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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | HuvaaKoodia's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 7 18:11:45 | L.A.V.A. series L.A.M.P. edition VS THE WORLD | ♥ 7 | Competent top down shooter: a solid chunk of content, nice audiovisuals, ok gameplay, but also sundry problems. The Linux version works great, although the first time around I shot a knight with a tracer and it crashed the program. Didn't use tracers after that. Having an option for mouse or keyboard aiming is a good addition. Then again why not just have them both on at the same time. There is no need for a menu option. The idea of binding keys to upgrades is neat, but not being able to rebind them later does cause issues: there is no way of knowing how many upgrades there are in total and which ones I actually like using before trying them so in the end I had many useful keys tied to abilities I didn't care for. I guess that is thematic, yet I'd advice against it. Being able to use the modifier keys (shift, control, alt) as bindings would have been great too, for the dodge move especially. My second run ended on wave 15 and it felt cheap. You see, the enemy hitboxes are weird. Sometimes I could brush past them in a corridor, other times not. In this particular case a ghost hit me twice in a matter of milliseconds and it wasn't even close (or so it seemed!) There is other jank in the enemy implementation too. Their pathfinding bugs out occasionally getting stuck on walls or constantly changing directions when I move just a few steps in one direction basically rendering them sitting ducks for my attacks. The skills! Most of them work. The teleporter is weird and more of a hazard for you than the enemies. Also frustrating as you cannot undo the connections afterwards. I would not have used it had I played a third time. The reason for not playing again is the slow pace of progression. Reducing the downtime between waves, faster enemies and a smaller map would have helped there. Increased content unlocking rate would be fine too, just throw in a new enemy/upgrade after each wave. It is a jam entry, it should be fast to play through. Ok, that is about all this time. I approve of your work, don't get me wrong. Unfortunately there are many small issues which drag the experience down a few notches. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* | |
| Dec 7 20:09:53 | 1h 58m | Techno Fever | ♥ 4 | The Linux build works, although I spent 30 minutes getting all the dependencies together (needed the following 32-bit libraries: libsdl1.2:i386 and lib32stdc++6) Amazing graphics, good audio, solid workmanship. Yet there is a massive problem! Where is the challenge? Played through the whole thing in a few minutes, no tension, no excitement; affects the mood hard. What a letdown! Challenge is the root of fun, something to consider for the next time. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Terrible (1.0)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Amazing (5.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Average (3.0)* |
| Dec 7 21:37:10 | 1h 27m | SpaceBallz | ♥ 2 | Runs well on Linux! Although if there is a fullscreen mode it is well hidden. **A vengeful star**, now that is a novel idea. You could have personified the sun and given it something to say, setting up the scene for the onslaught. The spinning mechanic itself is slightly problematic. No matter the level trying to hit the last planet is a pain. Doesn't really fit the theme there. I can't think of a way to alleviate the annoyance due to the sheer simplicity of the idea. If I were to make something similar I would probably go for a sort of billiards concept: shoot a solar flare pushing a planet, try to cause chain reactions, force planets off the solar system. This has nothing to do with your entry though, moving on. The graphics are average at best. Most of the planets look fine enough and the main menu constellation generation is swell indeed, but the title banner looks mushy and the star background is plain boring. Audio is worse, not a fan of the tune or the sound effects. They take mood down with them too. You had the right jam mentality; Make something simple, bug free and fast to play. A success there, yet the design and the audiovisuals aren't up to par. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Average (3.0)* Audio: *Bad (2.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 9 10:41:17 | 37h 04m | Tax Evasion Hero | ♥ 2 | A stunning looker, the unread engine is good for something, although at 1.12 gigs the executable is on the heavy side for a short entry like this. A solid puzzle it turned out to be too. Doesn't quite hit the theme as once you know where all the items are and start experimenting with combinations the timer completely loses its purpose. The wrong choices are funny, for some reason I love burning the Stradivarius, but most of the correct combinations don't exactly make sense. **Spoilers:** !> The golden statue is still golden when brandished with a towel. It looks like a mannequin, but the tax wolves would not be fooled. Burning a Fabergé egg and painting a Stradivarius would utterly ruin their value, so the tax savings aren't worth it. The Ming vase solution is quite spot on; It does look like a tacky 10€ flower pot! Paintings don't lose their value when deframing, so that's fine too. Had some laughs with this one. Good work! Overall: Good (4.0) Fun: Above Average (3.5) Innovation: Good (4.0) Theme: Average (3.0) Graphics: Stunning (5.0) Humor: Good (4.0) Mood: Good (4.0) |
| Dec 9 10:51:28 | 10m 11s | Kinder Potato GARDEN! | ♥ 2 | That was something. Very tricky, flinging potatoes around. Fits the theme well. It is not exactly the most exciting prospect, violently showing potatoes through the narrow corridors does get stale sooner than later. In the end I got to 11/12 and then in one swell swoop three of the ankle-biters kicked the bucket. Oh, sorry grandpa. The graphics and audio support the interactivity well, adds to the humor too. Doesn't quite reach excellence, the last level of polish and detail is missing. Still great though. Once the house starts filling up so does the amount of clicking. Herding the potatoes is part of the experience, but having to repeatedly click the fridge and the toiled to fill them is unnecessary. Holding the mouse down would work better there. It is the refill delay that matters, not inducing carpal tunnel syndrome. Pretty good work in all. Overall: Good (4.0) Fun: Average (3.0) Innovation: Good (4.0) Theme: Spot on (5.0) Graphics: Great (4.5) Audio: Great (4.5) Humor: Great (4.5) Mood: Good (4.0) |
| Dec 9 12:50:01 | 1h 58m | Caravan | ♥ 2 | Positives first. The audiovisuals are ok and support the strong Arabian mood. The writing is also fitting, but suffers from typos occasionally. Played both versions. The original version is pretty much impossible. The second version is possible to complete, managed it once with a single crate remaining, yet it is still very arbitrary. On each leg of the journey potentially 5+ events take place. The only thing you can do to reduce the amount of events is to travel light, which is thematic enough. Problem is some combinations of the events spell instant defeat, for instance sandworm kills your guards and bandits attack, so just two unlucky events per trip can be too much. If you guess wrong and buy too many resources then you are more than likely doomed due to random chance alone. This rapid rate of events also burns through the content really fast. Rereading the same events over and over again does get stale. These issues can be fixed relatively easily. First set some limitations to the events. Special events like the jinn, the devil and the furry man, should only happen at most once per adventure. Repeatable events should be very simple and less severe as not to become boring to read and to reduce the impact of each event (less sandworms and bandits, more small issues with the caravan). Next the UI could use some improvements. Estimations on how much food it takes to get to the next cities (with the guards you have) and what is the chance for bandits would be nice to have in the city menu. These could be plain numbers or verbal cues ("Chance for bandits: high", "Food needed for city A: about 25", etc.) Lastly the amount of money you carry should not affect the amount of events. Currently a single lucky event netting you gold can completely ruin the rest of the adventure due to this. After all how would anyone know the amount of money you have? A new feature that you should consider is weather. On the city page you'd get an estimation on upcoming weather and its effects (e.g. "A sandstorm is gathering outside the city: Lower chance for bandits, higher chance for accidents and getting lost"). Then if you have the money you can stay at the city waiting for better weather. The weather would be different per route too so a longer route might be more preferable in certain situations. This would add a layer of decision making currently missing. Good effort, the design needs work yet there is much potential here. Overall: Above Average (3.5) Fun: Bad (2.0) Innovation: Average (3.0) Theme: Good (4.0) Graphics: Above Average (3.5) Audio: Above Average (3.5) Humor: Above average (3.5) Mood: Strong (5.0) |
