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Doctor_Zeus

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Doctor_Zeus's comment
Jan 9 18:53:46		CORN BLOCKBASTER	♥ 0	I don't think I've ever jammed out to midnight corn-harvesting before, it was quite the experience. The song was really fun, and the clock ticking matched it well. I think that the game's presentation was nice too, I like how the camera swooped in at the start and the nighttime ambiance complemented the groovy audio. Gameplay wise, I had some fun spinning around and harvesting as much corn as I could, though I didn't have any trouble staying ahead of the tax limits. I was pretty excited to try the dynamite, but it ended up being finicky to launch forward and dropping it where I'd been was usually unnecessary (since I'd already gathered all the nearby corn with the scythe). The humor of harvesting-by-explosions definitely made me smile, but I didn't get much gameplay mileage out of it. Anyway, when I built up a sizeable fortune, I packed up my dynamite, paid respects at that row of enormous gravestones, and went on a journey to the ends of the earth. A fitting end for a moon-mad midnight corn farmer. Nice entry, and thanks for sharing!
Jan 11 07:58:44	37h 04m	LD52	♥ 1	I can appreciate the effort that went into making the game - making systems to level up and buy upgrades can be tough, especially when juggling all of the other work that goes into the jam. Gameplay-wise, the game had a real slow start for me, mostly because I didn't have many decisions to make. Keeping an enemy in range without accidentally getting too far away (which makes them passive again) could be tricky, but basically my whole focus was just left on that bit of movement. I sampled all of the different upgrades, and I found the aura to be the strongest and the most fun - grouping enemies and dodging around them to deal damage efficiently and safely was fun! That sort of play was also encouraged by the weapon upgrades, since they just do more damage when you have more enemies nearby. The other upgrades didn't seem as strong to me when I tested them, though I eventually levelled them up when it appeared that the aura couldn't get any stronger. The spear didn't deal damage to crowds like the aura could, and the leech's health gain was small enough that just smashing enemies efficiently tended to be a more useful heal. Ultimately the later weapons were way stronger than my level-up upgrades, so I think their differences didn't matter too much - after I got the strongest weapon the boss enemy couldn't beat me. Out of curiosity, I tried one playthrough where I attacked it at a lower level without the best weapon (but with max power aura, leech, and some spear) and it was effectively impossible. I couldn't outrun it, and I wasn't able to drag it to a group of enemies that I could defeat for a health refill. I considered trying to drag a group of enemies to the boss (or maybe string them along to create a chain of health refills) but I realized it was going to take longer than I'd like to set up. By the way, I thought that the spritework for the main character and the skull were well done, and the wind sound effects did a nice job of making the place feel like some kind of desolate underworld For my tastes, I think it's a-okay to have a game that is mostly about getting bigger damage numbers and growing stronger. In a game like that, getting to grow in surprising ways where I find a lot of the fun (y'know like Cookie Clicker-type stuff) - I think this one had a fine sense of progression, but finding some extra appeal beyond that (to make the process of harvesting souls more interesting, or to make the ways I changed more exciting) would bring a lot of fun to my playthroughs. Good work putting it together, like I said, I can appreciate all of the effort that goes into something like this - not just the things I see on the surface, but all of the work behind the scenes to get the game off of the ground.
Jan 11 08:10:02	11m 18s	Harvest match	♥ 0	I think there's definitely fun to be had in a laid-back, bright and colorful game about delivering plants to folks! Seeing customers show up, ask for stuff, and receive it successfully is a pretty straightforward loop for me to play through, but I appreciate that it's not necessarily an easy thing to put together behind the scenes. I'll echo what other folks mentioned about the movement - it was pretty difficult to control how far I moved, which made gathering specific plants tough in a "I can't do the thing I'd like to do" sort of way. I also wasn't sure if there was a certain failure state I was supposed to look out for - would customers leave if I didn't give them what they wanted? Is there a reward for doing well? Given the game's got the basic selling stuff down, I'm interested in what you'd look to add next. Buying / planting crops could be fun (and maybe bring a puzzle or money-management aspect to the game), or maybe adding some scoring or ways to tell that my little plant shop is doing well would be a way to bring some more fun flavor to the game.
