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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Sean S. LeBlanc's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 4 00:41:09 | The Deep | ♥ 3 | This was a really neat entry! The humour sprinkled throughout the instructions was definitely the best part, and the audio did a particularly good job of reinforcing the atmosphere. Unfortunately, I found the actual gameplay got tedious pretty quickly. It's a bit hard to count that as a negative given that the tasks being kinda boring plays into the idea of being forced to do this job day in and day out, but it did make it harder to get into; a number of times while playing I thought to myself "OK, have I seen all it has to offer now, or is there going to be new stuff after I do this next thing?" Few minor gripes: - first mission required docking + unloading cargo, but the mechanics for that were only explained in the second mission - map feels a bit too straightforward, especially since there's a depth control - character's climb animation plays at top/bottom of ladder | |
| May 4 01:10:18 | 29m 09s | Fancy meeting you here | ♥ 4 | Definitely one of the more interesting interpretations of the theme I've seen so far! The stiff character art paired with slightly animated backgrounds gave it a nice queasy feel, and the audio really helped to sell the weirdness of it all. I did find the text a little bit too obviously computer-generated (repeated phrases made this a bit more noticeable). As a few others have mentioned, the choice to do a bunch of mini-games meant that they each didn't get as much polish, and they probably ended up a bit more confusing than intended. In particular, having something less abstract to represent the conversation topics than a single letter would have been a bit clearer, and could have provided a good way to add more variety in the gameplay (e.g. have a few different images for each instead, and introduce new ones as the game progresses). Overall, it was a nice entry! |
| May 4 01:41:05 | 30m 47s | Our little island | ♥ 1 | The artwork was fantastic, and although the gameplay was a bit shallow, it was enjoyable. As most of the other comments have mentioned, having one or two more interactions available would have gone a long way towards making it feel less repetitive. I would have also liked to see a little bit more animation in the background elements (though that would have understandably been a lot more work). Overall, a very cute entry! A minor note on the controls: the existing scheme is a bit uncomfortable, supporting alternate inputs (i.e. arrows for movement or e for action) would make it a bit easier to play. |
| May 4 02:21:31 | 40m 26s | Uncharted Dreams - Fate of the Miniatures | ♥ 2 | The animations are great as usual, but it definitely would have benefited a lot from some audio. I was also a bit confused by the "press x" prompts that never went away at first; they initially gave me the impression that there were multiple interactions available (on the light especially it makes the player expect to be able to turn it off). It's a shame you didn't have time to finish, it's a promising start! |
| May 4 04:08:56 | 1h 47m | Digital Backwater | ♥ 1 | This is a really interesting idea, though I found that the concept and technical aspects were more engaging than actually playing the game (the post-mortem was a nice write-up). Part of that may be that I unfortunately didn't run into any other players while trying it out, but it would have been cool to see something in a similar vein with a bit more interactivity and polish. Given that the world is persistent, I'm also making a mental note to come back in a week or so and see how the world has changed after more people have had a chance to play; I'm curious to know how it'll evolve! |
| May 4 04:41:18 | 32m 22s | Days on the Firth | ♥ 0 | This is a really charming entry! Short, but sweet. Some minor notes: - would have liked if the music transitioned a bit more smoothly (seemed to cut out abruptly when you change screens) - the game crashes on exit instead of just closing |
| May 5 01:02:25 | 20h 21m | Formicary | ♥ 0 | This was a cute little game! The story was a bit silly (not sure how those ants plan on surviving), but I enjoyed it. It did bug out immediately after digging for the first time and I had to retry on the post-jam version to actually complete the game though; you may want to push the post-jam version a bit more to avoid frustrating other players. My major criticism is that having the controls anticipate the player's expectation of what each direction would do based on where they came from (despite being an interesting idea) possibly led to more confusion than just having each direction be absolute. I definitely had a bunch of moments where I got turned around because the controls did the opposite of what I expected. Great entry! |
| May 5 01:33:52 | 31m 27s | _Save_ | ♥ 1 | Nice minimal art style! The sound effects added an extra level of polish, but I definitely would have appreciated a bit of music to go along with it. I did find that the balance was a bit off (I'm pretty sure more than 50% of the damage done to my planet was a result of stray laser beams). Making the player invincible was a cool way to put the focus on the world itself, though I think it would have been nice if colliding with objects directly still had some sort of reaction, e.g. pushing the player around or temporarily disabling them. Overall, a great little entry! Minor bug: when the planet finally did lose all of its health, the game froze up for a few seconds and the audio got stuck on a loop before it recovered and showed a game over screen. |
