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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | HuvaaKoodia's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 19 10:34:00 | Revamp | This is hardly a mistake! The beginning is a bit tough as the place is littered with spikes (that second jump in the first level). A few more checkpoints in the first level wouldn't go amiss either. <br/> <br/>Now, the two one-room challenges in the second level are great. You really need to master the controls and abilities to get through those. Hungry for more (blood)! | |
| Apr 19 11:36:00 | 1h 02m | shape shift tycoon | Neat idea and pleasant presentation, but the strategy and management aspects are lacking. <br/> <br/>All you need to do is to spend money building new "machines" based on which type you have the least. Even then there is no optimal strategy as you might just get unlucky with the randomizer throwing 5 squares at you in a row. <br/> <br/>Here's what I'd change, if I were you: <br/> <br/>- Rather than walking away immediately when there is no vacant machine, the shapes could stick around and wait. Problem is, after a short grace period, they get annoyed and your reputation starts slowly going down based on how long you let the shape wait. <br/> <br/>- You can choose to dismiss a waiting shape, but the reputation cost of that is huge and scales with how long they have waited already. <br/> <br/>Bonus ideas: <br/> <br/>- Multiple like minded shapes increase the reputation cost of waiting (you are clearly discriminating by not having enough machines of certain type!) <br/> <br/>- Some shapes are VIPs (VIS'?) which further augments their reputation cost (both negative and positive) and payment amount. As such dismissing a non-VIP shape already undergoing treatment might just make sense (that also has a reputation penalty, but the media doesn't care about nobodies that much really) <br/> <br/>- The media. After every level there's a news report about your business practices. Unethical treatment decreases your starting reputation in the next level, but you also keep your (ill gained) money to balance it out. <br/> <br/>- Enough negative reputation will attract hooligans and bombers to your "clinic". You can hire guards to deal with them. <br/> <br/>- Competitor clinics will take your customers especially if your company is mired in controversy. This can be offset with aggressive advertisement campaigns and slander. <br/> <br/>- You can hire lobbyists and utilize blackmail to influence the political landscape which might yield benefits and tax cuts. <br/> <br/>- If all else fails cut quality, globalize and evade the law through loopholes of vague legality. <br/> <br/>I'll stop here, this is getting out of hand... |
| Apr 19 12:43:00 | 1h 07m | TRUMP: Political Shapeshifter | I can't believe there are only two Trump parodies in the whole jam (and the other one is about reptilians...) <br/> <br/>Great presentation, great message (political elections are most certainly a game). Using real quotes is the masterstroke here. <br/> <br/>My only qualm is the old-school Unity web player, which many browsers don't support anymore. You should look into the HTML5 WebGL build option. |
| Apr 19 13:14:00 | 31m 00s | Shpaceshifpt | The idea is not bad. A bit cliched maybe, but it fits the theme. The presentation is ok, although one of the rooms is super bright ("Hurts my eyes" bright). So far so good. <br/> <br/>The controls are a nightmare though. Finding the right shape, rotating and properly lining up the ship are all fiddly, which adds up to a royal mess. <br/> <br/>Here's one way to fix the issue: <br/> <br/>- Constrain the movement of the ship to the same grid that the randomized walls use. <br/> <br/>- The IJKL keys should change the shape rather than the rotation. <br/> <br/>- Rotation is handled with U & O then or you could just remove it altogether. <br/> <br/>- Experiment with the grid size. 3x3 grids might translate to snappier gameplay. With a smaller grid the ship can be accelerated to much higher speed as well. <br/> <br/>- The invincibility powerup should not be time based but rather have an armor value. Say, it breaks immediately after three walls. At the moment it sometimes stops right before a wall, resulting in an unavoidable collision. <br/> <br/>Keep at it. |
