The Amazing Clownzie by pkenney
My 20th LD. I was planning to skip it because my wife and I had our first child 5 weeks ago, and he keeps us busy.
But my wife encouraged me to give it a shot and see if I could get something done with less time and intensity. So this one is less ambitious than my usual entries, and has no sound and no animation.
But don't worry, it still has whacky physics that took a lot of tuning! Curious to see where the difficulty lands.
Hope you enjoy, I'm just glad to have finished an entry at all this time. :)

This game has two secret convenience features:
You can adjust the mouse sensitivity: [ decreases it, ] increases, and \ resets to the default.
You can hit R at any time to instant-restart your current level.
| Link | https://savagehill.itch.io/the-amazing-clownzie |
| Link | http://savagehillgames.com/LD49/ld49babytime-code.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/the-amazing-clownzie |
Ratings
| Overall | 157th | 3.727⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 168th | 3.636⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 245th | 3.409⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 83th | 4.136⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 320th | 3.318⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 105th | 3.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 230th | 3.325⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 19🗨️ |
Pretty impressed with what you ended up with. On theme 100% and pretty challenging at first. I had eventually got the groove down and finished it.
Good job as always! And good luck with the baby :)
That last level had me clinching, once it starts to lose balance it's difficult to get it back but possible, which is pretty fun! Considering what you had going along with the game development, this game is pretty amazing, and even standalone it's really fun! All the graphics, UI, and the small animations felt really fluid. Good job!
This is tuned really well, very satisfying to get things just right, and it has a very nice property of being pretty natural once you get a good feeling for the physics. I really enjoyed this, and it's just the right length, though my heart sank when I realized there was going to be a fifth spotlight to hit on the four crates level, hah!
The graphics are just right for this, set the theme straight away, and I love the "Amazing!" refrain, especially at the end. Great little submission. =)
I played a few other balancing games like this so far. There's a couple key differences yours has:
1. Yours is the first mouse-control one I've played. This allowed you to have a much higher height platform than the others because you have way more control than the keyboard. By the end of it, I honestly feel like I learned balancing lessons that I didn't pick up from the other games on how to control your speed, namely because the boxes get so stacked high here that their momentum is *extremely* important to understand.
2. You have strict boundaries on the sides. Because of this, I couldn't just wing it until I got the right amount of speed for the side-spotlights. It's a bit similar to the Gran Turismo training levels where you have to break at the exactly correct time to make sure you slide into a target zone in time.
This combination made this my favorite balancing game so far. I felt like I was genuinely learning some skills here because of those constraints, and it really felt amazing to be able to control 4 boxes like that.
When I saw the theme, I figured it would be right up your alley. You got your priorities straight though with spending time with the fam, there'll always be other jams!
It is a really fun game! I gave you full score for that!
The audience could be more interactive but it sets the focus on the stage.
You should be happy with it :)
The balancing works really good, so your tuning definitely shows!
It's also good that the boxes have the color change to indicate when they are in the light.
The last level took me awhile but I made it in the end!
Shortly after the game ended, Clownzie dropped the 4 boxes onto the audience and was fired immediately.
But yeah, it's OK, it certainly fits the Theme to a T, though not so much in Innovation. But hey, you managed to finish it. And it's amazing to find out you're now a father! That's amazing to hear!! Congratulations, I wish the best for you all!!!