404 mate, can't play the game!

Thank you, @sirpumpy!! It should be fixed now, sorry for the confusion. Had it in draft mode so it only appeared for me and nobody else. :(

Really interesting mechanic, well executed. The artstyle fit the game really well too. Great job!

The main 'gimmick' of this game is good, having to rescue people after a helicopter crash. The art is also okay.

But while this gimmick is pretty good, it's also very bad. I pretty much gave up on the final 2 stages thanks to the people CONSTANTLY falling off of my helicopter. Also, by the way, the controls (as you should know) are also part of the gimmick in this game.

In the end, the game is okay.

LOVE IT!
So much fun!

Fits the theme perfectly. Simple but great art style. The background though is not as "crisp" as the rest of the graphics not sure way. The controls are complicated but I managed to grasp it towards the end. The trick is to be really slow. Congrats on the game!

Great game. I love physics and artwork. The emotions these little dudes have are hilarious...
Btw, why didn't you use interpolation on rigidbodies? That usually fixes jittery motion related to the camera.

The controls are so awesome and unique, the game is super fun! Very good :D

This game is actually awesome :D

Really unique!
Love the attention to detail in the animations!

awesome #1 compo in my list

@dimaswift thanks for mentioning the camera, I think it's my camera script that's at fault and not the physics. The camera adjusts position as your dangle-chain gets longer, and I introduced some dampening to avoid a jerky snap when you break your chain. However, I think this introduced the jitter at higher speeds that you mention. I'll have to fix that for any post-LD release I might do!

This is an amazing game! Graphics and gameplay are on point. Great job!

The game is quite funny as it introduces itself and the controls/gameplay definitely give me the feeling of comical distress that the protagonist has. It's already a pretty short experience, but it likely could have been shorter while ramping the difficulty up more quickly. This game is pretty hard, so knowing I could get by just bringing 1 or 2 at a time made me less willing to try as hard in the last few levels. (That has some pretty gruesome implications for such a quirky game)

Overall this is nice. The graphics work (the backgrounds should match resolution and crispness of the game objects though) and the theme is done in an interesting way. Good work!

Fantastic use of the theme idea. The game looks and plays great. It get's very tricky to maneuver that thing when you're holding them all up. I didn't realize till halfway through I didn't need to pick them all up to progress. Sorry blue dudes.

My only hiccup was using 2 monitors, the mouse would sometimes come off the screen and I could control the chopper anymore D:. But otherwise a solid game. Good job !

This is superb! I love the character designs, the frame story's clever, and the controls work really well (I can imagine how much fiddling it took to get those right). Fantastic work.

Everything about this made me happy. Even knocking into a wall and sending everyone back to the bottom. Had to play all the way to end even with multiple fails. (only left one guy in the end). Chopper sounds weren't annoying or repetitive, blue color scheme is calming and all the little guys' features were just right. The "story" was funny from the start and the tutorial fit perfectly. I really enjoyed the controllers on screen. They were distracting, but in an interesting way that made me not only watch the guys or the chopper. Overall a great experience!

Pretty great game, the fact that this game did not have a timer or any way to die made it so much more fun. The controls were great. It was a hilarious premise. I would suggest finding a better color scheme for this, the monotonous blue got boring quite quickly. Background music would make the game not sound so dead as well. Overall, this was a really fun entry, especially the 2nd last one were you have to go down a ditch. That put me on edge all the way through haha.

Great game! My favorite of all the jam games so far!

But mom...

That was awesome. Nice ramp up in difficulty. I particularly like that you decided to not punish the player for crashing the helicopter (aside from making the characters sway more).

The graphics are sweet and that intro sets the mood very well. Those controls with the tiny hands and the worries faces of everyone involved are very cute.

Music would have been nice of course. I remember that Carefulzilla in LD38 used a random music generator to make the soundtrack, which turned out quite well. I could see something similar in your game.

The last level (before the dev test one) was a bit frustrating because one mistake could cost you the full score and you had to start over again. I think the dev test level might have been better suited as an extra to be selected from the start screen or placed after the end game screen as I felt it clashed a bit with the rest of the game.

Overall a very well made entry, congratulations!

Nice take on the theme! I really enjoyed the core mechanic and controls of this game. I was playing with a trackball so it was really hard hahahha. The tutorial was really nicely done. Keep it up!

Fantastic, easily in my top 5 games played this jam.
i absolutely loved the control scheme and it's not something I've come across before, which is great. The art was superb and the sound was great, some light background music might have been nice though (nothing overpowering mind, and having no music didn't detract from the experience).
To make it harder, maybe add damage to the helicopter or people, so you can only screw it up so many times.
Overall though, fantastic work.

