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HuvaaKoodia

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Apr 20 21:25:08 Sukiyaki RUNNER Grisha ♥ 1 Twitchy controls, funky graphical style, and an unsatiable urge to keep pushing forward. Good combination! Repeatedly starting from the very beginning after even a slight mistake does hamper the experience. With smaller levels, or even randomly generated levels, the challenge would really shine. Solid work.
Apr 20 21:42:43 17m 35s The flame of life ♥ 1 Simple designs can work, yet care has to be taken when there are only a few moving pieces. This time the speed-up seems somewhat cheap as the controls stay the same. Keeping the speed constant and adding in more obstacles (and taking out the positive orbs as you seem to be doing already) would suffice. The music is aspirational, but also sounds a bit off key at times. The flame would look better if the particles were rendered in world space, i.e leaving a trail behind the core rather than rotating on the spot. Well, it works and there are no bugs, so... a successful jam title!
Apr 20 22:24:35 41m 52s Keep it A.I.ive ♥ 1 These robots love to get stuck on terrain: Untitled.png A reset button is needed. Other than that this is alright. The idea might be old, yet in a real time setting it is different enough. Functional graphics and a 5 second music loop which isn't super annoying are a bonus.
Apr 21 11:44:56 13h 20m Rescue Mission: Amateur Hour ♥ 1 The animations and the story are alright. Sneaking also works on a very basic level. Other than that I'll have to give you all the negative feedback you asked for. A risky, faster movement option is direly needed. It is not interesting at all to slowly go through the same zoo again multiple times at the beginning of each level and when caught by a guard. Some assets are lacking textures and the ground texture for instance doesn't tile that well (messy overlapping here and there). The dynamic light count seems too low, but maybe some of the lights turned off on purpose. It was hard to say. Nonetheless, when using deferred rendering this should not be an issue. I noticed some bugs. The scooter guards don't stop and wait when spotting the thief. They kind of do, but then move away again! In the third level all of the guards, for some reason, conveniently stop when the thief is close by rendering the level very easy. Let's wrap up with the theme. Keeping it (the creature) alive is in this case functionally the same as keeping the thief "alive" (as in, not locked up) because they both move together all the time and there is not reason to put the creature down, which is to say the thematic connection is weak. This could be remedied with mechanics where the thief has to go pull some levers, push some boxes or complete similar tasks alone, which then open up a path for the creature (and the creature can be spotted while the thief is doing his thing). So in all, a playable jam title you managed to put together in three days, which is always commendable, yet the design and execution could've used more work. Keep at it!
Apr 21 12:05:05 20m 09s Cutie Chowdown ♥ 1 Cute graphics indeed. The blob gets such happiness from eating each and every creature of the land. The music really adds to the cheery massacre. This idea is brimming with potential which is unfortunately going to waste at the moment. Turn-based movement lends itself to deductive logic (puzzles) or inductive logic (tactics) really well. The randomness of the level layout and animal movement patterns take away both of these possibilities. To really squeeze most out of the design, the levels should be handcrafted and/or the movement patters should be predictable to some degree (completely or for 1-3 turns into the future). This way the player is forced to think about every move they make, and not just sprint forward mindlessly (which works pretty well at the moment). Each animal could also have a different effect when eaten, for instance temporarily increasing movement speed, maximum energy level, or just removing hunger for x turns. The sky is the limit when it comes to theses sort of effects and they are a lot of fun to brainstorm and implement. As it is, this certainly is a solid jam title and a good beginning for a more fleshed out project. Good work.
Apr 21 16:02:00 3h 56m a plant called martha ♥ 0 The Tamagotchi made a comeback? Apparently they never left, according to Wikipedia, but I never quite got the idea to be honest. Sure, its a cute plant, but I soon tired of its *current year* talking points and drowned it in everything. That'll teach it to behave. If you are going down the experience/interactive-fiction route I'd still like to have on impact on what actually happens. For a linear experience/story there are better alternatives than interactive media. So, depending on how the plant is treated (i.e. what it is "fed" and how the discussions go) there could be multiple versions for the next growth stage pertaining to many visual attributes (height, width, leaf size, color, spiky, smooth/rough, flowery, etc). The personality should also be affected by the owner's choices, after all the plant doesn't get to talk to anyone else or even see the outside world. Currently there isn't too much to this project. It works and fits the theme ok enough, that's fine for a jam. *And why does the pot have the eyes and not the plant?*
Apr 21 18:37:00 2h 35m IcyNoid ♥ 1 Good audio visuals, the music especially earns its keep. Silliness is also welcome in **these trying times**. As a mash up of the two, Arkanoid clearly had a bigger impact on the result. The Combo system is not at all as clear as in Icy Tower and unfortunately the paddle mechanic didn't translate over too well either. It is really tricky to move the dude in the direction I'd want at the speed I'd want. More often than not there is either no change or a massive change! It is also likely that a rigirous paddle movement will miss the dude altogether, which is rather annying. I'd prefer the old way of changing the direction of the ~~ball~~ dude, i.e. simply by hitting him with either end of the paddle and no need for movement. I don't really care about the theme in a jam, but I'm stll obliged to comment on the lack of it here. Replace the dude with a ball again and *ta-da* its a gone! As an infusion of bright colors, light action and a tad of levity, this is certainly spot-on. As a challenge I'd play for a high highscore? Not quite there... yet!
