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Nick Weihs

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TimestampSince previousGameNick Weihs's comment
Dec 16 04:28:00 ROCKROCKET Amazing job! I really liked the audio loop and moodiness of the piece. The jumping puzzles were fun to explore, but got a bit frustrating when you couldn't figure out where to go and when you were asked to make very difficult jumps in order to traverse through the space. The way the game unfolds without any explicit direction other than the mysterious entities that show you what they want was done extremely well. The jumping was also a little too slippery, and I feel like I could have finished the game quicker if I was able to control myself better. All in all, fantastic game, and I can't wait to see what you do in the next LD!
Dec 16 04:53:00 25m 00s Silian Rail I really like the concept behind this game. The way that you have to manage space and try to keep in mind the way that the game will progress - getting more difficult as you advance through the ranks - creates very interesting gameplay. Unfortunately, the collision was very problematic and caused numerous gameplay issues such as unpredictable reflections of the rumors and causing the player to get stuck on the environment. I think these problems could definitely be solved with a little bit of preparation. Very nice job overall, keep practicing and you'll have a much easier time on your next LD!
Dec 16 05:18:00 25m 00s 1 Screen Hero Sick game man. I had a ton of fun playing through this. The time pressure in addition to the randomly selected level exits add so much to this experience which would otherwise be a still pretty solid action arena combat game. The level design was fantastic and I am hugely impressed that you were able to design 90 rooms given the time constraints. Every level felt different and there was even variety in the way that the individual levels played out mixing combat and movement puzzles (?) The only complaint I have is that the art didn't clearly show the attack hit boxes for both the hero character and the enemies. The art and music was fantastic and really show the level of polish you guys were able to add to the game. Overall I am envious of your abilities! Thank you for making this game.
Dec 16 05:47:00 29m 00s 0000 : Press Z I had a lot of fun playing this game. It is very reminiscent of games like I want to be the guy/boshi. The jumping mechanics felt a little too loose for my taste, and it took more time than I would have wanted to get really comfortable with the controls. The level design was pretty well thought out and the way that you transition between screens was really interesting and added another layer of strategy on top of the normal gameplay. I only wish that the level you transition to was more predictable so that you could strategize on where to die to give yourself and advantage on the next screen. The audio was a little lax but didn't take away from anything. Having a fast paces music loop would have gone a long way. Overall, really challenging and satisfying to complete. I only died 72 times =( I'm just too casual I guess. Thanks for sharing your game!
Dec 16 06:12:00 25m 00s Screen Ego Aegis I feel like you have the beginnings of a very cool tower defense game here. I like the way way that you placed the towers and the fact that there was limited tower space. The towers themselves there not very interesting though. Since they only shot in cardinal directions, there was almost no strategy to placing them. I feel like having each tower have an activated ability or having more towers would have increased the interest I have in this game. As it stands now, I was able to figure out what seems to be the optimal strategy very quickly (namely having a back row of spreaders and a front row of bouncers). Most of the damage against the spider game from the player, which seems counter intuitive in a tower defense game where you generally want the towers to be the principal focus of the player. I think the sound design was very grating because of the frequency of sound effects happening. When you have such a simple sound effect playing over top itself that much, it tends to loose its distinct punchlines and just sound mushy. It would have been good to have the towers only play the sound once, but I felt like they played the sound effect for each bullet they shot. Overall the sound effects had good feedback though. The art style and concept were clever and fun. I liked the hit reactions of the spiders, and I think you did a good job of making the variety of spiders interesting with the advancing waves. By the end I was getting overrun, but I felt like that's where the game was really getting started (that was at around wave 13). If the game had got that difficult sooner, I would have enjoyed it more because the frantic way that you have to re-position your turrets adds a lot to the gameplay. Great job and I look forward to seeing what you come up with in future LDs.
Dec 16 06:46:00 34m 00s PhotoBound I have to say first and foremost great puzzle design. The mechanics were both intuitive and innovative, which is a very difficult task to achieve. The music was soothing and set the tone of the game very well, that being a game which delights you by defying your expectations. The way the difficult ramps up is very well managed, it never took me took long to figure out the solutions to the puzzles, but I still felt like they constantly challenged me. I was a little taken aback by the sudden precision jumping requirements because I don't think the jumping mechanics were the strength of this game. I think if you have more pure jumping puzzle parts, that didn't include the more cerebral logic puzzle element, instead of having them at the same time, it would be better because I was very anxious about losing my progress half way through the puzzles. I was very impressed that you managed to fit a platformer with scrolling levels so well into this theme. Excellent job! And I just want to re-iterate how well the levels were designed. Thanks for making this game!