Jan 11 08:45:46	35m 44s	THE REVERSE CARD: Harvest the ladybug!	♥ 0	As a fellow maker of scratch games, nice work! It ran super smooth, and made me smile. I jumped in without reading about the special events and the player-bullet swap thing was pretty hilarious. I thought I'd done something wrong at first, but then I knew - it was that dang reverse card! First it swaps the buttons in the menus, then it swapped me, what'll it swap next???
Jan 11 09:34:00	48m 14s	Scythe	♥ 2	I played for longer than I probably should have, but I'm proud of my 16 second run 🏅 Straightforward concept, solid execution. I like how the art is clean and consistent - doesn't need a lot of frills to capture the feeling of the theme well. The fact that it takes two passes to completely harvest a plant and the rotating projectiles aren't 100% consistent are nice design choices that keep attempts from feeling too same-ey. The fact that the scarecrow's movement was completely determined by my own positioning was also nice - it magically occupied the exact spot I wanted to throw a scythe, but I knew it only got there because of how I decided to move. It definitely got me in that loop of trying to bring down my time, thanks for the fun game!
Jan 11 18:38:22	9h 04m	Island Survivor	♥ 1	Very nice work on this game! I enjoyed playing it a lot, it was fun to experiment with different tactics for dealing with the different enemies (especially those mega-aggressive boars!). In particular, I liked the design of the gemstones and terrain-based enemy spawns. There was this tension I got to play around with - I always had the ability to ramp up the risk and reward of a playthrough massively by going after a bunch of gemstones. That had me constantly trying to evaluate if I was in a situation where I could attempt it, and there were lots of cool factors to consider. - Rolling and dashing movement skills meant I could move around boars more safely even while in difficult terrain. - Having high damage weapons, or ones I had good control over could keep enemies from getting out of hand - Probably most interesting - depending on what enemies had already spawned, I could potentially bank on using them to body-block the inevitable wave of boars as I dove in for the gemstones I did think that some of the weapons were too narrow for my liking - basically any of the mono-directional attacks seemed highly questionable to me, even with their damage and rate of fire. Part of that feeling comes from the apparent incentive to stack levels of attacks I've already gotten - not only is right-direction fire only good in very specific situations, taking it would throw away any old investments I'd made. I think those weapons have a lot of potential for fun, though. Finding just the right spot to use an ordinarily 'weak' option can feel really rewarding in a game that's all about evaluations. I think we'd just need more of a reason to be happy switching weapons back and forth. Like, if instead of weapons levelling up if you keep stacking the same one, what if every weapon came with a minor, permanent stat buff? The narrower the weapon's use case, the more tempting you make that permanent buff. The current levelling up system cuts down on the player's incentive to experiment and switch weapons on the fly - if it were advantageous to do so instead, I think you could see some really interesting variety within a single playthrough when you end up in a situation where you really do want that mono-directional attack. It would mean that your "build" for a run would be less distinct (which could definitely be a downside) but in return I think your play within a run could get even more varied. Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. Like I said, the game was a bunch of fun, and the fact that it got me thinking about the design in these interesting ways was really fun too. Thanks for putting it together, I really enjoyed it!
Jan 12 06:58:57	12h 20m	Harrr-vest	♥ 1	Nice job! The writing was definitely the highlight, it made this little family episode believable. Humor and emotion came through well for me, and I especially like how the secret ending brought all of the different pieces of the story together. Actually traversing the game's dialogue tree was a bit of a pain, though - I also accidentally ran through some new dialogue once when I didn't realize I'd triggered an extra question in the second half, and I had to do plenty of page refreshing to try to scour the game for that secret ending. I enjoyed playing through it, but quality-of-life upgrades for saving / loading states and restarting the game after it's over would be very nice. I can appreciate that those technical bits can be a lot of work on the backend, though, so I understand that the time constraints of the jam make balancing priorities tricky. I think that the time put toward the story, music, branching paths, and general presentation was all very well spent, thanks for putting together a fun (and definitely outside-of-the-box!) submission for the jam!
