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gelisam

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Dec 4 15:23:04 BURROWED TIME ♥ 2 My mac _claims_ that the app is corrupted, but it isn't, it works just fine if I manually execute `./BURROWEDTIME.app/Contents/MacOS/Mac_Runner`. I liked the gameplay, especially with the bloodbarrel gun. At first I thought it was too easy because I wasn't dying often enough, but then I realized there was a permadeath mechanic: contrary to what @PeculiarCarrot said, you don't have to re-buy guns you've already unlocked, unless you die, in which case you do lose all your guns and your chronopoints. Speaking of chronopoints: grinding to get all the guns took forever! I got especially frustrated by the expensive joke-gun which only pushed enemies around without dealing much damage. Maybe it requires a different play style, but because of permadeath, I only had a single shot at learning that new play style on the fly, and I didn't. So, great gameplay and great production values, but the gimmick didn't click for me. The "least time" option is literally impossible, unless you're very lucky maybe, and because of the permadeath there really isn't much of an incentive to gamble and pick a shorter time than necessary. Similarly, the "show clock" button didn't do anything when I tried it, so I it never seemed worthwhile to spend my remaining time to continue exploring after finding the exit. One suggestion: maybe "more light" should mean "more blue light collectible things which give a lot of chronopoints", so that grinding would take less time? It might even already be the case, I don't know, the amount I found varied so randomly between runs that I couldn't tell. Showing how many I found out of the total would have clarified that. Also: the level number increased after each exit, but I didn't notice any effect. Were the dungeons supposed to get harder, or maybe bigger? If they were, and the goal was to get to level 20 or collect a total of 50 blue things or something, then the gun grinding would turn into interesting perks along the way instead of the main goal, and would probably turn from tedious to enjoyable.
Dec 5 02:19:29 10h 56m A cozy winter walk ♥ 0 Huh, so that's what a walking simulator is like? I had stayed away from the genre because I didn't think I'd like it, and it seems I was right. None of the objects I pick up are _supposed_ to do anything? The NPCs are giving me quests, but that's just flavour text, it's not a task I can actually complete? Sorry, I'm new to the genre, so I can't yet tell if I dislike your game because it doesn't live up to what the genre can offer, or if I just dislike the genre in general. Cute characters though! Oh, and the walking controls are weird: sometimes, the character keeps walking in a straight line after I release the key, and this caused me to automatically enter and the get out-of-bounds in the tree house.
Dec 5 02:40:53 21m 24s ToggleGoggle ♥ 0 The link 404s :(
Dec 5 03:07:08 26m 15s Flirt the(m)all ♥ 1 The itch.io link 404s
Dec 7 14:46:12 59h 39m MiniDom (2-6 Player game) ♥ 0 Looks fun, I wish I had an AI to play against! Or a friend :( A couple of suggestions. First, it would be _really_ helpful if you showed a +N next to the number which will change and then change it after a brief moment, instead of changing the numbers instantaneously. Otherwise it's really hard to figure out what just happened. For example, before you added the explanation for the symbols, I thought the skull was attacking the other players, not myself! Second, now that I know what the skull does, those cards never seem worthwhile, it's just too steep a price for not enough benefit. Especially since I may end up being forced to play those cards in a circumstance where the benefits make even less sense, if all the other cards have the "play again" symbol! For example, attack 3 lose 2 is basically equivalent to attack 1 in a two-player game, and to an attack 1 + give everyone else +2 with more players, which is really not helpful. Finally, a small tweak which would add a lot of strategy: if you only refilled your cards up to 4 instead of replacing all your cards with 4 new ones, then each turn would be more interesting, you might try to keep some coins cards for the next round in the hope that you'll be able to afford an expensive one. This would also make those "play more cards" cards more valuable because they would allow you to play your less powerful cards to make some room for some hopefully better ones. Oh, and I just encountered a game breaking bug: I played "play two more cards", then "play one more card", then "attack a player", chose a player to attack, expected to be able to choose my last "attack a player" card, but while the game says "select a card to activate", my cursor is still only able to select a player, which does nothing.
Dec 11 01:43:58 82h 57m PICK UP all the girls ♥ 0 If you didn't make the audio yourself, remember to opt out of that category! I didn't feel like I had much control over whether I was slightly ahead of the pack or was stuck being pushed by it, so I didn't feel like it was my fault when I lost.
Dec 11 02:02:52 18m 54s Free to Play ♥ 1 Jumping feels extremely sluggish, to the point where I couldn't last longer than two popups, and so haven't really had the opportunity the explore the unique aspects of this game. Try triggering the jump when the spacebar is _pressed_, not released. This is especially annoying since many other platformers use a press-and-hold mechanic for jumping higher, whereas in this game press-and-hold leads to not-jumping and death. Speaking of death, I kept dying without understanding why until I realized that those plants which seemingly do nothing were silently taking away some of my health. Maybe give some visual feedback, like making the character flash and recoil, when they get hurt?
Dec 12 00:24:39 22h 21m Ignite ♥ 2 I see how the more pieces you have in the puzzles, the harder it is, and that the more orbs you have unlocked, the harder it is for the player character, but I didn't quite understand why the orbs had that effect? Also, in fullscreen mode, there was a very visible vsync issue whenever the player was walking.
Dec 13 13:34:25 37h 09m Fuga ♥ 2 A few unrelated comments: * The ship music is really good, where's it from? * The fast and exciting "ou ou we go" music really doesn't fit with the action of walking in slow-motion towards a cave while the credits appear. * Spacebar didn't have any effect on the bullets for me. * Trading loot for longer-lived bullets didn't seem to make much of a difference in the gameplay, so I didn't have much incentive to keep playing after unlocking two bars of duration. * It's hard to judge the graphics since there is such a huge difference in quality between the ship part and the inside-the-cave part. Clearly, there wasn't enough time to draw the in-cave characters; but what that means is that you should have spent less time polishing the ship. It's better to have average art everywhere than amazing art in one place and placeholders in another place. I think? * One thing I think you did really well was the difficulty tuning. As I became more experienced, I wandered deeper into the cave, causing the difficulty to adjust to my now slightly-higher skills. Until eventually I felt like the game was too easy and I wandered way deeper than I should. On my way back, however, I sometimes ran away from the monsters; towards the right. To my surprise, this gave me more loot, even though I had already pillaged that room a moment ago. This also increased the difficulty, meaning I now had to run away from the monsters more often, which made the difficulty even worse. And since I had wandered far into the cave, I now had quite an ordeal in front of me in order to get out! I didn't make it. Which is great: just as I thought the game was too easy, the game gave me an unexpected challenge!
Dec 15 12:44:25 47h 10m POKED - be social ♥ 2 I found six endings: horse, mom, date, cactus, dog, and movie. any hint about how to get the last ending?
Dec 17 02:05:47 37h 21m Life is money ♥ 1 > Things are interesting until 250$, or maybe 450$ Oh good, I don't feel so bad for giving up after 260$ then. Since one of the only thing which keeps the player going is to see what's the text box is going to say next, the fact that this text fades away so quickly is quite frustrating. I missed a few because I was looking at the art, but I sure as hell ain't playing it again to see what I missed. In fact, the whole time I was thinking "what a stupid game, why am I playing this", and the answer is "to see the entire game, so I can judge this submission more fairly". Now that I realize that there isn't an ending and that we are supposed to give up at some point, I think this game is mean to its players, and as a result, I no longer feel like it deserves to be be judged fairly. 1 out of 5.
Dec 17 03:03:07 57m 20s Cleanup on Crime Dragon Planet! ♥ 1 Amazing, 5 out of 5! The only thing I would improve is that since the power level is much more important for gameplay decisions than the player's health, I would swap the two bars to make it easier to see whether we're about to accidentally murder a poor plushy dragon thug.
Dec 17 03:37:04 33m 57s No Move No Die ♥ 0 The "win", "retry" and "can't attack" chimes fit well with each other, but not with the rest of the music and sounds. I ended up brute-forcing level 6, as I couldn't find a way to predict where the dogs would go and therefore couldn't plan ahead. I managed to complete the reward level on my own though!
Dec 17 14:51:07 11h 14m Slightly annoying traffic ♥ 2 Some people complained that there isn't any score, but look at the top screenshot, there is a "0" above the "click on a car to stop or start it" instructions. @gris, you complained that the music was too quiet, but it was already quite loud at my computer's lower volume setting. Presumably you've tried increasing your computer's volume, so are you saying that the music is too loud _relative_ to the sound effects? The sound effects indeed seem louder than the music, but that's how I like it at least. I guess that's why games have independent music and sound effect sliders! I wouldn't expect an LD game to have that level of configurability though. Some people complained that the game's difficulty should ramp up more quickly, but I guess they must be very good at this game already; I played a couple of times and I still find the difficulty to ramp up quite quickly. Maybe a difficulty setting would help? Finally, the biggest missing feature in my opinion is a pause button, as I had to make a difficult decision: I could go check why my cat is meowing right now, but all my hard work keeping this intersection safe will be in vain! Thankfully the game is very hard so my cat didn't have to wait very long :)
Dec 17 15:36:54 45m 47s Cardhoard ♥ 2 5 out fo 5, best game in the Ja-- wait, this is a Compo game?? Amazing. I got used the controls very quickly. One nice touch is how we get more points when stomping a higher pile: this gives more experienced players something interesting to do in the beginning when the boxes don't fall that quickly. It's easy to make a game adjust its difficult by making it get faster and faster until it reaches the player's skill level, but making that slower section more difficult by convincing the player to make it harder for themselves is a much more impressive feat! The fact that sealing the boxes first is encouraged (required for combos, allows you to clear a column more quickly) but not necessary is another way in which you accomplish the same effect. Bravo! I only have one improvement to recommend: maybe add some special case logic to avoid immediately adding extra crates to the columns which have only just become full? Because of the combo system, there is an incentive to let the columns get full on purpose and to clear them at the last minute, but it's not possible to do so when the box which makes them full is immediately followed by another box. Because of the incentive, when this happens it doesn't feel like it's my fault for letting the column get so out of hand, it just feels unfair. @yngvarr, it works fine for me in Chrome 63.0.3239.84
Dec 17 17:38:19 2h 01m The lost strawberry ♥ 2 Okay, I get it, drinking the potions make you drunk, which makes it harder to see where you're going. Ha ha. That definitely fits with the theme, but if it makes the gameplay more frustrating and unfair instead of just "harder", is it worth it? Randomly dying without explanation was no fun. I eventually figured out there were "Dart Traps" shooting bubble-looking darts at me, but it would have felt less unfair if those dangers were shown to the player _before_ they became hidden from view. Same for skulls. Maybe reset the amount of occluders at the beginning of every level, or on the levels in which new kinds of obstacles are introduced, to give the player a chance to understand how those obstacles work? Other unfair things which made the problem worse: * backgrounds which look like platforms * invisible platforms and auto-grip vines which block your jump and cause you to get killed by a Dart Trap Despite all these criticism: the game was quite fun, but I enjoyed it in spite of its gimmick, not because of it. In addition to this main criticism, I also found that the basic rules of the game were unclear. It took me longer than it should to figure out: * that even though the occlusion effect of potions lasts forever, their double-jump effect must be used before touching the floor. Maybe add a tossed-away-bottle particle when the player hits the floor? * that those random explosions are keys unlocking the locked doors. Maybe make that happen immediately when the player picks up the last key, or when the player touches the door? Having it happen when the key touches the door introduces a delay which makes it harder to link the action of picking up the key to the resulting explosion, and since there is no longer a door at that location after the explosion attracts the player's gaze to that location, it's not clear what the explosion was about. * that skulls disappear when you pick up a potion. It's not a logical consequence, and since the skulls can be far away from the player and also their position is now hidden by the occluders, the player will only later discover that the skulls are gone, without realizing which action caused that to happen. Maybe temporarily remove the occluders around them and have them flicker out of existence instead of instantly disappear? * that the potions allow me to double-jump. Despite making it through the tutorial which is supposed to teach me that, in the level after that I couldn't understand why the X button seemingly only worked during that tutorial level. I think the level in which we're trapped in a narrow pit and we need to jump-dash repeatedly in order to escape would have been a better tutorial, because it's more obvious that the sequence of bottles corresponds to the sequence of jumps, as opposed to a coin-like pickup which guides you during a tricky jump.
Dec 17 18:48:00 1h 09m Holiday Parking Panic! ♥ 0 I got all 7 presents, but nothing happens to indicate that I won? Or is there an 8th present I have missed? The controls when going backwards felt reversed to me, an "invert X axis when going backwards" option would have been helpful. @LeviDSmith Huh, I double-checked and you're right, only the jam allows you to use pre-existing assets and then opt out of the corresponding category. Any idea why? My previous understanding of the rules was that there are many categories, plus a 9th category "compo", and you have to opt out of the categories for which you don't qualify: you have to opt-out of the music category if you use pre-existing music, you have to opt-out of the graphics category if you use pre-existing images, and you have to opt-out of the "compo" category if you collaborate with others or take more than 48h (but less than 72h). That made sense. The actual rules, in which you also have to opt-out of the compo if you don't qualify for any of the _other_ 8 categories, doesn't make much sense to me, can you explain the rationale behind it? Am I allowed to submit to the compo and to opt-out of the music category if my game has no music at all?
Dec 19 04:11:00 33h 23m Robby & Coppy ♥ 1 I enjoyed the game, but found it too punishing sometimes. There's a spot in the second level in which I can either spend an energy bar to jump onto the top platform, or try my luck using the bottom path, in which case I am likely to bump my head on the ceiling and fall to my death because of the narrow gap. Which would be fine, if lives and energy bars weren't in such limited quantity! Maybe give fewer energy bars but refill them every level? Or start with zero and hide them around the levels? Because there are some gaps which are clearly impossible without an energy bar or very few coins, which is frustrating because some coins seem impossible to dodge and I don't know how many such gaps there will be over the entire game. Those large gaps also discourage me from experimenting with the bars in other interesting situations such as for dodging the cops or to access hard-to-reach coins, because any use of an energy bar in an area in which it isn't mandatory feels like a waste. Also, it's a bit weird to be leaving the bank with 0 coins and an empty bag. Maybe the bank could be the end of the level instead, so instead of robbing the bank, the robber is depositing his coins there so he can start the next level with an empty bag?
Dec 23 16:32:16 108h 21m A Platformer for Ants ♥ 1 I like the idea that the player's actions affect the camera, but the camera didn't affect the gameplay much. What if enemies were following you from screen to screen, and you could de-spawn them by getting them outside the camera?
Dec 24 22:56:27 30h 24m A Spark of Light ♥ 1 I found the game a bit boring to be honest. At the beginning the world is large enough that I couldn't even tell if it was shrinking or not, but the instructions said to wait until you're dim to capture the next white blob, so I tried to do that. But my brightness stayed constant when I was near the white blobs, so I felt like I could easily stay "balanced" by just staying there and doing nothing. So I quickly got bored and tried instead to capture all the white blobs and kill all the black squares, that was more fun but of course I quickly got crushed. While crushing the player for picking up too much light certainly fits the theme, if picking up light is required to make the game fun, then the game disincentivises having fun, which is counter-productive for a game. Maybe if the goal was to destroy a certain number of black squares without getting crushed, so that the obvious approach of becoming over-powered by picking up all the white blobs would not work? > Right now I am working on using Magenta to create a AI that writes game music for me so I can do that category next time. @turbulentwinds Nice, kind of like bfxr but for music then? If it works out, do you plan to make it publicly available?
Dec 24 23:21:12 24m 45s Sunburn ♥ 0 Fun, but the level design isn't guiding the player enough. The first few steps teach us to boldly run into the unknown, trusting that a parasol will be waiting for us if only we can get there fast enough, but then the player is punished for relying on this new knowledge by a step in which we have to wait patiently for a shadow to appear instead of running towards it. And once the player learns to wait, sometimes they have to wait for a very long time before realizing that this time, they were supposed to run! I recommend adding a visible water bottle near the beginning of the steps in which the player should run, to indicate that they are supposed to go and grab it right away. Also, the first moving shadow should be introduced in a safe environment, in which the distance is short enough that the player could reach the shadow by running even if their timing is completely off. Finally, the music: I liked it, at first, but I died many times and eventually it started to get a bit repetitive. I also really liked the ending, very funny!
Dec 25 18:27:35 19h 06m Feed Them ♥ 1 Really cute, and I'm impressed you managed to make an AI in such a short amount of time! I didn't really understand what I was doing though. We must both pick up the food in order to throw them at our opponents, but also avoid the food when it is being thrown: that makes it a bit ambiguous when it is safe to touch a piece of food, do I have to wait until it has stopped rolling on the floor and is completely still? I saw that my count was high at the end of the game, but I didn't really have much feedback during the game about which of my actions led to that count. Maybe make the characters flash when their count increases, to indicate that they are "taking damage"?
Dec 25 18:41:33 13m 58s ... ♥ 0 So... you found a bug in your jumping mechanic, and you decided to make that the main mechanic of your game? That's certainly an unusual source of inspiration! Unfortunately, I think that mechanic was poorly communicated. I don't see why a chicken should be able to go faster by repeatedly jumping, and it doesn't feel right for a chicken walking on grass to have such a slippery slowdown when releasing the arrow key. Even in your description you are hiding the explanation of your core mechanic behind a cryptic "I CANT FIGURE IT OUT!!! Watch this" link, which makes it seem like the player is expected to figure it out on their own even though the game does nothing to lead the player towards that discovery. Speaking of not guiding the player very well: I still don't know if I'm supposed to throw my chicks at the yellow arrow or if I'm supposed to gather them all around me and walk past the cliff myself. I also have no idea what the yellow egg does. I see that there is a game somewhere in there, but I can't play it, because the rules are too unclear and the controls are so frustrating that I don't really want to spend the time to figure it out. (I didn't rate the game because I did not feel like I saw all there was to see)
Dec 26 00:24:51 5h 43m Sunken ♥ 1 I played enough to get a high score of 1291, but I now realize that I have no idea which tactic worked well enough to lead me to this score, since I don't do nearly as well with my current tactic. That tactic is to (A) avoid fighting monsters unless I have to or if I have enough meat to get back to 100%, otherwise it's too risky because the game might force me to fight in the next floor, and to (B) pick up the gold and the chests when I can. I see in the description that each chest both helps and hinder, but I can't really tell either way; because the flooding is on a timer and I can't pause, there is no time to examine the numbers and besides I don't remember what the numbers were a moment ago anyway. Adding "+1" and "-1" markers next to the affected numbers would make the effect clearer, and if some of those markers were colored red and other green, it would drive home the idea that each chest is both a blessing and a curse. I was often surprised to die for apparently no reason, but I assume it must be because of the flooding. If the flooding bar stopped moving after death, it would make it more obvious whether it was indeed the cause of death. Even better: since you already have nice raining graphics, it would be much clearer to use them to indicate the flooding level, this way it would be impossible not to pay attention to it. The game was fun enough to keep me playing many times, but I still think the actions would benefit from more intrinsic rewards, instead of mere points. For example, perhaps there could be a special door every couple of levels which could only be opened if the player is strong enough (has enough XP) or can pay the fee (has enough gold)?
Dec 26 15:10:10 14h 45m Dense Revolve ♥ 1 It was fun, I want more!
Dec 29 03:33:09 60h 22m Lonk's Greedy Adventure ♥ 0 I'm only missing ending two in the post-compo version, any hints?