Dec 16 07:05:00 19m 00s Super Action Man Man, I never confirmed dinner, now I don't know what to do with my life. I also really like that dude's beard, I think he was cool, why did he haf to die. <br/> <br/>On a more somber note, great job with this game. The mechanics were sloppy, but silly enough that it didn't matter much. I had no idea that things in the second level were killing me until you pointed it out, and the cars in the first level acted more like Medusa heads than cars, but that don't matta. I was enjoying every moment. Nominations for best voice acting, and best story.
Dec 16 07:45:00 40m 00s Houston, We've Got a Problem I really liked this game, so much so that I didn't even realize I had been playing it for kind of a long time. The music does a lot for setting up the mood of sending dudes into space. It's intuitive to build and ship and send it off, and it's a lot of fun to look at the mission log and see how people died or if they miraculously survived the entire mission. I think I found the winning combination though (maybe?) but it didn't seem to have any scientists in it. I did not understand the goal of the game other than to have people survive. There was an indication of how much science I got from a mission but there was no indicator for how much science I needed to get from a mission. The mechanics for if a colonist gets eaten or dies or really does anything was not apparent, but I think that is okay since it adds to the more realistic aspect of unpredictability in space travel. I really wanted there to be more to this, so I am really glad that you guys are planning on extending this game to be more than just was it is in the jam. It's a pretty interesting idea and I hope you go far with it. I think you guys are on the right track.
Dec 16 08:07:00 22m 00s SIRTET Super slick little game. I can definitely understand how this game got 9k plays in two days on Kongregate. The basic idea is so simple and elegant and intuitive, it all just pretty much works together. The mechanic of getting a bonus line for turning all lines "on" was not indicated or taught at all, so you could probably do a better job of calling that out. I think you could also change that mechanic to be a little more apparent but just having it be a bonus multiplier or the like. I was disappointed to hear that you added sound and changed the controls post-compo. You should really have kept the original submission available and given a post compo version link as well. For sure try to make this into something as it fits to well into the mobile space! Really, just an awesome job!
Dec 16 08:35:00 28m 00s GTAlien The animations in the game were delicious. The ragdolls looked great, the idle animation was hilarious and I was impressed that you got the tongue attaching to the corpses as the flew threw the air. The gameplay was simple but fun, and again I think the animations added a lot here to make the game challenging. The attacks were weighty and had a wind up to them so it was fun to try and time your hits. The challenge ramp up was pretty good up until around 25 corpses eaten, at which point it became nearly impossible. The spawn rate on the cops was far too high and the fact that killing a cop made the pedestrians run away added even more to the difficulty. If you were able to pick up cops, it would fix this issue, but that might ruin the difficulty curve (worth an experiment). I feel like the cars in the post-compo version were funny, but took away from the tightness of the game as a whole since you would unpredictably die to them quite often. The music was fun and created a appropriate atmosphere for the game, i.e. fun and weird. And the art style, though simple worked really well and was surprisingly nice to look at. Really fun, even though I never got to the awesome win screen. Thanks for making this game!
Dec 16 08:54:00 19m 00s Escape Character I loved this game! So many little touches that added to the experience. I just wanted to explore everything. I enjoyed the nods to zelda at the beginning when you pick up the cursor as your attack (pretty clever). The way that you moved around and interacted with this was extremely intuitive since it's all based on normal computer interactions. Every time a window opened up, I was delighted to find what it contained. Even though you didn't get to finish, I still feel like I played a fun game. The combat was a little strange since it felt like I was not taking damage when I should. Not complaining though since that second combat was a little on the difficult side (reminded me of those rooms full of blue knights in zelda tbh). Having the time in the bottom right reflect the real time on my machine was a nice touch. The post effects to add the graininess and slight fish eye distortion looked really really nice, and the overall look of the game was fantastic, especially the animations on the enemies and attack. There's so much potential here and I really hope you continue this project to make it into a complete game! Thanks for creating this and letting the world see it!