| Dec 9 15:09:11 | 2h 19m | Space Suckers | ♥ 4 | This completely reversed my expectations. Seemed like a bog-standard side scrolling shooter, but no, no, no, that is not the case. Black holes, hitch-hiking aliens, push-back rockets, it is a novel mix and it works well. Had fun playing through the 5 levels. They are short and sweet, but no cakewalk. The graphics are good overall with a few blemishes: the background is a simple gradient and as a result boring, parallax scrolling would work great here; the sprite outlines aren't uniformly thick due to scaling which looks somewhat cheap. The audio is good too, some of the sound effects are muffled though. Found a few bugs in the programming. Sometimes the ship can get stuck in a black hole with an alien, meaning they won't get sucked in at all. The aliens aren't pushed back by the rocket explosion if they are following you either, which is annoying. Designwise there is only one thing I would change. Currently it is very beneficial to continually shoot rockets and keep pushing aliens back off the screen even if there are no black holes present. To reduce the effectiveness of this strategy you could make the humans susceptible to explosions too. They could be pushed back similar to the aliens or simply die outright. The radius of the explosions would need to be smaller for this to work though. Really enjoyed this one, positive surprises are always nice. Overall: Great (4.5) Fun: Good (4.0) Innovation: Brilliant (5.0) Theme: Great (4.5) Graphics: Good (4.0) Audio: Good (4.0) Humor: Brilliant (5.0) Mood: Above average (3.5) |
| Dec 9 19:42:56 | 4h 33m | Fleet Commander | ♥ 4 | A simple and effective design. Inspirational simplicity in fact, got a related design rolling around in my head now. The graphics are plain and functional. The audio is similar yet I find the alarm sound somewhat irritating. It doesn't help that it plays all the time. The alarm system itself is a very nice addition. I would prefer to be able to pause time (with space) when things get heated, but that is not a negative. The play session starts off slow as the level initially has no cubes or asteroids. Just a few cubes to aim for would help there. Additionally the amount of ships rises very fast, very soon. 20+ ships isn't a challenge, it is impossible. The fast progression is a result of the somewhat weird ship building system. When a ship collects a cube it disappears and two more ships are spawned from the planet. This doesn't make a lot of sense. What I'd do is to spawn a single ship when a cube is collected and, of course, keep the original ship intact. This way the amount of ships stays manageable for much longer and ships cannot be sent on suicide missions any-more. Good idea and execution. More play-testing and polish would have gone a long way. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Average (3.0)* Audio: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 10 10:21:42 | 14h 38m | Black Hole Star | ♥ 1 | Tried the Linux version first. There is no fullscreen option and the ball of light is not visible. The windows version has neither issue. Weird. The graphics and audio are great. The instructions are more than enough as the interactivity is simple. Problem is, it is all too simple. The only danger is posed by the black holes and even then chances are you are not going to be hit by one dead-on making them a trivial obstacle to sidestep. Collecting stars is so easy that it becomes boring after picking up just a few. Having a cluster of creatures blocking the ways isn't a hindrance due to the light orb's power. They don't really matter at all, which is a shame as that is the only thematic connection here. If the creatures stuck to you, pushed you around, or lunged at you occasionally they might introduce a slight challenge. They could also pick up the star and move it around to make things even trickier. High quality production, the interaction design is too drab unfortunately. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Mood: *Great (4.5)* |
| Dec 10 10:55:58 | 34m 16s | What is Art: Things that can be Stolen | ♥ 1 | Enjoyed exploring the world. It is well put together with verticality to boot. The audiovisuals are good too. Dodging laser beams and stealing art is less exciting in the long run. Trying to steal more and more without tripping an alarm is a legit challenge, but redoing the same segments multiple times does take its toll. In the end I managed 7600 big ones, only left the two story room in the back and the massive painting topside alone on that run. Those are too risky ventures. Could use some more movement abilities, crouching combined with a quick, short-range dash would fit well. Mastering the current set of abilities (can you even call basic movement that?) is too easy. Some gadgets are worth considering too. I find it hard to swallow that any bloke with a car can just waltz in and nick valuables left and right. Good work. Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Average (3)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 10 18:42:47 | 7h 46m | The burden | ♥ 4 | Mighty atmospheric, the audio works wonders there. Great graphics, yet a massive lump of light orbs is way too bright for comfort. Then again it is the only thematic aspect at the moment. It is a real shame you got none of your ideas in. The darkness chasing the player sounds proper intense. You might want to write about the lack of features in the description too. In this case I kind of expected it looking at the screenshots (too much like Journey!), but even then I found the experience disappointing the first time around. The laggy WebGL build does not help either. Brace yourself for rough scores, I don't rate what could have been. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Abysmal (1.0)* Innovation: *Abysmal (1.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Audio: *Great (4.5)* Mood: *Amazing (5.0)* |
| Dec 10 18:55:28 | 12m 41s | Gladiator Monsters | ♥ 2 | A thoroughly odd top down shooter. The options menu and quit button set up the tongue-in-cheek mood, yet even the mechanics are strange. I like breaking the norms, so bonus points for that. Not that I'm exactly sold on the main mechanic. You see, in most entries of this genre the opposition gets tougher each wave automatically and you get better each wave by selecting upgrades. Here you have a mixture of the two, which is less work for you as a developer, but also more boring for me as a player. I get to play the whole thing though with nothing but the starting peashooter. Not very exciting. If Jack “Guns for Hands” Killer, *what a name*, had a variety of abilities and weapons right from the get go, this would not be an issue. Alternatively you could force the player to choose one upgrade for Jack and one upgrade for the enemies each wave. I will repeat the notion for emphasis, the starter kit is *dreadfully boring!* There are some very interesting ideas when it comes to the enemies. The mimes are nasty and the predictors quite neat. I think I'll have to give it to the doppelgängers though. What a bunch of ripoffs! The leprechauns are too similar to the predictors, in my opinion. Shooting money doesn't really work as there is no way to see if an enemy is about to die. Shooting the coin right after it drops happens way too often. The graphics are sub-par, and the 5 second music loop would have driven me mad had I not muted everything. Lastly there is a dire lack of polish and juiciness, i.e. everything works, but it doesn't feel great to play. In conclusion: cool ideas, bad execution. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Bad (2.0)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 10 19:49:40 | 54m 12s | Project Vamparty | ♥ 4 | Nice graphics and audio. The design is ok and the implementation works, but both are not without issues. Design first. It is too easy to win at the moment. Takes mere half a minute to gain full power at which point the last semblance of challenge is thrown off the dance floor. The view cones of the hunters are small and they don't move much or work together. Having to wait around in shadows breaking their line of sight before striking would have fit the vampire motif better and intensified the life force draining mechanic. Then the implementation. As mentioned before (by you!), there is a criminal lack of feedback. I admit, I accidentally (honest, guv!) started playing before reading the description and the negative effects seemed like bugs more than anything. I did find one proper bug though, if you wait around in the lobby and continually attacking the poor tutorial fellow you will gain full strength and cannot enter the party proper. A bit weird that. Bad in places, good in places... Average! Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Lousy (1.5)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Lousy (1.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 11 12:28:32 | 16h 38m | Kingdom Savior | ♥ 1 | Reminds me of a niche, east-European, real-time-grid-and-party-based-tactics game from some years ago. Not that I can recall its name! This here is a very bare bones version of the idea of course, but such is the case with limited time, eh? The two modes work well together in principle. Making decisions on who stays defending, how many workers can I spare and who goes on the offensive are all interesting choices. Surely the hero cannot attack alone? Well, there we get to the issue of balance. It is way too easy to win. All I did was put everyone working, except a few guards, and attacked alone. Had 10000 crystals in just 7 days! The enemy didn't attack once! I tried again, marking all warriors as workers everyday and lo! Got through the whole thing in mere 5 days! There is quite a bit of tweaking required to make this challenging, which is completely doable. The enemy should attack more often even if the threat level is low. That simply means their attack is weak. The hero should be much more fragile. Currently there is little incentive to attack in a group, the hero can tank a lot of shots and dodge most of them due to the high movement speed. Using warriors as meat shields is your intended design by the looks of it, but it is completely unnecessary. The graphics are borderline ok, it seems the 2D and 3D assets don't exactly match. The crystals are coins in the attack level for instance. What is up with that? The environment textures are the worst of the lot, garish to say the least. I do recognize a few of the 3D models from Clone Colony, maybe trying a different style would work. The sound effects too are at odds with the epic soundtrack! Seems to be a bit of a trademark of yours that! Adequate job, more play-testing and polish needed! Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Below average (2.5)* Audio: *Average (3.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 11 12:29:26 | 54s | Space Freight | ♥ 1 | A solid idea, I do like Scifi, and technically it works. The design and asset quality are suspect though. Weaving through the asteroid fields at full speed is much more fun than slowly turning around terminating the pursuers. As such it is a shame that such a tactic doesn't really work for a multitude of reasons: * The camera is very close to the action, no way to see the upcoming asteroids at high velocity. If the camera zoomed out based on current speed you could even have asteroid collisions deduct hull points (as they should!) * Less agile bandits. Zigzagging works occasionally, but most of the time the bandits hit no matter what. Trying to trick them to hit asteroids would be interesting too! * A distance calculator for the next station. Maybe running for it should not be completely viable all the time, but once relatively close to the station I might want to risk it. Currently these is no way of knowing how long it takes to get to the station, so no such decision can be made. The audiovisuals are crude. Kudos for making it all on your own, but I'm not going to lie about the quality. Might as well list more issues, eh: * Different styles for all the elements. The ships are pixelated with about 4-6 flat colors, the GUI is 3 flat colors, the asteroids have texture with even more colors, and the background is rendered in much more realistic style than the rest. It just does not jell together. * Scaling and rotating pixelated graphics. It does not look good when sprites drawn in the same style are scaled differently. The pixels should have the same size for every object. Rotation can work, but then you need to make sure each sprite uses the same filtering method. It seems the space stations use bilinear filtering while the ship use point filter. * The music and sounds use annoying, chirpy, 8-bit'ish instruments. This might just be me though. Good effort and it works, yet more practice on the presentation front is needed. When learning it is useful to look at successful examples and try to mimic those, just to get the techniques down. Later you can then apply those techniques to create your own things. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Below average (2.5)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Bad (2.0)* Audio: *Lousy (1.5)* Humor: *Bad (2.0)* Mood: *Average (3.0)* |
| Dec 11 12:30:06 | 40s | Cthulhu Writer | ♥ 2 | Lost my mind at 52 it seems. I do enjoy the occasional typing challenge. The Cthulhu inspired setting is well realised, moody and quite a novel mix. Everything works about right too, no bugs. A few complaints. The **massive text** popping up after inputting a correct name does obscure other names most of the time. The random generated levels are neat, but occasionally it is hard to see which names are connected to which other names as the lines overlap quite a bit. Of course you can take your time figuring it out before starting, so that saves it. Thematic too, I guess. Good work in all. A typing challenge is not the most exciting prospect, that is a limiting factor here. Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Nonexistent (1.0)* Mood: *Great (4.5)* |
| Dec 12 11:04:16 | 22h 34m | Wormhead | ♥ 2 | Neat little spaceship simulation. I like the worm tail, wiggling it around deflecting nasties. The flight physics are *"realistic"* to a fault. I would have enjoyed strong side thrusters to dodge projectiles and weave between asteroids with. The camera could also zoom out when gaining speed to facilitate high velocity manoeuvres. The graphics are ok, the particles look much nicer than the plain sprites though. Some more detail and color would have gone a long way. Not a fan of the music. It is not terrible, but does get repetitive. My major gripe is the directionless nature of the exercise. Sure there is a highscore, but I just didn't feel like playing more after reaching 7. Those future plans do sound mighty fine. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Below average (2.5)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 12 12:35:32 | 1h 31m | Dungeon Manager | ♥ 1 | The Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup sprites are a good fit. The music on the other hand might not be the best choice. Maybe something moodier would do, taken the subject matter. All of the interactions are taken though menus so might as well talk about those. There is a lack of feedback which leads to some confusion at first. Monsters are flashing with no indication on why, firing someone has a delay, hiring a monster when the roster is full banishes them to the abyss by the looks of it. Quick fixes: the monster tooltip should say if the monster is on a quest or moving, you should not be able to hire monsters if full already. The main dungeon floor is criminally underused. Building altars is a pain as you need to keep clicking back and worth between the dungeon and the *Ye Olde Office Stuff* panel. You could at least put the hired monsters in the dungeon itself, currently they too are relegated to a tiny panel of their own. Alternatively you could get rid of the whole dungeon. After all the altar placement does not matter, so you might as well represent them as a mere number each. This would also free up more space for the quest panel. It is cramped and has a different layout for strengths and weaknesses already which is weird. Lastly the real time nature of the affair does reduce its appeal to me at least. Nothing feels like anything. Sure sometimes your monsters die due to bad choices, but I didn't have time to plan or dread the quest or build a any kind of a relationship with the monster so it has no effect. Just hire a new one, eh? It also seems that monsters don't gain levels or increase wages upon completing quests. I liked the idea, yet the design and implementation leave much to be desired. If you intend to develop something like this in the future there is one major design decision you got to make early on: More like Dungeon Keeper with a *"physical"* dungeon full of buildings and monsters roaming around; or a stat based, menu driven management system (can't think of an example right now, but you get the point). Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 14 14:00:10 | 49h 24m | Human Rises | ♥ 2 | A menu based resource management game, a tough genre for a jam. Your take is functional and there is some logic to it, but as the rules are not explained efficiently it is very hard to play. Got to turn 20, but trying to guess my way though didn't suffice for more than that. UI and design questions (issues!): - There is no indication on the amount of fish and animals. I can let them repopulate, but when should I do that? - Home renovation and Housing level both reduce Housing need? How exactly? Is one of them better in certain situations? - Industry. What does it do? Does it produce food, happiness, housing, gold or something else? - Trading. The Peaslands run out of food fast. Why can I only buy food from them and not sell? - Is there any randomness to the rules? Sometimes food seems to run out much faster, even if doing the very same things? - Is it possible to win at all? How many turns does it take? Technical issues: - Pressing the help button twice breaks the close button - The GUI sprites are blurry. You should use the *Tiled* Image type in the UI Image component with the sprite borders set accordingly in the sprite editor. - Restart button would be nice Good idea, I do like the genre. The implementation, especially when it comes to conveying vital information, is lacking. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Guesswork! (1.5)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Bad (2.0)* Mood: *Nonexistent (1.0)* |
| Dec 14 14:14:21 | 14m 11s | Spatium Calorem | ♥ 2 | Played the Linux version, works fine. Some of these things have already been said by the looks of it, but they are worth repeating: - The background scrolling is too fast. Very distracting. - Health pickups move very slowly and you cannot pick them up before they move past the invisible border. - There is an invisible border! - The heat alarm sound is too loud and too long! It overlaps making it even worse! - The alarm also starts at around 50% heat. Why so soon? Heat drops really fast after all. - Enemy patters are quite predictable. Had fun dodging projectiles, but such dare devil tactics are not really needed. Stick to the bottom of the screen and pick them off one by one. - Occasionally it seemed that the ship collided with its own bullet! Lost health when starting to shoot. Weird. For 12 hours, not bad. That doesn't remove the faults though. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Below average (2.5)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Bad (2.0)* Audio: *Annoying! (1.5)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 14 14:36:10 | 21m 49s | Avoidance | ♥ 2 | Got 282 points sitting in a corner. Sure beats moving around! At first I though the amount of enemies introduced a major slowdown, but it was all intentional! I'm not a fan of such artificial mechanics. If fire rate and movement speed go down with the amount of enemies on screen then my survival chances are limited much more by your design than my skills! I don't like that idea, feels very arbitrary. I would prefer incrementally increasing enemy numbers and behaviours. Eventually I will lose, but it is up to my skill level only not to having my ability to fight slowly taken away! The graphics are fine and the music is quite catchy in fact. Good job on those. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Below average (2.5)* Innovation: *Below average (2.5)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Nonexistent (1.0)* Mood: *Average (3.0)* |
| Dec 14 21:33:49 | 6h 57m | Growing Polytheism | ♥ 5 | >It is I, Lunr the God of Treason, and I love potatoes. You should give them a go! *Potatoes, what are those?* >Golden and delicious, you grow them in a field and later harvest for immediate consumption. Increased vitality assured! *Sounds like a lot of work. Me and my 19 mates will do just fine without food. Believe me.* >No, you ought to be believing in me! *Nah, we're good.* There is not much to this currently: build everything in excess and that is that. The gods, while numerous, don't do enough; -3000 (and dropping) faith did not cause them any alarm. It is not Polytheism that is growing here, quite the opposite. These gold digging, house building, little atheists are multiplying and they don't even die of old age! *Maybe potatoes are the answer?!* In all seriousness, there are a lot of directions you could take this. Just make sure there are some decisions to me made, or at least funny shenanigans with the deities and their conflicting interests. You already have ideas along these lines though, so I need not add more! Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Trivial (1.5)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Average (3.0)* Audio: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 14 21:48:57 | 15m 08s | The Beforlorne Wander | ♥ 3 | Oh man! This looked like a top down retro shooter akin to Robotron, but no... Side scrolling MetroidVania is the name of the game. It doesn't help that I'm sick and tired of MetroidVania. Been there done that. Ok, fine. Let's not poison the well to the brim. The graphics are pleasantly retro, somewhere between Spectrum and early DOS-era. If only the movement was authentically jagged. Looks way too smooth, even through my rose-tinted glasses. The music is weird; parts of it sound excellent, parts of it trashy. It does create an interesting mood nonetheless. The interactivity is simple and lacks punch. Meatier sound effects would have elevated the anaemic shooting on their own, let alone a few more weapons and movement abilities. Prying the best gun from the death grip of the second bullet spongy boss monster at the very end of the journey was a sour reminder of the lack of variety. The *secret* room at the top right corner of the map spelled out the same song mere minutes earlier. It works, there are no bugs... If only it was more exciting, more retro, more anything! The post jam version adds a bit of needed polish and more levels (which are nice!), but does not touch on the fundamentals. Scoring is for the original, obv. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Below average (2.5)* Innovation: *Bad (2.0)* Theme: *What theme? (1.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 15 19:35:06 | 21h 46m | Dr. Micro vs The Virus | ♥ 2 | Cannot get past the *Take it slow* level. The patient always dies once I get to the exit. Maybe I've accumulated too many dead red blood cells at that point, but it would be nice to know why it always happens there. Nearly suffered the same fate as @nnnikki, but, as luck would have it, popped out of the wall at the last moment. It is a pretty cool idea. The movement system is tricky and the crux of the challenge. Shooting is mostly useless as the bullets kill way more cells accidentally than when ramming a virus. At least you are in control that way. Healing the cuts is tough due to the long bullet lifetime too. Thematic design decisions both and they do heighten the challenge thus, in the end, the amount of fun. I can appreciate that. The graphics do their part and the audio is ok too. The voice over is a bit too muffled for my liking. Didn't even listen to it the first time around as the volume was so low. It isn't needed either, but it sure is a nice touch as if someone was talking outside the patient. Good job in all. Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 15 19:44:57 | 9m 51s | Kitten Keeper | ♥ 2 | A cat lady simulation! You cannot even remove the dead kittens, that's the hallmark right there! Not much of a game at the moment. It is obvious what to do. Just keep piling in more things, *spend all the money all the time!* I got bored after 30 cats or so so just let it run until happiness fell to negative digits. Got to 102 cats doing nothing... *Yeah.