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Vladadamm

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Vladadamm's comment
Oct 5 19:22:02		Cursed Duality	♥ 3	Original concept, it reminds me a lot of some of the games from LD41 as the theme back then was "Combine 2 incompatible genres" which would fit this game perfectly. It's a bit hard to manage both the platforming and match 3, but that's what makes the game fun. The graphics are really nice, and I liked the diversity not only in backgorunds but also random effects (rain & all). A few small issues imo : - There's a delay between a 'cube' disappearing from the top half and it appearing in the bottom half. - The camera change/halves size change are sometimes too sudden. - While the in game music and sfx, it's a bit disappointing not to have any sounds in the menu or the 'tutorial' intro. - The stomp wasn't easy to use, as you have to hold Down before pressing Space + if you're next to a wall it triggers wall jump. Having a simple button press for stomp would have felt better, and would allow for more reactive stomping.
Oct 10 23:41:39	124h 19m	Lovecrafting	♥ 3	An impressive game. I loved the pixel art animations and also the way soundtrack builds up over the run along with the difficulty curve increasing with timers. All of which gave a great ambiance to the game. I don't have much to say about the cons of it as a jam game as the game loop feels complete and overall well polished. The main issues would be that not all victorious runs lead to what I feel like is a Victory (summoning a named god) and that you don't really know if the unnamed monster is supposed to be a good end or not. This could be fixed by having all possible combinations of Traits leading to a God but that would require I guess at least 2-3x more Gods (which would be undoable in 72h though), or having some kind of hints (other than looking at the compendium) to what choices might lead or not to a named god. Now, seeing as you're thinking about possibly extending the game further, here are some thoughts about that : - The gameplay as it stands feels a bit too simple and repetitive for a complete game that could be played for a few hours (it's totally fine for a jam game that is tested in 30mins max though). Some additional game mechanic would be welcomed to have more variety in the gameplay. - A current side goal I guess is to fill the Compendium with all gods. So, replayability has to be adressed as dozens if not hundreds of runs will be necessary. You could add maybe rogue-lite elements to it (ie. you start by summoning lesser gods first, get upgrades through the runs, then summon greater ones), maybe a story, or whatever you feel like might do the work.
Oct 11 00:12:27	30m 48s	You Gonna Cry?	♥ 0	It's a quite silly small boss fight game, the art style, animation and audio work all quite well together. Having to deal with switching between two kinds of attacks also added an interesting twist to the gameplay. Some issues though : - It's not quite intuitive at first of where you should hit at first and how the 'boss' works, whether you should try to hit the boss or the small bugs first. - There's a bit of lack of feedbacks here and there. For example, it's not quite clear when the tears do damage or not, unlike the slaps that have a sfx upon hit. - UI doesn't scale with screen size, so there's some overlapping issues when not playing in full screen - There's a red circle rolling around which I didn't really understand what it was doing there (maybe a placeholder game object you forgot to delete ?)
Oct 11 01:15:45	1h 03m	Manoe's Quest	♥ 1	A really impressive Compo entry. Loved the audio, visuals and all the small details like the intro, color shifts and other animations upon switching between the phases of gameplay, landing a ball in a net, etc... The puzzle gameplay and the base mechanics felt good, and the experience was quite satisfying with enough levels to explore the mechanics. To nitpick a bit, the only issues I could find are the lack of a final 'score' at the end (did we get 100% of the bonuses ?) and the difficulty curve which isn't perfect (some of the later levels are easier than earlier ones, not counting the 1st 'breakable' platform one which is normal as it's a tutorial for a new mechanic).
Oct 11 01:36:40	20m 55s	Babel	♥ 1	Managed to get 28 points. Quite simple but easy to understand and fun game. Some of the items spawned and sound effects were quite unexpected. The minimalist and chill atmosphere worked very well. On a downside, while the transition phase between 2 'games' was very well thought, it's not obvious at first that the numbers next to the apples are the score and it doesn't give a lot of time to read it and it's easy to miss it if you don't pay attention.