Dec 17 03:03:00 18h 09m The Adventures of King Pistachio I had a lot of fun playing through this. The platforming was very simple but the addition of the fireballs falling from the sky made things a _lot_ more interesting. I had to constantly be looking in two places, but dodging the fireballs really forced me to think about positioning a lot, which was fun. The art was very simple, but it was immediately apparent to me what everything did, including the falling platforms. The timing and movement on the platforms and fireballs was done really well. I never felt like it was totally unfair except for on the last boss which I was able to figure out after a few attempts. The collision detection was a little wonky (which I used to my benefit) i.e. you could jump through a platform and then be inside of it, which made the game quite a bit easier than it probably should have, but it also made the game feel a lot better, especially since I died a lot and had to restart. The earlier levels were still fun to go through since I was experimenting and getting better with the controls. Thanks for letting me play your game! Hope you can come back and do another LD!
Dec 17 03:25:00 22m 00s Lumit I had fun playing this game, but I felt like I was totally out of control for the most part. For some reason, I felt like the game might have actually been getting easier as the speed of the level picked up and the size of the orbs got smaller. It would have probably been a good idea to have a timer on screen to show when the orbs were about to split, and I think that having the orbs split on a slightly slower timer might have made the game more interesting. As it is now, I tended to just pick on orb and try to keep it in the center as much as I could, but even doing that I wasn't able to break 20k. The music was pretty fitting in keeping the game fast paced, but it clashed somewhat at the beginning when things were moving really slowly. The art was mostly functional, however the only problem I see with it is that the red outline became a little hard to notice when the level speed picked up (I am red-green colorblind so it was extra bad for me). I feel like you probably could have pushed the art a little more to make the feel of the game more fun to play. Overall though, really challenging, good pacing once the level started getting going, and really interesting idea. Thanks a lot for creating and sharing your game with me!
Dec 17 04:00:00 35m 00s #CorporateCrimewave Really cool abstraction of a stealth sneak game into very simple mechanics. The vision cones on the patrols and cameras where instantly recognizable, and for the most part everything really made sense. None of the puzzles were too involved, and I was able to make steady progress without ever getting frustrated. You have so many different mechanics that each level felt fresh and challenging. The double agents were confusing to me though since they did counter-intuitive things like suiciding into turrets and other enemies. Whenever they showed up, things just seemed to work out without me having to do much so I never felt like they added to the game. The pacing and difficulty ramp were pretty much flawless, the only time I had to stop and ask for help was the first time I had to move through and empty space since I was so used to micro-managing my movement. The overall visual presentation of the game felt muddled, since I am color-blind, I was frequently unable to locate my character at the beginning of the level since the character sprite blended in with the background. I feel like you could have done something to draw the players attention to the character location such as animating or pulsing the colors. The intro hints were really nice for giving some clues on the mechanics for that level. I just wish you could restart the level a little bit faster when you died. Again, super solid level design and I'm really impressed that you were able to get so many well designed levels with such good ramping in the short amount of time. Great game, and thanks for making and sharing it with me!
Dec 17 04:19:00 19m 00s Beat Bop Delicious Very cool little game about trying to keep everyone happy. Feeling like middle management was never so much fun! The different elements were each enjoyable in their own ways to deal with, and I like how each of the later elements built upon previous mechanics. The final element was a good way to keep the player busy in between managing other knobs. The way that the gameplay tied in with the music also added a lot to making this game enjoyable since you wanted to keep the song playing at full capacity as much as possible. I feel like you could have been a little more lax on the clickable areas of the switches and the text popping up to disrupt your concentration didn't seem to make the game any better. It just became extra noise, which is something you probably don't want in a music game (unless of course you do something incorrect). Overall, really cool game that tests your apm and accuracy! Thanks for letting me play it!
