Doc. Noggin by Mr_Field


Controls: Arrowkeys - move
Z - Attack
X - Plant Pill
( customisation missed out due to time, coming in postjam? )
F2 - Open Level Editor
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By:
Robin Field - Programming, Art
Billy Hobson - Programming, Audio
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| Link | https://robinfield.itch.io/doc-noggin |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/doc-noggin |
Ratings
| Overall | 381th | 3.789⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 539th | 3.605⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1018th | 3.056⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 644th | 3.639⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 687th | 3.675⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 212th | 3.861⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 926th | 2.647⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 586th | 3.556⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 2🗨️ |

But on the other side, there are fuel cans, moving fires, levers, blocks, and stars as background. It may be hard, but you should try to find "medical" equivalent to all these unrelated objects.
Level design looks sometimes strange. Some levels seems to be really big, but you only have to explore a little to find the exit. I do not know if it is made on purpose. It may be a good idea, because it suggests that you're in a world bigger than what you are able to realize, like a body if you are a micro-organism.
It needs a scenario, or at least some explanations. What is this strange grey-ball-character I have to get ? Why is the world "unstable" ? What a I supposed to do here ?
Even with these little drawbacks, I was hooked and could not stop until I won the game.
(Spoiler alert) : I really liked the mechanic of coming back accross all the previous level.
Music and "special effects" are great.
Thank you for this really cool game !
While I was descending the game, I often felt like the levels had a lot of completely extraneous elements--I was particularly stuck on Chiller for a while, as I completely did not even think about how little I actually needed to do to win it. It did turn out that a lot of those extraneous elements ended up being used for the chase sequence at the end, but I really was quite confused while going down. (I'm also pretty sure there's still parts of Chiller that are completely unused on the left side of the map...)
But, the gameplay itself is pretty good. The variety of mechanics with the bomb and the various level elements are pretty cool, and the chase sequence they build up to is pretty neat (although I personally would probably prefer if it were easier).
This is definitely probably the best use of "stability" as a direct numerical game mechanic I've seen yet. The stability meter is pretty interesting even though it's not that different from a normal health bar. The two mechanics--placing a bomb lowers your stability, and fighting enemies raises it--those two mechanics are enough to make it work quite a bit different from a health bar, and then the chase sequence at the end, of course, adds yet another twist, which is really cool. It's just neat how so many mechanics are encoded into one single meter at the top of the screen.
Sorry, once I got the MacGuffin I actually felt woozy and nauseous. I think it's very Zelda (or what I think Zelda is like anyways) with a palette of sokoban (or is it the other way around?)
But, again, yeah, I can't stand how sick I felt after more than a minute of post-MacGuffin. Maybe that's some instability right there though, so, good job.