Oct 12 19:59:09	42h 22m	Shiine	♥ 0	Couldn't test your game sadly, had the following error upon launching the .exe : Fatal: Can't create SDL window: Could not initialize OpenGL / GLES library If you have any clues on what could fix that, then I'll happily test your game.
Oct 12 20:55:49	56m 40s	Pistolman	♥ 1	The graphics were nice, I liked especially the design of the characters which were quite funny. The menu music matched well for the game (though a bit too loud), but it's a bit disappointing not to have a background music within the game itself. The gameplay itself felt lacking though as the controls and camera made up for most of the game's difficulty and there overall was a lack of feedbacks.
Oct 12 23:36:54	2h 41m	COME ALIVE!	♥ 1	Very impressive entry, bit sad that the LD version was bugged for me (ended up locked twice after going to sleep, with no interaction possible in the hallway after it). The itch.io version though fixed that as well as most of the minor issues I spotted, so I could finish it. Loved the art and was surprised by all the content available (and with the post-jam version being even more complete). All the small effects and animations on the texts, menus or even the phone messages animation gave it a really polished feeling. The characters and dialogues felt very good and natural, the rooms felt realist and were well detailed. I also liked how the story went overall. If I had to point a downside to the game though, it would be the ending which felt very disappointing as the prank don't really fit what we went through imo. It would have been fine if everything we saw was from Cyan's POV, but as we had the scenes from A's point of view it can't match. Only explanation would be that those were just Cyan dreaming, but then others would have no reason to mention the closet either (which Cyan didn't even see). And it also doesn't explain the post-jam's kitchen thing (nor the bathroom 'screamer' though that one could be random irrational fear from watching spooky movies). On another note, the parallax/3d effect on the toilet stalls looked a bit weird at times.
Oct 13 21:39:23	22h 02m	Grenade; Unstable	♥ 1	I liked the concept a lot and the graphics were nice. Though it's a bit disappointing that the different grenades had no effects on the platforms below enemies, and that only the yellow ones could be used to beat them. It would have felt better if we had both the option of making the enemies fall through the knockback grenades as well as being able to break the platforms below them with the red ones. Also I've found that jumping on the enemie's platforms and running into them was a quite effective tactic to make them fall, which didn't feel like intended gameplay.
Oct 13 22:23:18	43m 55s	Betatester	♥ 1	QA Report : "F\\\* this shit, I'm quitting this job." More seriously, making a game that is voluntarily 'bugged' and that uses those 'bugs' for gameplay definitely isn't easy and there were some good ideas there. I especially liked the infinite box mechanic which could be used to solve pretty much any problem. For the downsides, the door bug pretty much had no indication (outside the game's description) on how to fix it, which made it kinda hard. Also having some sound effects (even some generic royalty free stuff while still opting out of audio) would have been nice to give a bit more atmosphere to the game.
Oct 15 14:03:52	39h 40m	Potions Of Yore	♥ 0	Simple and interesting concept which could work well for a chill game, but having a rather tight timer doesn't go well with the mechanic imo. I'm also joining with the others above that some music or sound effects could add a lot to the mood.
Oct 18 16:38:43	74h 34m	Unstable	♥ 1	I'll be honest, the concept is good and can make up for a fun top down shooter game around the idea of gameplay randomly changing. But as it currently stands there's a number of issues with it. The circle in the upper left corner being life was all but intuitive and I only understood it after reading the comments, there also lacks some feedbacks like hitting sounds (the particle splitting effect is too slight), hitboxes didn't feel good (for example bullets goes through the enemies' head), some obstacles block you (boxes) while others don't (trees or rocks) with nothing indicating you that in hindsight, etc... Also, the best score feature didn't work and was stuck to 0 even after doing several runs.
Oct 18 17:21:26	42m 43s	JUNK NUNS	♥ 1	A very well polished game, while the gameplay might not be too innovative it is still very well done and I don't have much to say on that side, it's easy to understand what to do and how to do it and quite fun to play. The graphics were good too, and the audio you choose fitted well with the rest of the game. Only negative point I could find is that the 'Photo' at the end would need some kind of message/warning for the player to stop doing anything as I initially thought we were supposed to click on the phone to take the photo, only to end up messing everything.
