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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | pickens-inc's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 7 17:57:47 | Master of Tiles | ♥ 1 | Very interesting entry! I always have a soft spot for games revolving around audio and incrementing music, and the audio was definitely the strong point of the game. The art style mixing 2D and 3D was an interesting choice, I'm curious as to why it was made, but I do like how the monochromatic styling meant you naturally focussed less on visuals, forcing your ears to pay more attention and appreciate the music more. Gameplay-wise I found it a little dull, as there was little challenge or variation between rooms, and I would have liked to have been able to tell what button I had to press next, and I didn't like having to hold down right click the whole time. Overall though, a solid audio entry. Well done. | |
| Oct 7 18:58:22 | 1h 00m | Danger Beat | ♥ 1 | Excellent entry! Really enjoyable, even for osmeone like me who is typically not a fan of shooter games. I'll definitely have to remember to use that sampling site for a project sometime. :) The controls were tight and responsive, that melody was great once it built up, and I love that you had time to add difficuly purely by changing the BPM. Personallly, I still found the game too hard, even at the lowest difficulty, due to three things, I think. The big one for me is that the majority of the projectiles are too big and could stand to be reduced in size signficiantly, as it makes dodging them feel almost impossible sometimes due to the limitations of keyboard-controls and the density of the projectiles, and I think reducing the size would work wonders for the experience. The second is that I believe they start too close or the map is too small. It felt especially punishing when I was hit by a turret right next to the vinyl I was collecting. Moving the possible locations for the vinyl to appear closer to the centre would also help let me gauge and predict my movements ahead of time. The third is just a bit more audio/visual feedback for when you were being hit. Not knowing if I was dodging or not in the heat of the moment was tricky. Still, I emphasise that I still had lots of fun and that this a great compo entry. Well done! |
| Oct 7 22:49:15 | 3h 50m | AutoMate | ♥ 1 | What a phenomenal entry! My favourite of this jam so far. You took so much time to get such a lovely polished look to it. It's absolutely gorgeous, the glowing feels so warm, the soudns were great, the UI was great, even the little intro screen was brilliant. The core loop was one I expected to see done a fair bit this jam, but I think you really got the best out of the concept, I loved having to stack them, and only being able to cascade by one was very interesting and a different take on the mechanic. In the end, there's very little I can criticise. There seemed to me like I didn't quite understand the rles and sometimes I think I solved things in ways you weren't meant to, and it would have been nice to zoom out a bit or give me control of the camera as at times it felt a little claustrophobic. But honestly I think this is a fantastic entry. Music and sound was lovely too and there's a skill in finding music that fits your game. Well done. |
| Oct 8 22:34:36 | 23h 45m | Ouroboros | ♥ 3 | I really enjoyed this. Wonderfully polished and a nice varied experience. It took me a while to figure out what to do with the three torch braziers, but the moment the second loop begun suddenly it all clicked into place. The combat felt nice, the enemies were nice and varied and I loved the gameplay meta-narrative of travelling along with the ourobourous until you slay it to escape. Fantastic interpretation. The voiceovers were a lovely touch, espeically having a separate line for each shop item, and the little poems were nice. The graphics were also very pleasing with some lovely effects. I think my main constructive criticisms are related to the combat, and I think they'd mostly be fairly easy to rectify. The first is that when the combat began I immediately felt myself reaching for a dodge/dash button that wasn't there. It would really help add to the skill ceiling of the game and allow you to make it much more difficult as the onus of evading the projectiles shifts much more to the player. The second is that it was occasionally difficult to see the thin bolts compared to their shadows. I think they could get away with not having a shadow or toning it down a little, and perhaps a trail or some motion blur wouldn't go amiss to help keep track of them. The final is that the pacing and smoothness of the combat was stunted only by the fact that the character must stop to fire. I assume this is because the torso and legs of the sprite aren't separate? But it would be very ideal to do that so you can move and fire at the same time. That would improve the game by leaps and bounds, I think. But overall, I emphasise that this was a great entry. Stellar job. |
| Oct 12 22:52:37 | 96h 18m | Rhythm Step | ♥ 1 | Very interesting entry! As everyone else said, the aesthetic and the audio direction for the game was absolutely stellar, the filters and the glowing effects look incredible, the animations were smooth and the music was on point with the colour scheme. I have a soft spot for rhythm games. Gameplay-wise I believe the concept itself is a little flawed, and I think the theme actually hindered more than it helped here. I love the more fundamental concept of almost programming in moves that are then executed to the beat in a majestic platforming dance, however unfortunately I feel like it doesn't *quite* work with this concept of forcing us to be locked into moves with each loop, especially with so little time to plan each time. The core issue with this for me is that with no time to plan, I never felt like having my actions be looped was a good thing, it just felt more difficult to plan. My dominant strategy for the early half of the game ended up being memorising what the correct route should be then entering it all at once after resetting a dozen times. One final niggle is I'm not sure why your Unity game has an installer? That's rather inconvenient for a jam, and the game is pretty big for what it is, I'm assuming lots of uncompressed audio. I think Rhythm Step has a lot of potential and the music and the beep beep beep beep is sitll in my head, so you definitely did things right! Well done for some good work in such short time. |
