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pkenney

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Apr 23 12:29:29 The Bonding of Isaac ♥ 0 Nice work, I especially like the charming graphics. The details in the tears are great, the way they fall and then slowly soften and grow. I also like the way the way the position/rotation-based animation actually gives a feeling to the different characters, I was surprised at how effectively it conveyed some of the dog's state! The control scheme of holding space to change modes was a little awkward, especially when I was trying to dodge the girl's attacks and had to stop to remind myself of which comment type was which button, but no big deal. Small scope but charming, well done!
Apr 23 14:16:09 1h 46m Love Is A Battlefield ♥ 0 Wow, really nice. The whole package comes together: great sound and graphics, tight gameplay, and the challenge level is tough-but-fair with the theme story creating enough suspense to motivate me to keep trying. I managed a victory, but I think I simultaneously died to the final attack and entered a strange win-and-lose combo state that sent the game a little bonkers. The sound effect of the final attack hitting me carried over into the title screen, where the menu got strange and seemed to move the heart between four slots rather than three, and all of them went to the credits screen. The boss fight was cool and worked well with the story. Great job!
Apr 23 18:55:59 4h 39m Zuma Defence ♥ 0 Very cool! I managed 2nd place on the normal leaderboards but first place is too far ahead for me to try for. It definitely took me a few games of exploring the strategic options before I got a handle on it, which I really liked about it. It was enjoyable to mess around with different approaches. At first I had a huge monster set of stuff floating at the end of the chain, but I realized that this limits my income, and it was nice to be forced to take more risks. The controls were totally fine, and the graphics were nice and did a good job of teaching me the rules if I paid attention. I was glad you didn't tutorialize me a lot with text, but instead just threw me in to figure it out (tho it took a bit before I even understood the basic rules). Of course I wished for a little more juice and sound effects to make the experience a little more concrete and real-feeling, but that's just a matter of scope. I think you focused on the right things, because those are nice-to-haves and all the must-haves are here. Actually with the leaderboard there's a nice bit of scope -- that's a great touch because it made me play a bit more by seeing what was possible. I enjoyed waiting and saving up enough money to launch a multi-step attack deeper into the chain -- a good moment the game's strategy lured me into trying, rather than clickspam. Great job!
Apr 23 19:15:06 19m 07s Tank On The Road ♥ 0 Hi, I'm sorry but I tried this and the link was to a 404 (Page not Found). Is it possible that you left your itch page set to a private draft, and didn't publish?
Apr 24 01:06:35 5h 51m The Bunker ♥ 1 A nice moody experience. Times are tough in the bunker, and I have a life-or-death decision, but without very much information. Too hasty, and I will get the wrong suspect. Too slow and we will all die. I tried to second-guess myself and got the wrong person the first time. The second time I tried to delay and see if I could get more information. But the authorities MUST be obeyed, and I must be their imperfect implement of justice, flawed though I am. Good work creating a feel -- the ominous music and background art fit really well with the story/mood. Nice entry!
Apr 24 01:19:34 12m 59s Slide or Die ♥ 1 There was a lot going on here, and my initial confusion was made worse by sitting 1 foot further from my computer than my wireless keyboard was comfortable with, ha. But surprisingly, I got the hang of it pretty quickly once the pieces locked into place. I lasted 99 seconds once I got to the meat of the game. The way I had to learn the game well enough to hit the start button before death was on the table was a very key design choice! Other smart design choices were the slo-mo, and the way I couldn't shoot if I didn't participate in the core movement mechanic. These were huge at helping/forcing me to get past the natural friction of facing a really new and unusual mechanic. Well done. You tackled a lot here and didn't shy away from the difficult parts, impressive!
Apr 24 01:42:51 23m 17s Knightmare ♥ 1 Nice art and music with a great variety of enemies and mechanics! If I could change one thing, I would tweak the camera logic. Right now it moves behind me so that as I move right, my character goes further right on the screen, meaning I can see less ahead of me than behind me. That was only a tiny thing though. Overall an impressive entry! Loved doing lots of dash attacks into the hordes of nice-looking enemies. I got to the final wave but I couldn't quite hold it off.
Apr 24 01:56:16 13m 25s Check, Please! ♥ 2 Had fun, and played til my elbow hurt, but I still couldn't quite get those darn meatballs where they belonged. I think my date was feeling a little... disrespected a few times. Really charming, and things fit together very nicely! Obviously it's all really clumsy but I enjoyed that about a lot. Nice entry!
Apr 24 02:17:10 20m 54s BREAK // HELL ♥ 3 37,850. First noticed you guys when you made IceMan, that crazy jump-dodging flip-upside-down game. Now I make a point of checking out your offering because you reliably deliver a tight, to-the-point arcade action game that's really tough but has a mental layer to the design that makes me think. I love the way this one lets me create my own problems. I experimented with randomness and systems of patterns, with constant streams and short bursts. At one point I was like "hrm I don't seem to be punished by failing to get blocks!" But then I realized how I quickly run out of space if I don't. I was stuck at about 15k for a bunch of tries until I felt like I had peeled back the layers, and got a more solid score. Oh and one tiny touch I was glad to see: I don't get insta-gameover if I eat a quick run of hits in a stream. Nice. I still think I did some dumb stuff that got me killed and a much higher score is possible but that was good for now. Another really tight package with feel and hidden depth. I was very glad to see you had your sound crew present for this entry, and it came out great. I missed that in the demon-head lane-racer game. Well done.
