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Empyrealhell

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TimestampSince previousGameEmpyrealhell's comment
Dec 8 04:25:00 PigeonReproducer2000 I did it! At some point, I was about 80% white, and I saw a mostly brown bird. I thought to myself "Ugh, gross brown bird, stay away". Bonus points for the subtle racism simulation you got going on there as well. Good show.
Dec 8 04:26:00 1m 00s Return of the Floppy This was really well executed. It seems like you had a pretty good handle on what you could accomplish and stayed within those bounds. This is one of the more polished jam entries I've seen.
Dec 8 05:19:00 53m 00s Claustrophobia This look like it has some promise, but it just moves too slow. I spent about five minutes wandering around in the dark, and only found three enemies to deal with. Since they go down to one shot from the bow I started with several of, it just wasn't very engaging. It was also fairly cumbersome to try and move torches around, since I had to drop the bow to do so. <br/> <br/>The graphics are good, and the lighting system does a great job setting the mood, there just isn't enough here to keep me engaged.
Dec 8 05:30:00 11m 00s Game System That was very confusing. I beat all three and got the win screen, but aside from the space one, I'm not really sure how I did it. The mechanic of changing cartridges didn't really seem to add anything, but the message about turning off the power when you unplug them with the system on made me chuckle. All around not bad, it just feels like you need some more time for polish.
Dec 8 05:38:00 8m 00s Stasis Fun little puzzle game, I liked the mechanic of your actions from previous levels sticking around. I don't see the theme in this one, is there an explanation of the interpretation somewhere?
Dec 8 05:50:00 12m 00s Murder and Snow This was really awkward to play. The character moved too slow for the amount of trekking around you had to do, the controls felt clunky, and the map was hard to read as far as what could be interacted with.
Dec 8 05:57:00 7m 00s Kerfuffle This was really fun. I'm way bad at it, apparently, but I managed to lose a few rounds to a friend. Good times. It would be nice if there was more to do, and there are some strategies that have no counter (like spamming attack in the middle platform), but even with that, it was still a blast.
Dec 8 06:06:00 9m 00s Red Repair This was fantastic. It would be nice to get a little more feedback as to what effect I'm having, but that's really the only negative thing I have to say about it. Overall very good.
Dec 8 06:12:00 6m 00s Play Space Outvaders Really nice take on the theme. I think if the gameplay was any more involved, it would have made it too difficult after the first stage. Solid entry.
Dec 8 06:16:00 4m 00s Abelian Good game. Interesting mechanics, though a bit simple, but the random helped keep it interesting. Really nice entry. The sound was a bit rough though.
Dec 8 07:46:00 1h 30m Strikethrough The controls were a bit awkward, but it was a pretty fun, if simple, game. The graphics were incredible, I can't believe you pulled all of that off in just two days.
Dec 8 07:52:00 6m 00s EGOS Simple concept, but excellent execution. This has more polish than I think I've ever seen from a compo entry.
Dec 9 00:44:00 16h 52m birdsong This was an amazing entry, you really nailed it. A few minor things though. <br/>- The screen distortion effect made it really hard to judge distances. <br/>- The collision detection felt a bit off at points, possibly due to the screen distortion making it hard to judge distances. <br/>- In some cases with obstacles requiring precise movement, I felt like I was moving too fast, with no way to be more precise in my movement. <br/> <br/>Again, minor things. This was an outstanding game, and it's incredible that you pulled all of this off in just two days.
Dec 9 01:05:00 21m 00s Riveroboros Once I understood the mechanic (the bug messed me up and I thought I couldn't go off the bottom), it actually wasn't that difficult. Not a bad entry, but there's not a lot to it once you understand the mechanic. <br/> <br/>The graphics were pretty limited, but I see what you were going for with the NES limitations. I'm not sure how well the smooth edges work with that though, I think you would been better off going with zoomed in pixel art to really seal that NES aesthetic. Also, smooth scrolling would have been so much easier on the eyes.
Dec 9 01:10:00 5m 00s Super Meat Ball This looks really nice, but unfortunately I can't play it. I have a non-qwerty keyboard, and windows wouldn't let me change layouts in this game. Might be a good idea to add arrow-key support for the single-player campaign.
Dec 9 01:26:00 16m 00s Arena of Cube It got a bit repetitive after a while. I'm not sure if there were any more upgrades after the spray gun, but it felt like at a certain point all of the waves were the same. The controls were good, the graphics, while simple, were effective. There were a couple that I had a hard time telling apart, but it mostly didn't matter because they behaved the same. Well polished, solid entry, just a bit short.
Dec 9 01:33:00 7m 00s Dot Dungeon That is quite the eye strain. I felt like enemies frequently spawned on top of me, which was a bit irritating, but there may have been some indication they were going to spawn that I just couldn't see. Not bad, but I can't play this for very long without my eyes starting to hurt. <br/> <br/>A couple of bugs I noticed: if you walk into the next room before the title/instructions disappear, you get stuck and have to reload. It also seemed like if I had my back against the wall, the arrows wouldn't shoot. It would make the sound effect, but then nothing would happen.