| Oct 12 23:17:49 | 25m 12s | WHILE(ALIVE) | ♥ 1 | What an excellent entry, definitely one of my favourites of this jam. I loved virtually every aspect of the game, and that it was all done by but a single person was something I found extraordinarily impressive. Regardless of any of the constructive criticisms I list, make non mistake that you should be incredibly proud of this entry. Top class. Firstly, the graphics are gorgeous. Love the unique art style and this character design of half-animal half-robot. Very unsettling, especially how all the legs are just slightly too sharp and move a bit too fast, like the lizards that flee from you really caught me off guard at first, with the oppressive filter over everything it really made it feel creepy and off whilst still maintaining a bit of sillniness with the fun gun function names and squawky sound effects. The music was lovely too. The theme interpretation was wonderfully unique, I've seen a bunch incorporate while loops and general code-related iteration as a concept but none that I felt tie so intuitively into gameplay. At first I thought the function system was more like a glorified inventory menu for equipping your weapons, but when it clicked with me that your weapons were fired sequentially, suddenly the order mattered as your delay time was so big. It would have really helped to have health bars above my enemies so I could better plan what way I targeted everything. If I knew an enemy was low for sure I could, for example, fire my burst fire at someone else, then turn around and pop them with ol' reliable for some health back. It was rather a shame that the weakest gun was the only way to get health back, it would have been nice if there were pickups or something. Time for some really minor niggles. One is that I felt the acceleration when moving was a little too... not high, but oddly curved. It ramps too quickly at one point, I ended up moving fast very suddenly at what feels like an arbitrary amount of time. It should either happen slower or a lot quicker, for me. The second is an easy fix, I felt it rather awkward that I pressed tab to open the inventory, but then had to press escape to leave it. It would have really smoothed things for me if I could have used tab to toggle it. The third is that it would have been nice if either the grenade didn't deal splash damage to you at all or if it did a better job at warning you. I was getting stuck at the beginning for ages until I realised it was my own grenade killing me, haha. The fourth was that I felt in some arenas, especially those with other birds like me, I felt the camera was too zoomed in to be able to have the enemies on screen and to be able to reasonably predict the projectile paths so I could dodge. There. I've plenty more good to say but I think I've basically said everything useful. I think with some more time taken to design and balance the weapons, some UX improvements and then just more content and narrative you could have a fantastic release. Well done. |
| Oct 13 22:50:55 | 23h 33m | Hyperloop | ♥ 1 | This was quite enjoyable! I've seen a good number of the concepts like this, the theme connection is slightly tenuous, made only by the curve of the track, but the work involved to make that happen is alone impressive. The visual effects and sound effects are all gorgeous, the filters and lighting really elevating what would at first seem like fairly simple visuals. I'd almost be tempted to see what this game was like in VR. Gameplay-wise I think there's not too much to say. It's solid, works nice, the controls are tight. I think the game should have ramped up in difficulty as time went by (or if it did then I didn't notice) and even in hard mode I never felt like I was super challenged. On the whole, really solid excellent little entry. Reminded me of a stripped down Thumper. |
| Oct 13 23:01:34 | 10m 39s | Start The Game (Together) | ♥ 5 | What an interesting entry. I was very impressed at first that the UI and menu had so much care put into it, then realised after a few minutes why - I was going to be spending a bunch of time in it. 😅 what a gorgeous game, though! I have no idea if I discovered most of the things to be discovered, I'm guessing not. I admit, however, that after trying all the games and playing with the floating furniture, I dedicated myself to singlehandedly Starting The Game. I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of payoff from it, though perhaps I missed something! I did however become curious as to what happened if we QUIT the game. But by then I wasn't going to quite 201 times so I'll have to consign that to the annals of history ;) Genuinely though, one of the most intriguing entries I've seen in an LD, lovely visuals and UI, and online functionality in an LD game is always impressive. The LD site is being garbage as usual so I can't post my image proof, so I've uploaded it to imgur: https://i.imgur.com/UCBIHMy.png |
| Oct 19 19:14:03 | 140h 12m | Complete information | ♥ 0 | Add a download link and ping me! |
| Oct 19 19:15:27 | 1m 24s | Dating Hel | ♥ 0 | Post us the link when it's restored! |
| Oct 19 19:45:04 | 29m 37s | Sir Runalot | ♥ 1 | Lovely art style! I really liked the character and evnrionment design. The gameplay was immediately obvious and intuitive. I managed get about 900m! The music was simple but functional. I must confess however that the spinning really did make me motion sick throguhout the latter speeds. And I am someone who typically doesn't experience motion sickness so this was quite a surprise. In addition, it becomes difficult to ascertain what kind of jump will be required as things speed up - at higher speeds most small gaps don't need jumping at all which almost made it easier. I think some sound effects wouldn't have gone amiss for UX, especially a nice satisfying jumping or landing sound. But I appreciate sound and such can sometimes be a luxury in an LD, especially in a compo! :) Overall, a pleasing and solid entry, my own biological weaknesses seemingly being the only major flaw. Well done! |
| Oct 21 17:31:00 | 45h 45m | Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! Never-ending! | ♥ 1 | Good attempt! I am a sucker for rhythm games and so I'll always give them a try where I can find them. There are a number of constructive criticisms I have however that I think the others have already mentioned. The music is nice, and I love the little stickman and how his emotive state depends on getting the notes right. However, a rhythm game pretty fundamentally lies on being able to accurately measure the player's ability to act to the beat of the music playing, and the arrows appearing are rarely synchronised. It took me a while to realise that, despite pressing the keys on the beat, I was losing points. I think this is the first flaw that should be addressed. There's also no development of the song, an almost harmonic intertia, which in a rhythm game means the game never gets any more difficult, and if it synchronised already then I think it'd be reallly easy. Finalyl, as stressed by another commenter, the enjoyment comes from good satisfying feedback from getting the button correct. There being no feedback besides the incrementing of the score (which was rather hard to see but then I have poor eyes) meant that I didn't play for a super duper long time. I think, however, that these are all really easy problems to fix, and that you should consider making a post-jam version with tweaks and QoL changes that could speedily improve it. Well done! |
| Oct 26 21:41:35 | 124h 10m | Smells Like Chlorine | ♥ 2 | What an excellent entry! I mentioned most of what I'm about to say on stream when I played it but I thought it was a brilliant piece of interactive storytelling. I would almost have opted out of the 'fun' category were it possible, as this was a story and an experience more than an enjoyable piece of gameplay. That you managed to construct a complete and cohesive narrative, this small story that makes you feel like such a worthless cog that many of us have had to be, is very impressive for the LD. Though you made use of the art pack, the original GFX and VFX you did do are not to be discredited. The environment was lovely, the use of shaders excellent. And of course, I can't forget the non-euclidean geometry, not only is it combining another interpretation of the theme into the already lovely one of being stuck in a dead-end job, it really helped serve htis narrative of chemical poisoning affecting our character's perception and mental stability. Completely seamless. Really enjoyed my time with this game, much as it left me sad. :( As far as any improvements I can think of, I think perhaps adding something a little more compelling gameplay-wise could have been nice, like making cleaning more satisfying with a nice shine and sound affect with punchier effects, even if it would have had an adverse effect with the narrative. That and a minor niggle of changing the font and/or colour on the Quest UI. It was a little hard to read. Very well done. |
| Oct 26 22:27:30 | 45m 55s | Cycle Breakdown | ♥ 1 | Wonderful entry, really hit all the things I adore in a good solid LD entry - compelling, punchy gameplay, lovely vfx and a music track that doesn't get boring despite the fact I was playing the game for bloody ages on stream! Loved it, great fun. The combat system was fairly simple but did the job, everything was instantly familiar, as were the pros and cons of the two weapons. The task system was a great mechanic and really served to help vary the gameplay in interesting and unique ways. The "use the right weapon" was definitely my favourite. The 'don't run and gun' one probably being my least as it kills the pacing a little (pun not intended), but definitely a great place to start expanding the gameplay here. Another place would definitely be the rooms. I'm sure you're well aware but the same room shape every time was a little rough. The "avoid the red" rooms could really help with this by adding the not-obstacles to the environment, so more than one kind of pattern there would have been great. All the effects were punchy and satisfying and really helped the combat feel satisfying. You have the game feel down already, and that's such a huge thing to have. Nice. Finally, my biggest gripe with the game - knowledge on how the progression worked! It was so tricky to know if I was really starting over or making any progress at all! I didn't realise I was going *back* in progress for ages, I just figured I was running out of invisible lives at some point. I think a map at the top of the screen wouldn't go amiss. I also think a little reminder of your task would be great for the less attentive of us. Also, a reminder that I somehow got stuck and didn't progress when I tried to go to the next room! Wonder how that happened. Really well done though guys, I was addicted by the end and very satisfied to have beaten it. |