| May 5 03:02:52 | 1h 29m | Path of the Rabbit | ♥ 4 | Prefacing this with a note that this was a really good game and I had a great time playing it! I have a lot of criticisms, but it's more indicative of how much time I spent playing than of the game not being fun. - The first couple tries were very confusing; something didn't click with me that the bunny starts on a specific edge and only had one option to go forward until a few runs in. - It would have been nice if the game ended immediately on reaching an edge rather than leaving you there to wait out your remaining turns. It seems like it'd be pretty fitting to have the bunny just hop right off the edge while following the path! - The UI for showing upcoming pieces could get a bit confusing due to the text being so understated (i.e. I sometimes forgot that the bottom piece was next, and not the top). This could be fixed pretty easily by just having the scale of the very next piece be larger than the others. - The "barrier" around where you can actually place blocks is similarly very understated, and it's left to the player to pay close attention to the map edges. I feel like a game like this would benefit a lot more from the player being clearly aware of all of the pieces/rules in play so that they don't feel like they're being tricked into fail states, even if it does interfere a bit with the art style. - On that note, the artwork (although cute) seems a bit arbitrary and doesn't really communicate the theme that well. It gave me more of a board game vibe than "small world". - The first fox with 3 health has no obvious indication that its stronger, you just have to pay attention to the health dots. If the fox colours alternated on health changes instead of being seemingly random, it would be a lot more noticeable when the difficulty had increased. - There's nothing to indicate that the cells have a maximum height until it's too late (it's in the LD description, but not the itch.io one or in-game). On top of that, the game length is also balanced such that you reach the maximum height around the same time you reach the boss. It's pretty frustrating to get that far in a run only to lose because of a previously hidden restriction. |
| May 6 03:52:53 | 24h 50m | Routine | ♥ 1 | Visually this is a really nice entry, though I found that the gameplay got tedious quickly. I think it would have been greatly improved if the player had more control over the progression of time: having a fast forward or skip ahead option would have cut down on a lot of waiting. It might also have been interesting if instead of playing the game in real-time, the player plans routes at the start of a day and then watches it play out. Could definitely have been fleshed out a bit more, but it's a pretty solid entry as is! |
| May 6 04:11:54 | 19m 01s | Unnamed Space Project | ♥ 2 | It feels like a solid start, but it's unfortunately lacking a lot of the polish and fine-tuning that I think a game like this needs in order to be fun. The 3D models were quite good, but it was difficult to get into the rhythm of things and I couldn't stand to play it for too long. |
| May 6 04:39:44 | 27m 50s | Den | ♥ 2 | One of the best I've played so far! A few criticisms: - end screen doesn't properly register as the game having ended (you can still click and have the beast make noises and whatnot) - providing WASD + an action button as a keyboard alternative would have been a nice touch (the mouse controls aren't that bad, but they are a bit finnicky) - the game is very short, and even in that short span the scream mechanic is very underused Having said that, the amount of work included in the game is already very impressive. It would be interesting to see a longer version with more things to do, but it's already solid entry from start to finish! |
| May 6 05:20:46 | 41m 02s | Down the Rabbit Hole | ♥ 5 | Very interesting game! Some criticisms: - the turns feel *very* slow-paced - being able to restart at the current level would cut down on the frustration of losing a lot - there's very little to indicate what the three card groups actually represent: the player has to figure out how to use their set to make any progress, but it would be nice if hovering over the bunnies' set gave a preview of the enemy movements to make it clear how that mechanic works - there's nothing in-game to indicate that you can move onto the bunnies; I think most people would assume the player would take damage if they did this - connection to the theme is a bit tenuous Although the game could use some polish in terms of interaction + teaching the player, it's otherwise quite fun, the artwork is cute, and it's mechanically engaging. Great entry! |
| May 6 20:01:51 | 14h 41m | Quantum Frustum | ♥ 1 | Very cool entry! It was interesting how this kind of feels like a spiritual successor to your previous entry while still having a unique mechanic. It isn't particularly challenging, but it was fun while it lasted. A few criticisms: - the music doesn't really fit in with the rest of the game. It's a relatively upbeat MIDI track, but the game itself has a much more surreal and ominous look and feel. - the popups for collecting orbs/game over were fairly underwhelming (I'm guessing this was due to the time restriction and not done on purpose though) - mapping the shift button to restart area instead of 'r' was a strange choice; my instinct as a player is for shift to be run |