Dec 9 01:42:00 9m 00s A-Maze-Ballz That was difficult, but not bad. Once you get a handle on how the gravity wells affect you, it's pretty easy to move around through them. It reminds me of the old wood &amp; marble labyrinths I had as a kid. <br/> <br/>The movement seemed to stutter a bit, and that made it hard to get a feel for the sweet spot between some of the more narrow passages. It also would have benefited from a run button, or something to make those long but inevitable struggles out of a well go a bit faster.
Dec 9 01:47:00 5m 00s Snowman Survival This game needs a bit of balance and polish. The character would get stuck in a gathering action, and I was a sitting duck with no way to cancel to dodge the oncoming attacks. It also seemed a bit excessive that the snowmen and their attacks could go through walls. A weak, unlimited attack would have made this much better, but as it stands, you can't get enough ammo to kill more than one or two without just getting destroyed.
Dec 9 01:59:00 12m 00s Republik Power & Light It was interesting, but I would have killed for some common CLI shortcuts. No up or tab meant a lot of repetitive typing, and on more than one occasion I would be 10+% over the capacity, and in the time it took me to type 'status' I would get a warning message that I wasn't meeting demand. It would have been nice if the status screen updated itself in real time. <br/> <br/>The graphics were really on point. I liked the shader you used for the old-school 80s-era monitors, it really did a good job invoking that feeling. Humorous text, interesting design, overall not a bad job at all. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go ice my wrists.
Dec 9 02:25:00 26m 00s Grandpa's Grid Things were small and kinda hard to see. It seemed that luck was a pretty big factor in success. Some rooms spawned with almost no way to grasp what's going on before you died from it, and some just wore you down over time with lots of dead ends. The game itself was pretty entertaining though, and I was enjoying it enough to play through to the end. I also really liked the sketchpad thing you have going on with the graphics. Overall it's good, it just needs some tweaking and balancing, or some way to deal with those ambush rooms.
Dec 9 02:29:00 4m 00s Untraveled I really like that theme interpretation. I wish there was more content, I feel like it ended right when it started to get interesting. If you explored that mechanic a bit further this could really be something unique and interesting.
Dec 9 02:37:00 8m 00s MRBOX Awesome game. At some points the jumps to platforms directly above you were really tricky, but not in a frustrating way. The credits were funny, but it was to make sense of them in the order they came out while still trying to not die. Solid graphics, good music and sound effects, tight controls, overall a pretty great game.
Dec 9 05:07:00 2h 30m Galaxia The pacing definitely feels off. There is a lot of progress at the beginning, but I've run out of things to do, and I'm only eight digits into that percentage bar. It's going to be a lot of waiting, or just ton of buying factories on a cooldown, with nothing really interesting going on. <br/> <br/>Other than the pacing problems, this works really well. The unfolding of the new abilities as time goes on is really nice. I like the quadratic approach to generation with the factory factories, the interface is clean and easy to read (minus the big numbers), and overall it's a good take on the idle genre.
Dec 9 05:31:00 24m 00s Penguins Can't Fly I was not expecting UFOs, that was a nice, humorous touch. It was pretty generic, it didn't feel like there was a whole lot going on, but towards the end it did get pretty hectic. The controls were responsive, but the graphics were a little rough, and there wasn't a lot of feedback about what was going on. It took me until the second wave of penguins (level 5?) to realize how the iceberg even worked.
Dec 9 05:38:00 7m 00s AppAtk There was some very strange behavior with the turrets. It seemed like they often would just stop attacking for a while, with enemies clearly within their range. This was really frustrating, because it made it almost impossible to come up with any sort of strategy. Instead of being able to build a good path, it ended up just reacting to which towers decided to break that wave, and spamming cheap towers to try and patch the hole. After the wave with the black enemies, it locked up and crashed my browser. <br/> <br/>It looks promising, but it seems there are quite a few bugs still to be rooted out.
Dec 9 05:43:00 5m 00s Scarecrow It's hard to really judge this. There isn't really any gameplay to speak of, it's more of a widget/toy than a game. The graphics aren't bad, and the song is hilarious, I just wish there was more game to it.
Dec 9 05:48:00 5m 00s Drill Escape Not bad. The graphics were overly simple, and the mechanics were pretty plain, but it was fun and challenging. It became significantly easier once I realized that tapping a direction moved you much farther per enemy movement than holding the button, and it was way too easy once I figured that out.
Dec 9 05:54:00 6m 00s Play PC R-9400 I had more fun smudging the sides than I did with either of the games. It was very simple, and it would have been nice to have scores or some form of engagement on the two mini-games. The graphics weren't bad, and the idea has potential, I just think you needed to add a bit more to it.