Apr 21 18:59:03 22m 03s Reload ♥ 1 The first jam is always tough, but you pulled through in style with a **drifting** tank. Tell me that was a design choice and not a mistake! Anyway, there's really only one thing missing here, which is either a bug kill counter or a survival timer. The latter would make more sense in this case given the theme. Talking of the theme, a tank is an "it" I guess, yet a wave shooter is not a new idea. For a first jam, of course, you don't need a new idea. What you need is something *doable* and you *did do* just that, a *doable* design which you then *do-done-did*. Keep *doing* things.
Apr 21 19:05:36 6m 33s All Pigs Go to Heaven ♥ 0 "The code execution cannot proceed because OpenAL32.dll was not found." "The code execution cannot proceed because VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found." Is what I'm getting.
Apr 21 20:05:52 1h 00m Ia! Fhtagn! ♥ 0 In a jam it is fine not to have a tutorial or even an instructions screen as there might not be time for anything like that. I consider them a bonus. Although, in this case I did read the instructions (as I always do!) and didn't quite get it. The cultists are animated well and it looks like they are doing something useful all of the time. In actuality they only produce anything based on a long interval, which is rather unintuitive, especially when it comes to the worshiping. They keep chanting, yet the monster remains increasingly unimpressed. Well, waiting did the trick. And in the end waiting is all it takes to keep the monstrosity alive. There is no reason to move the cultists around, that's a waste of time. Just assign the same amount to all of the tasks (apart from marketing) and sacrifice the tenth guy, every single time. This stagnation issue could be fixed with periodic demands from the old one, i.e. higher temporary demand for potions, spells, worship or sacrifices. Something like that. Competently made even if a bit stale. Solid work!
Apr 22 13:28:05 17h 22m Drifting Starlight ♥ 1 *I remember getting my flying license. The instructor kept blasting music from old Terra and all I had to do was to not dent the crummy corvette while parking around an abandoned star ship. It was pretty chill.* The theme doesn't exactly shine through, is what I'm saying. The ship cannot even be destroyed by anything? Yet, I'm glad I played this and got to imagine the previous scenario. I like the low-fi visuals and the controls are fine too. I would have prefered a first person mode with a cockpit full of blinking lights and buttons and screens, but this worked fine too. My main issue here is just a little technicality. The Unreal Engine is notoriously heavy for simple projects such as this one. On my, admitedly, dated machine the fps was very choppy, but after tweaking the shadow, post process and shading quality in the GameUserSettings file it became silky smooth. There is virtually no difference in the visuals due to the chosen style, so this is something you could have done before releasing it. Something for the future. A well made and interesting project. Doesn't fit the theme, but I wouldn't worry about that.
Apr 22 14:06:17 38m 12s Crab It Alive! ♥ 4 A great thematic idea with good graphics and audio. You really did a proper job here. Now, some small issues and a few ideas on how to improve the design itself. Simple stuff first. The bottom of the lake is too close to the bottom of the window. This might not be a problem in a fullscreen mode, but that is not an option. Grabbing garbage near the bottom also seems less reliable than elsewhere. The music loop is very short and could use some variation, yet otherwise it fits the crabby theme (for some reason). The design then. I find it rather demoralizing that there is so little the crafty crab can do to save the fishies. Dozens of them will lose their lives while down at the bottom scouring for suitable trash. As such I'd make the lake slightly less deep (maybe this could even fit a single screen?) and introduce the ships one at a time, meaning there is an opportunity to stockpile trash if quickly taking care of the first ship. Pinching a fish as a warning should make it change direction. Cutting the fishing lines could also be a possibility with a special move, but then the line falls down into the bottom and can be a hazard there. Catching the trash the humans are throwing overboard and serving it right back is splendid as is. Yeah, well done. What else can I say.
Apr 23 12:34:50 22h 28m Madagascar Simulator 2020 ♥ 1 *Why can't the president stop the government from opening new ports around the island? Politics... That's why!* Fetching real world data to model the island is impressive attention to detail. I would have just sloppily traced it from a map and plotted down infrastructure here and there. The difficulty ramp up is very high. It is essentially impossible to keep tabs on more than ~10 ports effectively, so 40+ ports is way too much! For a simple challenge, such as this one, clarity is important and that is lost in the mass of ships and planes arriving from every single direction. There are a few interactions you could have added to make the process more enjoyable: **1)** Economic obligations. The government has to pay a penalty for each denied shipment (Ports should only attract shipments if they are open) **2)** People need goods to survive. Block every port and people will starve and riot **3)** People like their rights. Limit the right to movement for too long and people will riot (The virus spreading around will scare people and make it easier lock things down, though.) **4)** Societal stability. Riots breed chaos, which will eventually get the president ousted Those might sound like lofty system to simulate, but the can be faked with just a few numbers going up and down. Tweaking them might take a few moments, of course, and there aren't always enough moments left in a jam. In all, good work getting the project finished on time, yet the design is too simple for a "simulator".