* Where does the money come from? Are people paying for you to pet their cats? If so then there are many management mechanics that could be added here: - Rent. Gotta keep paying it! - Resources, like food, water, litter refills? All of these constantly drain money too. - Penalty for deaths. Currently this isn't much of an issue apart from the very beginning (medication is expensive!) Still worth considering. Then some more advanced ideas: - Customer relations. Why would someone drop off their cat to this place for days on end? Surely the owners should come pick up their pet eventually and then, if your service is good, drop them off again in the future. Bigger tip for good care! - Unique cats (to a degree). Visual difference is the obvious thing, but preferences and requirements should also change. Maybe they could be territorial too and not get along with some other cats. One GUI bug/issue is the numerous thought bubbles. At times the kittens seem to get stuck doing something, like sleeping, while they desperately think about something else, like food. That really shouldn't happen as it simply clutters the screen and makes little sense. Other than that, the graphics are nice. Audio is ok, yet it does get annoying hearing the same *meows* over and over again. Then again, what did I expect with dozens of cats running around? Funny idea, ok implementation. More challenge needed! Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 16 15:08:58 | 19h 24m | Toy workshop 2 | ♥ 3 | Played on Linux. It works, but the window popping up once the timer ran out didn't exactly do its job. It froze the program and the message was not readable. Probably an openjdk-8 problem, but it is not critical. Moving on. Xmas themed gift crafting game, haven't seen many of those now that I think about it. The idea is solid, but the user interface leaves me cold. UI issues: 1. The crafting recipes are not in the program, but relegated to the manual. You already have tooltips for the gift demanding elves, so adding these would not be a big deal codewise. 2. A worker who cannot build a gift will still go to the warehouse. Sure, it makes sense that they need to check the wares first, but that is not responsive design for the user. I thought that the elves were doing something productive, when in reality they were just going back and forth. 3. Cultivating the plants. This is nothing but extra clicking. If I command a worker to a plant then he should plant it, cultivate it and harvest it automatically without further clicks. *Say no to needless clicking!* 4. Audiovisual feedback on successful and unsuccessful actions. If a worker lacks resources to craft a gift there should be some kind of an effect or audio cue. Same goes for managing to build a gift. The graphics are adequate, some sufficiently *wintery* music would elevate the mood. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 17 14:08:24 | 22h 59m | Crawl Control | ♥ 1 | Valhalla is a tough place, for the grunts that is. Being a mighty technoviking helps! Adequate entry in all, can't complain much. The endless mode could use extra rooms. More traps and visual variety would improve longevity too. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 18 14:20:15 | 24h 11m | Danger Dolly | ♥ 2 | Excellent idea, never seen one like this before! Sure, physics based stacking challenges are a thing (in real life too!), but the dolly adds a whole new dimension to the exercise. After each successful haul came a *sigh* of defeat. Now, how am I going to pull this next one off? The sigh deepened with each task ultimately transforming into a *shocking gasp* at 8 action figures? *You must be mad!* The only way to manage that is to hook the figures to the top and the bottom of the dolly, a challenge very much down to chance! Eventually I managed it after many tries and much gnashing of teeth. Not going to try that again... Surprisingly the action figures did not disappear upon delivery so I used one of them to help with the last 7 spinners task. A push over, not quite the finale I was hoping for. Was that intentional? The presentation is adequate. A background image and a few effects would improve the graphics side of things. The music, while cute and appropriate, does repeat itself too often. The sound effects are also average at best, Sfxr is easy to spot now-a-days. Good job! Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Great (4.5)* Innovation: *Amazing (5.0)* Theme: *Amazing (5.0)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 18 15:21:15 | 1h 01m | Crystalien: Mega Blastar | ♥ 4 | Competent top down shooter. The gimmick is thematic, but not exactly exciting. A standard wave based system would achieve a similar difficulty curve: monsters get more numerous and dangerous as time goes on. The graphics are great: nice lighting system and fancy particles. The enemies could look more menacing, less like oversized cockroaches. The sound effects do their job. The post jam version has a lot more going on for it. Drops the thematic connection completely, which is a good move. The ratings are for the jam version. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Audio: *Average (3.0)* Humor: * Nonexistent (1.0)* Mood: *Average (3.0)* |
| Dec 18 16:38:03 | 1h 16m | World Domenation | ♥ 4 | Functional hex based light-strategy game; functional and stale. The issue is that I'm fighting the aliens with identical units. When they spawn a lot of units, I need to spawn pretty much as many units to repel them and that means a whole lot of clicking per turn. *I don't like clicking...* The design could use some work then. Here are some suggestions: - Asymmetrical factions. The humans should have much more powerful (and expensive) units. Soldiers can smite snails easily, but the enemy is numerous so it balances out. - Smaller map, or move movement points or less deserts. Moving one hex at a time, at worst having to discard the second movement point due to forests and deserts, is annoying. - Defensive bonus for forests and domes. Give the humans an advantage that even the aliens can use if the player is foolish enough to attack the nasties lurking in the woods. - Slow healing in domes (and alien spawn points). All light-strategies I've played have this feature. It makes sense and just works. The defenders should have an advantage. There are also some UI issues: - If a dome does not have enough resources to build a unit then the unit button should be crossed out. - No tutorial! Rather than mashing the help text in the bottom right corner, show it in the beginning smack in the middle of the screen (and write it in the description!) - The total resource increase per turn could be added to the resource panel as *resource amount + increase*, e.g *Food: 10 + 15* - *Unit: null* Just don't show that. - Typos: Movment. Objecive Simple and has potential. There isn't much here yet and the aforementioned issues do detract from the overall enjoyment. Overall: *Average (3.0)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Average (3.0)* Audio: *Weak (1.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 19 15:28:43 | 22h 50m | Happy Chicken Farm | ♥ 4 | Great audiovisuals and mood. The idea of running a chicken farm is solid and I do like the juxtaposition between the cutesy presentation and gruesome chicken slaughter. *They even have names!* The big problem for me is how cleaning works. Repeatedly pressing space is *annoying* from the user interface point of view. You really should not annoy your users for thematic reasons. I would much rather have more challenge over more annoyance. A simple fix for this is simply to allow pressing the button down for slowly cleaning the ground. Repeatedly pressing the button would clean faster for those situations where speed is needed. A more complicated fix is reducing the amount of cleaning required and adding in other things to do. Currently there is little time for building new coops or even need to. Who is going to clean the second coop? Potential additional mechanics: - Chickens get sick. Sickness can spread so you better move the chicken to a quarantine coop and medicate them there. Medication could be relatively expensive so it isn't always a good idea. - Hens lay eggs! Collect and sell them. Some hens might be more valuable for the eggs than meat. - Hiring helpers. For X money per month a helper will clean up for you. *Press that space bar, worker!* - Rooster! What do you do with it? *Dunno.* *After ten years of hard work the farmer counted his earnings: 163.76 moneys; that's peanuts! Too bad the road leads to green nothingness and not Vegas.* Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Great (4.5)* Humor: *Great (4.5)* Mood: *Great (4.5)* |