Dec 17 04:50:00 31m 00s Hard Winter I really liked the combination of exploration and tower defense in this game, and that is even more impressive that you kept with the theme of "entire game one screen". I had some trouble initially understanding the mechanics of the turrets. Sometimes it seems like they would need to reload without ever actually firing. It also seemed like once you got to the point where you were covering all four directions that the yeti's came from, you were pretty much good and didn't need to worry about much other than reloading the turrets. The music on the title screen and in game was really well matched with the pace of the game, however the sound effects that you put in for reloading the turret were a little too looney-toons-ish and made things sound strange. I felt like the weapon you were given wasn't effective at times, but was super effective at other times. The fire rate seemed really inconsistent (sometimes I could fire super fast). The collision detection on the weapon was also really inconsistent. The game also ended very suddenly with a victory screen. There didn't seem to be much of a build up to the final battle. I really liked the effects on the yetis exploding, and also on the pickups. Visually the game seemed a bit too high contrast and important information like which wave you are on gets lost in the visual noise, especially since you have to dedicate a lot of prime screen real-estate to the picture in picture of the player exploration. It might have been better to have the PiP be a little alpha'd out so you could see through it. I think the base idea of exploring while defending your base creates a good amount of tension, but I really only felt that tension at the beginning when you had no turrets. It there were slightly more strategy to how the turrets interact with the enemies, I think this could go really far as a concept. All in all though, really cool idea, and I'm really glad I got to play! Thanks for making this game and I hope to see you again for next LD!
Dec 17 05:14:00 24m 00s MACHO KNIGHT Mechanically, this game suffers from being too simple. I was able to get to a high score of 260+, and the challenge was not increasing at all. My strategy was very simply just running back and forth, which was not particularly interesting. I also noticed some issues with the sound - when you knock a guy off the side the camera shake causes a slight Doppler effect in the music which sounds like an audio glitch. This was particularly pronounced when I had the game zoomed in while using it in web player mode. The sprites for the macho knight and the girl were super cute, and the music set a fun and quirky tone for the game which matched the gameplay and visuals. I'm interested in your screenshots because they show the fort from a wider angle than I saw in game - this makes me wonder if I was missing something. I feel like you probably could have pushed the mechanics a little harder and made this into a really fun game. Overall though, I had fun, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with for the next LD! Thanks for sharing your game with me!
Dec 17 05:30:00 16m 00s Hop & Chop Super simple and mostly elegant game man! I really enjoyed the fact that you had different types of attacks and that you really had to pay attention to what you were going to shoot next. There was one level (the pork buns level) where I was pretty confused as to what I needed to do, but I managed to figure it out without you explicitly telling me. Some of the level felt like I won without trying much, mostly just pure luck that I was able to finish, and finish with even high score than the level required. The character felt most of the time out of control and it was rather difficult to line up shots. I feel like if you had an reticule or aim indicator, it would go a long way to making the game feel better. Also if you had slightly more control over the character, it would allow you to make the levels more difficult and interesting. Overall I was delighted to experience this as each level seemed to introduce some new way to shoot the crap out of unsuspecting foodstuffs. The art was fantastic and really gave me some expectations that were immediately broken by the initial gameplay - namely that you are a cook who's completely insane. Very fun overall, slightly too short to really sink my teeth into, but I was almost never frustrated. I would like to see this game continued as it would make a really fun time waster for mobile. Thanks for sharing your game with me and I look forward to your next LD!
Dec 17 05:56:00 26m 00s Walk to the door Really cool idea here, having the character traverse through a computer window based environment. The puzzles were very well designed, not too difficult, but difficult enough that I felt smart when I found the solution. I really enjoyed the pre-programming aspect of leaving certain windows in strategic locations in order to solve the puzzles. I feel like you might be able to push this even further by incorporating more spatial elements to the puzzles, namely positioning of the directional orbs. The amount of mechanics that you had was spot on since each level re-used techniques from previous levels, but also added new ones to keep things interesting. Having the menu options show up in the "star menu" and the level counter show up as the time was a really nice touch. The music was fitting to the idea, and the art, though simple, worked really well as a basis for the mechanics. I feel like you could have given the player a little bit more leeway on collision with the teleporters since moving the window to hit the orbs while the character is also moving requires a lot of dexterity and felt hard to control. All in all, it's pretty crazy that you managed to create such an impressive and polished game on your first LD! Can't wait to see what you come up with next time, and I hope that you feel like your idea was a success even though it didn't come to you right away!