Apr 23 13:19:14 44m 24s Ozwomp Is Arriving ♥ 1 An interesting world and visual style. Too bad nothing really happens; everybody just waits and the clock ticks. There are so many directions that this project could go in that I needn't speculate. Good job on the engine and the trippy audio-visuals. Interactivity is next? *(What about Godot?)*
Apr 23 19:38:34 6h 19m Roho - immortality of a deer stalker ♥ 2 In short: quality audio-visuals, less than stellar controls, some technical issues. You truly did a good job with the presentation and putting together a functional jam project. This is certainly up there in the top *something-something* quantile. Moving around and shooting badies (and goodies? Where's the theme gone!) is very basic. Holding down the mouse button should autofire and some kind of a dodge move wouldn't go amiss. Grinding to get to the boss fight wasn't much fun, but **Death** put up a show at least. Pleasantly surprised about that. The music didn't loop properly and the very last animation loop had an issue too (with the dude turning into a non-dude repeatedly). The initial spell has a neat trail effect, but the whole trail evaporates upon impact, which is jarring. That too would be easy to fix simply by waiting for some time before freeing the resource. In all, despite the niggles, this is proper solid stuff.
Apr 23 21:19:35 1h 41m Astrodrift ♥ 1 Never quite seen this combination of things together and they work out splendidly too! Visually pleasing, no bugs, just the right amount of levels... What is there not to like? Hmm. I guess some times the paths were a bit too cramped given that it is quite difficult to clear a path without taking a lot of hits. A push ability (which pushes the driftnaut too. Equal opposite reaction and all that) would work in this regard. That's my five cents then. Great design, great job!
Apr 24 15:39:45 18h 20m Lifelink ♥ 2 A competently put together entry with technically ambitious presentation. Also way too easy and boring as a result. The life link mechanic is not explained anywhere, but it seems simple enough. Getting close to allies lends the ghost abilities, yet I still don't understand if there's supposed to be some kind of a maximum link distance. I was able to link with every ally in the largest level even through walls?! That last observation makes little sense. Tactical positioning would make the running around and attacking phantoms part (which is the only part there is!) more interesting. For instance, if there were different types of phantoms, which could only be defeated by a certain kind of attack or even combination of attacks, then positioning and luring the phantoms close to the needed allies would change the dynamic of the battlefield completely. Forcing the played to think a little is always a positive in my book. Less mindless spam on the menu next time and you'll have a great jam project. Good job on the audio-visuals already.
Apr 24 16:41:56 1h 02m The Busy Gardener ♥ 1 Simple, thematic and effective design. Having to quickly plan the garden layout while also optimizing the route from one needy plant to the next is quite compelling. Got to 20 flowers at best, but success here is down to a lot of luck unfortunately. Flowers seem to get thirsty completely at random regardless of when they were last watered. This means that a group of flowers cannot be prewatered to reduce the risk of a trip to the other side of the garden. New arrivals might also randomly require water right as they appear, which is quite unfair at times. The controls aren't up to this wildly random task. Queuing actions is a nice feature, but I didn't find a way to cancel the queue, which doomed my gardener on one occasion. On another occasion the program crashed and on a third dozens of *"drop" icons* appeared at once and obscured the screen. If I was in charge, I'd reduce the randomness, increase the wilt delay slightly, and fix the action queueing. On top of this I'd actually extend the layout planning aspect of the challenge by not simply giving points from alive plants, but rather from groups of similar colored plants. These groups could also yield extra points if arranged in specific configurations, such as *+, -, T* or what have you. Anyway, it's a good start and despite the randomness (or maybe because of it) I gave it many a go.
Apr 24 17:12:49 30m 53s balloons ♥ 1 Reaching the top of the sky was a slight challenge, getting used to the controls and all. Reaching the top of the top of the sky though... Now that's a challenge, but for a different reason. I managed to get up to Balloon.jpg and then got struck by boredom. The controls could use tweaking. Moving Tim with the arrow keys and filling the balloon with the up arrow would have been much more intuitive. This kind of a dual stick scheme would work on a pad too. I would also suggest pulling the camera back (rendering everything smaller), adding in some obstacles to avoid (birds, hovering platforms, mines, what have you!) and reducing the hot air balloon resource drain accordingly. Yeah, pretty ok job in all.
Apr 25 09:55:15 16h 42m Medically Inaccurate ♥ 3 This is pretty good! The feel of it, etc. Pretty good! You've gotten a lot of comments already (and I didn't bother reading all of them) so I'll just pile onto the list of suggestions: - Pull back the camera. It is much easier to plan ahead if the incoming enemies can be seen. - Add an enemy type that only targets the player (requires that pathfinding, though) - Accidentally shooting the heart should have consequences. - Tougher enemies (instead of more numerous enemies. Easier to manage the waves) - An overdrive mode where the heart starts beating faster (and losing more health), but damage is doubled for x seconds. - Object pooling for the syringes and other often instantiated objects (helps with the performance) Them's the pointers this time. Keep jamming!
Apr 25 11:24:51 1h 29m Boundary ♥ 1 Excellent design! Matching this to music, or just playing notes when the ball hits things, could work out wonderfully too. Really enjoyed playing trough the levels, although there could have been a few extra tricky ones at the end. > "Had I had more time I would’ve liked to present non-key controlled objects in a more visual way, but I couldn’t come up with a simple, quick to digest way to do it outside of color. If anyone has suggestions for that I’m all ears" Color is a fine start. Adding a pattern is a good follow up and then you might as well make it move! Here's an example with simple texture tiling and UV movement: AnimatedPattern.gif Visually, I'd also change the drab gray background and the black walls. As long as the other elements pop from the surroundings, i.e. don't share a color, it should be fine. Reiterating, splendid job!
Apr 25 18:45:44 7h 20m Flower Picker ♥ 1 Sombre and touching. The thematic connection seemed to be missing, yet then it came around and it fits well. Got 19/20 flowers and I'm bugged by the last flower near the second grave at the top right. How does one get there? I couldn't even find a secret passage... Exploring the small world was pleasant, although there wasn't that much to do. Maybe for the next jam then? Clearly you poured your heart into this project, yet I'll have to rag on the technical issues too. They've been pointed out by others, so I'll just add that the music volume was really low even when at the maximum setting on my computer. Nice work.
Apr 25 19:20:03 34m 19s Miscen...AGAIN!? ♥ 1 A unique take to say the least! The riddles are tough (enough), the music is frantic (as it should), and the cat is fantastic (at being a little devil). I would have preferred a higher detail graphical style due to how small some of the assets are, yet this was not a big problem. The text was sometimes cropped off as the window size is really small for some reason. Lastly, it would be nice if the solved riddles didn't repeat. Instead, once all of the riddles were solved the cat would actually stop messing about and life would become good again. Nonetheless, great job in all!
Apr 26 08:08:32 12h 48m Mr. Fluff ♥ 1 *And now Tamagotchi really made a come back! Someone had to do it.* This is a fine, functional mash up. Nonetheless, in the end it gets repetitive and doesn't seem to get more difficult either, which too is a problem. I would suggest adding cooldowns/delays to every action as well as making the zombies more resilient. Here's how it would work. The wabbit actions can only be done one at a time and they all take a set duration (2-3 seconds) to complete. Shooting zombies while on these tasks will reset the clock and the task has to be started all over again, so timing is key. Zombies should take multiple hits to go down. At least two. Additionally the first shot could injure the zombie leading to a variety of states: shoot the head off and the zombie will start randomly changing direction, shoot the legs and the zombie will start slowly crawling towards the wabbit and so on. The weapon too could have some delays, both between shots and for reloading. These would once again force the player to time their actions properly and choose targets leading to light tactics. So, this is well put together, but the design is too simple.
Apr 26 10:53:50 2h 45m Plum ♥ 1 I like puzzles. I don't like *slowly* walking around and *slowly* activating *slow* mechanisms multiple times. Animations can be made quicker most of the time. Some slow actions (such as the otherwise cool rotating walls in the second level) can be queued so that the player can input all the water they want in a row without having to wait for the current rotation to finish first. Of course the rotation could be faster too, especially if the player did input, say, three portions of water at once. A bigger issue is not being able to see at a glace which object activates which platform/door/etc. This means that on the first go I always had to get to every object once (potentially permanently spending water) and then restarting the level and actually figuring out how to solve it with all of the required information now at my disposal. This is a waste of time and redoing the same things is not enjoyable. Some kind of visible connections between the objects, for instance lines, matching symbols, or even just colors, would solve this issue. Generally speaking, puzzles with a movable player avatar always have this problem, but it can be mitigated to the point where it is hardly an issue. I seem to recall that [Tetrobot](http://www.swingswingsubmarine.com/games/tetrobot-and-co/) did a pretty good job at this (despite the bugs). Solid work apart from the design issues.
Apr 26 13:21:55 2h 28m Blood On The Snow ♥ 4 > It's been two days since the fight in the town square. You still aren't sure how you made it out alive. The narrator keeps putting thoughts into my head, yet it is wrong again! I know exactly why I made it out alive: **Mere unadulterated luck!** *Positives first, positives first.* You've heard this from the others already: the visuals are spot on and the writing is nice. I'm reminded of Banner Saga and that is a good thing. Unfortunately the similarity to Banner Saga stops at the battle system. *Negatives second, negatives second.* The battle system layers randomness on top of randomness. Skills are selected randomly per turn (cannot plan ahead), actions rely on random chance to succeed (stun actually works sometimes, but dodge never worked despite the advertised 50% success rate), and the werewolf *can* randomly dodge attacks (even backstabs **when stunned!**). The only way to win these fights is indeed to rely on luck and sheer repetition... Not enjoyable at all! One layer of randomness is acceptable. Either the actions are selected randomly per turn, but they always succeed; or all actions are available, but they have a chance of failure. A system completely free of randomness (like the one in Banner Saga) probably wouldn't work great with a single character, or maybe I simply cannot imagine it at the moment. Given that the battles are half of the content available, they should be stellar. Well, good effort of course, yet a shame.
Apr 26 13:56:47 34m 52s The Fading Fire ♥ 3 *I like the disclaimer.* I remember my first jam. I was older than 12, managed to put something together, but it didn't live up to my standards and I never published it. I chickened out! You did something and also published it. Good on you! Protecting a flame, that is also a dude, is novel. The ponds work within this idea, yet the rain does not. That's a shame. I looked forward to dodging random droplets, yet it was not to be. Of course, the platforming is the main mechanic here. It is functional, but also very imprecise. This is the very first thing that happened to me: TheFadingFire.png Which would actually be a very cool feature, like a ledge grab with the head, but jumping does not work from this position. It is worth developing these kind of "bugs" into features when they pop-up. Could not find the eternal flame. The small platforms were too much for me. With checkpoints I would have persevered to see the ending. You made something that works and put it up. Good! Keep at it.
Apr 26 20:07:32 6h 10m Hunters and Haunters ♥ 1 *Familiar looking assets, these... Hmm. At least you didn't need to spend a lot of time on those!* The core idea here is quite appealing. Going around the city in small teams busting ghosts. The best part is that there are no restrictions on who goes where and with whom. This kind of freedom is very enjoyable. The actual nitty gritty of ghost busting is less enjoyable. Simply put, there is actually too much content! Too many busters, too many abilities and (maybe) too many locations. Dropping two of the characters, all of the basic card upgrades (attack 2, investigate 2, etc.), and the special card upgrades (flashlight 4, etc.) would be a good start. Basic card upgrades dilute the usefulness of special cards. Why ever use the 2 damage pistol when the basic attack 2 is superior in every way? Exactly. Damage creep also renders basic enemies a complete push-over. 3-4 health enemy? No problem, walk one step and two basic attacks will take care of it... No permanent cost to the character at all (apart from 1 turn). This simplification isn't enough. The upgrade system bundled with resting is a time waster. What about characters who all start with 4-6 abilities and gain a few more from level-ups or by investigating locations. Resting would only heal the character and pick up discarded cards. That's it. Easier to understand and takes less time fiddling with the menus. Currently the difficulty is way too low due to the character count and the power creep. The threat level, which increases faster due to some enemies, is a great idea, but it is removed once the big baddy jumps in. Why? The big bad went down in two turns with 7 characters, he really needed the backup! Lastly, some of the icons weren't explained anywhere. For instance, the purple lighting strikes and the hat with glasses icons. Some kind of damage and some kind of a buff. The yellow energy is a resource used for actions and regenerated by what? It keeps going up automatically, which means that there is no management aspect to it at all. It should instead be a resource which is in short supply. Spamming special cards should not be possible. Ok, you clearly came up with great idea for me to spend this much time thinking about it. Big designs can often be cut down before a single line of code is laid down and the result ends up being more focused and fun. Jams are excellent events for doing just that due to time constraints. Something to consider for the next one.
Apr 27 16:03:05 19h 55m Feed the Machine ♥ 2 Stressful! That's usually not an emotion I get from... anything really, but here juggling between the different stations, repairing and using them is quite tense. I like that, actually. Annoying user experience issues, not so much. For instance, interacting with the world requires the feet of the character to be very near the center of the target object. It really should check from the center of the dude instead, or, even better, check both. Repairing should be a priority, so that the character doesn't accidentally pick up objects when trying to repair a pipe. Alternatively, there could be a different key for it to begin with. Repairing and using the stations is also very slow. It doesn't need to be as you could have just tweaked the other values to be slightly faster as well. The tenseness comes from not being able to do everything at once, not from the slowness. I didn't actually mind missing some of the information in the HUD. There is always a need to pump in more oxygen, so I pretty quickly learned to just go there whenever I was nearby regardless. Same thing with the engine. Always fed it when going past. So, I like the design. More polish and UX testing and this would be quite something.
Apr 27 16:12:28 9m 23s NEONOA ♥ 1 I did not get to the end. After three tries (and three bugged out giraffe squads) the last two remaining animals confronted a fast moving cloud of death which consumed them both with such speed there was no time to react. At that point I was out. The camera is rather strange. All it does is move slowly forward, yet it manages to be just too close to show enough of what is coming up. The line drawing system also breaks at times (leaving the tripped out creatures stuck or wandering in the wrong direction) and I have no idea how to save more than a few giraffes due to some of the traps which always decimate a longer conga line. Fun idea and funny too! The imprecise controls and bugs ruined it for me.
Apr 28 14:23:47 22h 11m Keep it aloft ♥ 1 Chill mood, chill one ball juggling. It is not very difficult in real life, but this star fellow seems to struggle with it. Very little constructive comes to mind. It just works. Ah... I could nitpick about the obstacle being in the same color as the ground. It really looks like platform to jump on top of, but it turned out to be deadly. It is also strange that the star creature has to keep throwing the ball and cannot simply hold it for more than a second or so. Maybe the star shaking under the weight of the ball could serve as an explanation for someone *like me* who cares about these sort of things. Solid work!