Apr 24 03:09:56 52m 46s Helsing ♥ 2 Fantastic job creating the atmosphere. The art, the sound, and the decisions about lighting really set the stage for the mood. The item scarcity was just about right, to where I was worried but never actually had a problem. I beat the game on my first run-through, but I had some close calls of being hunted by werewolves without knowing if a stake would work! If I could tweak one thing, I'd think whether the rotating as a separate input step could be changed. I understand it's to aim the shooting, but the controls otherwise feel really snappy and the double-tap to turn somewhat marred that feel. I like to play turn/grid games pretty fast though, so it could just be me. I loved the introduction of the metalish music at the end and the plot changes there, very nice touch to make it feel like a full experience. Very nice entry!
Apr 24 03:12:27 2m 31s Rapid Fire ♥ 1 I wanted to try, but the link goes to a 404 page not found. Is it possible you have the itch page set to a private draft instead of a published public page? You can check by going to the game page, clicking "edit" at the top, then going to the bottom of the edit screen and checking the setting for "visibility and access." (I know b/c I made this mistake last time!) I'll swing by later and check again.
Apr 24 12:51:25 9h 38m SURVABY ♥ 3 This is a great core concept to use for the theme: to set the two genres against each other in a conflict where the player needs to divide their time and attention between competing goals. You even took it a step further and forced me to literally turn my back on the action game to tend to the other genre! Nice. And the execution is really strong, too. The voxel aesthetic works really well, and the sound is -- well, err, let's set aside the crying baby sound and talk about the rest -- is very nice. I especially liked that dropping the shotgun on the floor made the same sound as dropping the bottle. A clever small joke. I had about the right amount of breathing room at the start, and I absolutely loved that you didn't tutorialize me at all, and just threw me straight in to figure it out. The only small thing I wanted to tweak -- setting aside the crying -- was this hitbox for the pickup command, I would have preferred it to be just slightly more generous, I had to be a little more careful than felt smooth. Overall this was excellent, but let's talk about the crying. I don't know what I want. On the one hand, you have to have the crying. On the other hand, it's crying, which is like a magical sound my brain is designed to find maximally annoying. I *definitely* would have played more of this if it weren't for the crying. My brain was like "nah let's not click the button that opts into more crying" unfortunately. But that said, I didn't need to play a ton to enjoy this. Very nice entry.
Apr 24 13:36:32 45m 07s Investment platforms ♥ 2 I definitely like the concept here - of navigating selectively through an endless platformer where the different platforms I hit are controlling a second aspect of the game related to economics. And then the macro-economic conditions affect the physics in the platform -- it's a cool idea! I struggled with the high-speed pace, though. There was a lot being thrown at me here, and I would have enjoyed a bit more breathing room at the start to observe and learn the rules before things got so difficult. That, or an instant restart button so I could spend more time learning. I spent almost all of my time just trying not to die, and never really clicked with the higher-level economic concepts. (Hrm... was that the game's hidden message?)
Apr 25 00:34:17 10h 57m Motorhell ♥ 1 Game is fucking METAL, and I love it! This game has a great idea and huge potential, and enough of that potential is realized to make it a lot of fun. It could be MEGA-fun and doesn't quite grab all the METAL potential available. The main thing about when I play a badass METAL game is that I want to be able to FEEL what's going on. I know this was done with limited time, and I think you prioritized correctly. But man, if you were able to take it up a level in terms of the feel this would be just fantastic. I want you to take it to eleven! Two things matter in this game: hurting things and riding a motorcycle. Let's look at both: You gotta make it so I know when I'm getting hit, know when I hit the enemy, know when I kill them. You gotta make those core interactions come through in FEEL. That goes double in a tough fast firstperson game, for example when I get rammed by a psycho-demonbiker with a huge blade mounted on the front of his motorbike, I would probably notice. But I got hit from the back a few times in this and didn't! I gotta feel that. "SLAM! What the fu--" Not looking at some digits on the screen and saying "hmr professor, pardon me but I do believe we may have taken some damage back there!" I also gotta feel like I'm on a motorcycle. What kind of motorcycle goes in reverse?! Let's turn to the experts to see how it's done. Let's say you're, to take one example, a leather-clad killer robot from the future who just got rammed by a truck, and you'd like to turn your motorcycle around 180 degrees to give chase. You don't use reverse, you don't even duck-walk it back... you're metal, so THIS is what you do: https://youtu.be/7_IYeL4LtYY?t=50 I want a button that does THAT! But suggestions aside, I had a lot of fun with what you DID ship. I got to Arena 2 and almost cleared it, which felt like I was doing pretty good, since it's tough. That was with riding full throttle, none of this hiding around corners & waiting stuff. I did my best when I kept moving, kept my head on a swivel, and didn't circle around to get into any prolonged fights: if I didn't finish a guy off, I'd get him next pass! I loved the variety of the enemies, with some trying to shoot me and those crazies with the lances trying to ram me, awesome! Very nice entry, well done.
