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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | japes's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 11 10:35:15 | Board to DEATH | ♥ 2 | Great entry as other have said, interesting mechanic, impressive amount of levels, amazing polish (skeleton blew my mind when i realised his head tracks you!), entertaining writing, all in all a solid game! Some constructive crit: - Also picked up the bug(?) where you can place pieces on top of the red ones. - thought the ending was a bit confusing - I found it a bit easy, also noticed a dip in difficulty about midway through - I thought the enemy bishop was a queen at first All of those are minor, especially considering this is just a jam game. Well done Sadie Bros, another great little game :) | |
| Apr 11 11:12:51 | 37m 36s | You will fall | ♥ 1 | I really like this game. Presentation is simple/minimalist but appropriate and still easy on the eyes (like the little posters), audio is good and not annoying. perfectly scoped for a jam game. I think the level design/difficulty slope is really good. It's clear you've put considerable thought into how best to let the player discover the mechanics for themselves, and slowly gain a bit more confidence/mastery with each section. I went from start/stopping my thrusters like a n00b to feeling like i was a master, even beat one part by doing a somersault and felt like a badass. The mechanics (keys, rocks) are really simple but you put them together in creative ways that provide an interesting challenge. Sadly I could not finish this on my lunch brake, but it was 23 minutes of good fun for me. Might come back and finish it later! (MINOR SPOILER: I got to the part where you need to carry a key through a series of narrow passages, companion-cube style) Constructive crit: - When restarting from a checkpoint, I'd make the protective shield/bubble pop only on the player's first keypress - parts where rocks move up/down (as opposed to side to side) confused/disoriented me at parts, i wasn't sure of my speed and actually made me feel a bit giddy. I'd rework those parts so that maybe there are more features on the walls/background to give the player a better feel for their orientation. |
| Apr 11 19:15:45 | 8h 02m | Sir Blocksalot | ♥ 1 | Really cool old-school NES/arcade style fun. Great idea! Seems simplistic at first but has some depth to it, i can see this being a game where if you spend enough time you can achieve real mastery. There are layers to it, when to repair, when to bulk up your defense, the tetris-style optimization of your layout, don't wall yourself in, keep an eye on the dragon! And I only played for like a few minutes. Graphics/sounds/theme match the old school mechanic nicely. Some constructive criticisms: - the instructions should be in the game itself, instead of in the description - the outline of how your block will sit was hard to parse sometimes, for me. perhaps a clearer indication of which blocks it will fill up and which spaces are currently blocked would help - probably not helpful to have rocks and bushes, there should just be 1 type. I spent a while trying to see what the difference between them was mechanic-wise and there doesn't seem to be any. |
| Apr 12 10:11:01 | 14h 55m | Desert Oasis | ♥ 1 | Interesting concept, I've tried (and seen other try) to make an "ecosystem" type game and it often fails, this one does much better :) Presentation is great, the graphics/animation are very good and the sound adds mood without getting annoying/repetitive. I did feel like I didn't have too much agency in the game, it was more a chilled sandbox experience, like watching an aquarium or something. But overall not a bad experience :) |
| Apr 12 10:19:11 | 8m 10s | Out of Time | ♥ 1 | Nice simple game, everything works and is clear :) better to under-scope than over-scope for a jam! It's solid, but could of course do with a bit more. More complexity (power ups, enemies, etc), better graphics, better sound, etc. I think some of the first things to add (as others have mentioned) would be - diagonal movement - avoiding the frustration of an impossible-to-reach green cube - making the difficulty scale somehow as time goes on But as it is, it's a decent little game. Well done :) |
| Apr 12 10:33:27 | 14m 16s | Persist Ant | ♥ 1 | Decent entry, the splash screen and music are awesome. Dig the old school graphics in the intro :) Sadly I wasn't able to finish this on my lunch break (I got past the first checkpoint though) so bear this in mind with my comment! Some constructive crit: - I found the controls a bit fiddly at times - The motion of the camera (especially when jumping) is a bit harsh/jerky, would be nice if there was some smoothing (i.e. it didn't exactly follow your ants position - I think the level design could use a bit of work. - The hectic chase scene should maybe not be right at the start, this is the point where as a player I need some to get my bearings and get used to the controls. The chase would be cool a bit later on though. - for some of the elements, it wasn't immediately clear if I should grab or avoid them. The "free life" ant head looked like it might be an enemy insect - the placement of free lives seemed a bit random, they were in spots that didn't really make sense e.g. just after an insta-death obstacle But all in all, a solid platformer with a cool theme! Well done. |
