The Machine at the Center of the Earth by p53
The Machine at the center of the Earth is falling apart, and you need to keep it running as long as possible! Jump your way around the massive machine and fix problems as they arise. But be careful, as more things break the machine will become even more dangerous!
Ratings
| Overall | 510th | 3.446⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 640th | 3.149⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 427th | 3.419⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 286th | 3.919⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 351th | 3.689⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 511th | 3.057⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 8🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/cthulhu-must-be-kept-alive
Good job !
This is probably out of the scope of a 48 hour gamejam, but I think this would benefit a lot from randomizing the placement of the hazards. That way, a player would have to build his mental map over every run. Either way, great game!
The only things I missed were some clear indicators where exactly the broken parts are, maybe some arrows pointing at these locations or something. Nevertheless, well done! :)
The controls were nice and tight though and I liked your interpretation of the theme.
I don't think music is necessary, I like the atmosphere of just machine noises. It reinforces the lonely job of the robot. A slightly faster robot would be nice but having a map with blinking alerts would make a great difference. At the moment the blinking lights on the bar aren't very intuitive.
Really good effort.
Felt like a very complete game-- the animation was cohesive, the level felt reasonably large, and the gameplay was satisfying. I've seen some other people who want an indicator for broken parts, but I didn't find that all that necessary; it could have helped for the non-essential parts, but your warning system with lights created far more engaging gameplay than a mini-map would have. Pretty nicely designed map, with decent navigation options
Areas for improvement;
The jump pad felt buggy, with the boost height often varying depending on how I approached the jump pad. It really needed either a difficulty curve or a fixed ending, because at a certain point I could just keep going forever without dying. A metric for how well you did would also have been welcome. Music might have added a little, but it worked just fine without.
Overall:
Incredibly complete, cohesive, and fun game. For me, the best pard of the game was learning where the machines all were, and I think a mini-map would have lessened that, so I would advise against adding one.