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Jwatt

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game	Jwatt's comment
Apr 21 15:27:00		RRRR	A bit wonky but still easy thanks to large bubble hitboxes. Some randomly disappearing bombs when moving up/down that seemed buggy. You also could've indicated the incoming lasers somehow.
Apr 21 15:39:00	12m 00s	Lucid	The audio is legit moody. <br/> <br/>I was kind of expecting more creative use of the weapon with the destructible blocks and all that. In the end, it's a fairly standard Knytt-like platformer with good production.
Apr 21 15:57:00	18m 00s	Way of Life	It was amusing enough to keep me going till the end. And this is coming from someone who isn't big into story-heavy games in LD.
Apr 21 16:15:00	18m 00s	Megane Fever	There's no threat of failure whatsoever. I guess it's fitting for this kinda game, but then you could've focused more on the humor aspect instead. <br/> <br/>senpai pls notice
Apr 22 07:18:00	15h 03m	Flail Rider	The physics are moderately satisfying, could use some super fragile objects for good measure (like tone down the sturdiness of the trees). I'm not sure if it's because of the isometric projection, but it was tricky to stay alive for long at first. <br/> <br/>Props for the music. Surprised you've disabled the Audio rating since you've made it yourself and all.
Apr 22 07:26:00	8m 00s	Off to the Races	I chuckled at this, it uses audiovisual effects for humor effectively. <br/> <br/>Bonus points for multiplayer, definitely improves the experience and goes well with the lolworthy nature of the game. (I guess it wouldn't have been too hard to add a moderately paced AI just to make single player more of a race, though.)
Apr 22 07:37:00	11m 00s	NOPAEW	The idea of using (enemy) weapons to destroy the environment is pleasant. <br/> <br/>However, to really make use of this and to prevent pointless deaths, I could've used a bit of a delay between enemies noticing me and them shooting.
Apr 22 07:47:00	10m 00s	Bubble Becky	I'm a sucker for games with multi-purpose abilities. The game made an effort to showcase quite a bit of the bubbles' potential. I got a SNES vibe from the experience. <br/> <br/>Attaching bubbles to walls was a bit buggy, though. And for the sake of responsiveness, I'm not sure if there needs to be a delay for making the smallest bubble. Should've been like, tap Z to spam small ones, hold Z if you really want the bigger ones.
Apr 22 08:08:00	21m 00s	Disco of Thrones	Hoo boy, there's a lot going on here. Well the starting point of combining two types of beating is memorable enough, and it's taken quite far with the disco theming and brag-worthy production. <br/> <br/>Unfortunately at the core, it wasn't responsive enough for a rhythm game, and that's a downer. It felt like there was basically a 50/50 chance to get "perfect" or "fail" regardless of whether I was syncing with the music. (This could have to do with some Unity lag for audio playback, and maybe a larger window for pressing keys would help with that.)
Apr 22 08:16:00	8m 00s	Falling To Death	Yea this has some AAaAaaaA vibes but still a distinct focus. Does feel a bit unfinished as you said, this has room to be more dynamic with some more work.
Apr 22 08:44:00	28m 00s	Elem3nts	The visuals are certainly in the "brag more" department, but there's more to do than just to look at it. The idea is pretty unique, and the tutorial walks you through it concisely. <br/> <br/>My main problem here is that it isn't really as balanced or strategic as the mechanics would suggest. Spam happens without micromanagement appearing to clearly control the board situation. I didn't get the impression that you'd planned that much for effective strategies, which is crucial in tower defenses. <br/> <br/>Also seemed a bit buggy. Sometimes rocks just don't care that towers were added/deleted, for example. This is definitely a game made by an artist (rather than a game designer or programmer), for better or worse. It's got a lot of potential and effort, but it's not quite there yet in all aspects.
Apr 22 11:03:00	2h 19m	Protector Of The Shrine	It does have that Ultima feel to it a little. Or just DOS RPG one in general. Attacking is wonky, maybe hilight the target tile or something.
Apr 24 15:57:00	52h 54m	Ice Story ( koori monogatari 氷物語 )	The best audio I've come across so far. FM for life. <br/> <br/>Some awkwardness in the controls, I protest against using attack+jump for throwing. And the level complete cooldown is long enough to make you think you've still gotta do something. <br/> <br/>But these are just small details, it's quite a complete package as it is. It has a limited pool of mechanics and all of them go well together (like the way you've still got to catch dashed enemies.)
Apr 24 21:42:00	5h 45m	AKIMBO	I'm blue balling here, dude. This is so close to being good. Honestly it just needs more effort, not even a proper advice for finding a focus. It's got all the resources to be fun but it doesn't really do anything with it. <br/> <br/>And I'm not even sure if there needs to be "anything" like upgrades or whatever. You could (and probably should) take the simplistic route that it's a TD about figuring out placements for towers and hearts. But looking at how the bullets never really hit anything during the actual wave, and how ultimately placements don't seem to matter much, is just a letdown. <br/> <br/>As it stands, it's a two-star entry, but don't you drop this one quite yet.