Apr 25 01:32:52 58m 35s Monster DATING System ♥ 0 Hey man, I went to check it out but I couldn't find the download link on the page! Am I being dumb? I just saw the description and a nice animated gif.
Apr 25 01:56:33 23m 41s Keyboard Army ♥ 4 Really cool charming idea. I thought I was a good blind typist, but after playing this for a bit... well, let's just say I'm kind of glad it didn't show me an accuracy score at the end! The first few moments flat-out bamboozled me. My immediate reaction was OMG that text is so small! I was lounging on the sofa being casual, and I had to get physically closer to the screen and set the keyboard properly on the table. But later I saw that the text names are quite long in some cases, so a larger font is not easy, tough design tradeoff. The second aspect I struggled with was eye positioning. I needed to watch the battle to learn the rules (I'm glad you didn't tutorialize overmuch) but I also needed to intently squint at card text to type it. So there was an initial hurdle, but once past that I started getting better and tabbing around to lanes and trying to get some folks into position for battle with some thought to strategy, rather than just furiously typing everything that came up. And once I settled in I started digging it! I was cool how I could type text that applied to multiple cards, or access cards from multiple zones at the same time, that was a nice touch. I eventually beat the whole thing and congratulated myself. Honest by then I was sort of in the groove and probably would have gone on a bit further. This is a cool concept, executed nicely with great art and a grooving OST that set a nice foot-tapping pace that matched the gameplay. Well done!!
Apr 25 02:33:24 36m 51s Infernoculus ♥ 2 Wow, very slick package here. Nice concept of turn-based soccer on a hex grid with some inaccuracy in kicks, leading to a nice positional strategy game with a reasonable planning horizon but not so predictable you have to compute far ahead. Great concept for the theme! The layer of nice art and sound with the mystical/demonic characters and special abilities is an impressive layer of additional scope over the top, wow! And all of it worked and was really clear - I jumped right in, never looked at the help, and won my first match 3-1. I think I would have lost if the AI was a little more careful about not hitting its own teammates. It seemed to play for damage, and I played purely for scoring... maybe a mistake on my part, as once they were two men up it was tough for me. But once the field evened again I won handily, but being REALLY careful with my one fast guy left. Poor Gandalf went down immediately for my side, woops! Everything here was on point. The only critique I can offer is that the pace is a bit slow. I like action games, and I do play a lot of turn-based roguelikes as well, but those are single-character tappa-tappa speedy turn-based games. This level of 5-man squad turn games feels a little onerous to me, but I can't tell if that's just inherent to the genre and merely a matter of taste. If it played twice as fast I definitely would have gone back for multiple matches. Overall a very impressive entry across the board. Very nice work!
Apr 25 02:47:19 13m 55s Shepherd and Dog ♥ 1 Wow art is off-the-charts charming here, and the dog and wolf both ooze personality. The controls are nice and responsive, giving vibrant life to the nice art. I struggled with the levels as I progressed, because WOWZErs those wolves don't mess around, and the way they could go through shrubs but the dog couldn't left me feeling cornered a lot! I guess it's that way on the nature shows, too. Animal life looks cute but there is a brutality to the reality of it all. Very nice entry here, great work.
Apr 25 03:43:59 56m 40s Jet Boy ♥ 1 ohhhhhhh my god this was SO hard. But it had JETPACKS and shooting with leads at moving targets. So the old Tribes player in me had to try to step up, and I gave it a serious effort. I thought I would never even get past the first boss. But after a lot of experimenting and many many many many tries I finally beat him. Fortunately the next few bosses were SLIGHTLY less difficult. Let's call the three bosses spinner, roller, and smiler. I beat each of them, and then I beat spinner 2. But I ran out of steam after losing many many times to roller 2. Funnily, spinner was hardest for me, then roller, and simley was pretty easy. But that may be the tribes thing: smiler was about leading your shot more than dodging, and I just summoned my old chaingun skills. I was upset that I didn't get even an instant of invulnerability and eating a tripleshot could end me instantly. But honestly I think given this game's brutality, I'm okay with that. I had to dig deep, as this is more execution difficulty than I normally engage with, but there were three excellent aspects of the game that made me want to do it: first there is the very well done aesthetic of informative and appealing graphics and sound; second the controls are very tight so it's all my fault; and third there is a pattern to be deduced with each boss and so it is as much of a puzzle as it is an execution test. Every now and then a superhard execution LD comes along that has the package to make me buckle down and this was one of those rare games. Well done!