Dec 17 06:33:00 37m 00s Finish Your Project This game was extremely slow, but set up a very melancholy mood. The music and concept work well together to give you the sensation that this is just a very draining experience which is honestly what it's like if you are a lonely creative type person. As a game, however, and especially as a jam game, I think the length of the game detracts from the overall experience. I spent what felt like quite a long time making progress on my project and only filled up a little bit past the "finish" word. I assume that this is a rather personal game for you since it defies that kinds of expectations you would have from playing most other games. As an emotional piece, it works rather well. I really with that the gameplay itself had more depth. It seemed like there wasn't actually any fail condition, which makes the game not tense, but just something that requires more endurance. If there were some mechanic that allowed me to jump start my inspiration, rather than just watching tv all day, which is honestly not a good way to inspire yourself, then I think I would have enjoyed this game more. I was able to watch the video you created to get the ending of the game, which I found rather intense. The visuals clash somewhat with the mood since everything is rather cute looking, even the UI is more colorful than you would expect. For such a depressing game, I figured you would have a lot darker tone with the art. The things you did with the audio were cool, but rather subtle to the point where I probably would not have noticed unless it was pointed out to me. Nonetheless, the music itself was very fitting with the mood. The "events" that impede progress were rather frustrating too, although I only experienced it a couple of times. I really hope you enjoyed creating this game, because I enjoyed playing it. Thanks for making this game and sharing it with me!
Dec 17 07:01:00 28m 00s Republik Power & Light Really cool idea here. I enjoyed the interface a lot with the CRT effects and film grain really selling the idea that you're in an oppressive monotonous job. The concept itself was really funny, and you did a good job of selling it with the writing. The idea that you are in a position that is basically set up to fail is pretty clever, and I see a lot of the game "Paper's Please" in this piece. The highlighting for keyword inputs was also clever in indicating what the player should do without any explicit hand holding or tutorializing. The mechanics themselves were a little too simple for my taste. I felt like you could have added a little bit more in terms of the interesting events that occur during gameplay. The most I ended up surviving was only two hours. I did some experiments trying to mange things in a lazy way, but ended up having to vent too much to survive. You did a good job making the systems you had in place all balanced and important. I think it would have been cool to add some keypress or print out like audio effects if you had time. Overall, pretty sick idea, really funny concept, and great job polishing the interface. Thanks for letting me play your game, and I really hope that you come back next time!
Dec 17 07:35:00 34m 00s 15 Stage Rage I raged. Then I raged again. Then I raged again and again. But in the end, the game couldn't hold me down. I spent a lot of time on the first set of levels, but after I found the warp zone, I was much more invested in the game. I realize that these are supposed to be secrets, but I feel like with the paranoia that you experience playing through these games, you probably should have given at least some hint that the warps exist, and it still would have been challenging and fun. I really would have preferred tighter controls with no momentum, because it just wasn't predictable where my player was going to end up. Even with all the hidden deadly stuff in this game, I still feel like you should make the player feel as though they are responsible for their own death (beyond the invisible stuff that you figure out the first time through). The rooms themselves were deadly, but nothing was too unintuitive, even the rooms that changed the player mechanics were interesting instead of confusing. I did skip a few of the rooms, so I didn't experience all of the pain, but I still felt like I was thoroughly challenged. Good job testing my limits, I was considering giving up, but in the end, I always made at least some progress. Hope you had a lot of fun making this game, and watching people stumble their way through it. Can't wait to see what horrible ways you kill the player are in the next LD you participate in! Thanks for sharing your game with me!
Dec 17 08:16:00 41m 00s P.Rick Airious Really challenging platformer that tested my patience to the limit. The dual world mechanic was pretty cool, and gave each segment a lot of variety. If it was simply a game about jumping over spikes, it would have been probably too tiresome, but you gave the game a lot more life by having the bottom stage obstacles move. Alternating between the two, and allowing the player to see the setup before they take part in it, makes the player both dread and look forward to the the next part of the challenge. I appreciate the effort that was put in to make the level transition appear natural, i.e. the entity that flew across the screen and dropped hazards, however most of the time I was too concerned with my current predicament to get a good look at it. I feel like the momentum/sliding was unnecessary at least on the ground, since you could hold the down button to immediately stop, it really just made the game much harder and more random feeling. I also felt really bad when I died multiple times in the same level because I was either holding the button still and ran into spikes after I died, or on the bottom screen, I happen to hit one of the moving obstacles, and subsequently get hit by ever single other one without being able to do anything about it. The art was pleasant for the most part, however I think the hand painted background clashes with the pixel art foreground a little. The coloring on the moving obstacles was not apparent to me until someone pointed it out because I am color blind. It is difficult for me to tell the difference between the colors used. I think the limited life mechanic lead to more disappointment than you probably were intending. I really just wanted to continue on the stage I was dying on, but I had to beat the entirety of the introductory stages over again in order to do so. Perhaps it might have been better to send the player back a few levels and fill up their lives again as a less punishing mechanic. I feel like the game really picked up at around level 30, but I didn't finish because I was getting too frustrated. Overall, I really did enjoy the game, and it provided a good challenge and ramp up from easy to brutally difficult. The mechanics all made sense, and most of the time, I felt like I could get through the levels by just playing better. Thanks a bunch for sharing your game with me!