Out of the 12 games I've played so far, yours is by far the best overall. Great, unique, fun gameplay; crisp and appealing graphics; the fact that you're thrown in with little to no explanation,... My only complaint is the rather lacking sound design.
I think you could've combined the "initial confusion" and "The more you have, the worse it is" to make flying the helicopter more difficult, like a Steel Battalion situation. I dunno, I thought that would be pretty cool.

Humorous game with interesting and innovative game mechanic. Controlling helicopter is pretty entertaining and later level require you to prove your skill in piloting it. I really like facial expressions in this game especially if i drop one of blue dude. Graphics are simplistic but choosing this blue-ish colour range give the game it distinct feel. In overall pretty fun game, well done.

Great game! Would love to see more levels with more level design created "mechanics" like fishing for a rescuee in a narrow chasm you can't get yourself but can build a "rope" to get into. While you didn't have time to make more content, I like that the game looks finished and complete, that's very important for a jam game I reckon.

By far my favorite game of the LD so far. Well done. The sprites are so cute, and the gameplay is addicting!

This game was really well done. You could tell the little bits of polish, like the helicopter having 3/4 view spirtes and the eyes following you player. The controls were really intuitive and just felt natural to use. I picked it up in little to no time and was flying around like a pro. The game was difficult at times, but it never felt unfair. It felt like it was testing me, rather than cheating me (if that makes sense). It reminded me of flash games I used to play as a kid, so it also had a real nostalgic feel to it. My only problem was at the end the level design felt a bit bland, with everything being dumped on you at once, however the core gameplay was absolutely superb.

Pretty fun to play. The art style was sumple, yet pretty and the gameplay itself was also enjoyable.

Great concept, I like how the characters are mad at you after they fell that's awesome :D

This is certainly very innovative :)
However I suck so much at the controls :D gotta get used to it :D
Nice sound effect for the copter though, does not get annoying after playing for quite some time

Keep it up! :)

Great game! I love the mechanic:) It was fun and challenging!

Solid controls and mechanics, but after the first few levels I kind of learned to avoid all collisions, and in the next one (4th?) the player has to go through the small gap with two cargo. The solution is to go further, and drop one off by intentionally colliding with the wall. Perhaps this type of puzzle gameplay could be improved and supported if the player was able to drop the "cargo" by the press of a button, and the game requires you to do so at the end of each level? I think this would make it easier to see that you just can't fit the chopper through the gap with 2 cargo.

Well done!

This is an excellent entry:

The mechanic is sound and fun and fitting

The tutorialization and difficulty progression is top notch-- I love that you don't even need a certain amount of guys to move on it just challenges the player to see how many he can retain.

The level design is very well done (this sorta goes back to the progression thing) but its great-- a tight little 5-10 minute package is perfect for LD.

My only critique would be that I had an instance where I got 4 dudes on the safety launch pad thing but I only got credit for one since at the LAST second I slammed the rest into the ground, haha.

Also, if you wanted a suggestion-- I really liked in level 5 when you had to go down that long drop and thought "what would this game be like if my choppers, well.... chopped them up if they landed on top of me?

Just a thought.

GREAT JOB! My favorite so far :)

You have a gem here, for real this is so fuck#$&# good, great job, this is a really well done game, impressive for a compo game, definetely was not expecting this, the mechanics is really good, and the art is so cute haha, great job !

The controllers are so crever! One of the best entries I saw here!

I like the fact that you dont explode when you hit a wall, but it causes you to swing and probably drop someone.

And it really gets harder the more people you are rescuing, in a natural/physical way, not just because of changing parameters.

Really nice one!

Very well done! Had a blast playing this. I'm sure the difficulty was toned down for a game jam, but having helicopter damage when you hit the walls would really step up the intensity! Great game.

I've done 6 LDs now, and have reviewed hundreds of games. This is the first game I ever held my breath on. Pretty much nonstop too. Not even sure why since there are other difficult games on here, perhaps it's the controls, perhaps it's the hilarious faces, or the physics. Amazing job, I think it's more important to draw an emotion out of the player like that than any other rating category there is.

EDIT: I tossed a reply to your post on my page. Maybe one day ldjam will have messaging....

Nice game indeed! Awesome control scheme and its graphical representation. The first levels were easy enough, but the latter ones definitely put my precision skills to test. And the kids' simplistic yet expressive faces was what sealed the deal for me :D

The cave graphics could be a little sharper in a few places, but the little guys and the helicopter look great. Plus the snapping of the little guys when you hover down and grab them feels good. Teh audio is also minimal but quite good. Especially the snapping sound. Excellent job!

Awesome game, had a lot of fun playing it. Very intuitive controls.
Would like to see a button that lets you throw the dudes out of a tight spot.