Apr 26 01:02:24 21h 18m Twin Stick Town ♥ 1 Wow, this is a really cool concept executed well with a lot of little details. The art is super-charming, I love the snappiness of the controls across all of the modes, and the sound & music are on point, too. It was a lot of fun to tinker around with this, and I loved the variety of enemies, and the way that things would spiral out of control. I felt a tension between building useful buildings together in a clump, and then as I built further around that it was kind of like trapping me in that area during the fights. Combat felt great, too. Very strong entry, really well done!
Apr 26 01:19:30 17m 06s Rockin' Horse ♥ 1 Wow great job making the 3D art and music! I ran the course three times, but still didn't beat snail so I think I was pretty bad. But I liked the grooving tunes, and I had a fun time drifting around the corners. One time after the well up the stairs, I was confused by which way to turn, I turned left and found myself what seemed like just off the course. I never read the game's page, since I figure the game will explain it to me, but I'm kicking myself this time, because I was hitting the enter key on all quarter-note beats, which probably explains both why my hand hurts and also why I was stuck at Sir Snail!! Ooops, my bad. Kind of made it fun though since I was not very much in control coming around corners so I had to try to plan my racing line a bit more. Cool idea to mix these two genres, I had fun.
Apr 26 01:39:21 19m 51s Bump Quest 6 ♥ 0 I played the original version, but I still won. I loved the jamming tune, and the nice finale that rewarded me for completing the entire bump quest! This was charming. My wife wondered why I was battling blue hershey kisses so I got to explain to her about slimes. Yeah the controls were a little hard to handle, but it was also kind of a crazy sort of fun to be out of control and bounce-smashing into everything and trying to plan my movement. Cool little game that's heavy on charm, nice work.
Apr 26 01:48:16 8m 55s Night of the Overdue Assignments ♥ 1 "Take that, homework!" I sure killed a lot of assignments. I was mopping the place up, but then I started experimenting with the pencil and it went downhill from there. I liked the angry expressions on the assignments, how they came in various sizes, and the nice crunchy feel to shooting them. Well done!
Apr 26 02:20:23 32m 07s Band Battle Fantasy - A Turn-Based Rhythm Game ♥ 1 Very cool concept to have the "band vs crowd" dynamic in a JRPG battle format! Unfortunately I'm pretty bad at rhythm games, and most of my games were GAME OVER in literally about four seconds after my attempt to rock began. I tried a bunch of times and managed to get to the start of the vocals once, but I never made it to the crowd's second turn. Ha, yea I'm that bad! Dug the concept and art though.. wish I could have tried further into the game!
Apr 27 20:41:04 42h 20m Miss Priss ♥ 0 The art and crazy story gave a nice light-hearted feel, and the operatic semi-metal, even if not made for this jam, was a nice choice to use. Gave kind of a crazy fits-but-doesn't-fit feel to the whole thing that I enjoyed and worked with the whole "incompatible genres" theme is a different way that other entries. I also liked the concept of drawing power for mobility, attack, and life all from the same pool. Although I enjoyed the flying, and this design encouraged me NOT to do that fun thing, which was kind of a shame. I did get stuck in the wall one time, here is a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/8EJSZSz I had to jet myself to death and start over there, but fortunately that's not a big deal since the game is a short punchy length, which I also liked about it... it didn't overstay its welcome. The boss fight I think you are working out some bugs there, so no big deal but my experience was I got shoved in the corner and some things happened that confused me and then I died. (Probably what it really feels like to fight the hulk anyway) Nice entry, slightly messy but counters with messy charm and makes the whole thing work.
Apr 27 21:02:08 21m 04s Shake'n'Shoot ♥ 1 Cool disco-floor with the shifting colors and the special dance spots, looks very nice. I also liked the way the character's animations for shooting or walking (especially walking backwards) were all disco-dancey. I played without reading the instructions at first, and figured most of it out but not the mousewheel. Then I alt-tabbed over to read them and it was smooth sailing. I played until I got to the special dance-off and wiped out the rest of the dance-hating robot monsters. Interesting idea, with the conflict between needing to dance to power up and needing to shoot the robots. I think I personally could have used a bit more speed and difficulty across every aspect, but of course this is just a matter of personal taste, and the relaxed pace certainly let me bask in some of the details that I might not have enjoyed as much in a hectic setting. Nice work.
Apr 27 21:11:58 9m 50s Draw Me Something ♥ 1 Really cute idea! Would never have thought to make a game about hurling molotov cocktails at cute bunny rabbits, except, well, I guess I just did! I didn't know where it was going at all with all the drawing, though I was having fun with it. I found the place you took it surprising and satisfying. Well done!!
Apr 27 21:19:21 7m 23s Groove Chase ♥ 1 I really like the song a lot. The arrow-pressed was pretty tough, and typically I'm not too good at that type of game. But I will say that there were a couple of points where I got into a groove and surprised myself by hitting some pretty messed-up combos that I was shocked I got right... that felt pretty good! I didn't win, though. I also liked the stylish art on the cars and the arrows, plus the little taunts on the retry screen. Nice work!