Dec 17 09:09:00 53m 00s The Room Very interesting mystery, and damn does it get serious by the end! The positioning of the stones was a bit inconsistent, most of them were easy to find because they were place in very salient parts of the room, however the first stone in the candles was rather difficult to find, only after prompting me that I had missed one of the stones did I realize it was there. The way things unfolded were pretty fun to watch, however, there were a few things that confused me, like being able to break the mirror instead of going through the door again. Also it was never explained what the stones were or how many there were or why you were collecting them. I really enjoyed the climax since it took a completely unexpected turn. I'm not quite sure what impact the choices I made at the end of the game had. Did I pick the right stone? I seemed to beat the game, but it might have just been luck. Really interesting concepts here, and the kernel of a more complete game exists to expand on those ideas into a story that is much deeper and less expository. I hope you continue to explore the ideas that you started to explore with this game and make it into something great. The format that you used was plenty rife for opportunity to do so. Thanks for sharing your game with me!
Dec 20 03:57:00 66h 48m Inventory I have played this very game inside of other games like Diablo or DayZ too many times to count. I just want a bigger bag god damnit. It's a funny idea to make an entire game about inventory management, but I don't know if this kind of gameplay is very fun on its own. Todd didn't make it, but we filled up our story quota anyway. I had some problems with the rotation, it seems like the pivot point was not centered on some pieces, which meant I had to click outside the window to place items (which obviously doesn't work) I really like the simple art on all the items, and how you convey the story of the game through the actual inventory management (requiring the player to fill in a lot of the blanks since the items are most of the time nonsensical). The only other thing I can really say is that the interface itself is rather stark (gray on black). I think maybe changing up the color choice on the background would have gone a long way. Nice job indicating what each piece was through the outline though. Mostly intuitive once I got the basics down, and really funny ending. Thanks for creating your game!
Dec 20 04:07:00 10m 00s Natquik I have sympathy for people who had overly ambitious plans for their game, and things might have got in the way. That being said, I think you have the beginning of some strong elements here. The concept and visuals are really cool, and the post card aesthetic was a really clever idea. I especially like the water-color like animations for the dude in the middle walking. I found the music was somewhat at odds with the (potentially) hardcore survival elements that are indicated in the bottom left. All in all, it was a strong start, but obviously didn't get far enough to go anywhere. Can't wait to see the final product, and I hope you come back for the next LD with all the stuff you learned from working on this game!
Dec 20 04:29:00 22m 00s Precise Shot Pretty sweet little arcade game here. The gameplay was simple, but intuitive and fun to try to master. I had some trouble with the targets being to low. I believe there should be a way to hit 100% all great shots + power shots which one could maybe consider "beating" the game, however, when the targets were too low, it didn't allow me to get the power shot and still hit the target. I found that aspect of the game frustrating, as well as the "drop arrow" mechanic. I can see a lot of ways to add more variety to the gameplay such as moving targets, different types of arrows, weather effects, even enemies potentially. As it is now, it feels a little incomplete. The master bow mechanic felt too random since the arrow seemed to follow its own path without much intervention by me. In order to have a mechanic that the player is expected to master, I believe you should have a much easier to understand mechanic behind the bow physics, and just make the actual execution of it more difficult. I think the art works really well, but it is also somewhat based on existing visuals for very similar games. The background was good at separating the foreground elements to keep things clear. The music was felt a little off to me, I would expect a more whimsical theme with the music given that it's an archery game. The electric guitar and tempo particularly seemed to not fit with the mood. The end screen was pretty satisfying, and I liked the sound effects for when the stars show up. There seemed to be a bug where I had more power shots than total shots. I also really wanted a scoring mechanic to judge my progress as I got better. Overall though, I had fun play the game. Really nice work polishing what you made. Thanks for sharing your game, and I hope you join us again for next LD!
