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Birdwards

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Birdwards's comment
Apr 13 02:47:38		Ghost Caretaker	♥ 2	This is super cute - I had fun with it! Some things need to be clearer in the instructions, though. It took me until after my first death to figure out that you automatically dig when standing near a grave, and that digging is how you earn currency (souls?). I also thought that each death was basically "game over", since you go back to the start menu. I stopped playing after maybe 8 deaths. I didn't realize until after quitting the game and rereading the instructions that "game over" only happens after 10 deaths. A life counter could be useful in the main menu so players don't miss their score. Oh, and one minor thing: you can uncheck the "Fullscreen button" option on your itch.io page. That's for games that don't have their own built-in fullscreen button. Unity automatically adds a fullscreen button to web games, so right now, your game has two fullscreen buttons on top of each other at the bottom-right of the game: the Unity button (in blue, with two arrows) and the itch.io button (transparent, with 4 arrows). Only the Unity button works correctly for your game, but right now, you have to click in the thin area outside the itch.io button to reach the Unity button.
Apr 13 03:38:40	51m 02s	Support Simulator	♥ 1	This was great! As someone who doesn't really play MMOs, I was worried that the game would rely on preexisting knowledge of genre tropes, jargon, and typical raid strategy, but the tutorial was an excellent primer on all of that, and I understood what was going on throughout. (The only thing I didn't know was the term "pulling", but it's easy enough to figure out what that means from context.) I did have a lot of trouble with trying to cast something and realizing a half-second too late that I was already in the middle of casting something else, because my eyes were on the health bars, not the text terminal telling me I couldn't cast yet. An additional sound effect could be very helpful there (either a bzzt for "you can't cast that", or a long ascending boooooop to indicate how far along your current spell is).
Apr 16 00:18:26	68h 39m	Manual Manny!	♥ 2	This game is a good case study in the virtues of making something very simple and polishing it to a sheen. It's almost too simple, but the SKATE letters are a great way of keeping it replayable. It took me a while to realize that keeping a direction held down doesn't do anything more than just tapping it once, and that the proper way of leaning harder in a given direction is to tap that direction multiple times. I had to fight my instincts to internalize that.
Apr 16 01:10:16	51m 50s	Paper Boy Flyin' High	♥ 1	Great work - I love the art style! I agree with Raptor that it's tough to line yourself up with the speed boosts. I often found myself flying over or under the boosts when I thought I was headed straight for them. Since it seems like the game only generates a new level after you pick up at least one speed boost, I got stuck once on level 2 when the first speed boost was so far away that I couldn't reach it (although maybe there was a closer one in a spot I just couldn't see), and I had to restart the game from level 1. After that restart, I was able to get to level 3 and complete it. I found a bug when trying to restart: if you quit to the main menu and then click start, the game seems to freeze without showing the paper airplane or generating any obstacles. Overall, I still had a lot of fun with it.
Apr 17 16:47:46	39h 37m	Sunset	♥ 1	This is super cool! I agree with Lazzor that it could use some sound effects for collision (and maybe some subtle visual effects for colliding with the circles), but that's a minor thing. Besides that, this game has everything it needs and nothing it doesn't need. Great work!
Apr 17 18:58:47	2h 11m	John The Icecube	♥ 1	I love this! I'm a big fan of challenging platformers (I see your Celeste shoutout there 😉), so this was right up my alley. My first try on the compo version took me around 23 minutes, but I immediately wanted to try speedrunning it afterward. I switched to the latest version, and after a few practice runs, I was able to get my time down to 4:35.992 - and that's still with several deaths (especially on the last room)! I kinda want to try doing a TAS to see what a perfect run would look like. I saw the conversation on the itch.io page about what to do with the multiple jump mechanic. The first thing I'd do is add a short one-shot timer (maybe 0.1 or 0.2 seconds; experiment with it) that starts when the player presses the spacebar. If the player releases the spacebar before the timer finishes, John should wait until the timer finishes to jump. That will prevent the player from spamming the spacebar to hover in place. It would also make it much less efficient to spam the spacebar to slide left or right along the ground (I exploited that one a lot to make small adjustments to my position without really jumping). The timer idea wouldn't prevent the player from repeatedly jumping straight up at max power, which is how I skipped getting the key in my speedrun (you can just exit the room with the locked door by going straight up). However, that trick is difficult to pull off consistently, and it was really satisfying discovering the things I could do with it, so I don't think that exploit is necessarily a "problem" to be solved. If you decide you do want to prevent it, though, I agree with reducing the power of mid-air jumps instead of getting rid of them altogether; mid-air jumps are fun to pull off! I agree with Cyzaine that I'd prefer aiming with the mouse instead of the keyboard here (and I also agree that this would make a great mobile game).
Apr 18 20:24:11	25h 25m	Sheeplantis	♥ 1	This is cute! I love the chaotic physics of the sheep, and it's interesting trying to find a balance between how many sheep you let live and how many you fire at the meteor. At first, I had some trouble dropping sheep into the cannon. I walked right up to the cannon and aimed for the big orange number. When I did this, only some of the sheep I was holding went into the cannon, while others were dropped back onto the ground, stacked on top of each other, walking back to the spaceship. I eventually figured out that it's more reliable to aim for the base of the cannon, but I think that if the cursor is touching any part of the cannon, all the sheep being held should be automatically dropped in. It would also be nice to have an explanation of the different kinds of sheep and what their stats mean.
Apr 18 21:17:20	53m 09s	Dike Defender	♥ 1	This is cool! I love the idea on keeping one hand on the crack at all times, and having to defend that hand, but I think the instructions should make it clear that enemies touching your hand will hurt you the same as if they touched your body (I kinda thought of the hand as a "background element", so it took me a while to figure that out). I also agree that the slash attack could use some explanation - I'm guessing that holding the mouse longer makes the slash last longer?
Apr 18 21:35:15	17m 55s	BDriver	♥ 0	Super cool idea! The driving physics could definitely use some polish; I agree that it's much too easy to flip over the car, and when the car flips over, there's nothing you can do but wait to explode. The instructions could be clearer, too (such as mentioning that you use WASD to drive), but this game has a lot of potential.
Apr 18 22:47:03	1h 11m	Shaft	♥ 0	This is cool! Just a quick note, though: you need to turn on "Do not rate me in Audio" on the edit page for your game, since you did not create the music during the jam.
Apr 18 22:57:52	10m 49s	Don't save the planet	♥ 1	I like this! The humor is great, and it's a smart idea to make it harder to distinguish alien ships from human ships on harder difficulty levels. Even after the hotfix, though, I still think the difficulty ramping should be a bit slower.