| May 6 20:47:24 | 45m 33s | To do list | ♥ 2 | It was an interesting idea, but overall I don't think I enjoyed this entry. I think trying to squeeze in a twist-based plot + a huge amount of detailed sprite work + a few minigames all in a single jam effort led to the story feeling a bit hamfisted. It might have been more successful if there was more content and time to build up to the ending, but it doesn't have much impact aside from a bit of shock as is. A few more specific criticisms: - The tile-based movement felt a bit awkward, and the control scheme in general is very confusing. I think you could have gotten away with using a single context-sensitive action button for everything instead. - There's very little indication of what you actually have to do to progress. This, combined with the lack of any sort of hint structure and the non-obviousness of some of the puzzles made it really easy to get stuck. It would be a lot less frustrating to play if there were a bit more hand-holding (e.g. attempting to use an item incorrectly could trigger a line about what the character actually wants to use it for) - the portrait artwork and the sprite artwork didn't feel cohesive and look as if they came from two completely different games Having said that, the amount of work that has gone into this entry is impressive! The sprites in particular are quite nice. |
| May 6 21:57:13 | 1h 09m | Small World Fighters | ♥ 3 | Nice entry! Some criticisms: - the AI is a bit too easy; you can just spam the shoot button for a guaranteed win - the gameplay is a bit too repetitive; having the control area change speed/direction might help add some variety - pressing the back while on the menu (on a gamepad at least) causes it to quickly flicker between the two menu screens |
| May 6 22:27:31 | 30m 18s | Meteor Jam | ♥ 2 | This was a solid entry! I wasn't expecting much after finding out it was an upgrades game, but the core mechanic was actually pretty fun. It definitely feels unpolished (the artwork especially), but overall I enjoyed it. Some criticisms: - not keeping your ore after completing a level made me feel like I had to grind on the early levels if I wanted to stand a chance at winning. It turned out this didn't matter since you can keep upgrades after dying, but I didn't find this out until the last area - the movement of the player/camera is very stiff, and you can easily get caught on the terrain - planet X is a bit unfair in difficulty; the player simply doesn't have enough time to react and pretty much just has to jump around randomly hoping they don't get hit - the rocket station behaving as a physics object feels a bit weird; especially when you can just carry it with you |
| May 7 00:48:07 | 2h 20m | Planetary Garden | ♥ 3 | This is a nice entry, if a bit boring. I feel like there needed to be something new introduced after the first couple cycles. I noticed that you just had to do algae then buy goats to open the next planet, so I was expecting there to be a twist, new gameplay element, or some sort of end state at later stages but didn't find one. On a more minor note, some music would have definitely improved the experience, and the artwork could also have used a bit more polish (the font seems like an especially bad choice due to legibility). |
| May 7 01:47:25 | 59m 18s | Planetoid Piracy | ♥ 1 | This is a really impressive entry! There's quite a lot of content, and the core gameplay loop is fun and relatively unique. Some criticisms: - the controls were really confusing at first (it took me longer than it should have to realize that the prompt for jumping was "z") - even after learning the controls, I found that they required a bit too much context switching. I'm surprised a Terraria/Starbound-like control scheme wasn't used, with the items being scrolled with mousewheel and the weapon being treated as an item slot. This would have allowed for WASD + mouse, rather than arrows + ZXASW + mouse - I noticed some talk of music in the other comments, but didn't hear any while playing. Possible bug? - landlocking probably should have just been for tile collision rather than bounding box - getting killed for leaving the playable area seemed a bit harsh; it probably should just use up one of the teleport charges to save you instead - the balance of the combat is suited for the player running around doing things, but once you've got a few turrets you can pretty much cruise through the rest of the game in planet mode - the .pdb isn't needed as part of your public build, it's for debugging Great job! |
| May 7 02:02:35 | 15m 10s | A Giant Hitch | ♥ 1 | This is a funny little entry, nice job! Some minor criticisms: - you can finish the work segment by just placing yourself on both buttons and jumping - the lunch segment was far too long for how simple the interaction was |
| May 7 02:08:12 | 5m 37s | Raven Delivery Service | ♥ 0 | Interesting concept! I didn't have much fun with it, though I feel like it would have been better in the co-op mode than single-player. |
| May 7 02:28:36 | 20m 24s | High Society Poking Enthusiasts | ♥ 3 | Nice entry! Some criticism: - touching any of the wall colliders causes the camera to jitter - quite a few typos in the intro text - I think I would have preferred it a bit more if fish-poking was a non-violent activity :p I got bored after a few minutes and gave up, but I'm curious to know if the King Fish actually exists in the game, or if part of the joke is making the player poke fish into extinction in pursuit of their quest. |