Dec 9 06:01:00 7m 00s Minimum Wage: It Could Be Worse The graphics were really clean and polished, it gave the whole game a nice feel. The hits to the ship that jumbled the blocks all around was a nice touch, too. Also, as someone who has trouble with colors, thank you for not only making the crates color coded. It was easy to tell what I needed, and for as simple as it was it was actually really engaging. I think the little polish effects helped it more than anything; just goes to show how important the little details are. Great entry.
Dec 9 06:09:00 8m 00s ENTER IMAGE Took a while to finally get to the end, that was pretty difficult. Cute ending, I didn't see that coming, though in retrospect I probably should have. The controls were a bit loose, and the fact that the enemies could come flying in from off the screen and hit you before any human could react was a bit off-putting. The sound effects though, man. I left the game running while I typed these just so I could listen to you make explosion sounds non-stop. Awesome.
Dec 9 06:14:00 5m 00s ULTRA REKTAGON In the end this turned into a game of memorizing the movement patterns. If there were more time to react to the movements, then it could be a fun challenge, but as it stands it's just a test of whether or not you've memorized the patterns, and if you can line your dot up in the right spots with no reference points. It's clean and polished, and with a little work on the movements, it could be a good avoider game, but right now it just feels like a chore to go through the motions to get to the next feature that will kill me so I can learn how to avoid it.
Dec 9 06:20:00 6m 00s Mechanised Menace Decent all-around entry. After a while all of the waves started looking the same, though some of the upgrades were a lot of fun. I got to about a million and a half points before I finally died to impatience and trying to rush the shooting guards. Tight controls, easy to play, cohesive graphics, just all around well put together. <br/> <br/>It would have been to have more though. More feedback when you get, more enemies or attacks, just more juice in general. Unless there's more after the waves of shooting guards with small discs, I feel like I saw all this game had to offer in under a minute.
Dec 9 06:27:00 7m 00s Explosive Painting This was put together really well. I absolutely love that you put in the ability to save the canvas you created at the end of the game. It does start to get a little hard to see what's going after about 40 or so kills, but it's easy enough to make a fully-painted canvas after a few rounds of practice. Very nice.
Dec 9 06:35:00 8m 00s Cathode Ray I really wish you had added arrow key support for that. I tried to play it, but with a non-qwerty keyboard, level 2 just wasn't possible. It looks like it could make for some really interesting levels though, and the graphics are really nice. It also helped out a ton once I realized that the lines show you the exact trajectory you will travel if you change to that direction.
Dec 9 06:46:00 11m 00s Dissidence You did a really good job setting the scene for this game. The dystopian text, the big-brother narrative, and the bleak, run-down town all really helped sell the setting. I liked the concept, and I could easily see this being expanded with ways to gather information on people to make the determination of who is a dissident and who isn't.
Dec 9 06:53:00 7m 00s SNOMAN QWOP was fun because even when you failed, it was funny to watch, and you felt like maybe you could get somewhere if you just did things a little different. This one misses both of those marks. The death animation is just two circles falling down, no crazy flips or bizarre ragdoll limbs flailing around. After about five minutes with the controls trying to suss out how to get him to advance, I ended with a high score of about 4 meters. I see what you were going for here, I just don't think you got the controls down well enough to pull it off. <br/> <br/>The graphics are really nice though, and the sound effects provide just enough without being overbearing. It does seem like you intended this for a different theme though.
Dec 9 07:00:00 7m 00s Glow Drop A simple but well-built game. I'm also a sucker for technical interpretations of the theme, and I dig the single-game-screen idea. The graphics were good, the movement of the orbs felt satisfying, and the white orbs were interesting to use. You can definitely feel the polish, which helps overcome the relatively simple mechanics.
Dec 9 07:05:00 5m 00s Get the Snowflakes The graphics look nice, and the background music is fitting for the mood of the scene. I thought the controls felt too slippery at first, but it was actually pretty easy to get adjusted to. What wasn't so easy to deal was the collision system. You don't have to touch the fire to melt from it, just be near it. That makes it less fun to play with the slippery movement, and makes some of the snowflakes seemingly impossible to get.
Dec 9 07:11:00 6m 00s ARENA++ On its own, having the enemy shots reduce the timer seems fair. Surrounding you with enemies also seems fair. Doing both in an arena so small that you can't really move around makes this game almost impossible to progress through. I went back and forth between two levels until it glitched out and spawned a double batch of enemies, and on the third expansion I had 18 enemies shooting me at once. <br/> <br/>The concept is good, but the implementation of that concept leaves a lot to be desired. If the arena started larger, or if you didn't start surrounded each time, it might feel like you at least have a chance at making it to the next level. As it is, it's just too punishing to really get into.