Oct 18 18:13:13	51m 47s	Euro Drunk Simulator	♥ 3	A simple but fun concept. The graphics were good overall, with a lot of different assets and some nice details like the direction signs. I didn't have any performance issue on my side but I've got a rather high end pc though. The music in the end was way too loud compared to the rest of the game. Also, it felt a bit like the "drunk" idea was underused with only the 'controller drift', and some drunk visual effect with the view being twisted or something could have been nice to emphasize the drunk part.
Oct 18 18:51:57	38m 44s	Missed Spelling	♥ 0	The concept is pretty unusual and I didn't expect that at all. Despite the graphical style being very minimalist, the animations did great in making the game look. The music was also quite good. On the downside, I think the biggest issue was the game's length, as the concept is pretty simple, quite repetitive and it's supposed to be a scoring game so runs have to be somewhat short imo to repeat runs and try for high score. I kept at it until making a dozen words, then I let the game run in background to reach the end faster, before the game crashed after ~30 words I'd say. But reaching that point felt very long already, and I don't know if I was close or not to the end.
Oct 18 21:40:50	2h 48m	Pong-Anoid	♥ 1	Was curious about this game as I've also made a Pong with some twists for this LD. The Pong & Arkanoid gameplay ended up going very well together imo. Local multiplayer games aren't always easy to test in jams, though I guess I managed this one not too badly. The game mechanics felt good overall. The graphic style works well, same with the music and sound effects (though the loop might get a bit repetitive overtime). For the downsides/possible improvement points, as others said before, an AI could have been nice to play alone (a Pong AI in itself isn't hard to do, though what's hard is to balance it right and not make it too strong/bad). Another point might be the 30 Bricks win condition seems quite unlikely/very hard to do compared to the points win.
Oct 18 22:53:43	1h 12m	Totally Normal Pong!	♥ 1	Was curious about your game as I've also done a Pong with some twists for this LD. Your game felt good overall, with some good polish for a Compo entry. There were some nice details put in it like the screenshake, or the blinking when the scores get inversed. The audio overall was good, and the graphics while very minimalist work well too. For the downsides, I feel that the paddle/side swap felt too sudden and some kind of warning would be nice to prepare for it. Also, it was a bit disappointing that the AI doesn't have a changing paddle which could have added to the fun, as currently the AI is too predictable.
Oct 20 19:46:50	44h 53m	Pills	♥ 1	Deep game about the risks of drug addiction. You'll have to take pills if you want to reach the end of a level, giving you a momentary joy (joy of having completed the level). And as long as you continue you will have no choice except taking more pills, until you'll inevitably die of overdose. And of course, once you're dead, you're just dead, there's no Play Again. The only solution is to resist the temptation and to not play the game and avoid falling into the addiction. At least that's my take of it, maybe I'm overthinking it. Else, I especially liked the graphics style and the change upon taking a pill, the platformer controls and physics felt good. Some audio could have been nice though, as well as a bit more length (with maybe some more narrative in it)
Oct 20 21:02:17	1h 15m	Contrary	♥ 3	The art style and overall mood is very good. I liked how the unstability was transcribed in the game mechanics throughout a reduced window of time to block/attack/jump as well as the narrative. As for the main downsides of the game : - I felt like there was a lack of feedback at times, as I was sometimes unsure whether I would hit enemies or not of if they were hitting me except by looking at the health bars - At times my focus was more on the bottom left corner and the UI to get the timings right rather than the game itself, and it's not easy to focus on both at the same time. - Having both attack & block share the same time window to use make it so you have to either choose one of them, which ended up always being attack in my case (as it works best). Would have felt better to have them available at different times to encourage using both. - Difficulty curve was a bit off, with the first boss being rather hard as you are still learning the game while having to get the right timing for attacking. And the following ones being a lot more easier as you would be able to attack freely.