Apr 24 22:12:00	30m 00s	Lets go Bananas in outer space	This definitely has a C64 air to it, in the music and sine scrolling and all that. I'll translate this to the mood score. Using default-looking UI elements kind of subtracts from the impression though. <br/> <br/>It's a bit flat for a shooter, but amusing enough to go for score a few times. The shot types don't really have enough variety to justify their existence, so the lack of autofire feels like a cheap compensation for that. Even if it's trying to be retro, things like these just don't translate well to 2015 games, where we're not playing with C64 joysticks. <br/> <br/>It took me a while to figure out that the enemy particles are hurting me, and I'm still not quite sure where all my health modifiers are coming from. The hitbox feels too big, too, which is the most obvious with the bullet hell-style spams now and then.
Apr 24 22:57:00	45m 00s	TypeFighter	Your games often seem to have this thing where the interface shapes the gameplay. It adds a certain charm and makes for interesting conceptual games. <br/> <br/>It's got a bit of a panicky feel to it, trying to come up with any word whatsoever. I feel like this would be more focused if different scenes had different themes (like words beginning with a letter, or words relating to nature). You'd have a smaller pool of words to sort in your head, so you could spare the short related words to counter attacks. Those kinds of things seem to be details you've planned for, but you didn't really add further mechanics to support them.
Apr 24 23:15:00	18m 00s	Radio Edit	Some sort of simplistic beatmatching would've gone well with this game. It's kind of one of those games where there's an audiovisual theme, but it's not really used to its full potential - the gameplay would be basically the same if you were zapping fishes in water or whatever. The solo is a nice touch though. <br/> <br/>The challenge ramps up faster than your cursor can react to that. I'm not a fan of the discrete hops it does, especially when Shifting, just feels clunky to control. It's a letdown that the most crucial way of interacting has an unpolished air to it, when the rest of the experience has attention to detail.
Apr 24 23:42:00	27m 00s	The Great Debate	5 stars for humor, had a few genuine laughs. And that's kind of all this ride is, appreciating the nonsense, like I don't see how one would even play this "optimally". <br/> <br/>I see a lot of the specific things I would've complained about you've already fixed in the post-compo version, so good for you.
Apr 25 00:03:00	21m 00s	My Amazing Game	Dude like, one sees oneself in that hourglass, and so like, everyone sees a different image in a way. But still all of our lives equally drip away like the sand, yo.
Apr 25 10:35:00	10h 32m	Chaos Tomb	Well-placed delays are your friend, as are animations that communicate enemy intelligence. There's no delay between an enemy noticing you and shooting at you, and then there's suddenly three things on screen spamming rapidly. There's no real window for reaction, things just sort of happen. Another thing is that the physics are fairly sluggish, trying to fine-tune your momentum to jump over tiny pits can a pain. Save points are aplenty to compensate, though this is more of a duct tape fix to the underlying difficulty issues. <br/> <br/>Having said that, the weapons you get are fairly imaginative, and additionally each of them seems to have a strength and a weakness type of thing. It would've ruined this if the weapons were just "shoot forward in 4 different ways". Something like going around zapping things with the transmat is just crazy. I actually like that even if the other commenters might've wanted something traditional, I find it gives the game this roguelike unpredictability vibe. Like a feeling of genuine exploration where the world and all its items aren't just obviously handcrafted for the player character. <br/> <br/>The production's slightly programmer arty, spiced with ugly sfxr beeps and all, but there's relatively a lot to see and do, with no need to sugarcoat lack of content with flashy graphics. <br/> <br/>Overall, I can see it's a good effort. It's a soft 4/5 entry with room for rethinking some details, and I hope you take it further.
Apr 25 11:19:00	44m 00s	Red Threat	Dude, this is C64 as all hell. (Well, except for the music.) <br/> <br/>I don't have anything explicitly negative to say about this. It's quite a complete package as it is. There's a clear level progression, variety between the different types of people and what they're converted by, then things like using your converts to spread propaganda, and how even that is subverted by enemies that deconvert your allies. All of this for the benefit of the political sub-theme.
Apr 26 10:34:00	23h 15m	Ex-Sword-Stential Crisis	I've never understood things like QWOP and its legacy. A game about awkward controls is no excuse for awkward controls, and intentional bad design is still bad design. <br/> <br/>Like, I can't honestly say this was fun to play, even taking into account the humor aspect.
Apr 26 11:06:00	32m 00s	Fathom	You've convinced me that the main mechanic could be going to places, there's a few creative uses in here already. Nothing particularly bad to say about this, more content would've been nice.
Apr 26 11:33:00	27m 00s	Dare To Juice	This has somewhat satisfying gun physics, which I would figure is kind of the point of the game. Character momentum is too easily stopped by a simple bump in the road, though. <br/> <br/>But the game as an experience is just plain lazy for a team with 72 hours. It's like, I'm given this neat gun to use, and then there's really no use for it. You just go down, catch the last few oranges, and win the game. <br/> <br/>I mean, you had the structure that the player's travelling to a boss fight. Why not have them actually prepare for the fight with some proper treasure hunting that's essential to winning? Juice just seems like the first of many resources that never got implemented. It's a letdown cause the fundamental "physics gun" idea seems polished enough and would've had a lot of potential.