Dec 20 05:05:00 36m 00s One Room Dungeon Pretty cool little arena combat game. Very simple mechanics, but it builds up to be very difficult rather quickly without getting too frustrated. I like how fast it is to get back into the game, and I found myself playing over and over again even though I had just figured I'd play one more time. The fact that you cannot attack up is rather difficult to deal with considering the enemies have a fair amount of vertical movement. The jumping enemy was particularly difficult to deal with since it was immune to damage while jumping and seemed to have a little bit of immunity after it was just hit. The rusher enemies were fun to fight since you could kind of combo them against the wall, however doing so would sometimes push them off your horizontal plane so that you had to adjust to be able to attack them again. This would happen somewhat randomly, which was frustrating. I really think if you were able to hit the jumping enemies while they were mid jump animation, the game would have been a lot more fun for me. I think the spawning sometimes put me in unrecoverable situations without me being able to do much about it. The rate at which enemies spawned in became unmanageable after maybe a minute, which is pretty good as far as the difficulty ramp goes, but the fact that the key and chest spawn in random locations each time the level resets meant that I was mostly lucky to get a higher score than more skillful. I feel like maybe there should have been some kind of rebounding mechanic to keep you in the game once it got to the point where there were too many enemies. The art was really good for being as low pixel density as it was. The enemies and player character were pretty expressive, and the play field was very clear. The music was pretty spot on for this type of game and the sound effects gave good feedback for hits. Pretty solid entry overall. Thanks for letting me play your game!
Dec 20 05:22:00 17m 00s Keep Watching This has a clever premise, but seems to not be much more than that. The game inside of a game is not compelling enough for me to actually want to search for it when it moves to another screen. There is a lot of potential in this idea for making the player confused and unsettled if you were intending the player to feel like that. The music loop was too short, but was good at indicating where the active screen was. I think the Doppler on the audio when you move around was really strange sounding, and for the most part the sound effects were too harsh (especially the attack sound). Moving the character around inside the screen was really strange feeling since he didn't seem to always play the right facing animation. Also forcing the character to move on a grid felt bad, and the attack felt frustrating since it forced you to stand still. I really wanted the game inside of the game to have a goal, or at the very least some kind of failure condition but it did not. Sometimes the enemies would hurt you from getting attack since they got thrown back from the direction they were moving in, which felt frustrating as well. The lighting on the active monitor was a nice touch to indicate to the player where to go, and I rarely had too much trouble repositioning. If there was something in the interior game to make the player feel rushed to find the new monitor, I feel like this idea would work a lot better. If you plan to keep working on this idea, I could definitely see it going somewhere. If not, I hope you join us for the next LD! Thanks for making your game!
Dec 20 05:52:00 30m 00s The Reaping An enjoyable little adventure on a single screen! I think the intensity of the setting clashes with the simplicity of the art style. The box-like characters looked pretty strange (I found it odd that everyone was bald), it's just hard to nail down what these people are or where they are. For example they use swords and crossbows instead of guns, but they still have lightbulbs? Overall the art works well for clearly indicating what things are and which things are clickable, which is really important for an adventure game. The art for the reaper was pretty sick, and the way the sun sets and transitions to night was done really well. <br/> <br/>The UI for the game was very intuitive. I was able to get into the game and figure out several of the minor puzzles really quickly. There were a few times where I felt the controls for interaction didn't work, I would release the mouse button on an options and nothing would happen. <br/> <br/>It was fun going through the different endings to see what happens, although I had to look up how to get to the brother. The fact that I could partially go behind the alter before "pulling" it really confused me. I enjoyed that the final battle was not simply just another narrative event, and the player had to actually take part in it. It wasn't actually that easy to click on the attack button enough times to survive (I almost didn't). The "final" ending with the brother showing up and randomly saving the entire human race was unexpected, and pretty unsatisfying. <br/> <br/>The music for the adventure sequence seemed really good for setting the mode, but the music during the actual battle seemed like like JRPG battle music than something that would play over a fight for your life in a desperate world where humanity is on its last legs. <br/> <br/>Overall, I think the game was just a little too simple to really give a solid adventure game experience, but the mood and the setting somewhat make up for that. Thanks for creating this game and letting everyone play it! Hope you can join us again for the next LD!