Man, really cool mechanic with the input, i haven't seen it before anyway, trying to control that thing was a lot more fun than i would have imagined. I was glad that it was pretty forgiving and the little guys didn't die when i dropped them because i dropped them ALOT, guess that could be a hard mode or something. The art was simple but worked well, the terrified expressions were very cute. Feels like it has a lot of potential. Really great job

Funny and very cute game! :) Nice to play. Especially how steering the helicopter works was interesting, since it differs from most other steering mechanisms I know.

Incredible game! This is totally new game experience for me!
Pros: innovative interesting control, good difficulty, adiitive gameplay
Cons: camera shatter

This game has GREAT potential, I think:
1) HP to the copter
2) HP to the rescuers
3) Maybe speedrun mode? Mods with minimum HP loss
4) Different types of rescuers, maybe affected on each other, for example someone don't attach to another one

Please, don't abandon this game. It has really GREAT potential to do.

Nice game! The innovative control was a good idea, and you made it great. Perfect difficulty too!
If you want check our game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-darkest-light

Hi! o/
It's a very pleasant and cute game that you offered us once again !
The first thing I've noticed was the really cool and original mouse control, fitting perfectly with the helicopter thing. I almost felt like I was driving a pico 8 RC :]
The story and NPC to rescue are cute, I really like faces expressions according to situations, or how to make squares and circles nice and alive...
The game itself has no real difficulty, and could easily target a broad audience. I like the way that the game is not punishing you at all : no death, infinite tries, kinda optional challenges, almost never blocking situation (except the level when they all fall in a pit if you're doing it wrong :)... The gameplay and feel is such nice that I gave it multiple tries just for fun and to challenge myself.
Content is here, gameplay is top notch, and adding some quantified and well balanced objectives could really make it addictive and polished.
Very good job :)
Cheers !

Wow, I love this community! Thanks everyone for your great feedback. It's exciting to hear that people had fun, and that you liked my little facial expressions in the art. Thanks also to those who mentioned the constant chopper sound was NOT annoying... It's like you read my mind, as I was pretty worried about putting an always-on sound into the game. I also appreciate the critiques of where I can improve, and got several great points here. I've been consta-refrehsing since the contest, as the feedback comments are so addictive and I really enjoy them.

Special shout-out to @peachtreeoath, what a poetic comment. It really warmed my heart to read that.

Now that the dust has settled, I think my view is most like @porcus-pie. I am happy with the controls and core mechanic, but maybe I invested a bit *too* much in small graphical details at the expense of the levels.

Honestly the blurry graphics on the rocks, that's so sloppy, I really shouldn't have let that go out. :\

I have rated and commented on everyone's game, except @reality-blind because your game takes 2 players. I'll try! If I missed anyone else, let me know.

@ronanrorry sorry my game wasn't your cup of tea, but congratulations on finishing your first Ludum Dare and welcome to the club.

Thanks again, everyone.

very cool game, I really like the controls, working very well and trains you to be careful with your passengers

Hoo boy, this game is pure delight! I agree with the pilot's expression, concerned that he might drop all his buddies and have to go collect them again! And I love how they all look so happy when you get them to safety.. It was hilarious grabbing all the guys in a big chain like that, and it also made it rather difficult in some cases.

In certain tight areas I opted to bonk into the wall and drop the guys so I could just grab one at a time. This was fun, and really fun to play, also the helicopter controls were kind of unique and took my brain a bit to acclimate to (not sure I'm very good at it still). Great work!

This is a really cool and original take on the theme! I really liked the graphics for the people and the chopper, the little details like the facial expressions and little animation of the chopper blades were really nice, but the level graphics had some weird interpolation going on at some of the slopes. I also liked that the audio of the chopper pitched up or down relative to your movement, which was a nice touch.

The gameplay was good fun, and in the beginning I often had to remind myself to go slow and steady this time, which usually lasted until smashing into a wall, panicking and then overcompensating :) . But in the end, I really got the hang of the controls, and managed to avoid walls for the most part. The difficulty ramps up quite nicely, and adds to the polished feel of the whole game. Overall great job, you once again made a really fun game!

if the controls were wasd it would be more fun! Loved the art and the idea, great game! :)

We at Nice Games Club just published our Ludum Dare Let's Play episode, where we played thirty-six (!!) games, including yours (which was so charming we could barely handle it)!

[Check it out here!](http://nicegames.club/2017/12/nice-plays-ludum-dare-40-games-2017/)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGt66ZnLME

Awesome game. Great idea and mechanics. the graphics are pretty cool. it gives a lot of fun. and there is nothing to criticize: P

ps. Sorry for my bad English

Super creative, fun game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 40 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecGDWM6QdpE

@jupiter-hadley thanks so much for the video! I can see from the jerky inputs that you played the web version and were having trouble with the cursor passing out of the screen area, causing the input to feel really choppy. I knew this was a potential problem with the web version, but WOW seeing how hard it hit you was really informative. Thanks! :)