Dec 9 21:11:00 14h 00m GAMER TOAD* I liked this one a lot. The mini games were simple, but easy to understand within the limited time and still execute. The mechanic of taunting the frog into licking was rather amusing, and the overall level of polish was pretty high. The only thing that would have made this better was an end goal, something other than just a high-score game. That and more mini-games, but you already know that.
Dec 9 21:46:00 35m 00s Bejailed This is a really cool idea, but it suffers from some technical problems in the implementations. The most noticeable is the fact that you can't move fluidly along walls. I would frequently get stuck trying to get out of a room, hanging up on a corner, or just grinding to a halt because I tried to move along a wall. Combine that with the fact that due to their size, the enemies are more difficult to hit than is common in these types of games, and the game ended up being much harder than it needed to. <br/> <br/>There were also some issues with the way the rooms would line up, specifically when fire rooms are adjacent. In several cases, there would be rooms lined up that you could not traverse through because there was never a clear opening due to the fire walls always being on (much like in your screenshot). It's a cool concept, and I would like to try and beat it, but as it stands it's just too punishing to go back to.
Dec 9 21:53:00 7m 00s The Murderdome That was fun, but it became quite repetitive pretty quickly. Also, after about room five it started to become near impossible to get started, because you usually ended up surrounded and had to take quite a beating to make it out alive. Since your health reset every floor, it wasn't a huge deal, but it was frustrating to die due to a bad spawn. Good graphics and polish really helped it along, I just would have liked more depth of gameplay.
Dec 9 22:15:00 22m 00s Very Dungeon It was really hard to see some of those enemies at those sizes, and often it wouldn't matter if you could because the random generation would put you in unwinnable situations. Still, that wasn't really a big deal for how short the dungeon was, and the fact that you pretty much had to play it several times to beat it. I really enjoy these kinds of games, and this one was pretty well put-together, considering the time constraints.
Dec 9 22:32:00 17m 00s Fluidity I'm not exactly sure what to make of this. It looks and sounds good, but there isn't a lot to do, and there's no real goal. It feels like there's no strategy or way to improve or get better, since after a while there are just too many to deal with for how slow you move. It seems like a good start to something, but I feel like it's just not all the way there yet.
Dec 9 22:44:00 12m 00s Road Rage Not bad at its core, it just needs a few minor tweaks. As others have mentioned, a high score or game over screen would be really helpful. It would also make it less a game of luck at high speeds if you increased the draw/spawn distance. Around 20, things come so quickly that you can end up in situations where you die before you can move out of the way, even with perfect reaction speed. Not bad though, just needed a little more to make it really stand out.
Dec 9 23:58:00 1h 14m Chroma Maze This was more fun than I was expecting, based on the description. I liked the upgrades, it made it feel like more than just a maze, and added a lot more variety than just finding the exit. I also really liked the risk/reward aspect of the map reveal mechanic. More depth than I've seen from most maze games. <br/> <br/>A couple of bugs: If you pick up the flashlight, die, and then play again, you start the game with the flashlight upgrade. Also, sometimes the map generates with no path to the exit.
Dec 10 00:57:00 59m 00s Context Quest I feel like it needed something more at the end. After clearing all of the regions nothing happens, it just keeps going. It was a good start at something, but the interface was a bit irritating. It should just travel on click, and open the menu if you're already there, so you don't have to click so many times just to move around. The feeling of progression through the middle was good, it just didn't have the staying power to be as long as it was.
Dec 10 01:09:00 12m 00s Rainbow Maze The magnifier mechanic was interesting, but it was too cumbersome to use, and I ended up beating the game just looking at the map and moving the magnifier off into the corner. There is an impressive amount of space to explore, and it would have been nice to have a reason to go see it. Something as simple as coins for points would have added a reason to go exploring. It was a good take on the maze game idea, and the graphics were really nice, it just didn't have a whole lot going on as far as gameplay.
Dec 10 01:26:00 17m 00s aspire I liked this one. It was mindless, but it was fun. I liked the helper drone upgrade things that you got, it was an interesting alternative to the classic stat bonuses, and really changed the way you played depending on which ones you got. I was a little disappointed after beating it the second time, I thought it was going to keep a running tally and give me something when I got to 100, but alas, just a one-shot. Either way, still fun.
Dec 10 02:01:00 35m 00s One Act This reminded me of the opera house scene from Final Fantasy 6. While more complex with actions and silence, it would have been interesting to have some red herring options in there. All in all it was good, and pretty fun for just essentially being a game about memorization.
Dec 10 02:17:00 16m 00s Cell #327 It was really nice looking, and the story was interesting, but it just moved way too slow for me to want to play through it two more times for the other endings. You really need a way to skip the text.
Dec 10 03:29:00 1h 12m Dino Dash: Rex's Run Awesome homage to the old single game handhelds. It gets insanely fast after a while, but by that point I was starting to get bored anyway, so the pacing was spot on. The burned-in graphics were a nice touch, too.