| May 7 02:52:38 | 24m 02s | Gravity Trails | ♥ 2 | This is really great! It's simple and not particularly innovative, but it's also very cute and one of the most well-executed entries I've played so far. The music and the little faces on the planets were really nice touches too! Minor criticism: the "down to interact" seems unnecessary; the only thing it's used for is the intro + outro, so it might as well just re-use the jump key or trigger on movement instead. |
| May 7 03:15:25 | 22m 47s | SUN GOD | ♥ 3 | This is a fantastic entry! Unique take on the theme, and well-balanced such that it takes a couple tries to beat without being overly difficult. The visuals are also great, and I especially loved the transition from intro to title screen. Some criticisms: - the RNG at initialization can be a bit annoying when all the planets are above and to the right of you - the bullet trails disappear all at once rather than fading out from tail to head - having an in-game tutorial is a nice touch, but I feel like this one was a little bit too in-depth. One which simply explained the premise, controls, the fact that there are hazards would be enough without specifically outlining the different hazards, ui elements, etc. Another thing that might have been interesting is if the win screen was either a bit more varied (to reward the player for having beat the game) or less varied and almost identical to the lose screen (to highlight how silly the win condition of having flung yourself and millions of others into the sun is). |
| May 7 03:30:24 | 14m 59s | Batter Bros. | ♥ 3 | Nice entry! It's unfortunate that Lethal League already exists, because this would have been a pretty innovative entry otherwise! The artwork is great and the game is pretty fun, but the fact that it's inside a snow globe feels kind of inconsequential to the rest of it and only serves to give a connection to the theme. Having a vs. CPU mode was a really nice touch though. It makes it a lot easier to get a feel for the game than trying to play a 2-player game with only one person. |
| May 8 05:53:23 | 26h 22m | Ellipticats | ♥ 2 | Cool concept! I found the difficulty level to be a bit too high and usually just ended up flinging myself into deep space, but having the player keep their cats when restarting was a nice way to keep it from getting too frustrating. I never quite figured out how the varying jump heights actually worked, but it was pretty fun! |
| May 8 06:39:54 | 46m 31s | The Treachery of Game Dev | ♥ 2 | This is hands-down one of the coolest LD entries I've seen; it's crazy that you managed to basically make a pared down version of Voxatron in just 72h! The editor's not perfect (as pointed out in-game), but it's still very impressive. The first-person portion also has a really nice look to it: the geometry's simple, but the lighting does a nice job of glazing over that, and the developer sprites are great. Some criticisms: - The code editor needs quite a few improvements. The two things that tripped me up the most were the lack of undo, and that recompiling didn't also save (I had to re-write one of the programs because I exited without saving) - I would have liked to see more physical puzzles (I assume the plan was to include more, but time ran out?) - Having to backtrack to find the solution to the physical puzzle was a bit annoying and could have easily been avoided. It would have been more interesting if instead of finding the solution code in a random machine, the snake machine from the start actually contained some necessary code for progressing. This is my first 5/5 across the board this time around; great job! |
| May 8 06:50:45 | 10m 51s | Arry World | ♥ 1 | The artwork and audio in this is quite nice, but I wasn't really sure how to make progress most of the time. The text was also painfully slow, and simply restarted when you interact twice (instead of instantly completing the letters that are ticking in one-by-one like most dialogue systems). Since I didn't know what was going on and trying to find out was frustratingly slow, and I ended up quitting pretty quickly. |
| May 11 23:05:24 | 88h 14m | Spaceworm - Defend a sacred tree from worms invading your planet | ♥ 1 | Neat entry! The movement-based spell-casting in particular was an interesting idea, I would've liked to see the gameplay focus on that a bit more! A couple criticisms: - The rate at which enemies spawn is far too easy at the start. I had to beat dozens of enemies before I felt like there was any reason to move away from the 2x3 area in front of the tree. - 1-length enemies can pass through you if you move into each other's positions on one turn - since the tree is on the right edge and rotated 90 degrees, it makes the whole game feel like it's being played sideways; I think having it at the top would have been a bit more natural (even taking into account that screens are typically wider than they are tall) |
| May 15 05:15:25 | 78h 10m | The Space Explorer | ♥ 1 | This is quite an impressive amount of 3D asset development given the time limit! A few criticisms: - The combat feels a bit pointless; it's too shallow to be challenging and is a bit clunky overall. I think the time spent implementing combat would have been better spent polishing other portions of the game. - Suffers a bit from adventure game logic; if a random hunk of pipe is good enough for a makeshift lever, you'd think the wrench the astronaut has already would work too - The cutscenes were a bit buggy: in particular the camera + the levers would jump around a bit Overall though, this is a nice entry! |
