, I just feel like the permanent loss of a room needs to be there to END the game at some point. A important part of "endless-waves"/survival sort games is prioritising and resource management, but if I have endless resources there is really no urgency (I also count rooms as a resource).
All in all awesome work! I hope to see more claymation games. Might actually give it a try myself :)
@hauo Thank you for this very precise feedback ! I wanted to keep the gameplay simple, as long as the player kept saying to himself "I don't have enough space !".
I understand the issue you describe, I added this feature to solve a balance issue : without the ability to repair rooms, players could lose very easily and it would be very frustrating (I didn't want to slow the pace of the game by making rooms take more time to break). However, there is multiple way to solve this issue and as you said it brings other problems I didn't thought about, thanks for pointing it out ! :)
I found the gameplay a bit too slow, but I like nervous and dynamic gameplays usually, so I'm not saying that it's bad, just my personal opinion. It also lacks feedbacks and details, maybe an idle animation, some camera shaking on taking damages or kills, some building particles. I know it take some time to add, and the spirit of jams is to have a short amount of time, but I think you can't ignore details.
Overall this is a very good game ! Had a good moment playing it ! Good job :)
Graphics are good and you quickly understand what you're supposed to do (especially with the rebuild interaction, so congrats for that), SFX are great but a bit too loud. The music suits well the game.
I think you should have worked on adding something more to the game. The character is already trapped and running out of space. Maybe a timer or a way to escape the area would have been great, it would have been able to suit well the theme while giving the player an opportunity to "win the game". I'm pretty sure you worked on something like this but, well, ran out of "time" to implement it.
Overall, it's a pretty solid game, and you made it in no time. Good job !!!
@saering I know what you mean with the game feeling a little slow. I can personally get quite into it for a while, but as someone said above, there's no real urgency or end-game unless you start running out of resources or time a repair badly. We had plans for more mechanics, but sadly not enough time to implement them (we thought we'd stick to the core mechanics). Thank you for the feedback!
@anthony-dunlap and @uncannyvalley Apologies for the loud spell-casting sound — I hadn't used Unity in years and didn't know how to adjust the volume in the editor (I probably should have readjusted them in Audacity)! (Definitely something I'll look up if I ever end up making sound effects again!)
@wrenpirate Standing in a collapsing room does kill you, but only if you haven't begun repairing it. I probably could have made that a little bit clearer with some more explicit dialogue the first time it happened.
@demn Thank you! I'm glad you liked the little dialogue bubbles :grin: There were a few ideas for more mechanics and/or a win condition floating around, but yes, we did run out of time to implement them — or really to hone those 'extra' ideas much.
Like Demn says, the little dialogue box is very clever !
That kind of game is very hard to balance but it was playbale and quite enjoyable so well done !
The music is really unsettling and it really adds to the mood though the gameplay gets a little boring after a while frankly. There isn't really any sense of urgency to keep me engaged.
Overall really great, and really innovative either way you did the art I've never seen anything like it.
@swordfish — @0xff0000 made everything by hand — the bricks, character, monster, walls, floor etc. I think he has some 'making of' posts he might be able to share.
Pros :
- Unique, beautifully crafted graphics
- Great background music make the mood even better
- Easy-to-get-in gameplay loop, with an intuitive control scheme
Cons :
- Difficulty curve a little too flat (maybe kill the player when he has no brick and gets hit)
- Hitboxes are not always consistent
All in all, great job !
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/mindlapse/mindlapse-claymation
But other that this - a pretty solid and balanced game.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299088812?t=02h53m57s
@local-minimum Thank you! I think the visual feedback on the rooms about to collapse (when the floor turns completely red) might have been made a bit more confusing by the fact that the room can't collapse if you're repairing it at the same time. The floor does flash a little while, then it goes completely red — when it does that, you don't want to be standing in it. We had intended to add animations where the room would crack a few times, then disintegrate, but we didn't get round to it.
@carlos-giraldo The clay art is really cool — @0xff0000 did a great job :smile: . To repair a room you need to be standing in it. The notice to repair a room might be a little vague because you have to be quite close to it and the text appears off to the side. Which did you think could have done with a clearer range? (I think maybe we could have highlighted the notice or something when you get close enough and that might have worked.)
@tigerj Thank you for featuring us in your stream! I noticed the comment about the reticule — it was quite large because it indicated the explosion radius. Anything within the reticule takes damage, including yourself, which is why you kept taking damage (you only got hit by the monsters a couple of times, I think). Great feedback about binding the reticule to the mouse cursor, by the way!
:bomb: