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Random-storykeeper

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TimestampSince previousGameRandom-storykeeper's comment
Apr 24 06:42:14 Midnight Thief ♥ 1 Stealthy lemmings? I can get behind that. 👀 I really like the way the buttons are designed on the HUD. Nice, big, illustrative and a clear good indicator of cooldown. I feel pretty silly though, because I'm still pretty confused on who I'm supposed to be, haha. But all in all, the presentation of this game works well. I enjoyed the "hmmph" sound effect and the little clink when collecting resources was very satisfying. It's impressive you managed to make music within the time period, albeit the audio could certainly be expanded or revised upon for future releases. Overall, nice job. It's amusing watching the animations go back and forth. The green really pops out from the rest of the graphics. :P
Apr 24 06:51:59 9m 45s Farmer 21 ♥ 1 Me upon first playing: Aww this is cute! I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to play this. Me after playing: **HOLY CRAP** I do stand by the fact that I really dug the art style. The simplistic graphics were really effective at delivering the story, and I love how you mixed this with the black screen and text. Gameplay itself is pretty basic but I get that it only serves to move the story along. Once I got the hang of it, it was just about doing the same routine over and over, though the change in atmosphere is what initiates me to keep going because I'm curious as to what happens next. There's a couple of issues that stood out to me, one being that I don't understand how this relates to the theme? I guess the genres being combined here aren't necessarily game genres, but even with that in mind, it doesn't seem that far off from being **SPOILER** a dystopian plot. Is it the fact that it was portrayed with chunky pixels? The control scheme feels a bit wonky as well, but maybe I'm just too used to interacting in other games being mapped to a key that requires you to use an entirely different hand. Nevertheless, it did not detract from the overall experience/mood, which is definitely this game's strong point.
Apr 24 09:24:31 2h 32m Falling Labyrinth ♥ 4 Very interesting combination of genres. You basically spend time playing Tetris for a good portion of the game in order to set out a path. I really enjoyed that. The enemies being musical instruments was amusing and I love their designs. The general aesthetic of the game had this unsettling vibe; there was a right amount of dissonance in the music that spoke to the urgency of the gameplay despite also having a somewhat somber feeling. I find the criticisms I have with this to be more in the finer details. As a whole, it's a solid concept and executed well. - It would have been nice to be able to rotate blocks. - When fighting an enemy, it would be nice to have your action and the enemy's action delivered in two separate instances, rather than both parts of the text at once. I didn't realize that the text was simultaneous at first and the battle sequences were confusing for those first few moments. - I kinda sorta wish the Tetris parts were turnbased with the dungeon parts? That is, instead of having the Tetris and the dungeon going on at the same time, have a piece fall only after you defeat an enemy or something. Even with the extra time you get for collecting pieces, you still have to make sure you're positioning them in the right place while also trying to orient yourself in the right position to walk forward in the dungeon and it's like two very different control schemes you have to master all within a time limit. Maybe I'm just bad at dungeon crawlers, haha. - The game is way too easy to accidentally restart. 😛 But yeah, this was quite an intriguing game with a lot of multitasking, lol.
Apr 24 09:47:49 23m 18s Demon Dash ♥ 1 The enemies definitely look demonic. I had fun with this one. It has elements of both Diner Dash and Mega Man, without completely delving into the mechanics of either game. Really, it was a nice hybrid. And there was a lot of stages given that it's a compo entry. It would have been nice to have some more variety between the stages besides just the arrangement of platforms. Seeing as you have three different colours of enemies and I believe three different types of hats?, maybe the different colours and types could have been introduced gradually per stage so that the challenge is that the player has to manage more varieties. I do, however, really love that the enemies had unique behaviours from each other and the idea to shoot them in order to colour the hats was great. Sometimes, when the player starts moving right from when the character spawns, the enemies don't spawn into the area for a very long time! I guess the enemies just don't like it when their target moves. 😛
Apr 25 00:13:14 14h 25m Harvest Doom ♥ 1 This game is really frantic and also addicting. The constant going about farming, but also fending off enemies was quite fun, and I loved the spooky approach with the dark colours and souls and various Halloween-esque creatures constantly coming at your farm. I find that when it came to the delivery of the souls, the place where you had to stand to deliver them was kind of picky. Like, the place where you actually deliver them is a step before the door, where it's very easy to walk all the way to. As a result, there's quite a bit of frustration when it comes to rushing to get your souls, but then walking too far that you go up to the door and moving frantically back and forth until you get that popup to deliver the souls. I also think the health should reset for when you attack your own towers. It's very easy to do so on accident, and I feel like over time, the player will end up taking away their own towers when they don't intend to. Aside from that, I definitely had a lot of fun with this game. The farming and tower defense aspects are both pretty evident in this, and they work well together. I love the creepy mood and ambiance of the music. The design of "you" aka the player was also very well done. It's a bit weird looking at the horizontal lines in the game - they seem a tad out of place and detract from the atmosphere, but I do understand that it does help to align the elements more easier. I wonder if there's, perhaps a way to make them feel more part of the aesthetic, though.
Apr 25 00:47:08 33m 54s Goodnight Meowmie ♥ 3 That was super creepy, but also very cute. I love how this usually goes for the more unsettling type of horror and doesn't rely too much on creepy imagery but rather distortion of the images. The sounds were a bit frightening; I was always on the edge of my seat when going out of the room. Movement is a little on the sluggish side, but it does help to set the pace. I was real worried about the backtracking because of how slow the movement was. Those footprints, though. eeeugh. And the sound design work is on point. 👌 Great adorable "night" music and scary ambiance outside the room. I didn't quite understand the story behind the game. From the get-go, one can already tell that the setting is kind of "off", but I didn't really see the payoff to why this character was in this place with this cat. Perhaps there's deeper meaning in the ending, I don't know. Yeah, it was a nice blend of the two genres, good balancing the caring for your pet with the fetch quest aspects of the outside. Great experience overall.
Apr 25 01:47:21 1h 00m QuickDraw TCG ♥ 2 It's a little hard to tell your records when the game doesn't even give an indication of my progress once I die. All I can tell is that I got past about five waves. It was when everything started getting pretty wild with the bullets, tumbleweeds and meteorites that I ended up losing all my health. Overall though, I really enjoyed this game. It gives me Potatoman Seeks the Troof vibes with the tumbleweeds and the constant dodging of the elements. I loved the art style and the floatiness of the jump worked in the game's favour. The idea of collecting and playing cards to affect your abilities was done in such a way that made it fun but also wasn't too easy or unreasonably difficult. At first, I thought maybe the abilities lasted too short but the game overall makes it work by giving a lot of cards. That being said, it's kind of unfair when you're just starting out a wave and the cards are all a double jump's reach away and by the time you do get a card within your reach, those cards go away and URGH! Well, it was a real workout to say the least. 😛 Sound effects were good, the chaotic and dissonant music truly added to the insanity of having to constantly dodge hazards. It does grate a tad on the ears after a while, but when playing the game for as long as I did, the music mostly helped to elevate the experience rather than distract from it. And the graphics are really well done; love the details in the background and the retro aesthetic.
Apr 25 02:13:16 25m 55s Soul Sword ♥ 0 The music is fantastic! It's got a really nice "dungeon RPG" feel, and I love the arps and chiptune sounds. The overall graphics are great as well - although I wish the character's sprite had a "back" animation when going up rather than looking like they are walking backwards. It just made it more difficult to tell when I was facing an enemy and fighting it due to this. I wanted to keep playing because I love the mood overall. The gameplay itself, however, is all right. A lot of the time, I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over, with no real sense of progress being made. Even going through the different dungeons, a lot of them just felt the same even when they were randomized. Using and selling items was a bit confusing, but I think it had more to do with when I did collect those pickups, I thought they were souls. It would have been nice to have the items be like a different sprite that isn't so similar looking to the soul icon in the HUD so that it's more clear that this is what the player is picking up. However, the game was quite intriguing for its overall mood. I'm still listening to your game's music in the background while I write this comment. It's just that good. 👍
Apr 25 05:54:40 3h 41m Music Make Me Shoot My Gun ♥ 3 Hooray I win! musicmakesmeshootmygun-youwin.png This was a good game, very easy to understand and the rhythm aspects, while fast paced, were also on point for the most part. I like the rhythm tie-in to the tower defense part in that the towers only shoot when you do the rhythm portion, which gives you more incentive to try and be precise as possible. Some of the enemies, in later waves, ended up travelling in very tight groups, making them look like a huge snake. It was actually kind of funny, although it did cause me to lose quite a bit of health due to the insanity and the fact that you can only shoot so fast due to the rhythm game portion. 😆 Ah well, the concept was quite well executed given the amount of time you had to work on it. I like how the screen tints just slightly when you're losing health; it's a nice indicator while you're concentrating on the rhythm game because I was rarely focusing on the enemies at all when the waves were being initiated. I guess that's also kind of downside to the rhythm game incorporation into this genre. Tower defense games are typically all about setting up beforehand and you usually have time to watch the enemies in action while your "towers" do the "defending". To have that going on at the same time as the "rhythm game" portion does mean missing out on a lot of the action that makes the most satisfying part of tower defense games. I wonder...if the rhythm game part was an entirely separate thing that happened before the wave...would that work better? Say, you do the tower placement, initiate the rhythm part, then afterwards, you watch the enemies travelling and the towers shooting based on how accurate you were in the rhythm part. Right now, it's hard to tell exactly how well you do in these rhythm parts, aside from the screen tint. I do see text flashing on screen, though it is brief to say the least. Anywho, that's just food for thought. Overall, it was a pretty well executed concept that didn't seem super buggy. The visuals and music served basic needs, but they weren't in any way annoying. From what I could tell, the simple drum rhythm matched pretty well with the rhythm game portion. Good job!
Apr 25 06:47:27 52m 47s Kingdom Crush ♥ 3 Aw yeah kingdomcrush-youwin.png I was about to call it quits when the dialogue started looping (I think Allison called off her armies three times and repeated that same part about "knowing my history", and that egotistical guy told me twice that I wasn't worth his time or something) but just as I did, I beat it. 😛 Also, some of the text goes outside of its textbox. kingdomcrush-textoutside.png There are some neat ideas going on here. For instance, I love that the path is heart shaped; not only does it tie in with the dating sim portion but it also gives a lot of possible spaces for tower placement, especially since the people will walk around the tower multiple times. The designs of the characters were very cool, and the humourous moments did get me sometimes. That hex pun though. 😆 Also I couldn't help but feel kind of sad since you know that while you're seducing all these wizards and knights, etc., TONS of people are just dying on that path. 🤣 When I first played, I thought I had to answer the dialogue quickly all while making sure the people weren't getting to my tower and it was a lot to kind of take in at once. I guess it's nice that the two parts of the game were going on simultaneously, but I ended up not really concentrating on the dialogue at first because I was under the impression that I had to rush. The music was very medieval-y, which is fitting enough for the game. I noticed that it kind of loops weird on the Credits screen? Like, I heard the title theme play its intro, then it suddenly replayed the intro after about five seconds in before doing the whole loop. It's not a huge deal, but did stick out. Also, while the portraits are well done, I would have liked to see the rest of the art in the game more or less match that style. There seems to be a lot of different art styles at work here and they don't quite mesh well together as a whole. As for the visual novel part, it was probably the strongest aspect of the game. I enjoyed talking to the characters and I liked their different personalities. I also liked the possible answers and how some of them felt natural to the flow of dialogue. Storywise, I kept wondering if all these people were just standing around, waiting for their turn to seduce you or you them and why they didn't intervene with each other constantly. Haha, maybe there was just some dialogue I missed. XD
Apr 25 07:11:03 23m 36s A Knight of Music ♥ 1 I might be silly, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get past level 1? The knight can't jump high enough to reach that ledge, and the wall to the right of it is way to high for me to get up. a knight of music -stuck ledge.png To make five tracks within 48 hours, atop also doing the other aspects of the game, is very impressive. I like how the tracks did sound different from each other, but still had a similar sound design connecting them. I do agree with BeamKirby in that while the tracks are good, they're not really fitting for a rhythm game. You don't necessarily have to make tracks that are 4/4 but the rhythm patterns did feel quite counter-intuitive and did not match any beat within the audio at all. I think you can totally keep the chiptune sounds, but have more focus on the drums and allowing the rhythm based portion of the game match those drums. The art style was nice, and I liked that you had an in-game tutorial, as well as an overworld map. Those were great touches that I don't see in a lot of compo games in LD. You've tapped into an interesting concept, though I think the focus needs to be on reworking the rhythm game aspect and figuring out how to blend the two genres together more seamlessly without it feeling like the player has to juggle two completely different games. Keep on keeping on. 😉
Apr 25 08:17:26 1h 06m Infestation ♥ 1 Well...I am able to type up the words and switch between the two modes, but after the first card, I am unable to play any others, even after regaining a sufficient amount of energy to do so. The game simply shuffles my cards around, it seems, once I play a card, and no energy is lost nor is there any effect on the game. This seems to only happen on subsequent playthroughs, after I lose a round, go back to the menu and try a different map. The gameplay was also just as equally confusing as I kept getting told that I had reached the bronze, then silver levels, but the infestation was spreading, and it ultimately would lead to me losing the game. None of the cards seemed to have any effect on anything, so I was forced to let the infestation happen inevitably. The typing game component was the better executed of the blend of genres, though there didn't seem to be many words available to type and the game's response to the keys was highly sensitive. Sometimes, after finishing a word, the game would still think that I was holding down the letter to that key and then flash through a whole bunch of different words because they were all supposedly inaccurate to what I was "typing". That being said, for the few words you did have in the game, they were all varied in length and typing difficulty, which I liked. There seemed to be a lot of variety in the tracks that play, and I like how the music is randomized, even when you replay a stage. Or so it seems, anyway. Some of the tracks were borderline irritating (the one with the constant pounding bass, although it did capture the feeling of "doom" pretty well, would have worked better in a shorter stage rather than in an entire level) while others actually were very nice. Most of them worked for the type of game you're going for, so overall, good job on that. As a whole, the game does feel unfinished and a lot of my frustration comes from not being sure if my misunderstandings were due to a bug or insufficient explanations. But hey, making a game in 72 hours is hard. You got the typing game aspect down pretty well, and I like the idea of combining that with strategy and card games. It was ambitious of you to try and combine three different types of games together, so nice job taking on that risk.
Apr 25 08:52:39 35m 13s The Third Scattering ♥ 1 GAH! This game really loves to give me cards that are not the ones I want or need. 😛 The Final Scattering score 1484.png That was my second attempt, first was me being a bit confused on how the premise worked and lost a lot of lives in the process. The game definitely needs music, because it's such a thought-heavy game. You don't really hear anything until you make a move. And I thought the whole match-3 process was already very time consuming. 😂 It's an interesting concept in that you not only have to focus on where the matches of three are, but also how you can get to a match in the first place with the cards you are given. I did enjoy the game overall. The art you chose to include in the game was very cute; I love how everything is all animal themed and how you can see different animals pop up on subsequent playthroughs. I also like how the game sometimes picks a match for you right away, giving you free points. 😆 The sounds you did incorporate were pretty good, just far few in between. There's a lot of patience needed to sit down and play this, but in general, I had a fine experience. I see the appeal of the extra challenge, maybe for people who are very familiar with this type of game (which I am not :P). It looks like it would work great on mobile. I only got to play the Windows build, though.
Apr 25 09:46:45 54m 06s Jumpcard ♥ 3 This is a pretty neat idea, incorporating the actual cards as platforms that you can jump onto and collect coins in the process. I love the art style, and the various environments on the differing cards. The music was also good - I like the Celtic feeling. I will admit it might not be the most fitting for the type of game, however. The fast paced, triple beat subdivision feels a lot like "frog on an adventure" rather than "frog jumping around in the same space on screen". But hey, maybe there *could* be some aspect of adventure with this concept. After all, you did have different aesthetic themes on some of the cards. 😉 The movement of the frog was way too finicky. He controls like a slingshot, only instead, you pull towards where you want to "sling" the frog towards rather than away. Also the movement felt super elastic; sometimes small motions will cause the frog to jump leaps and bounds while other times, the frog is able to jump just a little amount at a time. It was easily this part of the game that detracted from it being "fun". Despite this, I do like the idea of using a slingshot sort of control - it does add some challenge in what is basically just a "get coins" type of platformer. If you plan on adding more elements besides coins (it would be interesting if each environment card had its own unique quirk), then it may need to have more precise controls than just the "slingshot". Perhaps you could even show the line of trajectory to give the player an idea of where they're aiming. But overall, it's a nice blend of two game types that don't normally go together, and they're both incorporated well here. 🐸
Apr 25 21:26:36 11h 39m Super Ice-Cream Roller Ultra ♥ 1 Golf ball casualties: at least 20. 🍦 🤔 Ice Cream Roller 2 stars baby.png Despite how frustrating the controls are, I have to say, I had a lot of fun playing this. Like yeah it was pretty easy to fall due to how narrow the path is, but the game was at least forgiving in letting me keep my items whenever I fell. The run in that screenshot was mostly done by falling off the ledge immediately after collecting most items (particularly the ones where you don't just move in a straight line), which helped me to quickly spawn back to the middle and grab the much needed items. 😛 Of course, the downside to keeping your items is that the orders have an insanely low "patience" time, which I could swear was running out faster than what the indicators gave. Some orders, when finished, would switch their order type but keep the timer running rather than resetting it, making it discouraging when you finally scoop up that TRIPLE APPLE ICE CREAM and now your customer decides they just want a single scoop grape that you have to trash and hurry to create in a matter of seconds. 😩 This was quite enjoyable and got me laughing whenever I just fell off the ledge. It's an interesting take on the whole "make something and serve it to someone in a time limit" type games, with the additional mechanic of [Fluffball](http://www.nitrome.com/games/fluffball) physics. I had a good time, mostly because the music and the graphics were quite pleasant and cute. You captured a laidback, yet still happy feeling with the audio, and I definitely enjoyed that. I wish there were more sound effects because they would have really helped with indicating as to whether or not I had already taken a scoop of ice cream. Some of the bins hide the character and that makes it hard to tell when I did take a scoop. The one level you designed (I'm assuming, since it seems to be the only one I can play) is good, though maybe not the best first level to start out with. You'd want wider platforms, even more fences, to give the player a chance to get used to the controls. Not all isometric platformers control the same, oddly enough, so it's ideal to start with a ridiculously easy level and then gradually amp up the difficulty once players are more comfortable. For what you have in the game, I quite liked it, even when I did make that poor golf ball with a mustache explode for the 12093820th time. 😂
Apr 25 21:48:41 22m 05s Plane Fishing ♥ 1 You know, I gotta love a game that has DERP FISH and vocal sound effects. woohoo! Plane Fishing 59 seconds.png I didn't progress much further, mostly because the game sometimes restarts with a whole bunch of bombs in the water already rather than starting anew. Regardless, there is a nice charm to this game that really holds it together. The frantic plane flying, the art, the looping background music and the sound effects function as one cohesive package, so well done on that. It was pretty interesting how only going into the water would kill the plane (based on the controls), yet you aren't able to fly offscreen (the sky is simply a contained boundary), which is something I would usually expect in these types of games. I wouldn't say it was a bad thing - there wasn't really an advantage to hanging out by the ceiling, and the time limit made sure that I wasn't just camping out in a single area for a long time. For an increased difficulty, it would have been interesting to see things pop out of the water that you might have to avoid, perhaps even as you fly directly over them. The bombs served as a good enough challenge, though it does get pretty dense as the game progresses, making it near impossible to even drop one without inevitably throwing your net onto a bomb. Overall, I thought this game was ridiculously cute and I was without a doubt entertained. Very nice work! 🎣
May 2 20:45:56 166h 57m King Circle ♥ 0 So I really wanted to play your game, but regardless of what settings I choose up front, I always end up with this error message: King Circle error.png I'm trying to run the game on a 64bit Windows 10...
May 2 21:19:49 33m 53s Final Football Tactics ♥ 1 Game: Press Tab to switch between players Me: *presses Tab* Game: *pauses* I mean, you can select the player you want to move with your cursor easily, but I did find it a bit amusing that the game suggests a control that doesn't even seem to work. 🤣 I see you addressed that, however. As a whole though, I thought it was a fun little puzzle game. I only tried the single player mode so far, but I thought the challenges were interesting enough. Some were deceptively easy, and they made use of the tactics learned throughout the levels. The tutorial was much appreciated because I was pretty lost on what to do, and the levels were helpful in gradually introducing you to the tactics of the game. If I had to pick out some issues, I don't really understand why some of the controls are set up the way they are. For example, you have to select M on the player to move the player, and selecting M deselects the player, yet when you use the "Kick" controls with the same player, K on the player again does not deselect the Kick function, and you have to hit Escape instead. It would have been more consistent (and also...nice?) to have K, if already select, deselect the Kick on the player if the key is pressed again - since you only initiate the Kick on the ball, anyway... Also, the turn system was a little strange in that I could initiate Turn 2 or the last turn with the Space bar and start the game out like that, such that after I make my first move, the game's just like "Oh yeah, you messed up" and then resets me back to the start of the level. I know it's just a matter of pressing the space bar to ensure that you are on the very first turn, but is there any way you could make the turns automatic? I mean, each athlete has a limited number of moves and kicks anyway, so once those are all exhausted, would it not make sense for the next "turn" to immediately commence? The game's presentation looked fine enough, but it seems like there's some inconsistencies in art styles, what with the almost realistic grassy field on the outer borders (are they playing in a barren field?) with the cute pixel art players to the super opaque soccer ball...they all looked nice, though it did feel like there were lots of different art styles being meshed together in a way that doesn't quite seem...cohesive. Ah well, at least it looked fine as a whole. The music was also very nice - I'm a sucker for the more jazz style game tracks, and it's fitting for a game that's mostly about puzzles and thinking. As Flaterectomy suggests, the music doesn't really sell me as a "sports" theme, so maybe something to keep in mind would be to try and go for a mix of the two? Both puzzle and sports...could be interesting. I think you had some good mechanics at work here, and the strongest aspect for me was the tutorial on how to play. If there's time, I might try to go for the multiplayer mode. PS Mad props for making a game that saves progress. 👍
May 3 06:08:41 8h 48m Cruise & Co. ♥ 1 Geez Daddy, have you not heard of slowing down or hitting the brakes? 😆 This was quite an enjoyable, but quick game. I didn't really go over 75 MPH, or if I did, I never acquired a screenshot as proof. 🤣 I loved the dialogue, and when Dad jokes are paired with actual voices doing the talking, it's such a perfect match that I can't help but be amused. What I really like about the voice acting is that even though I can tell it's the same person doing the voices, the tone and inflection suggest different characters, making them a bit more recognizable from each other. I do agree with some of the other comments that the font was overall pretty hard to read. Combined with the fast paced gameplay, I often had to quickly guess match because I couldn't quite pick out what the choices were. That, however, did make it kind of fun, as even choosing the general nudge towards the answers would lead to you saying something I should have expected, but didn't. And that was kind of funny. I also noticed that sometimes, the game would easily lose focus whenever I started a new game - the steering controls would cause me to scroll down the entire page rather than steer in the game. Strangely enough, the times those happened, I didn't actually run into any cars, so phew. 😌 One thing I did find quite annoying was that it was pretty easy to die in the game, but there wasn't really a fast enough respawn. I would have liked it if, when you hit the "Ctrl" key, that the game just automatically starts you from the actual game itself rather than going back to the titlescreen, which will make it more engaging for players to immediately start replaying the game the moment they die. Then, you could perhaps have another key that brings up the instructions/intro again in case people need to reference them again. The idea was very funny, and I think the fact that you have "Dad road trip" dialogue combined with somewhat chaotic gameplay, which in turn affects how well you drive, there is a really nice formula here for a humourous, fast paced game.
May 3 06:45:31 36m 50s 60 seconds to Mars ♥ 2 🤔 60 seconds to Mars Instructions over credits.png Also bringing up the Credits for the first time made the game go into fullscreen? That was pretty weird. 😕 (Actually, it seems like selecting any option on the menu screen after a game over or for the first time makes the game go into fullscreen mode. 🤔 ) When I actually started to play the game, there was absolutely no audio whatsoever. I guess I had it open in the background for too long and it doesn't loop? Restarting after a game over does bring the music back, however. But these issues aside, I thought the game was pretty straightforward and relatively easy to pick up and play. Although...I didn't really understand the benefits of blocking, or the difference between a Heavy and a Normal attack aside from them...doing more damage to the enemy. I would expect there to be some repercussions for the player for using a heavier attack, but I wasn't able to figure out what they were. It also seemed a little strange that you had to wait to pick up weapons and items. It didn't really seem to add anything to the game other than to waste the player's time? It especially doesn't help when the player goes in not knowing what these items are and what they'll add on to the player exactly. Despite my bickering, I really did like the look of this game. The designs of the aliens you fight are very interesting and varied. I wish the UI also matched up to the graphics, though, instead of just the plain text. The music was also pretty good. There's an intensity in the lower voices that contributes to the idea of there being a time limit, and the melody was mysterious enough that it conveyed that alien-esque, being in outer space feeling. The time limit is quite the hassle, but maybe that was just me and my first experience playing. Sometimes, the controls didn't really respond, thus I was madly button mashing just to try and beat the clock. I was looking back at the timer each time I cleared a room and you only get what, 6 extra seconds when you clear one? That seems pretty low. Anyways, there's some good ideas in here; all in all pretty good for a game made in 72 hours, eh? 😛
May 3 07:09:02 23m 31s Blackjack Beats ♥ 1 YO ACUITY you entered LD41? 😄 This is an interesting idea you've got here - rhythm games and card games certainly don't seem "compatible" at first glance. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how Blackjack even works (despite having played versions of Blackjack in other games), and even more embarrassingly, how your game works. 😅 Like, I had no idea you could miss some beats, as typical rhythm games will normally "penalize" you for doing so. Once I got it down, it was smooth sailing from here on out. 😎 Blackjack Beats score 870.png (Although, I don't know if this is a good score or not, but it was a significant leap from my other lower scores. 😂 ) One issue I had with the game was the fact that it really just felt like Blackjack and not so much a rhythm game. That reason mostly does point to, as mentioned above, the fact that you don't get penalized for missing beats. It's also a little frustrating when the Z and X keys *sometimes* get mapped to the same function, but *sometimes* they don't. There were times when I wanted to keep playing my hand, but I ended up standing because I was using the X key to deal my cards at first. The rhythm part also didn't really feel all that much "rhythm" like - it was very even beats that I guess landed on the beats of the actual music, but they were so far few in between that it really just felt