Duplo by CrozzY
Hmmm

| duplo | https://excesswater.itch.io/duplo |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/duplo |
Ratings
| Overall | 825th | 2.8⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 851th | 2.371⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 714th | 2.771⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 850th | 2.229⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 202th | 4.141⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 533th | 2.643⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 592th | 2.362⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 521th | 3.443⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 36🗳️ | 55🗨️ |
The art, music and general vibe is very cute though, with a little more balancing this could be very fun.
There are some problems with the controls, but the main character at the table is too funny to notice it...

- Why did you make movement this complex ?
Making require to select player before moving is feeling not very user friendly :wink:
- Also, why did you make "points of interest" to follow in order to move from upstais to downtairs etc ?
- Finally, have a camera following the character would be great :)
But still very niiiiice game and good concept ! :two_hearts:
I saw your post asking for constructive feedback:
- Coming from someone who historically has consistently either done a similar "tutorial-screen-wall-of-text" or scrapped tutorials entirely due to lack of time, I've found it's just too much for players to read and have it stick all at once. Maybe having at least a tldr reference card for the controls somewhere in the corner of the screen or ideally introducing them individually with a prompt at the start while the player can try it out themselves would help a ton, especially when the controls for movement/interaction aren't super intuitive.
- That being said, it's a lot easier to rely on a players previous knowledge of game mechanics, controls, etc., in terms of maybe not having to explain how to play. Something like changing the mouse cursor/highlighting a button on hover intuitively signal to the player that they should click here. Or for a point-and-click, I would expect maybe "E" to interact with a station/item and that just clicking on the doors/stairs would immediately have the character walk there and go through.
- I think the camera-(smoothly)-snapping on the player when they walk off screen would be a great addition, especially with a time-based resources-gathering situation. I'd recommend looking into cinemachine (since unity), you can set rules to have it automatically do it for you.
The game looks super polished/unique in terms of assets, so I think it makes the un-intuitive controls stand out a bit. This is a bit outta left-field, but I can imagine a cozy, exploration-version of this game being really fun to play :)
Nice idea though, it feels like the execution was like 80% there your team might've just ran low on time.
At first, I thought the game was broken, but it turns out it was just some really unintuitive design choices. The point-and-click movement felt pretty clunky, especially since there’s only one character, constantly needing to click just to move made things harder than they needed to be.
That said, the visuals are really charming! With some rethinking of the control scheme and general UX, this could be a much more enjoyable experience. There's definitely potential here.
Nice entry!
There might also be an issue with the character itself, as a few times I noticed that it made the selection sound after clicking it, but then it didn't move anywhere after I clicked the floor and I had to select it again. I thought that having some way of distinguishing whether the character is "selected" or not might make it more noticable, like a different idle animation or maybe slight color tint when it is selected.
As for the resources, I think the sticks were the biggest issue for me. The sun and mineral gathering have their animations, so at least I knew something was happening, but with the sticks nothing happened. I didn't know if I was in the right place to collect them, or if I was slightly off and had to move in closer before trying again.
The idea and look of the game are great. It was a pleasure to watch all the little animations while moving around the place. The story element of trying to save the tree was a pretty nice thing too, made me pretty invested in trying to do my best.
All in all, it's a really cool entry. I hope you're gonna keep working on it after the jam. Well done!
Game leaves a warm feeling
Camera movements on my opinion should follow the player automaticly, and the main quest is a bit overcomplicated for a jam
Other than that - very nice, especially from the art side!
Maybe a bit too hard to take wood outside but else was well made ! GG :)