Dec 20 06:14:00 22m 00s Beat+Trak Really stylish music game here. The underlying mechanic behind though is somewhat problematic. I think the reliance on spectral band data to identify the beat causes a lot of issues, since it never really perfectly give you a beat. Also the fact that you are not actually tapping to the beat causes my brain to get confused. The accuracy that you require in order to get a high multiplier is pretty insane, and I think that is related to the sloppiness of the beat data provided by the FFT. The way that the path overlaps itself can make it very difficult to determine which layer the overlapping part of the path. <br/> <br/>I really like the color scheme that you used, and how the beat of the song affects the visuals. The timer overlapping the score made both of them slightly hard to read (moreso the score than the other). I also like how the play field rotates slightly as the game goes on. Overall the attitude of this game is really cool, and the track that you use to generate the gameplay is pretty sick. I can definitely see you pushing this game a lot further in terms of polish and effects to make something really fun, so I hope you continue. Thanks for sharing your game with me!
Dec 20 06:43:00 29m 00s Blue Cave I was literally flailing around for about 10 minutes with this game before I managed to kill the cave boss. The biggest problem I have with this game seems to be that picking up more flails, even though it should feel awesome, makes the game so much harder. The weight of extra flails cause them to never really get off the ground. I feel like a lot of the problems stem from the fact that the flails are not attached to the player, they're attached to some other attach point which is then attached to the player. The spring force of this attachment is not strong enough to sustain the weight of multiple flails. The optimal strategy seemed to be to jump on top of the enemy and force him down into your flail instead of swinging the flail into them. <br/> <br/>The pickups (aside from extra flails) also seemed a little overpowered. I was able to live quite easily with tons of bats and the boss shooting at me by just picking up the invincibility shield and health pickups when I needed them. The collision on the platforms also seemed a bit off. I could stand on the side of a platform and sometimes even jump from it. It was a little frustrating that you couldn't jump when standing on flails, especially when I had a ton of them. It felt like I couldn't move. In some ways this game was too easy and in other ways it was too hard. <br/> <br/>I think the art and music mostly worked well for how simple they were though the scale of the player in relation to the bats was a little absurd. The music sounded somewhat halloween-ish, but also a little hammy which works for the concept. Overall though I still have fun with the idea, and I think with some tweaks this could be a super fun game. I'm looking forward to see what you can come up with for the next LD!
Dec 20 07:05:00 22m 00s Alfred Bonzo This game was very strange. I had a lot trouble getting it to load in the first place. I eventually worked in firefox, but only after a few minutes of loading. There was no loading screen to indicate that it was doing so. I also managed to break the game, after surviving for about 30 seconds, no more enemies spawned, and the game sort of just kept going on forever. I waited for the music to stop, but the game just kept going so I eventually committed suicide. I also had some severe framerate issues in firefox when a lot of enemies were on screen. <br/> <br/>The art style for this game is confusing. The in game art looks nice for being very simple low res pixel art, however this clashes a lot with the title screen art, which makes the player character look like a potato. The enemies looked pretty good for only being a few pixels, and the play field was clearly indicated. It might have been a little too low res though since it wasn't actually clear what the player or the thing that the player was protecting is. The music was also a little strange since it sounded like someone recording a midi keyboard. It didn't really fit the computerized theme of the game that much, and was otherwise a little repetitive. <br/> <br/>The gameplay itself was pretty fun, I was trying to strategize how to maintain the chipset in center position by allowing certain enemies to hit it before it broke. I could see this game being a lot of fun if the major issues were fixed, and maybe some more enemies were added. I also like how the attack affected the chipset so that you could move it around quickly if you needed. <br/> <br/>Overall, this game was fun in a really weird way and I have a feeling that's what you were going for. In the future, you should go back and try to fix major issues that prevent the game from working (this is allowed post-submission under the LD rules). Hope you come back and make another game with us!