Dec 10 03:43:00 14m 00s No Space for Error This was neat; reminiscent of some of the minigames in the old sierra space quest series. It took me a couple of plays to figure out what to do, but mostly because I was impatient and kept breaking my driveshaft wit the welder. It could have used some more to help pass the time between events, like a % progress bar instead of the four blocks, or messages from the outside describing what's making the ship shake. Either way, not bad, all around.
Dec 10 03:49:00 6m 00s A Battle of Snow & Fire The snowman moves too slow in comparison to the dragon, and if it decides to dive at you twice in a row, you can go from full to dead with no way to counter it. It's an otherwise interesting concept, and the controls are responsive and easy to understand (though it could have used an auto-fire feature), it just needs some tuning to make it more reliant on player skill and less on dumb luck.
Dec 10 03:59:00 10m 00s DEATH POLICE 3000 I'm not here to get into politics, so I won't comment on the nature of the satire, but from a gameplay perspective it was ok. The cop moved a little slow, and at times it felt like the hit boxes on the civilians were too big and made it easy to hit the wrong target. The graphics were good, if a bit rough around the edges, and the sounds did a good job helping set the tone of the game. You hit the mark on mood, for sure, and I can definitely feel the setting you were trying to create. I just wish there was a bit more to the gameplay itself.
Dec 10 04:13:00 14m 00s DisChord Your level design is incredible. You did a great job of teaching each mechanic before it was relevant in very simple ways, and the puzzles themselves were just the right amount of challenge. It would have been nice to see some different mechanics or more twists on this type of game, but as it stands it's still a wonderful puzzle game. The graphics were solid, nice soft glows and flicker effects, and the music and sound were perfect fits for the mood of the game. Great entry.
Dec 10 04:21:00 8m 00s Snowman's Revenge Great job setting the scene with the lighting effects and the snowman noises. Adding in the snowball creation as a mechanic really added to the intensity of the visual scene by making you always feel pressed for time. The gameplay was overly simple, and in the end it was much easier to just hold the right mouse button and react to the snowmen at close range. The graphical models of the snowmen were also a bit lacking, which is only a problem because the snow on the ground looks so good, and the lighting really makes them stand out.
Dec 10 04:29:00 8m 00s Escape The Screen That was a fun little mystery game, and I liked the solution. I would have liked it if pacman moved a little faster (possibly with a toggle for hitting those precise buttons), but either way it was still entertaining.
Dec 10 04:34:00 5m 00s Bugged Out It was kinda hard to click on those tiny flies, and I ended up walking off the screen more times than was reasonable. The graphics are really nice, and the enemy behavior and overall gameplay is pretty refined, if difficult and simplistic.
Dec 11 07:25:00 26h 51m Snowman Soul Slaughter There were a number of issues with the combat. Why would I ever want to not be blocking? It seems like it would have made more sense to just be blocking all the time, and change the block button to parry (instead of having to double click). The inability to attack and move backwards made it difficult to deal with being chased, and seemed like an arbitrary limitation (maybe make block lock the direction you're facing). Jumping was almost never worth it, since the enemies would get under you, and you would lose health quickly while you stood on them. Overall, the combat felt clunky, and since it was the only mechanic, it really needed to be polished up more to be fun. That said, the graphics look good, and the sound did a good job matching the mood of a futile fight to the death. If you had finished all the stuff you wanted to, I could see this being a lot more fun, but right now it's too unrefined to be fun as an endless fighter.
Dec 11 07:31:00 6m 00s Take out the Trash in Space That was bizarre. It was definitely the strangest match-three game I think I've played. It could have used a bit more refinement on the gameplay, the movement was a little clunky to line up with the tiles and there seemed to me something triggering sound effects that I couldn't see. The sound effects were good though, and the music was a perfect fit.
Dec 11 07:38:00 7m 00s Bullet Beat That was pretty amazing. I loved the mechanic, it really made you think about not just where but when to avoid and when to attack. I really hope you make a post-compo version of this, because with good graphics and a big library of songs, this could really be something awesome.
Dec 12 03:20:00 19h 42m Squared The controls are really tight, but the collision is too unforgiving. In most games with these types of hazards, you generally don't take damage from floor/wall tiles if you could be safely on the floor/wall if the hazard was an empty space. In yours, if one pixel of your hit box touches a hazard, it's back to the last check point. This isn't a problem really until after level 20, where you have such tight spaces to work in, and at that point it frequently feels like I die when I shouldn't have, because it doesn't respond like other games of its kind. <br/> <br/>That aside, the first 20 levels are awesome, the graphics are great, and I really like the way you handled the theme. This is just a few collision tweaks from being perfect.