Jan 16 21:05:12	110h 06m	Monkey Oolong Harvest Bop	♥ 4	What awesome presentation! The monkeys were cute, and they stood out very clearly against the lovely painted look of the tree and misty-mountain background. The music and sound effects complemented each other well too, the instrumentation and way different parts layer on top of one another wouldn't feel out of place in a DKC game, which adds to that sort of nostalgic kick when you hear those distinctive monkey noises. The design of the game felt solid to me too. Making it (more or less) a one-button game is awesome for playability in all sorts of contexts (maybe a build for mobile devices isn't far off?). Keeping the goal simple makes it easy to jump in and start exploring the mechanics directly, and a smooth restart after the game ended got me jumping back in again and again. As I played, a certain elements of the design stood out to me: 1. Speeding up the monkey's team throw with each successive catch was a really cool decision. On top of positioning mattering in a straightforward "I want to be able to catch folks around here", I engaged with the extra layer of sequencing throws to make long leaps across the tree possible. It really opened up the styles of workable positions while also adding some natural increase in difficulty for players pursuing trickier strategies. To illustrate, in my early attempts I tried distributing monkeys evenly around the tree to middling effectiveness. By the end I was comfortable keeping just one monkey high up and spreading a net of others down below - and there are almost certainly better ways to play it, my poor accuracy was generally my worst enemy. 2. Slinging monkeys off of the tree didn't really have a downside, which was interesting. It's definitely off-flavor (the sad monkey noises signal it's a bad move to send them flying down the mountain, who'd have thunk), but in gameplay terms missing the tree just sends the monkey back to its original position. In some cases, I think this is a more desirable - if I start with a monkey that's occupying a key position I can throw them around the tree to gather as much as I can then send them off-screen as they gather their last few leaves. I got some tricky leaves and they end up back in their key position - it's a win-win for everyone (aside from the monkey, presumably). I don't know if making a miss more punishing in a straightforward way would be a good idea - controlling the monkeys is already pretty tough. It would probably hurt most for the people who aren't abusing the mechanic strategically while cutting out an odd bit of strategy. Maybe missing the tree keeps the monkey out of the game until they come back into the rotation? If they climb back to their old spot as their next turn begins it could be a potentially useful maneuver, but not one without consequence? 3. When I picked up the game, I'd often lose track of which monkey's up next. In retrospect, I can see it's following rainbow logic, red-orange-yellow-green-blue, but it wasn't something that I picked up on right away. If it doesn't clutter things up too much, having some kind of reminder might be nice to have (a rotating queue on the periphery of the screen when you zoom out, maybe?). 4. Monkeys always swing one another clockwise - I'd be curious to see the difference in play if they could swing in either direction. I do think it's a fine limitation (especially so we can keep simple controls) but it made some kinds of moves feel especially tricky to me. Under clockwise-only rules, you can't do an overhand pitch to the left, for example, and a lob to the right has to be launched from around the 9 o'clock position. To keep the simplicity of one-button gameplay, maybe it could be based on the position and velocity of the monkey when the catch occurs? Get caught by a monkey on your left while moving upward and you naturally get swung counter-clockwise. I don't think it's the biggest deal, but I think it might the way we route throws across the tree more intuitive (and add an extra level of precision to aim for if folks are really into it.