like I could press the Z and X keys almost whenever I wanted to and focus entirely on the card game without the rhythm game part affecting me at all. That being said, the Blackjack part of the game was pretty well done. I like the design of the cards, the simplicity and pleasantness of the music. The sound effects (er - one sound effect?) were snappy and satisfying. And once I got into the rhythm of the game, it became fun to start "strategizing" my play. One aspect of the game I do like that does feel very "rhythm game" esque is when the music stops, the game also stops too. Overall, I think it was a great concept to explore, but could use more time for extra polish and figuring out how to "blend" the two genres together better. Well, that's what post-jam versions are for, eh? 😉
May 3 08:45:26 1h 36m Dance Dance Ratatouille ♥ 0 I really like how you've blended together both the cooking and rhythm game elements. It was clever to incorporate an aspect of cooking - eg. adding in the vegetables as what would make the "rhythm" portion, and also give the player time to do the other cooking aspects such as turning up the heat, adding seasoning and stirring. The rhythm portion for the most part seems pretty reasonable, although I'll admit it's not very kind for first players. Nonetheless, the Cooking mode doesn't really stop if you mess up, which I think is nice as it allows people to practice the motions and replay to try and improve their score without the frustration of a game over. I like how you also included the Endurance mode as a challenge, too. The music was quite well done - there were "cooking game" elements mixed in with "rhythm game" elements, although I would have liked to hear more heavier drums, as they will really help to drive the "rhythm game" parts more. To me, the percussion was kind of soft. I do like how the music kind of gets really intense towards the end ish...though. I don't know if I can 100% prove this is happening, but the game appears to not be taking any of my double key inputs. I am almost certain that I press the keys at the exact same time, right on the spot, but the game keeps telling me I missed them for some reason. That was really the only huge issue I had with the game. Aside from that, it was fun.
May 15 19:11:28 298h 26m Pet THAT ♥ 1 Well I got to pet the cat once before accidentally moving my mouse *too* far up the window and closing out of the game the second time around. 😛 It's a fun, cute little game. I love how the bullet hell portion involves dodging words, and how the LIFE text at the top basically follows you horizontally, which means the closer you get to the cat, the more riskier it is that you'll be hit by something in life. I thought the art looked fine; the pixel aesthetics worked here. That hand is quite detailed to the point where it gets a bit creepy, but maybe this is just on me. 😆 I had a good time for the small amount I played.
May 15 19:28:03 16m 35s Steps ♥ 0 This game has a very cool mood to it. Something about the audio and aesthetic style meshes really well for me, and even the audio works for a rhythm game. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure about the execution - as puppetmaster points out, the controls are very delayed and that detracts from a lot of the fun. I'm also not really seeing the "rhythm game" aspect in the game itself - sure, I can hear rhythm game elements, but I don't particularly feel like I'm playing a rhythm game, just trying to get through all the obstacles using timing (and delayed controls). I do like how the music kind of comes to a slowdown when you get hit by obstacles. That was pretty amusing. The soundtrack is also particularly great, probably the standout of this game. I actually have it playing in the background while writing this comment. 😀 All around, feel-good music.
May 15 19:47:15 19m 12s Dememtory ♥ 0 This was pretty intriguing, and the text adventure portion of the game was a great format for combining these two genres. I was trying so hard to memorize the card orders for the memory part that I didn't pay enough attention to the story 🤣 but I got the sad ending where I died in the forest with my cat, so I guess if there's one way to go, it would be just that. Overall, I enjoyed it but perhaps I will pay more attention to the actual story next time lol.