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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Andy Gainey's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 15 03:52:00 | Super Santaur | The music and mood and graphics all felt like they fit very well together. <br/> <br/>The nature of it being a platform but only allowing left and right movement made me feel excessively limited in my options. I think I might have been shooting something out at regular intervals, but I couldn't quite tell. They also seemed to always or often go right, which was less helpful when stuff was to my left. Ice at the edge of ledges was particularly confusing. <br/> <br/>Too often, out of platformer habit trying to get away from the flying baddies (since I can't jump-dance around them), I tried to run off to the next platform down before it had scrolled. It was depressing to lose simply because the ground was still a few pixels off the screen. :-( | |
| Dec 15 04:03:00 | 11m 00s | Harry The Unusually Happy Worm | Good use of the brake sound effect when running into things; I liked that. <br/> <br/>Building in the race minigame as a thing to just stumble upon was pleasing. <br/> <br/>The collision bounds on the worm's mouth felt a little small; there were times I felt I'd gotten close enough to a human/potato but still didn't actually eat it. It's a subjective point, but I can't help but feel a little cheated out of a rightfully deserved potato. :-) |
| Dec 15 04:19:00 | 16m 00s | Neon Abyss | Solid foundation, but I think what I felt was missing the most was additional "juiciness" to make the experience more exciting as I got really close to 100%, or to make the experience more informative when I got too far below 100%. What you had looked really good, but I found myself watching the barriers explode, and since they exploded the same way every time, I had a harder time distinguishing how well or poorly I was doing beyond splintering or not. |
| Dec 15 04:29:00 | 10m 00s | Destination: Gravity | Very creative, and lots of room for interesting scenarios. It got too difficult for my weak will after something like 10 levels, though, and I had to give up. |
| Dec 15 18:18:00 | 13h 49m | Don't Let Your Cat Starve | Tough. Very intriguing dynamics that I think could lead to interesting gameplay and player choices, but I didn't feel like I had enough time or effective control to really experiment much before I lost and had to start over. A gentler learning curve in the early stages could have had a dramatic effect on my experience. <br/> <br/>Technical note that affected gameplay: I eventually got in the habit of jumping to the top of the hill when it was clear I was going to lose. Since the game doesn't reset the player's location when it restarts, that's a notable advantage, being able to grab the seeds immediately rather than laboriously hop up the hill. |
| Dec 15 18:42:00 | 24m 00s | Kin | Some of the proper ordering felt obvious, while some of it felt arbitrary. For example, why can plants grow before a rainstorm, but trees won't grow unless apparently one does the wind first, followed by storm? I got trees by pure accident, not semi-intelligent exploration. <br/> <br/>The fact that things like trees and fire were elements to discover through exploration provided a really cool feeling, but it needs to be coupled with a sense of agency by the player, as though they were intelligently responsible for making the discovery, at least partially. Well, I'll admit that it is subjective, but that's the sort of experience I'm hoping for in a game about exploration and discovery. |
| Dec 15 18:56:00 | 14m 00s | Save the Oak | A small suggestion on the seeds: If they were to flicker a few times before they disappear, that could be a helpful indication for the player to decide whether to keep running toward them or to give up and manage something in the other direction. Or in the case of blue seeds, when to start running toward in the hopes that they'll disappear before the player gets to them, making it easier to get to other seeds beyond the poison seeds. |
| Dec 15 20:51:00 | 1h 55m | B0T-4NY | Took me a while to figure out that each shoe was a separate object. Kept clicking on the one that was smelly, and wondering why I couldn't put water in a bottle (or a coffee pot, before I discovered that the pot was for the dirt). I guess that an inevitable challenge of making a point-n-click: making the correct actions sufficiently unambiguous to not cause frustration, but also sufficiently non-obvious as to avoid being completely boring. <br/> <br/>Beyond those particular thoughts though, things were well done. The art and the feedback from the robot was more than enough for me to know what the interactive elements in the room were, and to eventually piece together the proper sequence of actions. |
| Dec 15 21:31:00 | 40m 00s | Sea Level | Wasn't sure if there was much of an objective other than to keep building up, after I noticed that the tide was higher each time it came in. <br/> <br/>And since the construction interface was not quite as satisfying as I wanted, I quickly gave up trying to come up with my own objective. (In particular, I couldn't place things in quite the orientation I wanted, or tell precisely where in 3D space they'd be, which is understandably a challenge with any building game using a 3D perspective camera.) <br/> <br/>The interface was also slightly more frustrating because I chose to play in a window, and the mouse cursor wasn't locked to the window. Kept clicking outside of the window and switching other apps. I believe doing Screen.lockCursor = true during Update() might fix that. <br/> <br/>But I agree with the others, the growth of the trees and especially grass, the selection outline of items, the water and sky, all look really good. I did wonder where the moon was, though, which one would presume was the cause of the tides. ;-) |