Apr 29 15:11:30 24h 47m Seeds of Hope: The Last Stand ♥ 2 This is quite compelling. At first I missed key information in the tutorial and tried to win without assigning additional people to any of the rooms. It was intense! Figuring out how to get to the mythical 8 minute mark with the actual rules didn't take that long. I opted to maximize the cloning process, filled up every nook and cranny with people and managed just fine. I guess it is a little bit of a shame that nothing ever happens inside the space ship as there is no reason to move any of the little dudes around after the first assignment. FTL has a lot of action happening indoors, yet fires and boarding parties would be rather tough to pull off in a jam. Maybe the rooms could sometimes malfunction and a few of the dudes are better at repairs than others, i.e. everyone else can repair too but it would be slow. If there was any micromanagement like that, then the one other missing feature from FTL, the instant pause key, should also make an appearance. Anyhow, stellar job!
Apr 29 18:04:32 2h 53m My Fair Planet ♥ 1 Strange controls. These were meant for a touchscreen right? Nonetheless winning is kind of easy. At first I thought that missing the target with the laser, for instance, would actually hurt the planet, but that was not the case. Maybe adding something like this to punish spamming would be a good idea. Other that that, I've got nothing. Solid work.
Apr 29 18:07:59 3m 27s The Hand That Feeds You ♥ 1 *Sensibly kept my plant alive? A mad sunflower flailing its burning leaf limbs around is very far from sensible!* It is a neat concept. Continually tearing down and rebuilding the walls to keep a psycho plant content could result in rather interesting scenarious, depending on the level layout and, for instance, some furniture which is most flammable. Currently the controls are the biggest hurdle between the concept and compelling content. It is really difficult to aim any of the actions because they all use a different logic. Water can be thrown right or left, walls can be destroyed in all directions (yet there is no animation for left) and building walls just builds them in seemingly random directions. Rudimentary, but functional. Polish the controls next time and keep at it.
Apr 30 10:11:32 16h 03m Puppy Peril! ♥ 1 A functional, if bare bones, challenge. The difficulty ramp up is slow and then gets repetitive. There's a lot of tweaking that could be done to make this more fun. Here are a few ideas: - A sound and a particle effect on click - A slight delay between clicks to penalize miss clicks and spamming. - The weakest enemy should be faster than the tank and have some kind of a movement pattern (sine wave is the classic) - Other enemies with movement patters, for instance hopping (stop for a while and then move quickly in some forward direction), dodging (occasionally move quickly in horizontal direction), staggering (changing speed and direction randomly) - A bigger puppy. Slightly harder to keep alive, but easier to click. Adding similar simple features is quick and easy once the base project is complete. More effort on that next time then, eh? Keep at it.
Apr 30 13:11:47 3h 00m Roboson Crusoe and the Spiders from Muranus ♥ 2 A simple and effective design paired with a competent presentation. The intro scene and "voice acting" really stand out. Bullets looping around the planet is a neat idea. Roboson mostly took damage from those, actually! The planet is just small enough that finding the battery doesn't become all about lucky guessing. Well, the planet could be slightly bigger, if there were landmarks to traverse by. As others have pointed out, the running and gunning aspect does become somewhat tiring in the end. In a longer session I'd like to see a few other abilities (shield, dodge roll, etc) and more enemy types, which start spawning the longer Roboson dares to disturb the local fauna. Proper good work!
Apr 30 13:54:15 42m 28s XCAPE ♥ 1 I played the original version. Here are some thoughts in random order. They might be out of date by now. - Audio-visually consistent, even if not in a style I prefer - Shootery madness! Not enough madness maybe, but it is close - The shotgun cannot be used while crouched. other weapons can - Input redundancy needed. Down should crouch as well as C - There is no easy way to close to program (even alt+F4 fails) - The last minigun level bugged out and the character was spawned right next to the escape door - The enemies can shoot outside of the screen, but the player cannot! - Wall and ceiling turrets with erratic bullet patterns are are OP - The health system required some experimentation to figure out. It would make sense to me, if the ghost could not be killed before it turned back into the dude. - The performance dropped drastically once in a section of the second level. Continuing with the last point. Maybe something broke and spawned too many particles? The way to optimize this kind of a permanent blood effect is to create a huge, level sized, per pixel texture which is transparent at first, but gets updated by the each particle once it stops. This way the particle count stays low and the texture, while huge, has a constant draw speed. How to do this with GameMaker, though? I do not know. Overall, good work!
May 1 10:02:59 20h 08m Power plant ♥ 2 The idea fits the theme and it is implemented successfully. There are a few issues though. Firstly, the reason why my *"as much renewable power as possible"* plans kept failing. The back-up power drains very quickly and there isn't enough of a warning that it is happening!. The energy text turns red, but this also happens often when there **is** more than enough power. There should be a big, blinking warning icon in the corner whenever the hospital is losing power. Additionally the player could be able to build expensive power banks to store energy. A smaller UI tweak would be changing the building area indicator colors. They are all green at the moment, which becomes messy when there are plenty of power poles and wind turbines around (which is what I ended up with). I do have other issues with the build actually. The exe is some kind of a self extracting sneaky archive thing. I have no idea where it extracts the files or if they persist after deleting the exe, which is annoying. It is also a problem due to the performance. The Unreal engine has rather heavy default settings, I've noticed. The post processing and shader detail are turned to the max, which causes a lot of heat and fan noise to come out of my computer at least. These can be reduced in a settings file, yet the extractor hides it somewhere, so I could not do that. Slightly annoying this too. In all, despite the small issues, this is a relatively complex design for a jam project and you pulled it off pretty well.
