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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Tom Francis's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 22 00:05:00 | Cardboard adventure | Super brief and not massively interactive, but the sprites are lovely and you definitely get points for being able to throw a plunger at a rabbit. | |
| Dec 22 00:17:00 | 12m 00s | Ancient Mystery III: The lost symbols | I like the idea of trying to make a sort of creature, but for a long time it feels like the rules are totally random, so there's a lot of trial and error. If there is a set of rigid rules for what makes 'an alien' I didn't figure it out, but the few times when I intentionally made a kind of face and it was right were satisfying. |
| Dec 22 00:29:00 | 12m 00s | Dinosaur Dance-Off | Ha, great idea. The physics seem surprisingly good - wobbly stuff has a tendency to spaz out in a lot of games. <br/> <br/>The ability to link your dinosaur and dance with others is ace, but I did want a bit more interactivity to make it personal. <br/> <br/>Good job overall! Wish I knew how to do cool web backend stuff like this. |
| Dec 22 19:26:00 | 18h 57m | Crystals Hunter | Nice looking and fits the theme very well. Found it hard to judge exactly what I would collide with as I moved, because of the perspective, and when I eventually got stuck it was because I couldn't fit through a corridor for some reason. Nicely done for the time allowed, though! |
| Dec 22 19:39:00 | 13m 00s | Nameless Island | Interesting stuff. I didn't totally understand who I was or what I was doing, but the strange names and cryptic dialogue did evoke a curious world. I played the fishing and bug catching mini games, but I couldn't find Death's Den anywhere in the south east, so I'm not sure I saw everything. <br/> <br/>Impressive considering you only really had one day. |
| Dec 22 20:41:00 | 1h 02m | Let's Science | Holy shit. Well, this puts everything else I've played so far to shame, including mine. Beautiful little game, genuinely entertaining and funny and not just 'for a 2-day game'. The fact that you got it so thoroughly finished in that time is pretty amazing. <br/> <br/>The management aspects manage to be fun and occupying without being overwhelming, fussy or stressful. That low level of self-management your dudes have is both a smart game mechanic to avoid feeling like you're babysitting, and a good approximation of a real dynamic in the subject matter: us nerds *do* forget to take care of ourselves when we're focused on something, but generally not to a fatal extent. <br/> <br/>The research topics are really funny, and the steady flow of cash from unexpected sources is a fun way of picking up the pace. <br/> <br/>Is there a win state at all? I researched everything, bought everything and hired all ability-5 scientists, but if anything special happened I missed it. On a technical note, it crashed pretty hard when I quit - started taking up 3GB of memory and had to be process-killed in Task Manager. Not a big deal though. <br/> <br/>The only thing making it a 4/5 rather than a 5 for me is that my choices didn't feel very important or personal - I seemed to succeed pretty much whatever I did. That's fine for a cute and quite casual game like this, but that's where the room for improvement would be. <br/> <br/>Great job. |
| Jan 2 09:44:00 | 253h 03m | Gyroids | Nice look and feel, well-made for the time. Wise move to have no death penalty. When I stopped playing, it was when it felt overly fiddly to control my movement precisely. |
| Jan 2 09:54:00 | 10m 00s | Lost | Congrats on finishing! It's super simple to play, but it's nice that the whole thing ties together and works as a completed game. <br/> <br/>The adventure game logic is kind of funny. Would like to see some kind of unique twist or interesting mechanic next time. |
| Jan 2 10:24:00 | 30m 00s | Discover The Name | Really nicely presented, and a simple concept that's easy to grasp and to play. The controls are great: lots of games are about rolling a ball around, but not many let you control it with this much freedom. <br/> <br/>Until I read you blog after playing, I didn't realise I was supposed to be finding a path to the exit: I was just dashing straight there, and moving fast enough that the blocks beneath me didn't crumble as I went over them. <br/> <br/>It's not a bad thing, because it's actually still fun that way - the levels get narrow enough that it's not always trivial. I think with the ideal balance, both would be an option: discover the path tentatively to be safe, or dash to the exit if you think you can make it. <br/> <br/>The name confused me - for a while I thought I was supposed to be uncovering letters in the levels to reveal the name of something, and tried to touch every tile on a level. Discover the Way would have explained the concept. <br/> <br/>Anyway, good job getting it all done in the time! |
| Jan 10 12:12:00 | 193h 48m | Drill Warrior | Nice job! The feel of digging through the rocks is satisfying, and the scanner focus adjustment is a really neat mechanic. <br/> <br/>I forgot the controls you list here when I was playing, and the only one that isn't explained in-game is that you have to manually activate the scanner - it sort of looks like it's already working but hasn't found anything. So for a long time I didn't realise i had to press Z. Oddly, I found all but two of the diamonds through blind digging. More fun once I figured out the scanner, though, and a good fit for the theme. |