| Apr 19 18:23:00 | 5h 09m | Bloodbearer | The graphics are pretty good and the idea is great. I can't see the theme applied at all, but that's not a biggie. It is gameplay that bothers me. <br/> <br/>There's no sense of weight to your movements or attacks. The character is always sliding around no matter the facing direction. Even when attacking there's no slowdown. <br/> <br/>The skeletons also move at a constant speed directly towards the player, getting stuck on fences and obstacles in the process. You could use the Unity pathfinding system to avert that. It's not difficult to set up, look it up. <br/> <br/>Another issue is taking damage. There are no invincibility frames after taking a hit meaning a group of enemies can slice you to pieces in an instant. The enemy attack animation should have a slight delay before inflicting damage to indicate that harm is on its way. <br/> <br/>The ghost is a rather neat adversary, but really hard to dodge without a dodge roll (which would be a nice feature). <br/> <br/>The boss monster has telegraphed attacks and is slower than the skellingtongs so good job on that. |
| Apr 20 16:30:00 | 22h 07m | Alieniced | I'm not so sure about them awesome mechanics. <br/> <br/>I've played puzzles like this many times before. To solve one all you need to do is to think backwards from the ending and that's that. Because the grid is so small I didn't even need to do that most of the time. Just randomly trying different directions yielded as good results. <br/> <br/>Portals are nothing new. You could have chosen different colors at least. <br/> <br/>Not sure if it's a bug, but the ice blocks seem to break by just hitting tiles around it. The ice block puzzles are the easiest of the bunch anyways as you can just break your way though them. <br/> <br/>I wouldn't be a good sport without parting with a few pointers now would I, so here's a few: <br/> <br/>- Break the static puzzle mold. Introduce moving walls, doors and other shapeshifting terrain (where's the shapeshifting to begin with!) <br/> <br/>- Buttons, switches, traps, etc. Stuff to interact with. Opens up possibilities for all sorts of shenanigans. <br/> <br/>- Add enemies with different behaviors. Some move towards you, some move away from you, some try to get a line of sight and hurl nasty things at you. It's all turn based of course so there's enough time to figure out ways around these beasties. <br/> <br/>Here are some titles you should play to get a feel for different kinds of turn-based puzzle, and puzzle-game mechanics: DROD, Mummy Maze (an old PopCap Classic. Not online anymore, but there's a demo), Hoplite (Android), 86856527 (just look it up, ok), Desktop Dungeons. <br/> <br/>That's all I can think of right now. Good luck. |
| Apr 22 17:33:00 | 49h 03m | Space Exterminator VS Shape Shifters! | This is one of those titles. The idea is marvellous, but the design is a bit all over the place. <br/> <br/>First the good news; the presentation is great. The shadows need some more work, but that's about it. The atmosphere is excellent as well. <br/> <br/>Unfortunately the gameplay clashes pretty bad with the simulation. Hunting down the enemy is arduous, random and finicky. Here's why: <br/> <br/>- Only one weapon charge at a time. Why would anyone create a weapon like that, let alone use it against a menace like this? Just give me an assault rifle or a shotgun. Do they still make those in the future? <br/> <br/>- The shapeshifter can move though vents. A cool feature on its own, very Alien, but it makes the enemy pretty much impossible to eradicate effectively (which is what the Exterminator is supposed to be good at!) <br/> <br/>- Different departments of the ship control different parts of the ship. Once again a cool idea which makes sense in the setting, but in its current state renders the game impossible to finish. The sonar is your only chance of locating the enemy, but it's gone in a jiffy (the guys in security seem to be incapable of defending themselves). All doors locking down with the bridge takes the cake though. <br/> <br/>These problems are relatively easy to design around, so no worries: <br/> <br/>- Add more weapon charges and a melee attack just in case. The exterminator is supposed to be a tough SOB. The fact that you cannot be everywhere is the problem, not crappy equipment. <br/> <br/>- No more vents. The shapeshifter's special ability to turn into any object should be its only ability. If you start shooting up the furniture in a room, all (or most) shapeshifters will run away from the room possibly attacking civilians as they go. They only fight you when cornered. Eradicating the enemy should be easy, figuring out where to shoot and what (and being ready to deal with the consequences) is the problem. <br/> <br/>- The sonar should not go down with the security department. Maybe they could have camera access and give you hints whenever they see the enemy move around instead. This would be a nice bonus, but losing it is not the end of world. Another possibility is to make them patrol around with guns. A bit of help goes a long way. <br/> <br/>- If the doors lock up there should be a manual override (or a blowtorch) you could use to get through. Doing this is very slow to balance it out. <br/>You should also be able to request the bridge to lock down doors to quarantine areas (if the bridge is functional, that is). The downside is that enemies locked into a room with