Dec 12 03:29:00 9m 00s Catspoutine versus Evil Snowmen Army The drop rate on the carrots was way too low. I think it took me just north of 50 kills to get the 20 carrots I needed for the next level. That coupled with the slow spawn rate made for a very uninteresting experience. The graphics weren't bad though, and the sound effects, while a little loud, were a good fit. With some more depth to the gameplay (upgrades, make the different hats change your attack maybe?), it could be really good.
Dec 12 03:39:00 10m 00s Spike Jumper A good platformer, if a little flat. The collision response was a little off, and it seemed like I got stuck on the ceiling a lot, but otherwise not bad. It could have used something to give it a little more depth, something more than just a standard jump, but as it stands it's still a solid entry.
Dec 12 03:48:00 9m 00s Antimatter Sometimes at the start, the ball will spawn in a way that causes it to never go near the shield, and the game just stalls. I was able to beat it, but it gets really hectic towards the end. I think the pacing is good, though at high speeds it's too hard to use the barrier effectively since most of the time there are more than one pieces of matter headed to a spot. The music loop is too short too, it gets really repetitive. It was fun though, especially near the end when there is so much going on.
Dec 14 20:44:00 64h 56m Sword, Shield, Mregal, Fight! Gameplay is a bit flat, the graphics are pretty crude, and the sound effects are kind of jarring. It's also a little irksome that you have to press "lock in" after selecting your move, it should just be one button, or double click or something. I could see this being part of a larger system and being fun, but as it stands, there just isn't enough there.
Dec 14 20:57:00 13m 00s Collector Between the music and the setting, it had a pretty creepy vibe going on. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do, so I just messed around with it for a while. I managed to get the bug to eat the turret a couple of times, but then I couldn't place blocks anymore. I also tried to get the turret to kill the bug, but I couldn't manage it. It was interesting, it just would have been nice if there had been more to do, or even just more things to interact with.
Dec 14 21:11:00 14m 00s Dragon Slayer 89 I like the old handheld game concept, it fits with the theme really well. The only real downside is the fact that the timing for everything doesn't line up, so if you leave it running long enough, the timing required to pass certain parts changes. It also wasn't obvious if the sword did anything to the skeletons, I ended up just running past them, but I have no idea if I could kill them or anything like that. It's a bit simple overall, and on the short side, but not a bad game at all.
Dec 14 21:20:00 9m 00s Musing About Fun and quirky, though it seems like it can't be won without a nice helping of luck. The effects of some of the actions seem to either be randomized, or so inter-related to the state of things it doesn't affect as to be near-impossible to predict. It was fun to play around and disappoint a few clients, but I never made it any closer than around 75%.
Dec 14 21:56:00 36m 00s Orb Fetch: GOLD This was more fun than I was expecting. It suffers from a lack of good initial training segments. The first obstacle, getting over that wall, requires more mastery of this bizarre propulsion system than should be required right away. A bit more time to ease into the system would make those first few levels a lot less frustrating. Once you get the hang of it though, it's pretty fun.
Dec 15 05:52:00 7h 56m Through the Windows This is a really neat concept, but it's marred by some glaring technical issues. That collision detection just ruins the whole experience, and that's far from the only issue. Having the rooms not fit a single layout really takes away from the concept, and turns a really cool "your screen is the map" game into what essentially boils down to "walk down this hallway that moves around on your screen." There is no way to map parts of your screen to the game, and that makes the window moving feel less impressive than it should have. The enemy spawning is also problematic, as there are times when walking into a room that you are hit before you can see what's going on, or there is no way to get to the crystal without taking heavy damage. Combine that with the rarity of the crystal spawns, and it feels like it's more up to luck than skill as to whether or not you beat it. This is an amazing concept, and a great interpretation of the theme, but the gameplay just doesn't hold up to that same level of awesome.
Dec 15 06:03:00 11m 00s Clockwise That was pretty decently fun, if a little rough around the edges. The collision felt weird, and the wall bashing felt really stiff, but it was playable. The puzzles weren't bad, though I wasn't able to figure out how to beat one of the rooms. It would have been nice to have the boulders move in a more natural way around the tiles, specifically rolling over corners so you didn't have to line up their bounding box to the tiles. Overall a pretty good puzzle game.
Dec 15 06:09:00 6m 00s A Major Mystery Not bad. This isn't a mechanic I've seen too often, and you implemented it pretty well. The scenes were short, and you didn't have a whole lot of real conflict other than waiting, but it wasn't a bad implementation.
Dec 15 06:18:00 9m 00s If I Can Just Mine 5000 Crystals From This Weird Snowman Planet They'll Let My Daughter Go Free Interesting game. It seems impossible to win, and I don't even see a counter so I'm guessing that's not really the point, but either way it's entertaining to see how far I can get. Once I got the hang of the movement it wasn't bad, though circling at high speeds with my mouse gets tiring on the wrists after a while. The phrases that the snowmen say when you kill them hint at a deeper story here, and it would be interesting to incorporate some of that to expand the gameplay in some meaningful way, but as it stands it's still an interesting game.