| Dec 20 19:31:58 | 28h 03m | Avarice | ♥ 2 | The Linux version is buggy. The gems keep expanding and you don't even need to pick them up. The negative effects don't seem to do anything either. The Windows version works. The graphics are ok. The music does not loop, but seemed ok too. Sound effects are missing, which hits the mood pretty bad. The big problem here is the lack of challenge. There is none of it in the beginning and none of it in the end. All you need to do is to move around in a circle, kiting the enemies behind you and shooting them with the ranged attack. Eventually your firerate deteriorates, but that does not increase challenge, it simply makes killing the enemies slower. I didn't play this far, but I guess the player movement speed drops below the enemy movement speed at some point. Unfortunately that won't be challenging either, instead just impossible. Doing the same trivial thing over and over again results in *utter boredom!* Now, what is a challenge anyways? Think about that for a moment. !> A task which requires you to perform at the peak of your skills in order to overcome it. One of the simplest forms of challenge is a dexterity challenge. There is a physical limit to the reaction time of us humans. As such it is possible to create a task which is easy at first, but keeps demanding more dexterity and focus until the eventual mistake ending the exercise. This way each and every player will be challenged and as a result: *fun!* In this context dodging the enemy attacks could be such a dexterity challenge. Problem is they only attack in melee, which is to say *never* as long as you keep circle strafing around them. Give some enemies projectile attacks and as their numbers rise the player is required to dodge a lot more projectiles from a lot more directions. This forces the player to start making decisions too: Which enemy to attack first in order to minimize danger to myself? All the while dodging enemy attacks and trying to pick up more gems. Circle strafing alone won't cut it here. More design is needed. The implementation itself is not bad, especially for someone who has never used Unity before. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *One-trick pony (1.0)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 20 20:01:56 | 29m 58s | Household Helper | ♥ 1 | The graphics are adequate as are the sounds; the doorbell especially is a good pick. Fitting music would elevate the mood. The only technical issue with the visuals is the varying pixel size. You should keep that constant if at all possible. The problem is that the interactivity is not enjoyable in any way. Using the dishwasher is nothing but waiting and using the bowl results in a quicktime event with 20 prompts you have to get right in a row, a single mistake takes you back to 0% *The dirt magically reappeared!* There are many titles about menial work such as cleaning, cooking, trading, running a factory, building bridges, etc, which still manage to be enjoyable. The key word is challenge. You need a system which is not trivial or annoyingly boring. A system which rewards success, but makes complete success a tough challenge. Here are a few ideas: - Washing an item should always work. Mistakes simply reduce the cleanliness/quality of the item, which results in less pay for the job. - Something to do with money! For instance paying the rent or the water bill. Money pressure introduces time pressure too, which feeds into the first point about mistakes. - Combos. Find a way to incorporate combos into the cleaning routine. The bigger the combo the faster you get or the more money you make. Players love trying to reach higher combos. (Recettear is a great example of this) - More machines, more mechanics. You already had these in mind though. Solid effort. Sadly effort alone is not enough. Overall: *Bad (2.0)* Fun: *Quicktime events! (1.0)* Innovation: *Bad (2.0)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Below average (2.5)* Audio: *Below average (2.5)* Humor: *Not feeling it (1.5)* Mood: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 21 17:52:28 | 21h 50m | RuneLight | ♥ 2 | The top down shooting and spell crafting are standard mechanics, yet the light slowly fading out, losing runes whenever using them and having to combine ever rarer runes together to fight the bigger and badder monsters are all neat ideas and most importantly work together fine! The audiovisuals are good too. Lighting effects and particles would push the graphics into the great category. One UI issue I can raise is the spell casting menu itself. Why is it in the bottom left corner? Placing it above the mage would reduce the amount of mouse movements radically. Hotkeys (e.g 1-4) would be a nice addition too. The theme doesn't seem to fit really, but who cares about that! Good work in all. Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 21 18:06:51 | 14m 23s | Corruption | ♥ 1 | Solid platformer with appropriate abilities. There is nice color and background variation in the tilesets, even though some of the backgrouds look like they were made in *Paint*. Some landmark assets here and there would have helped to differentiate the levels as they do end up blending together after a while. Where was that next locked area again? Dunno, better check them all again! Going through old areas with new abilities is not all bad as you get to dispatch those hapless enemies in new ways. I really like how every ability serves dual duty as an attack and a movement boost (apart from the wings!). Thematically this isn't quite there. Sure dropping down to one health did make the last set of levels harder than the first few (which were utter cake walks btw), but you aren't exactly worse off as a glass cannon demon. This world is inhabited by nasty black goo monstrosities after all. Good work! Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 21 18:31:22 | 24m 31s | Food Fight | ♥ 2 | Positives first I guess. The 3D models for the sweets are delicious and the audio assets aren't terrible... Eh, that's about it. The design is as standard as it gets. A horde shooter with on the spot upgrades. It does not help that the movement and shooting abilities don't feel great to use. The default walking speed alone is enough to propel you across the map as if sliding on ice. The enemies simply cannot reach you when moving from one corner to the next. The shooting is very anemic and requires constant clicking. *I can't stand clicking!* The damage upgrade is a must have yet it renders the weapon too powerful! From one extreme to the other within a few minutes. The following things are needed: - Less clicking. Holding the button down should keep shooting, even if slower than when clicking. - *Juice!* Particles, camera shake, beefier audio assets, lights, explosions, etc. - Improved basic abilities. Movement should start weighty and slow because you can upgrade it later. Shooting could use some bullet spread (based on movement speed preferably), recoil (same) and reloading (maybe). - Enemy behaviour variation. Currently they all move forward at a constant speed, never stopping. How about shooting, lunging, jumping, flying, etc. There are a lot of similar shooters to draw inspiration from. Keep at it, experience makes perfect('ish) Overall: *Bad (2.0)* Fun: *Terribad (1.0)* Innovation: *Bad (2.0)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Average (3.0)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 22 14:53:16 | 20h 21m | Too much money earning simulator | ♥ 1 | A clicker with no clicking and an actual objective? *What has the world come to!* Seriously, holding down the mouse button is a life saver. The graphics are a good fit and I can understand using ready made assets taken the lack of time at your disposal. Audio would have improved the mood at least. I do have a few questions about the design: - What does the charity building invest on exactly? - Why does a dirt hex turn into a mill completely randomly? It can happen even if I'm currently investing on the hex. Shouldn't it happen only if the hex is left alone? - Why does the lab have overflow conditions in its description? It never does. Good work for such a short project. Some clear up on the design needed. Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *~~Above average(3.5)~~ Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 22 15:16:59 | 23m 43s | LAGimals | ♥ 0 | The graphics are jolly good wintery fare, if only there were music and sound effects to improve the mood. I do like the idea, but there are a design issues and technical gripes on the way of enjoyment: - The animals can leave the screen. - There are too many obstacles blocking the view. - Difficulty goes from trivial to impossible within three levels. I would start with no obstacles and a few animals, adding in both one at a time with small obstacles first. The lag does not need to increase much, if at all, between the levels. This makes designing the level progression easier for you too! Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Lousy (1.5)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)* |
