Dead Frog Tell No Tales by pixelstuff

[raw]
made by pixelstuff for LD 44 (JAM)

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Play the game here : https://pixelstuff.itch.io/dead-frog-tell-no-tales


🐸🎶💬

You, Bardnaby the bard, had an amazing life, full of extraordinary adventures, until the day you ended up in jail for a vague story of… rosbeef! But do not be depressed, your fabulous life is worth money. Choose carefully what you'll sing with the cards you have, try to earn a max of coins to convince your audience, and exchange your stories against your life!


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Credits

Development : Jesaipo - Mathias

Graphics : Juliebenhaim - Nantenai - Romainprl - Skygrope1


Additional Music :

https://samplefocus.com/samples/harp-up https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/enigmatic https://samplefocus.com/samples/glistening-rise-harp

Ratings

Given 11🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Zhanna
30. Apr 2019 · 13:50 UTC
Love the artstyle, the very concept as well and it plays smooth, I just kept playing untill the levels ended.

I could even make up stories out of those cards as I decide to walk on them... well, as if time wasn't a limited resource, but I didn't found it any hard to satisfy everybody in time. I have a feeling that if I just go fast, that would keep things going well, without me dying, whatever I step on. It would have been more of a challenge if there was more variants of stories types.

I would've been happy to play in a more polished version of it, like, on steam ;p

For LD that's an extremely gorgeous entry just like it is.
Gorrion
30. Apr 2019 · 17:48 UTC
Lovely artstyle! Very cool idea for a puzzle game. Keep it up!
Nico Fallosch
30. Apr 2019 · 17:49 UTC
Cool artstyle and concept!
1 level with a bit of tutorial would be great!
drtizzle
30. Apr 2019 · 17:50 UTC
Very polished entry! The artstyle is very good, and the music fits it perfectly. Nice touch on the buildup in pitch of the frog!

It would've been nice if there was a bit more skill involved, because right now you're in the hands of the RnG gods, and you have little influence.

Overall a very nice entry!!!
Eric Smith
30. Apr 2019 · 17:51 UTC
Wow what a great game! The art style was really good and the music it sufficiently casual. When you fail the Menu button doesnt seem to work. Nice job! :clap:

Plaz play and rate mine. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lifeforms-in-space
Ryan Brenner
30. Apr 2019 · 17:57 UTC
Really wonderfully presented game. You really knocked it out of the park when it comes to the character designs and animations. The concept is very interesting as well. My complaint is that there is not much strategy to the game; you can just pick whatever cards are available as long as they are not subtracting from either value. Then on the last level, just do that and pray that minus cards don't come up. Might have been better if there was a punishment for going beyond what the person prefers, and if there was a way to swap cards somehow. Overall, it felt very polished and I'm very impressed with how excellent it looks. Awesome job!
Xankill3r
30. Apr 2019 · 18:10 UTC
Exceptionally charming game. I'd be really interesting to see where you take it from here :)
agurcan
30. Apr 2019 · 18:11 UTC
I adore the art style and the music. The game plays smoothly and feels really polished. My major suggestion is that you should have made it more strategy focused and less random number generated because even if I finish all the stages in my first try I don't feels satisfied. Another reason for this might be that there were very few stages. Great game overall maybe if you fix the bugs and add randomly generated but strategy based stages you can release it as a full game!
Osspial
30. Apr 2019 · 18:13 UTC
The graphics, music, and overall presentation are excellent! However, it doesn't feel like the game really increases in complexity as the levels progress - the numbers get higher, but eventually you reach a point where you're getting so many positive points that going over the negative cards don't really matter. Additionally, it doesn't feel like there's much closure at the end, and at first I didn't realize that I had reached the end at all!
🎤 pixelstuff
30. Apr 2019 · 19:29 UTC
Thank you all for your replies and for all the bug reporting! We will take care of it quickly!

@osspial @agurcan @ryan-brenner @zhanna > Thank you for your feedback! We will definitely address the difficulty issue. It's something we are aware of and definitely want to improve post gamejam. In our original scope, we wanted to add a third ressource to collect but didn't have the time to. We also needed more time to make some gameplay adjustments, our original card/public ratio hasn't been proofed enough but our main goal was to test the gameplay first and then to improve difficulty.
siryakko
30. Apr 2019 · 20:34 UTC
What a game! Graphics are so great, the music is cool and the gameplay mechanics are just plain fun and strategy. I love your game and want to see a full release out of it (played it on my stream btw)
voidfishing
30. Apr 2019 · 22:58 UTC
this is a cool idea - i love the tone of it! the art style is great, and the music/sound effects suit it really well. i definitely think this could be made into a bigger game, it's really charming and i'd play more of it! :)
OwainB
30. Apr 2019 · 23:02 UTC
This is a step away from the rest of the games in the competition, and in the right direction, it provides a relief from the repetition and is a nice game to play
jjoeyay
30. Apr 2019 · 23:04 UTC
I really like the concept you have on display here! I love the art style, it's super charming!
At its current state I think it's good fun, while perhaps not so challenging and relatively limited in variance, but I think it could totally be refined into something really engaging!
lagrume-masque
30. Apr 2019 · 23:09 UTC
This is a super cool idea, I love the theme, graphics and sounds. The gameplay is really funny but needs a little more feedback and explanations (I didn't really understand clearly to satisfy my audience). Overall it's well executed and looks really polished for a jam game. Character design is awesome. Good job!
ave
30. Apr 2019 · 23:17 UTC
Things I liked:

- Loads of polish! Great line-work, lovely little animations
- Ingenious way to spin the theme
- The core gameplay loop, and the frog croaking - the consistency made it engaging

Things that could be improved:

- I felt like I didn't know how to fail - it was too easy, I think. Perhaps there should be only one or two correct combinations per tale and not spotting them in time punishes you
- Pedantic, but with so much polish and such a simple UI, things like no button states (hover, down etc.) stick out a little

Really well done!
Kaiomoi
30. Apr 2019 · 23:23 UTC
Cool concept and Art is nice. Good job!
recursor
30. Apr 2019 · 23:39 UTC
The first thing that hit me when I started it was the lovely graphics. I initially wasn't sure how to make the frog move as it was not immediately clear to me I had to move a given number of spaces, but once I figured it out I was hopping along.
minor_gods
01. May 2019 · 01:04 UTC
insane amount of polish!! feels like it could be the start of something huge!
megaelod
01. May 2019 · 08:36 UTC
the graphics and the game are just so so cool!!!!♥
turbogros
01. May 2019 · 08:53 UTC
Finished it and really liked it. The art is so great. The little wolf spearsman is my favourite.
As usual with your games the level of polish is crazy. Nice work.
tweedle
02. May 2019 · 02:08 UTC
like the mechanics of the storytelling and the art lots, well done!
Sergi Montaner
02. May 2019 · 21:58 UTC
This is the most original take on the theme I have seen so far.

The gameplay is quite simple but works like a charm. The music and the frog sounds are super moody.

The art is very good too.

The only thing I found strange is this combination of time pressure and puzzle. Also at the beginning I didn't know what makes the character star moving. Now I know it is moving 4 tiles, but it is quite arbitrary and is not explained anywhere. (if it is I didn't notice :p)
saucygames
03. May 2019 · 08:52 UTC
I love these types of card dungeon crawlers! Awesome Art too! I liked how i kind of had to learn some things on my own. REALLY NEEDS A SOUND EFFECT WHEN U PRESS A Card!! a nice juicy sound effect!
caranha
03. May 2019 · 11:23 UTC
That was a very original idea and a cool game! I liked it a lot.

I felt that the game was a bit "slow" though, not sure if it is my machine, or if there is something in the programming that could be done to make it more responsive.

Also, it was not clear for me what was my goal at each stage. A certain amount of gold? A certain number of satisfied people? I lost at the throne room and I had no idea if it was a close loss or not.

Cheers!
tapehead
03. May 2019 · 18:58 UTC
I love the art and the mood of the game! Also the idea of the game.. it's very relaxing! Very well done!
ghust1995
04. May 2019 · 17:28 UTC
I really like the idea of the game, especially the part of building up the story of the frog, however the "gamey" part of the game detracts the attention from the story building too much. I really wish this game was more about making a story by choosing wordless cards, and less about adding and subtracting and figuring out the optimal path. The art is too good for me to be able to just take the game as an interactive mathematical system.

Nice job on the concept, I really like the overall idea, it just falls short while trying to become a game, when it is also an amazing build your own adventure mechanic =)
SimplePotential
04. May 2019 · 17:30 UTC
While I wasn't sure exactly how the theme was represented and I really enjoyed the game. The graphics were great. The game play was a bit addicting.
palsina
04. May 2019 · 18:30 UTC
Love the art style, the little animations and and small touches and how everything comes together, really confident for a lack of a better word. Also the concept is really interesting, it ca be taken in a more puzzle style or ditch the numbers and use it to build small tales like suggested above. Really good entry.
MashUpGames
04. May 2019 · 22:36 UTC
Loved the art with this one! Great idea, and the execution was solid. Music and sound was also great, and really played into the theme. Great job!
CaptainPilot
05. May 2019 · 00:32 UTC
Really interesting concept. I love the visuals, music and general tone of the game. I think there needed to be a better explanation of the mechanics. I was just constantly picking four cards with numbers on. Didn't seen to be much jeopardy. I rated highly because I liked the vibe
Chameleon
05. May 2019 · 19:43 UTC
Great work! The concept is really interesting, there's so much more that could be done with it, without a 72h time limit I mean.

Also found a tiny bug where if you run out of time in the middle of a story, the bard frog will start singing from whatever step you were, instead of starting back to the first step.