Apr 26 11:53:00	20m 00s	Genemon	Okay now this is a genuinely impressive entry. Some kind of special abilities to make monsters stand out more would probably be the next level for continued development.
Apr 26 12:57:00	1h 04m	Glorch's Great Escape	This crashes Flash instantly after the HaxeFlixel logo on Ubuntu. Lemme try on Windows a bit later.
Apr 27 09:53:00	20h 56m	Cooper 32 vs. Doctor Dynamo	Could've used ledge-grabbing or something to give leeway for the jumps that require you to gain speed first but to also make a pixel-perfect jump. Or when you have that one tile to gain speed during the escape sequence and waste 20 seconds hitting your head. For a game that's entirely about character controls, these kind of things feel like fake difficulty. <br/> <br/>Most of the time, I got the warning messages when it was already too late. Gotta go fast. <br/> <br/>It's got a cozy style overall, I had a bit of a DOS game flashback. The best part was the way the stealth style changed into speedrunning during the escape. But I was hoping for some twist to really tie this into the theme, it's quite vanilla for a platformer.
Apr 27 10:10:00	17m 00s	You Can Shave the Baby	You guys get -it-. A lot of people don't get -it-, or might even want to distance themselves from -it-, but I really appreciated the absurd humor style here. Screw the theme, the fact that this exists was worth that sacrifice.
Apr 27 10:30:00	20m 00s	High Fiverer	Unique as fuck. An easy to learn but hard to master kind of game, getting long combos is satisfying. Really creative in the audio department too.
Apr 27 10:40:00	10m 00s	Pedestrian Mining Corps	Not nearly as dynamic as the quirky presentation would've warranted. No strategy or skill required, just tappity tap tap at roughly the right time and see what happens.
Apr 27 10:55:00	15m 00s	Ultimate Booter	Textboxes are wonky and written in lackluster English, which doesn't help with the first impression. I'm conflicted because the design is generally amateurish with some fake difficulty and things like jumps into unknown, but the floppy system is kind of creative, and the production is surprisingly good. It's weird, but I can't tell whether this is somehow fundamentally crude or a solid but rushed game.
Apr 28 07:40:00	20h 45m	Avian Days	I don't see a reason why the bread is a limited resource. There's no way to collect it, and the game even explicitly tells you to respawn to get more, so the pressure of bread running out feels pointless. Besides, being able to carelessly create bridges would make traversing things like those spikes less clumsy and eliminate undeserved deaths. <br/> <br/>And a bit more about undeserved deaths. Right at the start of the game, the hectic nature of the controls becomes apparent when trying to jump over a sensor but also over the birds. You could tone it down so that you stay airborne a bit more during jumps, so you have better control over your airtime. Fidgety character physics like these are for games like Super Meat Boy, this could've done with a more relaxed and moody feel to it, starting right from the controls. <br/> <br/>The traps quickly become overkill, with little room to utilize the birds, and so it's in this weird state where it's temporarily a hectic platformer between bits of exploration. Give yourself the permission to make this an honest artsy-fartsy exploration game - it feels like you were compelled to add the usual tricks and traps just for the sake of it being a platformer. <br/> <br/>All in all, these are flaws that can be easily fixed. I'm resorted to pointing them out not because I hate the game, but because I want to see you fix them. I can't honestly rate this below 4/5 as it stands, taking into account some unnecessary frustration and a slight lack of focus. I appreciate how there were a few clever uses for the birds, and it's trying to be moody in a way, but the impression is damaged by the previously mentioned out-of-place platforming cliches and the obvious Autotracker music. (Yes, people do notice.) <br/> <br/>To sum it up, it's a solid idea with flawed execution, and this warrants my seal of "please develop this further".
Apr 28 15:47:00	8h 07m	A Knife Made Of Whispers	As a multiple LD winner and a cool dude, I'm really expecting you to up your ante constantly. <br/> <br/>So I'm honestly disappointed to see you do just another stock platformer with a shader. There's a few puzzles alright, but they're fairly straightforward, with floaty controls that don't match the gameplay style. And it just has to be the standard issue "playing with light and darkness" concept. <br/> <br/>For someone's first entry, this would be a solid, fairly polished game - not a standout, but solid. For someone like friggin' Managore, I get the impression you didn't truly challenge yourself this time. <br/> <br/>Soft 3 stars. You can do better, man.
May 11 16:09:00	312h 22m	Flight	I don't really have much to say about this. It was short and the writing was kinda unique. Usually these story games are full of mundanities to obviously pad the playing time, this is more what they should be.
May 14 21:20:00	77h 11m	ＢＥＤ✰ＨＯＧＧ	This one just doesn't strike me as LD winner material. The gameplay is essentially "tap harder to win", with little content or captivating design. I would appreciate it if fans of the game explained the appeal. <br/> <br/>Most of the games I thought of as 5-star entries are now sitting somewhere in lower top 100, so I'm legit curious of what the difference in taste (or popularization) was in the end.