The Blocklings by michaelb

made by michaelb for LD 38 (COMPO)

Download: The Blocklings - Windows - Linux - MacOS

Ludum Dare Compo

The Blocklings are on a distant planet, and they must journey from planet to planet until they reach home. You are their guide, placing blocks on each blocky world to guide these lovable but helpless creatures from the entrance portal to the exit portal, with enchanting But be careful! Each planet is fraught with challenge and danger, and one wrongly placed block could cause your blocklings a fall to their death.

Three carefully rationed abilities at every stage
Add and remove blocks to create bridges or remove obstacles
Placing special arrow block to direct the blocklings to safety
Increasingly difficult puzzles to solve
Sharp retro semi-isometric graphics
Fun voxel-based game structure
Soothing and enchanting music

Original URL

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/the-blocklings

Ratings

Given

8🗳️

4🗨️

Feedback

rinberd

02. May 2017 · 17:27 UTC

Nice cute graphics of little block people and weird but cool sounds :D And soothing music, and the little melodies they make by moving around and going to the whirly block, I'm in love with this atmosphere!

Got one crash when pressed rewind button several times. Would also help if the cutscene at the start was skippable since you have to listen to it every time you want to start a game.

And a minor gameplay notice, wouldnt hurt to know where the starting spawn point is on every level beforehand, so you wouldnt have to run the level just to see where it is.

But those are just minor gripes, I like this game very much :)

stevenjmiller

07. May 2017 · 07:24 UTC

Great game! I agree that being able to see the spawning points would be beneficial, as well as a way to speed up the levels (especially in the early game where you don't have to modify the level while it is running).

MHGameWork

07. May 2017 · 15:36 UTC

I like the mood in this game, the music and the story introduction. It immediately gives a certain depth to the game I can appreciate.

I like the idea of the hand drawn graphics, but i feel it collides a bit with the block based look and was somewhat hard to read. I would suggest picking one artstyle and a bit less colors.

GFM

07. May 2017 · 21:04 UTC

I got really confused with the level geometry and the exact position of blocklings. Adding a shadow beneath them would be really helpful. The world could also use some shading, as it's also somewhat confusing...

Each level has a different spawn point and there's no indication of it. You are forced to start running it before even thinking about the solution, only to be forced to restart when you think of a solution.

Also, in some maps the UI get in the way of the map. Simply being able to move the camera would help a lot! There was even a level (after the green blocklings appears), where I couldn't even see the exact spawn points... so I had to give up.

🎤 michaelb

07. May 2017 · 23:11 UTC

@rinberd @stevenjmiller @gfm Thanks for playing! Yeah there are quite a few UI issues... I simply ran out of time. I was planning on the spawn-point indicator, and a rotatable camera (45 deg around, along with top-down), but by the end I was scrambling to even make the game completable before the deadline. 48 hrs and all that! Next time I'll remember to try to get UI solid first before adding extra content.

@MHGameWork - Thanks for the positive feedback! I agree the art styles are a bit inconsistent. The block textures are actually hand-drawn too using the same brush (MyPaint), but with how it is on the screen it isn't very obvious.