Don’t just take my word for it! Check out these recommendations from my colleagues and managers.
“Sam is not only one of my favorite people, but he’s an absolutely *phenomenal* developer! He is one of those people whose mere presence at a studio is indicative of the quality it’s creating and the passion of the team. Simply put, it’s because he’s an absolute master of his craft: the type of person who brings passion, creativity, and meaning to your work!
I had the pleasure of working closely with Sam at World’s Edge, where we collaborated to build a community web space for a global audience. He is absolutely brilliant teammate to have in your corner—someone you’re excited to chat with every single day! He radiates with a deep understanding of his audience and what makes for a truly accessible and enjoyable user experience. He brings ideas and enthusiasm to the table while actively inviting others to do the same in the search for the best solution. And he is communicative and collaborative: ensuring that the result matches (and exceeds) the vision of the team.
And when it comes to a result, he is quick, communicative, and a master of his craft. I LOVE working with someone you can trust to capture the vision, who asks questions when clarity is needed, who is open to iteration and improvement as inspiration strikes, and who can truly elevate an idea to its highest form. That’s Sam, and that’s why Sam is amazing!
All that said: Sam would be a selling point for me to join ANY organization he’s a part of, and I would highly recommend him for any team looking to build a meaningful experience for their audience in literally any setting.”
“I worked with Sam in designs and ensuring brand continuity at World’s Edge for Age of Empires. I edit trailers, which also include many graphical assets and motion graphics. I learned a great deal from Sam in creating my own templates and making sure things were how they are supposed to be. If anything looked off he had a keen eye to see it and help me fix it. It’s that attention to detail that I admire and appreciate. I would go to him often to get feedback and bounce ideas around. He always made the job feel more creative and fun. Definitely lost a massive resource when he was let go from Microsoft. Whoever is lucky enough to have him next is going to benefit big time!”
“I worked with Sam across a variety of different projects and can very safely say none of these projects would have been as successful without his skill, perspective and attention to detail.
The level of quality he holds himself to is immediately apparent the moment you’re introduced to a project he had a hand in. More so, I walked away from every conversation and interaction with him smiling.
I couldn’t recommend Sam enough.”
“From the beginning, Sam has been the force behind the UI design and implementation for virtually every app and web site Lifeform has touched. It’s been a pleasure working with him, and I would easily recommend him as an asset to any team.
Sam’s skill set is a unique mix of both art and coding. He can readily work across Apps, Games, and Web, is a true self-starter, and is an insightful contributor when it comes to multi-disciplinary design teamwork. Professionally, he continues to grow–and I’ve come to trust his eye for design sense, functionality, and quality. If Sam says something is “OK”–then it generally is.
As a small example, I reference Lifeform’s LegendSmith App–which is entirely Sam’s creation and under his oversight. Even after 5 years, the App continues to be the #1 companion for League of Legends players. It is polished, frequently updated, and just perfect. We’re at a million downloads and over 900 play hours a day…
All Sam’s doing–I highly recommend working with him.”
“Sam is a great designer and artist. He has a strong attention to detail focus on a quality work.
Sam has performed both design and development projects for me and I have been completely happy with the result. He goes above and beyond to finish projects inside of estimated time and budget constraints.
I’d recommend Sam to anyone needing design, especially in the game industry.”
“I worked with Sam for several years at ArenaNet and enjoyed every minute of it. Not only did Sam handle the day to day business of keeping the website updated but he was my go-to-guy for all things Flash related. He was a wizard with actionscript.
He was frequently hit with last minute changes but it never fazed him. He just dug into it and a few hours later I’d have the changes I needed.
Sam is someone I’d always welcome on my team.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Sam for about two years. Sam is one of the best front-end web developers I’ve worked with. He had a great enthusiasm for pushing design and functionality on our web projects. He was amazingly reliable and worked hard to make sure our sites looked great and that they were up to date.”
“Sam is an amazing artist and a skilled developer. He delivers projects on time with zero errors. He is truly a pleasure to work with.”
See what happy players have said about my work too!