Dec 15 06:24:00 6m 00s Trivial Travails This is the first trivia game I've seen on here, and it was done decently well. The questions did seem to repeat pretty frequently, and often the incorrect answers were all obviously incorrect (though I do want to try making caramel by shooting sugar with a gun now). That said, it had enough going on with the movement to keep it interesting, and the yeti made me feel rushed and added a good amount of tension to the game. Not bad.
Dec 15 06:38:00 14m 00s Simulacra in Space I was hoping that I could talk to the pilot about the missing recordings, but unless I missed something there didn't seem to be a way to interact with him. This was definitely the least fun game I've played, but I don't think that was the point, and you did a tremendous job of capturing the tedium of a monotonous existence like one would have in deep space. I think the slow movement speed helped with that feeling, and I think a better answer to that issue would have been to make the hunger &amp; health meters just tick down a bit slower so that you retained the sluggish pace, without having the player spend over 50% of the time walking back and forth.
Dec 15 07:40:00 1h 02m Window Of WorkCraft I love the concept. I'm not a fan of running back and forth as a mechanic, but I understand the reasoning behind it, and it absolutely serves its purpose here. I also love the imagery of the ever-growing sword, though it would have been nice to have it get more complex or flashy as it grew.
Dec 15 07:50:00 10m 00s The Great Expanse The mechanic was simple, and it got pretty boring pretty quickly. It was a neat concept, and I like the idea of just dodging, but the projectiles all moved the same, and the ship movement was so simple and had no variety to it. It's impressive that you managed all of this with only five hours, and I think the bullet hell avoider idea could be good, it just needs some more depth of play and some better level/obstacle design. I'm curious to see what you come up with for the post-comp version.
Dec 17 03:12:00 43h 22m Entire Screen Dungeon The sound effects were a bit harsh on the ears, but the game itself was pretty good. It's almost like a free-roaming 2D zelda game, which I really liked. Obviously the movement and combat could use some refinement, and it would have been nice to have the whole map available, but it was a good game nonetheless.
Dec 17 03:15:00 3m 00s Elf Fight Was there any sort of conflict or interaction? I picked up all of the items, dispatched all of the elves, and nothing happened. This seems like you ran out of time, there is a lot that just seems to be missing here.
Dec 17 03:22:00 7m 00s Scratch Track The music is really good, definitely the best I've encountered so far. It would have been nice to have some alternate controls for it though. The arrow keys worked just fine for the first couple of levels, but after that you need to be using the specific lane keys, and since I don't use a qwerty keyboard that was pretty much where I had to stop. Numbers keys would have made just as much sense and been pretty universal. Either way, what I did get to play I really liked, the gameplay was simple but pretty engaging, and I think with some flashy vinyl graphics I could see this turning into a full-fledged rhythm game.
Dec 17 03:39:00 17m 00s Harvestier Very simple game. I didn't really notice a difference between the three worlds other than spawn rate, the mechanics were identical. It wasn't bad, just not very engaging. The graphics were amazing though, I loved the lighting effects and the bump mapping on the planet. The only thing I would have changed would have been to make some more noticeable difference besides color for the different minerals (shape or texture or something). The music wasn't really my style though, and it got pretty repetitive pretty quickly. Overall not bad, just needs a little more to keep the player engaged.
Dec 20 02:41:00 71h 02m Alfred Bonzo There were a few bugs that showed up after a couple of attempts, and eventually it just went to a black screen and stopped. Not bad, though with the limited single action and the cooldown on it, it felt like I didn't have any real options, and it was more just a matter of time until I died. It was still a good game, despite that, and I really liked the theme interpretation.
Dec 20 02:53:00 12m 00s Surveillance Screen The screen switching was pretty frustrating, since there didn't seem to be any order to the waves. It ended up being a game of clicking through each screen with a delay and a pretty grating sound effect until you find the right one, and hope you didn't take too long to find it. It would have benefited from either some sort of visual indication of danger on the screen buttons, or just a faster transition.
Dec 20 03:08:00 15m 00s REPROPULSOR The controls for that were inexcusably bad. If your controls are that twitchy, then your need to design your game around that, and you didn't do that. Platforms were incredibly small, and once you land on them, even a tap of either direction would send you flying off, so there really was no way to engage with the game other than luck at a lot of points. It also seemed like the jump command was unresponsive around edges, and a jump pressed right at the edge would almost always result in a fall to your death. It seems like it might be a decent, if simple, platformer, but either the levels need to be redesigned around the floaty controls, or the controls need to be tightened up.
Dec 20 03:16:00 8m 00s Paper Wars It was really hard to tell what was going on, and I think at one point I was defeated, but it seemed like I then took control of that army, so maybe I'm just misunderstanding things. It might be good, but there is too little feedback as to what's going on for me to really be able to play it.