| May 15 06:12:33 | 57m 08s | Eine Kleine Insektmusik | ♥ 1 | Great entry! This is a neat concept, though the jam version suffers from the lack of anything to prevent the player from just standing still most of the time. The collectibles in the post-jam version definitely improve on this (though they do feel a bit arbitrary). I would have liked to see a bit more content, but this is a solid entry nonetheless! |
| May 15 06:40:23 | 27m 50s | Entropy | ♥ 0 | The online multiplayer aspect is definitely ambitious, so congratulations on getting that complete during the time limit! Given that there were also AI players though, I'm not too sure it was a great time investment. Not having bots definitely would have prevented some people from playing since it's unlikely that there will always be enough players online to make games viable, but at the same time the bots kind of trivialize the online play; it's impressive to have networked multiplayer, but if the gameplay works without it (and in fact, if most players are just going to be experience it alone against bots), why spend the time on it? (excluding just for the fun of doing it, of course) In terms of the actual gameplay, the neverending tug of war is an interesting concept, but I felt like the three factions didn't feel distinct: blue + green might as well have been a single faction since there doesn't seem to be any way for blue to do anything other than suppress red and support green. I also found that the lack of immediate feedback in the world state made all of the player's actions feel very impotent. This may have been intentional given that the gradual push and pull of the factions is put front and center, but it does make it harder to engage with the simulation. It's a cool entry and definitely a solid start, but plenty of room for improvement! |
| May 15 06:47:10 | 6m 47s | World Tetris | ♥ 1 | Very interesting take on the theme + clever twist on a classic mechanic! It could use a bit more polish (the interaction feels a bit clunky, and some sound would go a long way towards generally improving the feel of the game), but overall it's pretty solid! I'd definitely be interested in seeing a version of this made without the LD time constraints. |
| May 15 07:03:20 | 16m 10s | Rock Hammer | ♥ 3 | Congratulations on your first game! The artwork was definitely the standout in this entry for me. Some criticisms: - due to the timing of the blocks that fall, the player is lucky if they get more than one shot at hitting them, making the game pretty stressful from block one. It would be better to be more forgiving at the start, and ramp up to more challenging speeds after the player has a feel for the mechanics. - there was an exit button on the loss screen, but it didn't seem to do anything - as others have mentioned, it's lacking the level of depth + polish needed to keep people playing more than a couple rounds Having said that, it's a nice start, especially for a first attempt! |
| May 16 02:15:55 | 19h 12m | Becky's very very Small and TOTALLY not mundane World | ♥ 1 | Nice entry! The artwork's cute and it's an interesting take on the theme. Some criticisms: - I feel like it should choose one of the two stations the player isn't currently standing at to keep them moving; getting three coffee breaks in a row can kind of kill the frantic aspect. - The timer seems a bit too forgiving: I got bored at around 10k, but still had about 15s to spare and just let it run out. It probably would have been a bit more engaging if playing against the timer was a bit tougher. - I also ran into the music bug in the web version reported by a few others (I actually thought it was intentional up until the game ended and the music didn't come back! It does a good job of highlighting the dreariness of it all.) |
| May 16 03:01:05 | 45m 10s | Fast & Faeries | ♥ 1 | Really cute entry! The gameplay feels a bit loose, but it's fun to just hop through the environment and not really worry too much about the race. Great job! |
| May 16 03:09:54 | 8m 49s | Spermicorn | ♥ 2 | Well that was a strange one. The minigames both feel like they go on for a bit too long, but other than that it was a pretty solid execution of your concept! |
| May 16 03:34:30 | 24m 36s | Smalltrek | ♥ 2 | Definitely one of the best of this LD! Solid puzzle game, lots of content, great sprites, it's even pretty fun to just fly around the snazzy level select! Some criticisms: - first time I ran the web version it booted in a weird state where I just had the ship floating around the sun in a black void with no sound or text. It took me a minute to figure out that it wasn't just the game's intro and refresh. - the level complete sequence is a bit harsh on the ears - I would have appreciated a simple level skip due to getting stuck a couple times. Something along the lines of always being able to land up to one planet ahead of the current one would have made that a bit less frustrating. |
| May 16 04:42:35 | 1h 08m | IN CHARACTER | ♥ 0 | Great entry! This was definitely one of the most entertaining games this LD, and it managed to hold my attention for a lot longer than I was expecting. Some criticisms: - The text in the center was prone to blurring. - There didn't seem to be any purpose for the progress bar in the bottom right. It might be nice to hook it up to unlocking new brushes, colours, etc. if you're planning on doing any post-jam work on this. - Occasionally it would open a letter to show a blank screen, then close a few seconds later and try again. I assume this was a network connectivity issue, but it would probably be good to give some user feedback when that happens. It would be really interesting to see a little compilation of some of the best entries after the ratings are over! |