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Lollipopofdarkness
Review of LegendSmith
Has all the info I wanted. All I wanted was a LoL description of champs and their abilities / weaknesses so that I can quickly learn how to counter them. It also gives you a basic idea of what they’ll build. It’s a fine app if you feel like you have no idea what you’re up against and want quick answers in game.
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Delphwind24
Review of LegendSmith
Perfect This app will give you the info and basic tools you need to get you going in an otherwise difficult game for new players to break into. HIGHLY suggested.
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NArTeRbUrN
Review of LegendSmith
Fantastic This app far exceeded my expectations! it does everything I wanted, plus so much more! From the counter picking, to the matchups, to the champion builds, this app really has it all! I’m amazed that it hasn’t gotten better reviews. if you play league of legends, you should have this app!
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Joaquin Cuisia
Review of LegendSmith
Wow it was amazing I was able to beat someone 1v1 because of this app loved it 🙂
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TheDoctor2426
Review of LegendSmith
Best app 10/10 This app here has it all man. You can make builds on any champion including their abilities, runes and masteries. Then you can compare it to other builds, or just save it for later. But my favorite feature has to be the Draft Pick app, you can see what your team’s odds are of winning, and it has yet to be wrong. Of course it has the counter app as well which is also right all the time. Recently, however, they made a new thing which tracks trends in LOL such as, winning/losing streaks, most picked champions, and most banned champions. I love it. What I’m trying to say is, it’s gr8 m8 I r8 8/8!
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Jason Young
Review of LegendSmith
As advertised A solid champ builder, updated more regularly than most. Counter/matchups are not bad, I’ve never found a site I wholeheartedly agree with though.
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Alisha Dodson
Review of LegendSmith
Great LoL app I really appreciate the work they put into this app to help LoL players with many different things while game is loading, during game, and even offline. Awesome app.
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Christ Sarit
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Mad genetica
Review of LegendSmith
SUPER helpful This helps me organize my builds so that I don’t forget them and its a lot better than just writing them down because you can see what your talking about and you can simulate your build and improve it without having to start a whole gmae
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Jacob Norton
Review of LegendSmith
Great app Solid app overall. It gives you all champion skills, all items, burst output based on items and champion level, I cannot tell you enough great things about what this app actually has and allows you to do
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Kodalic
Review of LegendSmith
Thank you! I’ve been trying out all the things you can do on this and loving it. Really well put together and easy to use. Best league of legends app out there thank you!!
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Heath Harney
Review of LegendSmith
Uninstall all other LoL builder apps! THE ABSOLUTELY BEST LEAGUE OF LEGENDS APP MADE! HANDS DOWN! Easy to pick up and TONS of options. All the information you will ever need about LoL on your mobile. Theory craft your favorite champs and learn the most optimal builds! Uninstall any other builders you have because this beats them all!
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Cameron Dunlap
Review of 00Boyfriend
This is perhaps the best LD game I’ve ever played. The game is cohesive, and fits the theme very well. I think the graphics and the audio are perfect, and it gave me a few laughs. The game could definitely become something greater if work was continued past LD41.
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Judy Kim
Review of 00Boyfriend
I didn’t actually get to play the game since I don’t have a PC. But the cover image was so intriguing I had to watch the demo, which in turn was so cute I had to give good ratings anyway 🙂 The whole texting thing makes me so happy and the main character’s design and animation is so perfect! It seems like a really well-made game for a jam and I wish I could’ve actually played it.
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FormalCloud
Review of 00Boyfriend
This is an excellent entry all around, visually, genre-merging, and the controls feel really good. The music and the setting is done great! Your team did a wonderful job, congratulations!
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Tutti Ankka
Review of 00Boyfriend
Very polished entry! Gameplay feels great, graphics are great. Idea was also very funny! =)
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ImDivingDeep
Review of 00Boyfriend
Definitely one of the best games I’ve seen so far, it was so much fun to play! Absolutely love the artstyle and it feels very smooth to play. Reminded me a bit of broforce in terms of gameplay. Great music as well. Really loved playing this!