civilians tend to kill said civilians with ease and the room cannot function while locked. <br/> <br/>- Less shapeshifters, more civilian activity. The enemy is willing to wait for the right movement for as long as needed. With people walking about, working, eating, etc. there are bound to be many avenues for the beasties to go for the kill. Stepping or sitting on a shapeshifter is a death penalty of course. <br/> <br/>With chances like these the gameplay becomes much more manageable and, dare I say, interesting. After all games are about decision making so choosing which areas to secure first and how to do that become the key questions. <br/> <br/>I love ideas which elicit lots of analysis. There's potential in this one, so I hope you continue developing it. |
| Apr 23 10:22:00 | 16h 49m | Noble Sacrifice | I applaud the effort of trying to build an ARPG in 72 hours, but that's not so say it's a good idea. <br/> <br/>I'm not going to criticize the entry as it's unfinished. Rather I'll give you some pointers on rapid development based on the timelapse and the postmortem. <br/> <br/>- Smaller scope (features? kill them!). In this case 3D world & graphics, real-time battle system, inventory/loot system (with GUI) and audio creation/implementation turned out to be too much to bear. Rule of thumb: there should only be at most one system/feature you are unsure of, preferably none. Having made all sorts of systems before and being able to reuse knowledge, code and assets from previous projects is a big bonus (which only comes with experience unfortunately) <br/> <br/>- The most important thing with a tight deadline is to have a fully (80% at least) functional prototype ready at the half way point. If you can't achieve this either the design is over-scoped, you under-performed or external forces ruined everything (power outages and the like, you know the stuff). Cutting features and focusing on bringing the prototype up to speed can still save the project, but it’s not going to be easy. <br/> <br/>- Creating and implementing graphics should start after the prototype is finished, not one moment before. Up until that point everything should be using temporary "programmer graphics" (i.e. default cubes and spheres). There's no need to create temporary graphics that sort of resemble humans/animals/etc. They look just as bad as cubes (maybe even worse) and take much more time to slap in. <br/> <br/>- Audio last. If the main output method of your entry is not completely audio based (which is usually the case), then audio is your last priority. Creating audio yourself also eats up more time than just downloading some off the internet. The jam rules allow this and it is much faster. The internet is full of royalty free sound effects and music. Researching a few good sites before the jam is beneficial. <br/> <br/>- Teamwork is a big boost. A well managed team can pull off truly great things (this is a skill of its own, of course). Teamwork also allows to parallel process tasks. If someone only wants to work with audio, they can do that from the word go (and it’s not away from the programmer’s time). Basically some of the above rules can be circumvented with more hands on deck. <br/> <br/>That’s about it, hopefully this advice is helpful. Keep at it and you’ll do great! |
| Apr 23 13:14:00 | 2h 52m | Shmupshifter | A fun little shmup, I'll give you that. <br/> <br/>The jump from medium difficulty to insane is very steep. I would like a difficulty setting where you do die from one shot, but the enemy patters aren't quite as insane. |
| Apr 23 13:42:00 | 28m 00s | Pentagon | Not a bad little puzzle. <br/> <br/>It would be nice to know what which doors the switches affect just by looking at them. Especially if you intend to make more and bigger levels later. <br/> <br/>Mouse controls wouldn't go amiss either. Conversely hotkeys for restart and next level. |
| Apr 23 14:22:00 | 40m 00s | Doppel City | Highscore! Noice, except the highscore TextField only takes 8 letters! I would have needed a few more. <br/> <br/>In the end the jittering issue spelled my downfall as well. No way to distinguish between shapeshifting and plain old smushing & spazzing out on the streets. <br/> <br/>The camera rotation mechanic also raises a few questions. Where are you sniping from? A helicopter? A drone? We may never know, but I find it rather odd that a planarshifting sniper would discriminate against shapeshifting pedestrians. |
| Apr 29 14:02:00 | 143h 40m | IT Ninja | I'm glad someone had the same idea as we did. Shapeshifting + stealth is such an obvious mix. <br/> <br/>Good job on the graphics. The controls are also responsive, even the dreaded click to move. <br/> <br/>With more levels and audio this would be excellent. |
| Apr 29 14:09:00 | 7m 00s | OGLA | A cool simulation. The game is not that interesting, but that doesn't really matter now does it! <br/> <br/>Great job. |