May 1 16:18:08 6h 15m Kaze No Kami ♥ 0 A neat tech demo! Fire propagation systems are useful in a lot of projects, for instance, a village management simulation, a turn-based tactical competition, a real-time survival challenge, you get the idea. Now just put it to good use!
May 2 10:16:55 17h 58m flamaraderie ♥ 2 I played both versions. It is always interesting to see the differences between a jam and a post-jam version and you did make some notable improvements with the presentation and the outro especially. First, some words on how it went. In the original I ended up sacrificing 4 people and ascended. In the post-jam version I hatched a plan not only to keep the flame alive, but also to keep each villager alive. It took some tries (including one where a single resource was missing thus dooming URSAG. This broke the outro wording as it was in plural), yet I managed it in the end with a few tricks. The god was puzzled: 06b2_FlamaradariePurpose.png The tricks then. Spend many days collecting resources, there is no need to reach the next fire level quickly. Get to 39/40 and then put nearly everyone on praying duty. Overshoot as much as possible. Do this again when going past the second level. Lastly, spend as few days on level 3 as possible and on the last day **everyone** worships, because the fire cost is not paid when ascension happens. That felt a bit cheap, but I'll take it. Trying to sacrifice everyone (but one) should also be possible as most of them can be sacrificed on the last night, but I'm yet to try that. Will be fun no doubt, despite the gruesome setting. --- Now some criticism too. The UI is a major annoyance and while tweaked in the post-jam version, the big issues persist. Simply put, too many clicks to get things done is a waste of time and energy. Toggles are good in UI design. If the user sets on option one way, then it should stay that way in the future, until changed by the user again. Resetting is the opposite of this. Both the task assignment system and the feeding system work on the *resetting principle*, which results in a lot of unnecessary clicks. The UI should by default show the previous turn's actions for each character. Then the user can change them if they want to, which in most cases is faster than resetting everything. The daily tasks are easy to visualize with dotted lines or by showing the target bush/tree when the character is selected. Food assignment is more difficult to fix due to the *"mystery meat"*, which is sometimes available. The easy way is to stick with the *reset principle* and add a *"everyone eats apples until 50%/75% full"* button. Sacrifices and special decisions can be taken first and then the manual feeding labor is condensed down to a single button press. Some kind of a drag and drop system where the amount of food to be eaten is shown below each villager on the map might work, yet using the *toggle principle* here might be a bit too complicated given what you already have. Worth thinking about, though. So, this is an interesting concept well put together. UI design is important, but it doesn’t ruin the challenge, just makes it slower than it should. Good job! *PS. To make this even longer, [here's a somewhat similar jam project](https://huvaakoodia.itch.io/divine-indulgement) I was involved in some years back. Take a look if you have the time.*
May 2 15:24:22 5h 07m Guardy_Bird ♥ 2 Unexpected take on the theme, yet kind of obvious in hindsight. I really like the animations and the graphical style, even if it is a bit uneven in places, mushy as well. A fullscreen mode would fix the latter. About the only issue I found (in this version where a whole lot of bugs have already been fixed, apparently) is that picking up the fruit of the tree is only possible with the *down arrow* and not with *S* for some reason. I think selfishly stuffing the mother bird full of bread should also trigger a bad ending. That *pick up and eat* animation combo is just so good, though. Excellent work!
May 2 16:05:29 41m 07s Planet Doom ♥ 0 This is cool in concept. You know how the rest goes. The screen shake and glitch effects are not too much, they are simply tied to the wrong thing. The 10 minute doomsday clock should be the driving force behind the effects. When down to the last few minutes it should get about as intense as it currently gets after about a minute. I don't even understand what causes the shakes. Even when hordes of troglodytes keep matching into the core, the shakes won't subside. What gives? At least the station at the top right is very difficult to hack when a near constant stream of troglodytes is falling just next to it. The inability to do anything about it is actually rather infuriating. *Better try again and start with that station then!* The troglodytes could use some randomness in their spawning and movements so that they don't always move through the same paths. The one minute core meltdown combined with the 10-minute self-destruction sequence is rather strange. It would make more sense if the character could only survive for a minute without recharging at the core. This way there could actually be some kind of a visual on the dude (or a plain GUI element) indicating the current charge. Little things in the end, yet they make all the difference in a world of headaches.
May 3 13:16:46 21h 11m Duck Tails ♥ 1 Short and sweet! Well, the level is short and the presentation is sweet (with silky smooth animations). Other than that there are some rad, mother ducking death machines in there! Think of the ducklings! The hitbox issue is the only one I really have and you've been getting that from everyone, so... Add one to the list. Solid work!