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JCMonkey
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Aim
Review of 00Boyfriend
Wow! This is just hands down, the best game I’ve played from LD41. I absolutely love the creative use of the theme. This is the type of happy surprise when you combine two incompatible genres and actually come up with something that isn’t just superficially challenging because of a mish-mash of incompatible genres, but it’’s challenging in a fresh way because secretly, the two genres do work together if done right, like your talented team has shown here. Great art, great sound design, great animation, great coding! Feels so tight! Great writing! Omg I love it!
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meskaline
Review of 00Boyfriend
Good job guys. Awesome music. heart Good graphics. Pretty challenging at times.
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riordan
Review of 00Boyfriend
This is a very interesting and fun game to play. The graphics and the music are so good. I most especially enjoyed the music for the first level which I think fit the game very well.
The dating sim aspect of the game was an amusing addition; though, it didn’t quite feel to give some important impact aside from the flirting element. Still, it did give the game an adorable romantic side, much like how the James Bond films showed it.
All in all, it’s a fun and amusing game. Really good job on this one!
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Honest Dan
Review of 00Boyfriend
Very polished game, visually, music and felt really good to play – tight controls. Good humour and genuinely enjoyable to play. The dating thing became more of way to regain health and distract, I guess it would have been nicer to have more influence on the dating side of things, for example – your responses lead to different endings when you get to meet you girlfriend. Really impressive overall!
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Gonz0
Review of 00Boyfriend
10/10 , what a brilliant game, super fun to play. really enjoyed that.Music , art , controls everything is brilliant ,well done!
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GiovanniBarrottu
Review of 00Boyfriend
Really good polish! The music and audio design are really well done, the game feel is great, the mechanics all work well, animation is done well, good all around.
Would’ve liked to see the text messages repeat less often, and it felt kind of easy to find a safe spot to send them, but those are small problems. Great game!
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Cassio Eduardo
Review of 00Boyfriend
This is a very polished game with great art, music and smooth gameplay. Fantastic presentation all around, congrats to everyone involved. I think other people have said enough about the good stuff.
I think neither side of the gameplay (action and texting) are doing very much though. The enemies could do more than stand and shoot, there is no ammo or hidden weapons and very little urgency. The texting aspect was very simple and didn’t do much to affect the action/platforming or the ending (there could’ve been interrogation sections where a text would affect outcome, or something like that). It feels more like you are answering random questions than playing a dating sim with consequences.
Sorry for the long criticism, but only singing praises doesn’t help anyone. Still a very impressive game with satisfying shooting/movement. Great job.
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csanyk
Review of 00Boyfriend
I loved the presentation, this is super well polished… only, I can’t get the cell phone to register my keystrokes most of the time. It’s hit or miss and mostly miss. So I can’t get very far with my SO. You’ll have to look into that. Otherwise, the platforming and action is really good!
One suggestion, when you bring up the pause menu, you should recap the controls for the player. Showing them only at the beginning of the game is nice, but there’s a lot to remember, and being able to bring it up in the pause menu and refresh myself would have been appreciated.
Graphics, sound, and gameplay are excellent, the cellphone input issue notwithstanding.
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Shape
Review of 00Boyfriend
The perfect game doesn’t exi…
No, seriously, this game is a 5 star in each category. Whoever came with this idea was a genius! The music was perfect and the graphics amazing. Everything is working so fine and the controls are excelent. The gameplay is extremely satisfying and rewarding and even the way you approached the theme was very creative and unique. Congrats for this masterpiece! -
Jupiter Hadley
Review of 00Boyfriend
Nice graphics great idea! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. 🙂
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Bernard Bumblebutt
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Pixipit
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Briibot
Review of Fleur Defense
The work on this is positively astounding! The music is smooth and appealing, and the art is a joy to look at – all of the animations are beautiful! who can be mad at bugs destroying your tree when the animation for its death are that nice?