| Dec 16 18:15:00 | 20h 44m | SpaceEx | Pretty cool, super easy to figure out, at no point was I really confused, and lots of elements of the game are nicely polished. <br/> <br/>The limited number of sprite frames to represent the direction of the vessel caused me some problems though, because it made it a little hard to tell just how much of an effect a brief hold of a thruster was going to have, until I discovered that I had held too long. The feedback the game is providing the player is limited, in other words. <br/> <br/>Also, there seems to be an asymmetry with the two thrusters or the center of gravity or something. Holding the right thruster alone with gradually produce an ever expanding spiral, but holding the left thruster alone will quickly result in a wild spin in one spot. Going straight still works as expect, but trying to adjust the vessel's angle is tricky because adjusting clockwise behaves differently than counter-clockwise. <br/> <br/>One other minor suggestion: Provide some visual indication around the target station (like a glowing/strobing ring?) in addition to the arrow. This is just in case an intermediate station is in the direct path toward the next station. If the player isn't watching the arrow super carefully, they're likely to head straight for the intermediate station, wonder why they're not docking, and only eventually notice the arrow is still pointing elsewhere. |
| Dec 16 18:33:00 | 18m 00s | Critical Balance | Intriguing concept. I actually tried sitting back further from my screen to see if I could defocus my eyes a bit and have each one stare at its half of the screen. Perhaps the distance the two platforms are from each other (affected by size of display device) could therefore affect difficulty? <br/> <br/>There are probably all sorts of directions one could take this if extending the gameplay mechanics. Different shaped objects (or platforms). Different physics materials with adjusted bounce/friction or other attributes. Target receptacles with a variety of behavior. Plus any number of aesthetic themes one might layer on top. (Arcade basketball was the first to come to my mind.) |
| Dec 16 18:49:00 | 16m 00s | Speed Sid | Really liked the intro art style. The music was very nice, and I was pleasantly surprised to get different tracks for different levels. <br/> <br/>The actions felt like they had some lag which was a bit frustrating, along with the inability to control the jump height/distance. The rocks also seemed to have some awkward collision behavior which added to the frustration while I was still learning the appropriate timing. <br/> <br/>In the spots with the powerup followed by scorpions, is it possible to jump through the two scorpions stacked one above the other? Because if not, it makes the powerup absolutely necessary, and if the player accidentally jumps over it for whatever reason, then they've essentially lost, as they have no hope of getting past the scorpions. Missing the powerup should make it harder, but not impossible. And putting the powerup in one of the split sections of the level would give the player a decision of taking the easy route and missing the power up, or the harder route to get the powerup and make the scorpions easier. |
| Dec 16 19:03:00 | 14m 00s | The Complex Tarthus | Plenty of content, lots of levels. Were they randomly generated? <br/> <br/>I didn't see an energy bar, so I'm not sure how that was affecting my play, nor did I know how close to death I was. What I did discover was that the dash was super powerful, so that's essentially the only move I ever did. Only reason I died was because I got sloppy over some spike traps. <br/> <br/>The max duration to activate double click felt a little short, but maybe I'm just being lazy. :-) I'm with Chubb, though, about holding down LMB to walk or something. |
| Dec 29 04:05:00 | 297h 02m | Eat da fish | Not very clear which fishes are safe to eat and which aren't. And I was surprised to find I can eat radioactive barrels. Must do something other than what I expected (death), but never noticed it. Screenshot implies one grows/mutates, but no clue if the barrels contribute. <br/> <br/>Hit boxes are also hard to estimate. I'm not quite sure what parts of my fish or the other fishes are part of the collision body. <br/> <br/>And it appears that stuff happens off screen too, since I heard the *bling* noise when I was off the top of the screen avoiding a big mess of large fish. <br/> <br/>Not actually starting the game until the player first presses up/down even while stuff animates in the background was a simple, subtle, but nice touch. |
| Dec 29 04:14:00 | 9m 00s | (Not So) Secluded Tower | Can't tell if there's much of a strategy. Also hard to keep an eye on the mana. If managed perfectly, will mana actually replenish quickly enough to keep up with all the annoying neighbors, or is it inevitable that eventually the mage won't be able to cast enough spells to get rid of 'em? Having a way to speed up mana regen would be welcome, even if only temporarily; especially if it involved some skill to accomplish. |