Dec 20 03:26:00 10m 00s Make War, Not Science! The cards being played stayed up for a bit too long, but other than that it was actually a really well executed card game. The only thing it was really missing were a bit of polish and some visual flair. Great game.
Dec 20 03:57:00 31m 00s Beast Master This was really good. The last contract was a bit of a challenge to figure out, since it's never quite explained how to get the swimming trait and the margin of error on it is pretty low. It was also kind of irritating that the beast moved slower than the ducks since they didn't move to engage it. The stamina also filled up a bit slow, which became problematic when you start dealing with the goats. Either way, a few minor tweaks is all it really needs, and if you added more contracts and complex traits with visual changes, I could easily see this doing well on mobile or something like kongregate.
Dec 26 01:59:00 142h 02m Serenity It was a bit lacking in interactivity, I felt like at the end I was just sort of wandering around aimlessly trying to remember which of the identical teleporters I had used already. That being said, it was still a fun game. The graphics were really good, but the sound was amazing. The muffled audio underwater was a really nice touch, and the background music was just spot on for the feel of the game. It is a bit hard to see where the theme interpretation was supposed to be though.
Dec 26 02:18:00 19m 00s Game Evolution It's a a neat idea, though I feel like it would have been more interesting to integrate the new mechanics rather than replace them. That said, the pacing was unbearably slow. The player moved too slow, the game objects moved too slow, just everything felt like it was moving through honey. If you fixed that up a bit and add some more levels, this could be really awesome.
Dec 26 09:31:00 7h 13m Hippie Convention Inspection Very interesting concept. I can honestly say I've never played a game quite like that before. I like the premise, it's rather amusing, and the puzzle mechanic was incredibly engaging. It had a bit of a learning curve, and your tutorial could use a bit of work, but once you get the hang of it it's actually really fun, too.
Dec 26 09:40:00 9m 00s Ice Fishing Derby This was a decent little arcade game. You took a lot of inspiration from the 80s arcades on this one, but I think you may have taken a bit too much. Much like those old arcade games, the gameplay was very flat and uninteresting. It was just a matter of pressing up and down, there wasn't really any conflict or tension driving the gameplay. It's a good start to something, and I could see this mechanic working in a game like mother load where your goal is to fish up a whale or something. As it is right now, it's not bad, it just feels like an unfinished thought.
Dec 26 09:52:00 12m 00s FindeTheN The vocabulary is quite confusing, and the interface isn't very responsive. The pattern was pretty easy for me to figure out as I recognized it right away, but apparently you can't use the number pad to type in the answer which threw me for a loop for quite a while. It seems like the only way to discern the pattern is to either recognize it after the first few houses, or to just use trial and error. The biggest problem is that there isn't any feedback to the player about anything that's going on. I don't know what bulle and bullar are, so when I got the first bottle and it added an icon to the top, I thought I was on the right track. It needs a bit of polish, and it would help if there was a way for the player to learn the pattern without arbitrary guessing.
Dec 28 00:26:00 38h 34m Hell: Redemption The controls on this are pretty problematic. It seems like the character accelerates too quickly for how much space you have to work with, and the bug with moving while jumping makes being accurate all that much harder. It's interesting, but the random generation can make some levels impossible, especially after world 5 when you can't really make any mistakes. The music is good, though it does get repetitive after a while, and the graphics get the job done despite the high contrast of the background making it hard to see at times. With a bit of polish, and a bigger playing area, this could be a good platformer, but it's got some technical flaws right now that seem to be holding it back.
Dec 28 00:44:00 18m 00s Pit Lords This feels unfinished. The delay between hitting the button to start a battle and any visual response is far too high, I couldn't figure out how to start fights initially since I had my headphones off. It has promise, the combat system looks like something I could have fun with, but there is no progression, there doesn't seem to be any difference in outcome between winning and losing, and there's really no reason to keep playing after you find a winning strategy.
Dec 28 00:50:00 6m 00s Mr. Scroll I really like your take on the theme, and it would have been nice to have more puzzles take advantage of that but it seems you, well, you know. What you have is a really good start, the controls are good, the movement feels good, the concept is good, it just needs a bit more content and polish.
Dec 28 01:09:00 19m 00s Last Zombie Defense It is very slow to start, especially with the emphasis on repeating the gameplay since you can't buy new weapons once you've started. There wasn't a lot to do, the enemies all behaved the same way, and as a result the gameplay felt really flat. There was very little motivation to keep playing after the first couple of waves since the guns were only statistically different and everything felt the same.
Dec 28 01:24:00 15m 00s Tiny Miner The whole thing feels like it moves too slow. The concept could be cool, but it needs to move a lot faster. The mining was tedious, and the fact that I had to wait five minutes even though I had what I needed already was a bit irritating as well. The dialog was awesome though, you really nailed that part, and the idea of making money in a shifting market is good, but you need a way to end the quests early, and the act of mining needs to be made either more interesting or less time consuming.