| Oct 26 23:01:26 | 33m 56s | TimeBot | ♥ 1 | Very solid entry, high respect and regard as always to anyone who submits something complete in all regards for the compo. The concept, whilst not an original one, is solid and works well, and your talent for level design shines through it. Whilst I think there's limited value in repeating what othersh ave said, it's worth stating nonetheless given our discussions in stream - the first improvement I would make is of course to fix the physics materials so you can no longer get stuck to walls or, indeed, your former corpses (do robots leave corpses?) as that certainly made my progress in the finale more difficult. You could also stand to amp up acceleration and max speed and ramp up the gravity to make the controls feel more tighter and more responsive. The graphics are likely the weak point of the game, and as we discussed their improvement and replacement could really serve the game feel a lot. Loved the music, I didn't realise they were random variations that were chosen between each loop, but I'm glad you told me because I love that, and that you had time to do that. Excellent stuff. Overall, really solid entry. Well done. I hope you learned lots during it. |
| Oct 26 23:33:38 | 32m 12s | Space Drummer | ♥ 2 | Definitely one of my favourite entries this jam, class job. I suppose one should definitely expect something marvellous with a team as large as yours, but you certainly exceeded my expectations, especially with only one programmer on the team. I absolutely adored the concept of mixing my own drum loop and having that affect the weapons. Wonderfully executed and I always have a big soft spot for rhythm or music-based games. I think the two things the game was lacking most was feedback and variation. The enemies were nice and effective as they were with multiple angles of attack and different projectile types, but hitting them didn't feel super satisfying. I agree with your comment that it's definitely difficult to strike a balance between useful feedback and distracting from tracking the enemy projectiles, but I'm sure with a bit of iteration you'd be able to find it. With regard to the lack of variation, I wonder if you might consider perhaps building multiple different kinds of drum loops you can switch between for different kinds of enemies, each with their own stat build - perhaps difficult stages increased the tempo or something, there's plenty you could do I think and it would be super fun. Wonderful music, very catchy, found myself singing along to it. Loved the level names, even if I only technically made it to level 3 Ior 2nd level boss) I'm sure the post-jam version is even better and I'd love to know where you go with this game. Thanks for hanging out on stream and well done on the excellent entry. |
| Oct 27 00:09:58 | 36m 20s | Loopfield | ♥ 1 | A nice solid entry, and a very good attempt for your first LD and your first completed game. The instructions were confusing, but despite the seemingly repeated requests for a bette tutorial it took me literal seconds to comprehend everything I had to do - avoid asteroids, collect powerups. There is beauty in how simple it is, though as we spoke about in stream the timer mechanic does throw into question the efficacy and irregularity of the difficulty curve. Relatedly, the biggest flaw with the gameplay was certainly the randomness of the asteroid's appearance and the frequent appearance of impossible onslaughts of them simultaneously from all directions - this would certainly need to be fixed in future versions and may not be super easy, but once you have a syste mdown I think you'll find iterating on it much easier. The menu music was nice and I kind of wisiehd it kept playing as we went through. The background was nice and I loved the glowiness to all of the sprites - it helps add character and a charm to the simple graphics and grants it a pleasing aesthetic. I think you could take more advantage of it if you extend the game. But the again there is little more to say, your requested changelog clearly shows you've a clear handle on things and know where you're going from here. Best of luck with moving forwards with this and all of your other proejcts and congratulations for completing your first game. |
| Oct 27 00:46:19 | 36m 21s | Periphery | ♥ 1 | What a wonderful and pleasing entry to end my stream on, even with the tragedy of my failure to complete level 11, despite two incredibly near attempts. The concept was simple, intuitive, and immediately obvious to learn. The classic example of simple to learn and hard to master, which was essential for the harder levels. I really liked how much you could do in those puzzels with such a simple yet powerfully and demonstrably versatile mechanic, and I applaud you for coming up with it. As I said on stream time and again, I have a big soft spot for games with mechanics or features based on music or rhythm. The progression and chance in your audio was absolutely lovely and actually my favourite part of the game. Everything about ti from the different instrument sets to the sound and feel of the transitions between levels was great for the audio. Wonderful job with them. I also loved the visualiser. Crazy you had time to learn how to do that amongst everything else. I have only three minor gripes with Periphery and we have spoken about them on stream. The main one is the palette. It feels dark and washed out, the green in particular feeling out of place ocmpared to the blues and purples and reds. Juxtaposed with the chipper spritely nature of the flute-filled bouncy soundtrack and the sleepy almost-murky aesthetic of the colour pallette feels at odds. I think a pass on this may improve the game immensely. The second and third are super minor. They are that I felt like the puzzle on level 11 held too much chance in its timing as it was too difficult to mentally plot, and the third was that it'd just be nice to have a level count in the level itself. :) Again, what a lovely compo entry, probably my favourite of 47. Excellent job. |