May 3 13:40:02 23m 16s It's Coming Right At Us ♥ 1 Figuring out how the boss battle worked took a few tries. At first I tried mashing the keys that were highlighted for each item which only resulted in the beehive and the anvil disappearing right away. The shark simply goes spaztic if spamming A and D. A countdown timer *3.2.1.GO* style would help with this a little bit, but even then pressing the wrong keys shouldn't completely dismiss the item, simply results in penalty of some kind (discard one bee, for instance) A fun and funny project this. Well done!
May 4 08:15:18 18h 35m Goat Rider ♥ 1 *Aww, a little bit of sap per day keeps the doctor away, eh?* A well developed puzzle packed with levels of increasing difficulty. The visuals and the backstory are funny in a good way. There could be more of both and audio, of course. At least for me there was one kink in the difficulty curve. In *Crossroads* I was sure I'd need to block one basket with another, and even considered using empty baskets for something, but it was all about movement after all. The objective in Deja vu then seemed much more straight forward, but I might have just learned the rules better at that point. Maybe changing the order would be in order? The puzzle mechanics are compelling apart from the inability tell the goat to calm the goat down if not directly facing it. Turning around cannot be done if right next to the goat either, which just makes the whole affair silly sometimes. These two mechanics together are not believable. A human could easilly turn and stop the goat. It is hard to reason with unintuitive, arbitrary rules, so they should be done away with. As far as I remember, they didn't really add anything to the levels either, except fiddlyness. Many have already mentioned the controls and they sure are complicated. This kind of a puzzle might be completely doable with a mouse. Moving the dude around would certainly work. Moving the lines could be done by dragging them in either direction. I bet that would *feel* rather good too, for what that's worth. In summary, good rule design and level design. The controls need work. Good job!
May 4 12:14:15 3h 58m LYMPHOSITE ♥ 3 I'll have to echo the sentiments many have already stated. The presentation is great, the design less so. The store mechanic is broken: - The drop rate for money is so low that I only had 10$ after the first boss. - Buying weapons is pointless because they are expensive and temprorary - Ammo can be bought from the store, but this too is pointless as the only way to get to the store is to destroy all enemies, which usually causes the weapon to run dry and disappear! - When I finally do have 10$, the available permanent upgrade might be useless (e.g. +1 item in the shop, which ends up as being two bombs) There is very little reason to be stingy with the content you manage to put into the project. I would like to play around with the weapons and the upgrades, but there are a lot of hurdless in the way, including the very easy first 5 levels or so. Here are a few suggestions: - Weapons and bombs should be powerups occasionally dropped by the enemies - The store is replaced by an upgrade selection system, where the player gets to choose one out of three (or more) available upgrades - There should be no filler levels. Every level should ramp up the difficulty and introduce a new enemy (even if just a slightly meaner variant of a previous enemy) - Some kind of a twist on the tired wave shooter formula. Defending something is thematic, but done to death. Either the character, the enemies or the world should have some kind of a unique factor to differentiate this from all the other wave shooters (and I'm talking about interactivity here, not visuals or backstory) So, darn good job on the overall quality of the project! Darn shame about the tired and broken design, though.
May 4 16:24:28 4h 10m The Core ♥ 1 A surprisingly functional entry for a first jam. There are rotations, animations, lights, music, action, a score system, menus... Sure, Unity does the heavy lifting behind the scenes, but it is a start. Then some bugs: - Everything becomes really fast after restarting, but the first round always works. I'm not sure what would cause this. Reloading the scene should always work? - It is possible to shoot the character by aiming backwards and the bullets collide with each other as well. Using different layer masks for the player, the bullets, the enemies and the environment would solve these issues. - The enemies get stuck on barrels. Unity pathfinding is rather easy to use, so look that up. - The action doesn't end when the energy runs out, a menu is just pasted on top. A quick and dirty way to pause everything, but the music, is to set the Time.timeScale value to 0. After the base is solid you can start adding new features. That is whole another can of worms, I can tell ya! Keep at it.
May 4 16:49:11 24m 43s Fireman (in-browser) ♥ 0 Pretty neat! Now, if only there were little firemen fighting the fires of the fireman most firmly, those fearless firemen. In other words, choosing where the wind blows would have a tactical aspect, if people were digging ditches and felling trees here and there, trying to soil the fireman's plan. Anyhow, for what it is, this is competent.
May 4 17:01:53 12m 42s Resurrection plan ♥ 0 Tricky. Even with mere 9 grid cells this is rather tricky indeed. Thematically weak, this puzzle would work with any kind of a theme really, but I don't care much about the theme after the jam. In the end the program crashed when I just tried to spam all of all of the cells. Oh well. Simple solid work!
May 4 17:20:01 18m 08s Castle Isolation ♥ 0 The core is functional and ripe for more features. I'd say that the week long global status events are a good start, but I'd also say that a variety of shorter random events, which are less potent, would spice up the procedings more. For instance, events which only affect one of the characters. They might get injured, go on a quest on their own, get some kind of a boost, require something special (which another character can work on). Less generally of course, you'd have to come up with quite a few specifics for these sort of events. You get the gist. Ok work!