| Dec 22 15:38:43 | 21m 44s | Loot! | ♥ 1 | It's a joke, a jab at Destiny 2 at least, and a short one thankfully, but did it need to be made? Think about it. You could have spent the weekend making something *actually innovative and impressive* instead. (Maybe you did finish this in 2 hours and spent the rest of the time doing something *actually innovative and impressive* instead, do tell?) The ratings will spell the rest. Overall: *Lousy (1.5)* Fun: *Abysmal (1.0)* Innovation: *Abysmal (1.0)* Theme: *Lousy (1.5)* Graphics: *Average (3.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Abysmal (1.0)* |
| Dec 23 17:31:18 | 25h 52m | The Precarious Balance | ♥ 1 | This kid isn't very smart; solving Millenium Prize problems left and right, not claiming the rewards! The flavor text is great, although it repeats at times even during the same day. Reminds me of [Klass of 99](http://retrospec.sgn.net/game/ko99), luckily with no unnecessary side scrolling ambling about. [Bully](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_(video_game) is another school themed title, one with unnecessary 3D running about. The user interface is extremely clear and simple to use. As such the rules page, a wall of text, really doesn't need to explain everything in such detail. It could be condensed considerably. Not a big issue. Activity deadlines are a neat touch and add quite a bit of depth to managing your limited action slots. Weekends are a relief (just like in real life!) There do seem to be some random events, like concentrating in class and falling back in grades, which are only triggered if certain requirements are met. These are an effective way to reward good actions and throw in a curve ball every once in a while. There could be more of these. I guess the important family event is similar, for me that one happened a bit too often. On the third week we had an important family evening every single day! I guess I was just unlucky (too much family stuff, *yuck!*) Staying on the topic, it does seem weird to have a pleasant family event and skip chores receiving shouts a plenty. Mathematically it evens out, but does seem somewhat schizophrenic coming from a bunch of *loving* parents on the very same day. I lasted for 66 days, had pretty much maxed out everything but Mr. Schneider's opinion at day 42. Then a few unfortunate mistakes (caught cheating!) cropped up. Tough luck, sonny Jim. Some week or even month long objectives to work towards would help to keep the weeks more interesting and stop them from blending into each other. E.g: Parents: "Increase your grades by X this week and we'll go to the amusement park", Friend: "Help me build a tree house!", Teacher: "The school play needs actors. You'll be a tree Jim, join the practice every Thursday." Great work in all! Mood takes hits due to the lack of (fitting) music. An extra layer of graphical polish and more events would push this to the Amazing territory. Overall: *Great (4.5)* Fun: *Great (4.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Great (4.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 23 19:48:29 | 2h 17m | Work Master | ♥ 0 | Quick time events and button mashing do not a game make, a lame dexterity challenge at best. My favorite part: the rad, catchy tune. For such a short loop it sure does convey the sense of urgency and doesn't even get that annoying (listening to it right now!) If only the sound effects weren't so drab. The graphics are fine. A bewildered, panicking office worker running between the work stations would have elevated not only the visuals, but the mood too. Keep the presentation quality, focus on design and you'll have a winner! This, not so much. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Nope (1.0)* Innovation: *Seen it all before (1.0)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Bad (2.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 25 10:30:07 | 38h 41m | Chubby | ♥ 1 | Neat idea, little content. I like the graphics even with the grey drab backgrounds. Audio is severely lacking and impacts the mood. Big points for humor, the highlight of the entry. The biggest issue is the interactivity. Move right and left, jump a bit, fiddle with the catapult... That's it. There are no decisions to make, no problems to solve, no exploration.... Nothing to do apart from treading the obvious linear path. Sure, not entirely finished, yet I can't see these mechanics alone being enough. Here are just a few ideas: - Weight based triggers. When fat or slim the trigger will do something: open/close a door, activate machine, spawn in more cakes, etc. - Use triggers and mechanism to build complex levels with actual thought required to pass. You could end up with a puzzle (deductive logic problem) or... - Introduce enemies and other opposing forces to make it into a game (inductive logic competition) Some flesh around the bones is needed. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Not really (1.5)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Excellent (5.0)* Mood: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 25 19:24:20 | 8h 54m | Crunch Time | ♥ 1 | After getting through the tutorial, this turned out to be a competent puzzle. The refactoring mechanic, going back to earlier phases and making sure the graph fits all the calendars, is quite novel. It is not without issues though. Lets start with the setting. Software development is close to all of our hearts, but I do find it weird that you are fitting UML into a calendar. Is that a thing in bigger software houses? The background ambient does not loop. The sound effects are lacking too and harsh on the ears. (Played Linux 64-bit, if that matters) The refactoring works, yet the more phases there are the less effect each phases has. If the graph fits the first three levels, chances are it is just going to fit the next few too (happened to me with the last set of levels). I guess it is possible to design around that with clever tricks and maybe more mechanics, allowing to subvert the base rules. Lastly the tutorial is not that clear. The second phase for me caused an issue as an important piece of information had not been said explicitly: The names from the classes don't need to match! The rules only say the symbols need to match, so technically they are not to fault, but the human mind works in mysterious ways making its own *"logical"* connections. I got another person to play too and they also found the tutorial confusing. Basically a fool-proof tutorial should only do one thing at a time and explain it as succinctly as possible, without withholding information. A tricky task, yet doable. Here's my take on this: **Tutorial start** Phase 1: >- Select a class from the code area. - Click a class with the same symbol in the work area The work area has two classes with different symbols and neither name matches the code class. The commit button can appear once the player has made the right (only possible) match, thus it does not need to be explained verbally. Phase 2: >- Classes cannot overlap occupied tiles The work area once again has two options: one with a blocking class/post-it-note below it, another without. Both classes have the the correct symbol and non-matching names. Phase 3: >- If you cannot fit your code classes into the work area then you need to refactor it in the previous phase. The refactor button appears in this phase. Going back to the previous phase the class can be connected differently in the same vein than in the current phase 1 (as in, above the matching class, not below it) Phase 4 & 5: >- Put everything you've learned into good use. A few more levels with some refactoring needed (if the player didn't get lucky of course) **Tutorial end** Not a big difference, but it does make it very clear that class names don't matter and assures that the player only needs to learn one thing at a time. Solid effort nonetheless. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Bad (2.