| Dec 29 05:30:00 | 1h 16m | CELL - Φ | Wow, very fascinating. All sorts of nuance to be had here, it feels like. Certainly some balance issues and some UI issues, but it's already quite engaging as it is, and I get the sense that there's a lot of potential here. Feels a wee bit like a more complex version of Go, with how the pieces on the board can't move, and yet there's still some regional subtlety with areas of influence and such. However, the limitation of only placing pieces adjacent to existing pieces does lose some of the essence and depth of Go in favor of different gameplay. Whether that's good or bad or neutral is hard to tell, but my gut slightly suggests a loss of depth; I felt a bit too limited in my options at times; not enough flexibility to adapt one's strategy in response to an opponent's moves. <br/> <br/>An attack cell turning an opposing energy cell back into a stem cell seems possibly overpowered for the defender. Frees up the cell to become something else. Though I discovered later on that this just requires the attacker to get two attack cells in place, or to attack just once and risk that this helps the defender before a second attack can take place on a later turn. <br/> <br/>I think there need to be more things that can be done with energy. Such as inner cells with extra energy can be assigned to give one unit of energy to a neighbor each turn, but only if the cell doesn't do anything else that turn. Or get energy involved in attack/defense mechanics. (Maybe that's what you were thinking when you said that energy isn't handled correctly for attack cells?) <br/> <br/>My biggest UI gripe: Once an action has been assigned, it's impossible to tell what that action was, and my memory is crummy. Once the board gets full enough, it becomes hard to remember which cell is assigned to do what. <br/> <br/>One closing thought (after playing it for a full hour), even once one player has a clear advantage, the losing player seems to be able to make it tedious for the winner to actually win. As far as I can tell thus far, there's no "tipping point" at which the obvious winner can steamroll the other side and quickly mop up. Being able to do so is typically a good quality to have in a competitive strategy game. |
| Dec 31 04:47:00 | 47h 17m | Star Control | Everything works smoothly, cleanly implemented, and the graphics, audio, controls, and such all felt consistent. But boy does it get difficult quickly! <br/> <br/>Given that enemy bullets can come in at angles, but movement is limited to a single line for obvious reasons, dodging feels like it could use some assistance. Faster ship movement, perhaps acceleration, double tap for a "dash" or popping up a half second directed shield or something. Faster player bullets too, as a compensation for the fact that they can't be angled to aim directly at enemies the way enemies can do at the player. <br/> <br/>Also, I wasn't expecting the powerups to be time-limited (and at first didn't notice the expiring icon at the bottom because I wasn't looking for it). Maybe it's just because of my expectations from similar games, but I kinda felt a little cheated when my machine guns ran out. I want powerups that I can feel like I earned, and then I want to be able to keep them if I earned them. |
| Dec 31 05:03:00 | 16m 00s | Trace Race | Pretty clear and appropriately challenging on the faster speed. I could tell immediately that my must-beat compulsion was kicking in against my will. Normally I avoid games that produce that experience because life is already full of enough frustration as it is, but I know that plenty of other gamers enjoy that experience, so I'm taking it as a positive sign. :-) <br/> <br/>I was left wondering how the game would feel with a bit more physics instead of a constant-rate turn and constant speed with no inertia or sliding. Maybe not better, but the curiosity did cross my mind, for what it's worth. <br/> <br/>Powerups or non-lethal obstructions (mud pits, for example) could help liven up the courses. <br/> <br/>It was only upon reflection that I realized that the route trace is actually kinda cool. I wonder if there are ways to draw the player's attention to it once winning (or even after losing). Obviously outside the scope of a jam, but it'd be the perfect sort of thing for a leaderboard. Let people compare their trace against the best scores. <br/> <br/>Or maybe color code the trace after a race according to various factors (distance from wall, distance from top player's route, distance from pre-computed optimal route), using something easy to visualize, like the standard green->yellow->orange->red to signify good/bad (or something more colorblind-friendly). |
| Dec 31 05:15:00 | 12m 00s | Binary | Intriguing, but I don't really feel like I have sufficient ability to actually ever be in control. If there's skill to be had here, I couldn't find it. (Which of course might just mean that I'm dense at the moment.) <br/> <br/>I think part of the difficulty was that the avatar rotation was opposite of the world rotation, and that once you've assigned a rotation to the black or white state, you can't remove it and simply have a naked move up/down action. |
| Dec 31 05:26:00 | 11m 00s | Grow, Glow, Go | Maximum fall speed was pretty aggressively limited, made control pretty awkward. I was frequently wishing for a more parabolic arc on the way down, but it almost instantly became a linear float downward, like a feather or parachute rather than a marble. This made it hard to touch the ground and reset the double jump. Maybe that was intentional to add to the challenge, but it mostly just made me feel like control was being taken away from me. |