Apr 27 21:32:33 13m 12s Card Runner ♥ 1 Very interesting! My first half dozen runs ended really fast and I thought "wtf I don't have what I need, that was impossible." but then I realized the tricks, and after a couple more I got a run with a score of 721. I see that @Jimbly did even better, but hey I felt okay about 721 given my first few runs!! I felt like there was a delay I never fully understood between the clicking and the doing. Several times I was hammering the card like COME ON DOOO ITTTT. I got accustomed to the delay and started playing cards with the idea that there would be a lag before they kicked in, but I think the game would have felt more potent and alive if the card instantly took effect, or if whatever that delay is was strongly visually indicated why it exists. But once I got used to the couple of odd things I really started to feel good playing, and I wanted to keep it all on a roll! What finally did me in on my good run was jumping a little too early (was getting jumpy I guess!) and landing on top of a spikeball instead of jumping over it. Very cool concept and a nice entry, good work.
Apr 29 20:59:12 47h 26m Action Chess ♥ 1 Wild, and tense! I was claiming the center with c4 d4 e4 and whipping out knights and that was going okay. I definitely ran into some trouble with exchanges and a few times it was like WHOOPS I lost a piece and now I have to mentally re-gear for the new situation. I mean, situations change quickly in blitz chess, but they move along a certain sort of a path through the gamespace. This game strangely teleports to new positions in alternate trees in a way that my blitz chess brain patterns were sideswiped by. It was a cool experience! Aesthetics-wise I loved the crunchy sound effects and found the on-piece timer totally clear and really necessary/helpful. I tried playing on a long train ride, but the color contrast is so low between the dark squares and dark pieces that I couldn't play. I was madly squinting, but it was like the enemy army had cloaking fields. I had to set it aside and come back with more friendly ambient lighting. A cool idea that I enjoyed toying with. Nice work!
Apr 29 21:06:23 7m 11s The Circle of Fries ♥ 0 Wow, I'm sorry that I haven't reviewed your game since you did mine - but I don't have a gamepad!
Apr 29 21:29:43 23m 20s Dice Poker Chicken Battle ♥ 1 Wow, nice job making the three-part system. It's a lot of scope to take on! The chicken, with his gambling and training and fighting, was kind of a charming character. If you were to expand on this in one area, I would say focus on the feedback. Just simple stuff, like the game popping up the name of the poker hand I got and whether it was -50% or not. And the impact of my training. And whether I won or lost the fight. Basically whenever an important variable changes, there can be some visual thing indicating "oh boy look what YOU did, player!" I definitely learned to get along without those, but they would totally up the game's feel. I went all-in offense, and I had to fight captain squid a few times (tho I wasn't sure if I won or lost my fights against him, they just ended). I eventually realized OH I should go shopping! By then I had huge monies and bought lots of upgrade and wiped the floor with him. Then I took out cool cat and I was the champ!
Apr 29 21:44:17 14m 34s BEAT KILLER ♥ 3 Nice job, I played to the end. It was the right length, had snappy controls, and the art and music were solid. I liked ducking into the nooks and finding the extra notes, I noticed a red one in the ceiling and figured out how to get that one, too. The beat battles were rare enough that I didn't feel overwhelmed, and the enemies had enough health that I had to worry a little about making enough on-beat hits in a row to take 'em out before they clawed their way to me. One little detail that stung me a tiny bit was the way the camera is vertically locked to the guy so that when you jump you often lose all sight of the ground. Here's an example: https://imgur.com/dj4sLzw Not a big deal, but it did create a little discomfort. Only other critique is that I never quite understood the meaning of the horizontal location of the notes, since for example a left arrow note might appear on the left, or on the right. Since I was multi-tasking between playing and platforming I wished the various arrows were lane-locked, so eg left was always on the left, so that way I could hit the beats by only looking from my peripheral vision while focusing on controlling my character. but maybe I just didn't understand what was really going on! Nice job making a small tight metroidvania that had something new going on, and a sense of style, with tight controls!
Apr 30 01:44:26 4h 00m Alien Holes ♥ 1 This was cool, I had fun playing around with it. My initial reaction was shock that they aim moves so slow and soupy, but I soon came to realize that this is critical for making you feel like your shots have to count -- no quick spamming of minor corrections! My first game was spent getting a handle on things and I only got a 2. I knew I could do better though, so I buckled down a bit and got myself an 8. I can see from the comments above though that this does not make me the A-Hole Master after all! Oh well. Cool idea, and you made some interesting choices that gave it a unique feel. Nice work!
Apr 30 02:08:31 24m 05s Gravity Chess ♥ 0 Very nice puzzle entry here. I played the whole thing, and felt like the pace of introducing new concepts was right on. I had a good mix of feeling like I was smart, and getting a bit stumped here and there as well. The only time the game lost me was the first level with the night, not because of the new move it was introducing, but because I had not really learned the rules about "opposite colors can take" and "you must fill each goal but not have any left over" -- the prior levels were supposed to teach me that but I kind of missed the point. I referred back to the listed rules that once, and I was off again through the end. Interface was slick and did what I needed, if I could have added one convenience, it would be that I could toggle selection of a piece. Sometimes I felt like I wanted to unselect something I'd dabbled with moving but decided against. Overall very impressive exploring of an interesting idea -- well done!