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 25 19:52:44 | 28m 24s | Please Let Me Die | ♥ 2 | Great idea! Only having one immunity at a time is a great piece of design too, otherwise this would get trivial pretty fast. The problem is the controls: slippery, unresponsive, slow when you need to go fast, fast when you need to go slow. How did you manage to bring forth such ruination!? The graphics are ugly. Completely functional, but ugly. The music is better, yet the lack of sound effects does hurt the experience. While innovative the immunity idea does not fit the theme that well. Infinite lives being bad for you does make sense, but it has little connection with the interactivity. Unlike @commanderstitch I did not restart after getting stuck between spikes and a platform (the character should be just wee bit shorter to avoid this). Thanks for the screen grab! The controls drag this down... What can I say. Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *Lousy (1.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Lousy (1.5)* Audio: *Below average (2.5)* Humor: *Below average (2.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 26 23:04:36 | 27h 11m | Post Morton | ♥ 0 | It is a simple simulation alright. I especially like how each neighbourhood seemingly has its own logic for laying down address numbers, uncanny! The map is well realized in other aspects too. Redding 17, that's where I'd live. The graphics are neat-o, audio rudimentary yet in the same style. The main issue here is the lack of a draw, at least for me. I don't exactly wish to roleplay as a virtual postman. The task is huge and going through the pile really does not get any more interesting even with the upgrades. I expected the mail cannon to be more *spectacular*. It should have shot postage off screen directly from the van inventory, but alas it only uses those in your bag and requires near vicinity. I got down to 200 letters and gave up due to boredom. The theme doesn't fit, it gets easier with more upgrades! If only there was any kind of challenge here... Some ideas: - Time limits (deliver these before sunrise, etc.) - Pedestrians and their dogs *to avoid!* - Running over pedestrians and their dogs should result in a hefty fine - Hitting trees should damage the van, takes money to fix - Police officers! Speeding while one is about results in more fines, except if you can out run them! - Traffic! Take too long and the morning commuters rise to spoil your day. - Competitors! Light rivalry with your peers or a blood-thirsty struggle against another postal service. *Time to go postal!* Stuff like that, not that you had the time in the jam to do anything like it, but how about now! In conclusion: well made, but drab. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Trivial (1.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.0)* Theme: *Bad (2.0)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Audio: *Above average (3.5)* Humor: *Good (4.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 26 23:13:21 | 8m 45s | Match | ♥ 0 | Rather innovative block pushing (and pulling!) game. The audiovisuals are adequate, there could be more pizzazz especially when clearing some blocks. Once you figure out where the new blocks appear it becomes trivial to rack up points. About the only danger was posed by accidentally pulling a nearby block rather than pushing it. I think some more mechanics are needed to keep things interesting. For once I'm stumped and have no suggestions to give. You'll think of something m'kay. Tweaking needed, but the idea is sound. I can imagine this going to places (but not the places themselves...) Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Average (3.0)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Average (3.0)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Audio: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Below average (2.5)* |
| Dec 26 23:23:43 | 10m 22s | ArenaBots | ♥ 0 | Tanky-robot-shooty-shooty, had some fun with this one. The basic controls and mechanics are designed well enough, but there are some technical foibles on the way to greatness. First, the camera is often blocked by walls making aiming a blind gamble. Either it should move towards the tank or the wall should become translucent. Another issue is the tank tilting to its side when colliding with enemies, rigidbody constraints should fix that issue. Audio! Where is it? Bending metal, explosions, the death screams of electric brains! The mood is utterly lost. The 3D models are well made, yet the overall look is too gray for me. More particles for everything would be an improvement too. Good effort, ok implementation. Far from polished unfortunately. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Above average (3.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Lacking (1.5)* |
| Dec 27 19:51:07 | 20h 27m | The Adequate Shepherd | ♥ 0 | Thematic idea and ok implementation too. Graphics are good and the few sound effects do strengthen the mood. Wolves howling and snarling in the background, when close by, would have been a good addition on that front. Herded 14 sheep to the... helicopter landing pad? Had 20 more waiting, but did not bother doing the same thing all over again. That's the main issue here, no additional mechanics are added when saving sheep. Gets stale. Good effort, more content needed. Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)* |
| Dec 27 23:41:48 | 3h 50m | Power Surge | ♥ 1 | Short, simple and fun! A novel mix of familiar mechanics: upgrades, lasors, robots, and module management. Works well. The graphics are great! There are enough effects to keep things juicy. Audio fits too. Played once, lost a single life and then played again to min-max. Did not take long to figure out the best composition: 1 speed + 3 dmg. This way the small critters die in one direct hit, the beam cooldown is as low as it can be and to top it off you are faster than the enemies. I think the problem here is the beam itself. It hits every enemy in a row. Because of this the width of the beam is not a useful upgrade due to the hefty increase in charge time and relative small increase in total enemies hit. Try 1 speed + 3 width and you'll see that it is not as power as the min-max combo. I would change the beam into a projectile and add a new upgrade: projectile hp. The projectile by default is destroyed instantly when hitting an enemy, but the hp upgrade allows it to keep going through enemies dealing more damage. These changes give each upgrade more gravitas. A small projectile with loads of HP will penetrate like a beam, but deal damage only to those enemies on its path. A large projectile with some HP will not penetrate as deep, but will deal damage to bigger groups of enemies. Lastly the default projectile only hits one enemy and deals little damage, but at least you can shoot very often! Another thing is the upgrade spawning. They mostly appear in the middle of the area, while the player tends to stick to the edges. Dodging unwanted upgrades would be more difficult with skewed randomization. This is a solid base for something bigger. How about boss battles which force you to keep changing your upgrades on the fly to deal damage, or fast moving enemies who randomly mutate your upgrades on hit? There's potential here. Good work! Overall: *Good (4.0)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Excellent (5.0)* Audio: *Great (4.5)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |
| Dec 27 23:52:45 | 10m 57s | Shapes Are Mean | ♥ 1 | Solid abstract action game with some innovative ideas: the different beams and how they affect the shapes, that is. I really like the multiplying shape, too bad it is not used more. Got to around 3500 points and didn't immediately wish to play again. I think the difficulty ramp up could be faster and the wave resets should be removed. The initial, boring, circles-only wave kept coming back for no good reason after losing a life (and maybe even when using a boom, can't remember). The graphics are simple and effective. Particle effects in moderation would fit as long as not obscuring the action. The mood is care-free and funky, yet a bit all over the place due to the large variety of tunes. Great work. Will try it again from the top later. For me trying not to get hit at all is the most interesting bit here. Overall: *Great (4.5)* Fun: *Good (4.0)* Innovation: *Excellent (5.0)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Audio: *Great (4.5)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Good (4.0)* |