At first I wasnt certain what the watering can was for – I spent a fair bit of time wondering if they gave health back to trees damaged by bugs. This is likely because I’m a hoarder and didn’t buy many of the smaller plants from the shop, so that is mostly on me. I also felt like the time before the first wave was quite long, but this could again be because I didn’t buy much from the shop. Lastly, I wasn’t certain if the side entrances were entrances for bugs, or teleports to the opposite side a la pacman style for the bugs! Some variety of indicator during wave prep time of where bugs are coming from may be nice if they are multiple entrances.
All in all, excellent work! I’m frankly floored that you set this all up in 72 hours, and I’m excited to see the future projects your group makes!!
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joh
Review of Fleur Defense
Ok, this is amazing! from graphics, to music, to gameplay, all there working in beautiful balance. Game works well, I’ll admit I wasn’t too sure what the plant coloring meant, because wattering and color did not collerate perfectly, and watering alone wasn’t enough to bloom plant (was it only time?), but the grand lines were clear enough, make plants defend the master plant. Things got progressively harder such that it did not overstay its welcome and yet, I can say I played a lot longer than I expected! Only thing I think could be improved is plant variety, but with the polish on everything; who can complain?!
Plants and actions… plant vs zombie, dark soil, now this… Might be a secret winner formula!! Well done!
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Huang Sicheng
Review of Fleur Defense
Played 10 waves, still cannot buy the bug nuke 🙁 An excellent with nice graphics, music and gameplay! I enjoyed myself jumping up and down to transport my plants. And I earned much money by selling my plants.
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LairinLair
Review of Fleur Defense
First: I cannot stress enough how this soundtrack is AMAZING. The art is super cute and cool and the sound effects were great too. In the end I was kinda tired but hey, I was alive for half an hour, hahah. Really, really, really great job!
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ZerohBeat
Review of Fleur Defense
Really enjoyed playing the game, though not sure how everything works together. Was there time for sleeping? It feels really high quality! Thank you for the experience, the art, music, everything blends really well together.
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rrsmtz
Review of Fleur Defense
This game has a lot of visual appeal and the music and sfx are great. However, it took me a few tries to really ‘get’ what the core gameplay loop of this game was – a good tutorial would go a long way. Still, great job! I could see this game going as far as you want to take it.
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SplitPainter
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Sandra Jasionowska
Review of Fleur Defense
This game is really satisfiying. The visuals, the music and the idea were nice! Is there a way to grow new trees? Two of mine died at the beginning before I got what do I actually have to do smile Great submission!
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Tom Stephenson
Review of Fleur Defense
The animations and overall visual style for this game is great! Even the menus have had the same level of detail as the rest of the game! It plays really well and is an overall fun and cute concept which I like a lot! A great submission, well done!
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LapisRaider
Review of Fleur Defense
I really love the animation and graphics of this game! It’s really cute! There could be more feedback when attacking a monster though, cause it was not too obvious and I had trouble telling if my attacks actually hit the monster or not sometimes.
Really enjoyed the game though! The movement and controls also felt really smooth and polished. Great work!
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peterfiftyfour
Review of Fleur Defense
What how do you get the nuke in 20 mins!??? The later waves are really hard and the towers dont seem to scale their damage. This was awesome btw! Really cute, love the music, animations are slick. One of my faves from the jam!
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Kanonix
Review of Fleur Defense
Truly impressive ! The music, the art, the gameplay.. There is everything ! Lovely !
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Epsulon
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WanS24
Review of Fleur Defense
The game look very polished. Graphics are mezmerizing, sounds are good and the game is actually fun to play. Good job)
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Terrykk
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DemKimos
Review of Fleur Defense
Really great game! I was able to spend so much time on the game. The graphics and animations are so cute. Fleur Defense really lives up to the name and doesn’t disappoint. I thought the price for the nuke was pretty steep but looks like someone did get it so I guess I’ll need to go for a second time sweat_smile I thought everything was pretty straightforward but not once did it lose its charm. I don’t really know what to complain about so I guess that’s a good thing. Well balanced, I think; the hydration timers did not once leave me alone to rest. Thank you so much for the game!
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Sheinxy
Review of Fleur Defense
Incredible!