Apr 30 03:17:08 1h 08m StarClick: RTS + Clicker ♥ 1 Very clever twist, making the costs ramp up similarly to the way the clicker economy works! This looked and sounded great, and the feel was nicely solid as well. It was a lot to have thrown at me, but I felt like you kept it manageable... or as manageable as StarCraft can be! Nicely executed and clever design -- great well-rounded compo entry!
Apr 30 03:51:27 34m 19s Arithmetris ♥ 1 Such a cool concept, and I enjoyed smashing my head against this brick wall for a little while, but ultimately I'm too dumb/slow for it. I enjoyed the snappy controls and never once felt cheated. The raw text aesthetic worked well with the numeric concept. I yearned for training wheels: a "current total" column showing where I'm at in each row. A very interesting and well-done experiment, even if I could only scratch the surface. I think my top score was 22. OK I tried it once more with the music, and while I was fought a little harder at the end I still only scored 14. I did notice though that in button-hammer-dodging at the very end I accidentally insta-skipped my score view... maybe that should be passed with a spacebar? Man this is tough, but interesting.
May 1 01:11:56 21h 20m Dark Soil ♥ 2 (Level 48, 1746 souls) Wow this was so top-notch. The idea was very cool with multiple design ideas I liked: the create-your-own-problem, an the task-switching between priorities. The art was just fantastic, as was the sound and music. I was really grooving in this one, and falling more into the game without a lot of sense of time passing. The controls were pretty tight, and I especially liked the choice to have the attack lunge toward enemies and also exhaust a meter, giving me two reasons to be careful about just mega-spamming, but not being too punishing about quick bursts of controlled spam. The walking around was also great. The only aspect of the controls that intruded on my sense of flow state was the juggling between equipment slots. It was probably okay that this felt a little awkward, though, because it created a need to plan a bit and put some tension into the situation. Only other hiccup was that the sanctuary text went by a little too fast for me to read. (Edit: I also never noticed there was a roll feature) Really excellent job here, congrats on a strong entry across all the categories.
May 1 01:28:11 16m 15s The Mad Bulleteer ♥ 0 Cool combination! I saw some other clicker-combos, but what I liked about this one was that it was totally playable on both sides at once. I felt pretty smoothly able to operate the ship and the economy at the same time, and I also felt like I really understood everything that was going on. Controls felt tight, and it looked nice. The crunchy sound effects worked well with the pixelish art, and I liked how the screen got sloppy with particle trails when things got hectic! The curved ship that would rotate in place and spray a stream of bullets was the guy who created the most interesting dodge problems for me, that was my favorite. Nice entry!
May 1 01:45:46 17m 35s Rhythm Attack ♥ 2 I'm just terrible at rhythm games, so I wasn't able to clear a single level. I got to about 1 minute remaining in each of the first two, and the final one just wrecked me. But I was happy that you included a menu at least letting me try all three! This game has its own little charm, kind of a nice coherent feeling to the art, and the sound and music interplayed nicely. The controls felt good -- or at least they did when I was on the beat! The pressure to have to move forward as well as dodge and shoot was a nice design touch. I also liked how the game had kind of discrete rows/columns but yet it also had continuous space that the projectiles would move through. Made for some interesting dodging! I was so bad that getting any "powerup" other than H usually killed me pretty quick, since it threw me off. ;) But even with my bad skills this one was fun. Great job making the music, too. The second song was my favorite.
May 1 02:05:16 19m 30s Black Hole Zoo ♥ 0 I'm a little suspicious of this Bison guy. Sure he's gregarious enough, but, I mean, CAN a black hole fall off a truck?? Something's fishy here... Reservations aside, I fed some black holes as he requested, and it seemed to have worked at teaching the crowd science. They "oohed" and "ahhhed" with quite some vigor. So they must have been paying attention and learning... something. Sadly, it was the last lesson they'll ever learn, as my clicker finger wore out and I was not up to the task of keeping us all safe. Loved the larger-than-life Zoo boss and his wild antics. The cookie of course played second fiddle to the jokes delivered by over-the-top characters, but I think that was totally the right call in the scope-cutting that always happens in these jams. Nice job, I got a bunch of laughs out of this one!