| Apr 12 19:39:46 | 9h 06m | The volcano woke up ! | ♥ 1 | 19 turns of bravery :) Thanks for that, that was a fun game! Cool idea for a mechanic and well executed. Simple/intuitive to pick up but deep to play. Can see myself playing another few rounds trying to beat my score. The theme/symbols you've chosen perfectly describe the mechanics. For example it's intuitive that fire will spread to neighboring forest tiles, but not clear ground. It doesn't have to be explained, one can just pick it up and play. The interplay between the 3 tools is great and I think the cost balancing is spot on. Do you play a lot of board games by any chance? :) All in all the mechanic feels super polished, like there's been a decent amount of thought/iteration put in. Great entry, would be proud to have made something like this. EDIT: I see you've added an arrow showing where the fire will spread to your post-compo version. My 2c: I think the fire spreading to a random neighbouring tile is better. It adds a push-your-luck element, sometimes you might want to take a chance and rather spend your coins elsewhere |
| Apr 17 08:49:06 | 109h 09m | Wayfinder | ♥ 1 | Creative idea, interesting challenge to try to be as inefficient as possible :) The car turning animation looks a little bit janky, but otherwise the graphics are ok. The music gets a little bit repetitive but it is appropriate and not annoying. Nice entry overall, cool to try something different. |
| Apr 17 09:20:11 | 31m 05s | Delay the Invasion | ♥ 1 | Impressive that this was with your own engine! ## Graphics: simple but get the point across, some nice warcraft 1 nostalgia there. It's clear what each type of unit is, they are all clearly distinguishable from each other, it's intuitive that the enemies are evil and that they get progressively stronger etc. It was was clear what the bomb guys would do etc. ## Audio: music is decent for a compo entry, did you make it yourself? Audio suits the retro/low-res graphics like the difficulty level ## UI: Also simple but clear, no confusion anywhere. The text explaining that the game had to be restarted was a nice touch, of course a "retry" button would be better, but some text explaining it is much better than just leaving the player hanging. ## Design: You've "found the fun", balance feels right and it is a fun experience. I played quite a few times, couldn't get past wave 5 though :) I like the level of difficulty. I like that the units move slowly, it forces one to be more strategic about their placement. Impressive amount of enemy types and spells for a compo entry! An option to place units directly from the shop (as opposed to first going into the inventory) would be nice, I don't think there will ever be a reason to keep units in the inventory. For spells it makes sense, though. I was going to suggest unit health bars, but on second thought I quite like the minimalism without them. It would be nice if there was some visual feedback on which level my units were, I suppose this would've been added if you had more time. Also, not sure if there is any info anywhere on what exactly improves with a level-up, but I think that would be nice. |
| Apr 17 17:11:01 | 7h 50m | Defend 'till the end | ♥ 1 | Enjoyed, simple but fun, nicely polished, liked the rotating earth effect with the damage indication |
| Apr 17 17:52:59 | 41m 58s | Cut for Power | ♥ 1 | The artwork for the enemies is amazing! gave me slay the spire vibes, but this is even better imo. I like the lore/story as well. My main criticism is that the instructions could be clearer, I felt like I was chucked in the deep end at first. The fact that there is no visual indication of whats happening when you click a card besides numbers going down made it harder to pick up and play as well. Just a small slash animation or something when attacking would've helped a lot. I did manage to pick it up though, so I guess it is good enough. But someone who's never played something like slay the spire would struggle to understand how it works, I think. The main cut/combine mechanic is a really cool idea, with some more work it could be the basis of a cool game. The card cost seems to automatically scale appropriately, which is nice. It would be nice to be able to see what the cost of the resulting card would be (perhaps it is shown, but I missed it...) The audio is appropriate, if a bit repetitive. As others have said, having more enemies/cards would be cool, but I'm sure there would be if you had more time |
| Apr 17 18:46:22 | 53m 23s | This Mortal Coil | ♥ 0 | I really like this idea, it's original, simple but fun. The graphics/audio are minimal but get the job done, it's clear what everything does. Love the simplistic intro My main criticism is the tutorial at the start, I accidentally skipped it too quickly. I wouldn't make it disappear on the first keypress. With that said, the design was intuitive enough that I figured it on my own. I love the colour shift effect as time runs out, you almost don't need a timer, the fade effect is enough. The obstacles/enemies were interesting, again simple and intuitive. Good job :) |
| Apr 17 20:34:21 | 1h 47m | Gail VS Snail | ♥ 2 | So bizarre that a giant snail chases you lol, is this a reference to something or just random...? Satisfying to nail tricks and build up speed, like the art style and everything is nicely presented. Cool death animation :) I wasn't a fan of the tutorial format, I found it was too easy to miss stuff because I thought the game had started to I was bashing spacebar. But once I realised how it worked and restarted, I found that everything was presented clearly. As others have mentioned I also found the obstacles a bit hard to discern from the background, especially at high speed. Nice entry :) |
| Apr 18 10:43:09 | 14h 08m | Mad Wizard's Attack | ♥ 1 | Presentation is very good, music etc is appropriate. Can see you spent a lot of time on the tutorial, which is great because the game is quite abstract. The graphics are simple but cool, I like the tile slide animation. Ambitious to make a strategy game like this for a jam, but you pulled it off! My first run I felt like the surge was unfair, but playing again and planning for/expecting it, it becomes quite a cool game! A leaderboard or some kind of indication of how well you've done would be nice. As it is you just need to keep track of the population score yourself. (my best score was 278 on normal difficulty :) ) Nice entry, fun game. |