The gameplay is funny! (As a fan of “survive the waves” type of games, I can say I had a blast uwu)
The art is just wow, and the music is nice (I reqlly love the music playing during a wave, it feels kind of jazz-like, I really love it!)
Impressive, one of my favorites!
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PonyPen
Review of Fleur Defense
Those animations are beautiful <3 😀 I had a lot of fun playing this game it’s so pretty and lovely to look at, congrats on the amazing job you’ve done!
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Langotriel
Review of Fleur Defense
Among the best art I have seen so far, and one of the most polished experiences. You should be proud! Good use of the theme, as well; there ain’t nothing getting to my plant sunflower
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S J Palmer
Review of Fleur Defense
This was great – the design, music, the fun take on the tower defense theme. One thing I was confused by for the first 5 minutes was when I could buy plants – I even thought my tab key wasn’t working for a bit. I also wish the rounds had been a little quicker. However some of my favourite animations and I particularly loved the design of the hitter with the leaf shield!
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Sanjana
Review of Fleur Defense
I love the graphics of this game and it was super fun! It might actually be one of my favorites yet in ludum dare 46!
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mhykah
Review of Fleur Defense
That was a really fun game! I really liked every aspect of it. The sounds, music, art, and animation all fit in together really well. One small thing is that I was first confused about which platforms I could stand on, I think one of them might be missing at outline. It would also be useful to know how much damage the plants and I do so that I can make better informed decisions. Overall it was really well done and I’d love to come back and play this if it gets updated. Amazing work!
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ahistyap
Review of Fleur Defense
Very fun and challenging gameplay, cute graphics, but I don’t know about the music, sounds too slow despite the almost non-stop combat and building tower. Regardless, definitely 5 stars!
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Trexxak
Review of Fleur Defense
I do agree with Lizette. Why worry about Quarantine if you should really question why the mother plant is offering you a weapon of mass destruction winkwinknudgenudge
Great game! Had lots of fun with it. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. The preparation song especially has that 24/7-Chillhop-Music-to-Study-and-Relax-to vibe to it :DD
The animation work on the trees is a little detail that makes such a world of difference I feel. The animation work in general is phenomenal. Everything feels so slick and sensible.
Really polished up game! I am very thankful to be able to play it. I can’t think of a single thing I did not enjoy. Absolutely great work!
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Svalinn85
Review of Fleur Defense
On of the best games so far. Awesome art and animations.. awesome music, cool concept 🙂
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Jin9310
Review of Fleur Defense
Omg this is so awesome! Love the art and sounds! Well, there is not much I can say I don´t like on your entry or at least I could complaint about. Really great work! Thank you for this, and now, I want some more.
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LungTakumi
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grandtheftmarmot
Review of Fleur Defense
Wow wow wow. Every part of this stands out. My girlfriend and I keep coming back to watch the animation of the girl’s idle dancing and laugh. This was a very very fun and lovable entry.
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Amazura
Review of Fleur Defense
Awesome entry! stunning graphic & animation, love the music as well. spend a lot of time on this game, really enjoyed it
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marbles
Review of Fleur Defense
Very polished game. Music fits the game and the art is clean and crisp. I love the attack animation and screen shake feedback.
I found it hard since you need to go back and forth. The enemies come from the top and to be able to get a plant you must get to the bottom and bring it there one by one.
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SAVVU
Review of Fleur Defense
Soooooo cute animations I love them! And the watering effect is awesome as well! I would love to play this one on my phone. Think about a mobile port!
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Eran Haas
Review of Fleur Defense
Wonderfully fluid animation and great art. Music and sound were great as well. Really just an amazing amount of polish for a jam!
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joekinglake
Review of Fleur Defense
Wow, this is seriously a great entry! Really fantastic job, the movement & character are really nicely polished and the art is beautiful. I found the difficulty a little easy at first, but eventually as more enemies came into the screen i found it tough to keep up on the laptop! Great work!
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Euler Moises
Review of Fleur Defense
But what a cool game! I love tower defenses and you applied a very interesting mechanic. The art is very cute and well finished and the music very well done. Really enjoyed!
Congratulations!