May 2 02:00:17 23h 55m Space Captain Rodriguez ♥ 2 This is a great first entry, and you're getting a lot of solid feedback here. I'm interested to see what you come out with next time after being a little battle-hardened! This game has a cool idea and lots of good execution in the art quality and snappy movement. But wowzers it totally overwhelmed me. It asked that I memorize 20 data points before I know what they really mean, and it has 10 buttons to press. That's probably too much to expect an LD player to hold in their head going into the start of the game... a lesson I had to learn the hard way as a dev, too! Gamefeel wise the core control was tight, which is a huge deal. But pay attention to what @Ashtrail is saying about the speed of the bullets, I think he's put his finger on a problem there. I didn't realize it while playing, but I think he's right that if the projectiles (enemy ones!) moved slower I would have been able to plot dodges more, instead of being a reaction thing. For me, I was shooting and my eye would be in a conundrum: if I look at my ship I can't pay attention to whether I got hearts (meaning a good combo hit) or not. But if I look at the hits I lose sight of what I need to dodge. Consider conveying the information across multiple channels, like a different sound effect for the hit in each case. So I think you have a lot of good raw ideas and raw skills here, and you put together something that's decent, and straight-up good for a first entry. But you have a little ways to go in learning about the "hump" that a stranger sitting down to play cold has to fight over, and how you can make that smoother. That comes with experience, and you'll be getting it by doing these LDs, so keep on! Solid work here and looking forward to next time.
May 2 02:32:37 32m 20s Rex McFury: Public Defender ♥ 1 This was a lot of fun! A very nice little genre-mashup, and I dug the cheesy character brought to life with the throwback lo-rez vocal sample delivering one-liners! Great job with the overall style throughout. The fights were also really solid, with each character having their moves and patterns, and requiring a different approach to beat them! The little old lady blocking shots with her umbrella was a very nice tactical touch. The music was groovin, and I liked the gritty synthesized sound effects. Although I did wish for a different sound for a successful hit vs a wiff, just for information conveyance. So this game is really on point. But since you're asking someone to get specific about the controls, and since this game is good enough to be worth diving deeper into, let's do it. I too experienced some frustration with the controls in my initial moments of playing. In fact I got wrecked in my first fight and felt like it was all off. Starting my second fight, I went away from the lady and just experimented with the controls. I saw how very long I am "stuck" when I punch, and so I stopped playing like a brawler and played more like a "wait for it, counterattack" game. Then I wrecked the lady and only got hit once. So partly it's adjusting. But I still think something is a bit off. For example, testing now, I am trying this combination of inputs, starting from facing left: Punch (Begin holding right, indicating I want to turn around) Punch Punch That's punch-spamming with a turnaround inputted an instant after I begin. In this case I can accept that I don't get the turnaround until after the first punch completes, but the game will actually run the entire combo of 3 punches before turning around. Thinking back to my first play when I lost, I remember getting up in the mix with the old lady and punching, then I'd find I wasn't quite on the correct side, and my punches were missing -- or were they? kind of unsure since the sound is the same -- and I am now trying to turn around and punch the other way, but I'm not turning when I expect to. I also recall deciding to escape down, but feeling "stuck" in place. This is all the initial moments with the game, and I soon adjusted. After realizing how it worked, I thought, oh this is a design decision, to make you more careful. Testing further I see the following moments of loss of control: - No air control - No buffered re-jump so if I want to jump again and push a frame early, I don't get a jump - Hitting attack one frame before landing is also not feeling great (seems to cancel on touchdown?) - There is a stun when I get hit (probably fine, but maybe needs knockback?) So a lot of windows where you ignore my inputs. Some valid, but consider reviewing each I guess? Hope that helps put some specifics on that question. And to be clear: great game, this dive into the controls isn't dissing it!
May 2 03:04:29 31m 52s Blocks of Nibiru ♥ 1 Wow, you're prolific! I was impressed by how many LD and MiniLDs appeared on your author page, so I watched your 15-in-5-years retrospective video and it turns out I have played two of your games before: the cowboy shooting numbers, and the flying tomato shooter. That's an impressive record you have. For blocks of Nibiru, I had fun smashing up some tetris blocks. I loved the earth-tone palette that you used for the art, and the colors combined really well with the texture you had, especially the blue circle. Another nice aesthetic aspect was the very satisfying sound of shooting a block. Gameplay-wise the rounded movement was interesting, but what I liked most was the upgrade system. The multi-ship was cool, and when I had several ships, several speeds, the movement almost became a little different... I was no longer just a ship. The difficulty curve felt a little wild, it was quite easy for a bit longer than I needed it to be, and then in fact I started messing around and experimenting and not paying attention and at that very moment the game got quickly out of hand and I failed to recover. This was around level 9, though I didn't figure out how to use my bomb. There was perhaps something here about shooting the blocks to have those above fall in order to achieve a certain arrangement - literally combining match-3 with shooter - which was unexplored. Oh! And how could I not mention the jamming music! Well I guess it just fit that well. Another nice entry in an impressively consistent record, well done.
May 2 03:53:38 49m 09s Monster Stew ♥ 1 I liked this! The art and soundscape created a gritty alien place, and this played very well with the strange task set in front of me. The difficulty ramped well, with dog-O's letting me learn the ropes, but by the time I got to bullions I was getting snuck up on and surprised, then I had to whirl around in panic and not fall in my own stew! A nice moment. I fell in the soup early, so I had a feeling that this was a full-restart game. Buckling down and being careful, I got to the artichokes with a few close calls that were enjoyable. But when I died at the artichokes and went back to the start of the game, I called it a day. I was enjoying myself but for these LD entries it's a little too much to ask me to repeat THAT much of the game to experience the next bit. Yet the threat of full restart certainly added tension, so it's a tradeoff. The controls were mostly spot-on and worked well. I liked the travel time of projectiles, the movement speed, and the jumps. I noticed that if I keep looking down I flip around which was weird, but didn't really present a problem. I did have a few issues with the shooty-shoots blocking my view when I carried them, for example https://imgur.com/a/TXjqqnb But again not a serious problem by any means. The punny names were a nice touch, add a kind of odd contrast to the gruesome task performed in this hellscape. Overall a memorable and interesting entry, well done!
