I much enjoyed the graphics and the tongues, though they were horribly efficient. I kind of thought that the glass of water would at least be an obstacle for it, but no. So I never managed to rescue a single one. The music was quite awesome too, so if I would have felt like I had a chance (there's probably something I misunderstood), I would have found it quite. But for me the frustration of trying and trying again without ever getting a single point doesn't really fit that well with the quirkiness and humor of the game. I think in this type of game it's more important to make sure that the player feels like they are succeeding (at least for a while), rather than challenging them. So while it had some really great components, the difficulty kind of cut things short.

Thanks for the feedback @local-minimum! I guess as usual I was worried about making it too easy, and ended up making it too hard :sob: If it wasn't clear, you have to take cover near the larger objects in the world (the cards, drink, etc.) and make your way between them until you get to the edge. There are some fairly large areas without any cover though, so maybe if I filled those in with more stuff it would be a bit easier.

good tunes! im crap at feedback; the drinks dont help; love your style too!

I enjoyed playing it but mostly felt confused as to what I was supposed to do.

@randomhuman maybe the game should right at the start have a slower tongue and the people in the caged are shout "Take cover behind the X" or something to teach the player the core idea. I know it's hard to make a game easy enough, but my rule of thumb which might not be enough is to take what I find balanced and make it twice as easy. On my silly game, I cut the waiting time in half right before submitting which was probably very good. In any case, for fear of making it to easy, I think it is generally better to still give the player an early success and making it more difficult later. The player will feel good about themselves and also be more invested to keep trying.

@local-minimum Yes, good advice! I like the idea of having the people in the cage shout instructions at you, that would be a great way to tutorialize without needing a separate tutorial. I'll keep it in mind if I do a post-jam version.

Very cute and well made graphics. The game is fun and music good music.
I wish there were more things to hide behind :grin:

Good job.

"Simple" but fun little game. And by simple I mean simple in concept. I struggled for 10 minutes to save one guy. But I finally made it, and felt victorious!

But in all seriousness that's a really well-made game, with cute graphics and a great soundtrack.

👍

A awesome art !!! a simple gameplay but very fun !! Greaaat dudee !!!

Very nice work on this! I love the graphics, the people looked really great! Those tentacles coming to poke you were terrifying :D

finally escaped at least one person. Pretty hard, though you start to plan a route and then just have to execute and hope the pokes don't come from certain directions. I think more cover or ways to avoid pokes or different kinds of pokes could be interesting. Keep up the good work!

graphics were good, the music made the gameplay quite intense. simple and realy fun game. gg :dog:

Good stylish game a great take on the theme.

Is kind of hard until you figure out an obstacle sequence to run to the border of the table. Then it become quite easy

A interesting game. But a little difficult for me.

Hahaha, I love it! I jumped right in without reading the instructions, and I coudn't figure out what to do, but I still had fun running around in a big world. After I read the instructions, I came back and saved one lady, but all the rest failed.

@coachsisyphus @tim-allen @fm-studio @annie-owl @castrolol @gamesplusjames @aeveis @lombax @kromeboy @mantou @good-enough

Thanks all for the kind words and great feedback - [I've started work on a post-compo version](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/people-poker/$156642) that will address the difficulty in particular, and also add some of the stuff that I had planned but didn't get to, and extra animations and juice and whatnot.

Not bad, a bit difficult as others pointed out. Really liked the graphics.

Promising concept! The difficulty is really hard. I thought my entry was an hard one but I found my master! Is there a particular strategy to escape the tentacles? Otherwise the art is good and the idea is unique. I hope to play your post-jam update!

Great interpretation of the theme!! I can really picturethose giant octopuses playing betting humans, Amazing art and a great execution. Very simple concept it can have so many more mechanics! Keep working on it!

@owlycode At the moment you just have to get back into cover to get them to back off. In the update it will be possibly to dodge them if you change direction at the last minute.

I have a list of people that impressed me in previous LD's that I check every time to see if they have made an Entry, you are in that list. I really loved "Guerrilla Gardening" and I found it super cool that you made a specific version for me without screen-shake since it caused issues for me (for whatever reason). But enough about the past, lets talk about "People Poker".

The graphics are stunning, I really love the style, the fact that it's made in Compo is just baffling to me! It's one of the more interesting interpretations of the theme, for some reason I feel like this concept could have been a Futurama episode :smile:


Really (punny) funny that you need to make sure you don't get "poked" at the poker table. The whole concept is just fantastic. Even though the game-play is pretty simple, there's quite a bit of depth behind it, you need to make split second decisions on whether or not you play it safe or bolt for the exit.

Overall a fantastic entry!