Jan 16 22:37:08	1h 31m	Soulful Harvest	♥ 1	Nice work! I've played a number of action-ey games this LD, but they didn't really lean into the "harvest" side of things (other than the sort of macabre take of "harvesting" the baddies). In this one, my attention was split between replanting crops, repairing farmland and fighting off ghosts - the harvest was plenty on my mind, in a really good way. The game's pace is kinda unrelenting (those ghosts just don't give up!) which I think is to the game's benefit. When it first started, I had the feeling that keeping all of the ghosts out would be impossible. There was too much ground to cover, too many ghosts, and too many crops in hard-to-reach spaces. The way the player ramps up in power and speed after harvests was great, though. It created a turning point about halfway through: I started moving fast enough (and I knew the map layout well enough) that I could bounce from one end of the farm to the other while staying ahead of the ghosts. I was even able to reclaim most of the farmland (though the most exterior spots still tended to get gobbled up). It was really fun, running back and forth and mentally juggling the different priorities I had to balance. Like a lot of folks mentioned in the comments, I didn't end up using the dash mechanic too much. I did notice a difference in speed when it activated but it was pretty subtle. I didn't actually realize that it could knock back ghosts until I saw you mention it in the comments, but in the end the sword was more than sufficient to get the job done. Stepping outside of the gameplay for a moment, I have to say that I think you scoped this project really well, especially as a solo project (which is always tough to do). The environmental art serves its gameplay function perfectly - everything's readable at a glance. The main character's couple of animations bring a lot of personality to the table. I especially like how their mouth opens up as they swing and how they get angry eyebrows when you trigger the airdash. The ghosts are simple, but they fit the sort of style you established with the main character - it's all looking good. Oh, and the menu graphics are great too! Building in a playable tutorial to demonstrate the mechanics was great too. That piece of polish made the game way more accessible to pick up in a way that paragraphs of description could not. Your selection of music was also solid, it really helped get me in the zone. Even when you're not making the music yourself, it takes time to select the music and implement it - time well spent, in my opinion. So nice work - not just on building a fun game, but on balancing the different aspects of game-making along the way!
Jan 16 23:42:27	1h 05m	Bedlam at the Harvest Festival	♥ 2	Nice work! I enjoyed working out the puzzles, some of which were definitely tricky. Keeping my notepad window at the ready certainly helped! I particularly enjoyed the twist of logic that helped me solve the "mother" sacrifices, that one was very clever. In this kind of game, I expect that the presentation of the game is intentionally a bit hard to interpret (like with some folks' sketchy signatures, or the sometimes tricky-to-read fonts). Trying to present the information as flavorfully as possible is the goal, any obfuscation we pick up along the way is just upside 😄 I think that the only major hiccup in the logic of the game was related to the line: > All citizens of this village who erred, either through intent, disattention, weakness or the guidance of others must die. Some of the goddesses (thinking of Slainte in particular) didn't seem to quite be as strict as that rule would indicate - not that it's a problem, but I imagined that more people were involved in the chain of failures that made the problems occur. The blame game certainly is a tricky one, but when I did land on the accepted answers I was reasonably satisfied with the logic that got me there. Related to that, I appreciate how lenient the results-checking was. My minor concerns with the little fiddly details of my answers were almost completely mitigated by the ability to just check my theory directly without downside. Stepping outside of the direct experience of playing the game, I also appreciate what you were able to put together while keeping the game's technical implementation straightforward. It's hard to balance that sort of complexity against story, flavor, and writing, and usually the non-"gameplay" elements are first on the chopping block. The fact that you picked a design that let you flip those typical priorities upside-down makes for a refreshing entry. Great job, thanks for putting together such a cool game submission!
Jan 17 00:26:04	43m 37s	Loot Chachos	♥ 3	Unwrapping the game's mechanics was pretty interesting! Though I don't think I completely understand them, here's my best attempt to explain what's going on: - The seeds you can place with 'E' go in the thin rectangular plot to the right of the main garden. They can't be harvested for points, but they will sometimes attract the attention of (and get eaten by) the animals instead of your main crop. - The shovel you use with 'W' is actually pretty cool - clicking on a plant picks it up, then clicking in an empty patch of dirt re-plants it there. Harvesting a plant has a chance to start growing plants in neighboring spaces, so spreading out your plants before harvest is a good way to maximize your growth at the start of the game. - I couldn't quite tell what 'R' did, other than make the whole screen progressively more yellow. It seems to be tied to the 'game over' condition - use too much of the fertilizer or shoot too many things (done by just left clicking on animals when nothing's in hand) and the screen eventually gets too yellow and some sort of blight or disease befalls your crops (game over). There might be a risk-reward thing going on where the more yellow the screen is the faster plants grow? But at a certain point, there's no need to shoot animals or use fertilizer - you can just keep watering and harvesting your crops forever. I did enjoy the progression of growing my crops out to fill the whole field, but there wasn't too much for me to do after that. Time to chill on the farm and eat some fresh crops, eh? There's definitely some humor in the sketchy fertilizer actually leading to your farm's undoing, and how being too protective of your work can backfire if you aren't careful. Nice work on the game, it's a good one!