| Apr 30 06:21:00 | 16h 12m | SEMILUCID | "Watch out, nightmares of my past, for soon I will become a beautiful butterfly of DEATH!" Now that is a high concept I can get behind. Unfortunately the outcome is a bit hit and miss every step of the way. <br/> <br/>The effects are fittingly rather trippy, but the overall quality of the pixel work is sloppy. The nightmare eater sprite is an exception, a really well drawn and designed piece of pixel art that. <br/> <br/>The audio is nice, apart from the transformation music (hunting down nightmares). That didn't click with me for some reason. <br/> <br/>To gameplay then. It holds up for the first few levels, but after that the cathartic power trip becomes more of a chore (bigger levels multiply the issue). You could mend this by making the second form vulnerable to some of the harder enemies (who shoot projectiles), meaning you would still have to think a bit. <br/> <br/>Procedural generation is an effective idea, but, as many have already pointed out, the algorithm does like producing very tight corridors all around the place. Those features don't really support the enemy dodging mechanic. The trinket placement is also very random, sometimes they are right next to each other. <br/> <br/>Overall a great job with some small issues. |
| May 1 07:27:00 | 25h 06m | Controlled Shifting | Had to play through the source. Not the most convenient way of doing it, especially for those who don't have Unity installed. <br/> <br/>Overall it's a solid entry for a first timer. <br/>The music is pleasant and fits surprisingly well. <br/>The gameplay itself is quite relaxing and forgiving, yet tricky when the mass of the player blob increases. <br/> <br/>Good job, keep at it. |
| May 1 08:08:00 | 41m 00s | The Black Crystal | Visually striking and distinct, the audio is also great. On the other hand the gameplay is very basic and thematically you didn't get much out of shapeshifting. <br/> <br/>I would have preferred shapes with varied abilities allowing the player to traverse and interact with the environment in different ways. Maybe the entities in the world could even change their behavior based on certain shapes. <br/> <br/>Another point is lack of direction. I only figured after looking at the source that you are supposed to enter the field of anomalies and not avoid it as advised. Oh well. |
| May 2 18:56:00 | 34h 48m | Is this a dog? | Played the 1.2 version. Quite a bit of fun this one. <br/> <br/>We have a similar mechanic with different shapes attracting different enemies, although I think you took it even further by making it into a constant gameplay element. <br/> <br/>The audio visuals could do with some polishing up, but the game itself is great. |
| May 5 15:29:00 | 68h 33m | Maelstrom Mayhem | Absolutely amazing stuff this one, I'm hooked. <br/> <br/>Can't find anything to complain about the gameplay. About the only bit of criticism I can think of is the use of the default fuzzy particle texture. It doesn't really fit the otherwise sharp and distinct art style. <br/> <br/>Now excuse me, I'll be going for that highscore... |
| May 7 07:10:00 | 39h 41m | With a Pinch of Liver | Turning your enemies into allies is an interesting concept and the potion throwing aspect works pretty well. Unfortunately in its current state there's no challenge at all. <br/> <br/>I got to wave 25 before giving up as it doesn't seem to get any more difficult than that. Even the toughest enemy can be defeated with a single level 4 potion (and I had loads of those already). <br/> <br/>I think a 2 dimensional battlefield would have worked better in this case. Imagine playing from the first person view at the top of the tower with enemies advancing in waves from all directions. <br/> <br/>This way you need to consider each front individually and save the best potions for the toughest foes. Keeping an eye on all enemies while trying to brew more potions would also be much trickier (in a good way, I reckon). The potion throwing mechanic works from the first person perspective as well. <br/> <br/>Apart from the lack of challenge its a well made entry, don't get me wrong. Decision making and challenge derived from that just happen to be two main contributors to gameplay, so keep those in mind next time and play test a lot. |
| May 7 11:07:00 | 3h 57m | Operation SHIFT | Exceptionally polished presentation, but mechanically underwhelming. I got a strong case of "Been there, done that". <br/> <br/>The biggest issue here is the lack of thematic exploration. You could have gone with shape-shifting abilities, weapons, enemies, environments; there are so many options. Yet here the theme is only seen in the backstory blurb, which is to say not in the game proper. Disappointing. <br/> <br/>Then again, maybe you just wanted to create a simple game that feels good to play. Who am I to judge. |