Oct 20 21:19:30	17m 13s	Unstable Ship!	♥ 1	It's a small fun game with a good idea, could also work very well as a multiplayer game with a bit more complex ship (though would have been pretty hard to do in a jam). The pirate sprite and animations are quite funny too. But the difficulty feels a bit too random, and some score system or a metric like time remaining is missing too as I didn't know if there was an end or not until reaching it.
Oct 20 21:58:54	39m 24s	BALANCING ACT	♥ 3	Tested both the Jam version (for rating) and the last one (0.19, for feedback). Loved the menu, very good looking. The soundtrack was also quite good. The jam version was a bit too bugged (player character meeting invisible walls, the stuck on level 2 bug, etc...) but those were corrected in the later version already. The jenga tower idea can be very good along with the elevator transitions (which would need some texturing/polishing still), but I feel like those ideas are a bit underused in the game atm, as there aren't any elements that really remind you of it in the actual game whether that be in the level design or the art direction. Also the patch note upon launching game feels a bit unnecessary and it would be better to have a button in the menu to open the patch notes rather than always having them open first. On another side, I don't know if that was intended but the game slow down a lot for a few seconds before the loss animation starts which feels nearly as if the game was freezing.
Oct 20 23:50:31	1h 51m	Volcano soother	♥ 1	It feels a bit like you tried to be too ambitious there. Vehicle physics and controls are a very hard thing to do well, and the ones here aren't bad considering the time frame they had to be done within. The game would benefit from some indication to where to go (minimap or arrows to indicate the direction ?)
Oct 21 15:08:04	15h 17m	Variable Volatility	♥ 1	Liked the narration and simplicity of the game, though the controls felt a bit messy, C-H and A-B aren't exactly keys that go well together/feel intuitive. Also I'm still quite unsure if there's an end to the game or if it's just trying to keep it going as long as possible after you unlock the ph.
Oct 21 16:18:44	1h 10m	Wonky Brew	♥ 2	A nice and well polished game. It feels rather complete, with everything being pretty intuitive (except the way of preparing some of the ingredients) and some nice polish like the color switch after an error or failing to do an ingredient. The graphics are very good and cute looking, and clearly one of the game's strength. As for the downsides, I think what lacked the most was some kind of global progression indicator to know whether we're close or not to finishing the potion. Also, small detail but could have been nice to be able to fasten the intro's dialogues by being able to skip to the next dialogue line early as the time for reading felt a bit long.
Oct 21 18:06:27	1h 47m	Star Miner	♥ 1	It's a small fun game with a surprising amount of mechanics/content for a 1 person team and still rather well polished overall. The graphics are quite nice, the audio you picked fits very well too. Having procedural generation, platformer mechanics, drilling mechanic, jetpack, rogue-lite upgrades, a tutorial, ending cinematic, etc... So, GG on managing that much. If I had to point some downsides to the game, the jetpack would have felt better imo if we had a few more frames before falling back to the ground (the fall being slower) as I often ended up releasing it too early expecting not to fall near instantly and be able to go a few pixels further using the jetpack momentum. Also a bit more of game length could have been nice with a bit more upgrades and bigger levels (but hard to do in 72h).
Oct 21 18:58:17	51m 50s	Radiopathic	♥ 1	Was expecting the game to turn to horror at any moments, especially after the night appearing suddenly at the beginning and the cracked phone screen. The idea of a quite chill road trip with the narrative being done through the radio is really good. Though it felt a bit long as the environment was too repetitive and there was no real interaction except switching radio stations and following the road.
Oct 21 19:52:35	54m 18s	MENDEL'S DRAGONS	♥ 1	Very nice game with cute graphics and a well polished gameplay, with everything well explained. I would have liked the king to have 5 different requests rather than asking 5 times for the same kind of dragon, which ends up being easy once you've managed to get the first one. Anyway, it's quite an addictive chill game, and now I'm trying to create the 'perfect' dragon that has full lowercase genes.