May 2 05:02:29 1h 08m Goodnight Meowmie ♥ 2 What craft! Your skill and careful polish achieves a potent feel for both the light and dark. I was softened by doing chores, getting to know and like my cat. Then you artfully took advantage, and left me alone in the dark, and I began to feel tense. Lots of small good choices: avoiding a tutorial, how far back "death" sent me, the sweep of the light, the gentle highlight of an item I could interact with. But most of all it never felt gamey, meaning you successfully pulled me out of my normal mode and into yours. Well done.
May 3 02:45:21 21h 42m Neko Drift! ♥ 1 Pleasantly oddball! The controls were a massive issue for the few couple of minutes, but I gradually acclimated. Once I did, the highlight moment was drifting sideways with my ass hanging in the wind, sliding along the cambered edge of the track. The whacky premise was amplified by the goofball sounds and I loved that the cat cubes had little pink paw spots and just wouldn't get out of my way. I have mixed feelings about the controls, because they were certainly a hurdle at first without me understanding why. Later I came to appreciate what they made possible. I am unclear on whether there is a set of changes to keep the good and shed the hurdle. I have played with car controls five different ways myself, and it's just really hard to create expressive driving controls with digital toggles (keys), since it's inherently an analog activity. I came to enjoy the feel, though. One thing that did jam me up hard a couple of times was when a cat was right on my spawn point. My final moments with the game I was low on time and spawned on a cat that sent me spinning like this: https://imgur.com/RQt7BX7 I just spun and spawned and spun and spawned while the clock counted down to my game over. I don't want to dwell on the negative, because although I felt a few splinters I definitely hit some outstanding high notes! You even tickled a few small flashbacks to dodging through traffic in Road Rash on Genesis, a rare feat. So well done - a cool concept and an intriguing execution with flair.
May 11 00:35:14 189h 49m Witch's Escape ♥ 1 The art is very nice. The slow ramp-up in difficulty was ok for the first run, but once I died and restarted, it felt like a long time to get back to the interesting part with multi-button combos. I would have played more if I didn't have to wait as long between runs for the fun part.
May 11 00:56:46 21m 32s CONFESSIONAL ♥ 1 Great job with the unsettling mood. The way I was controlling both the victim and the bagman was extra creepy and a really nice touch. The music and sound effects were a great backdrop and the bagman looked convincing. A unique and moody entry!
May 13 15:31:37 62h 34m Wizsnooks ♥ 4 Very nice! I knew I had to play this one when I saw the screenshot, because a few years back for the 7-day roguelike challenge I created a game called "Billiard Dungeon" so I was curious to see how you'd approached the same thematic idea. We went in pretty different directions, which was fun to see. I was really blown away by the art you created for this, especially the rolling sprites which looked just fantastic! I played maybe 4 or 5 full games before I was like "hrm I wonder what this 'B' button does..." That certainly helped me to get a LOT further! I played until I had looped around through all the levels and was one-shotting dudes, and I considered that beating the game: https://imgur.com/a/vjNesOy Then I shot myself into a hole to say goodbye. Overall a very fun experience. The way enemies didn't move meant your game was completely different than mine... in your game it was all about being very careful not to fall into the hole yourself, as that was the most dangerous threat. Because enemies don't move, it's okay to take many mini-shots to get into position for a safe shot to knock them into a hole. It was a lot of fun and I definitely saw myself gradually improving at knocking them in the holes. Once I had looped all the way around the game I had a good feel for it and ran a streak of getting 3 shots in a row that knocked guys in the holes. Almost got the fourth but I couldn't see the hole on the screen to aim properly and just missed (I remembered where the hole was from the prior loop). Holes being off screen was probably the main source of any player friction. It meant that when I had to travel around the map I had to do it with many tiny-taps instead of bigger shots, and still I nearly knocked myself into a hole. With the many-tiny-tap travel I did feel sometimes like arrr c'mon while waiting for the previous shot to finish rolling, like I wanted to hit the ball again while it was still moving. This was all very minor, but figured I'd mention it since it was the only little splinter. Overall, I would say that the game was very strong. There is probably an element of chaining multiple shots together and thinking carefully about your "lay" from one shot going into the next, which is the core strategy of real snooker/billiards/pool, that didn't come through here. So maybe if you're expanding you can build the strategy in that direction. But I still very much enjoyed the core mechanic here, and it the art, sound, music, and just overall feel of excellent polish really supported that core gameplay very well. Strong entry, really well done!