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Lachlan James

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Lachlan James's comment
Oct 5 11:37:49		Whiskers in the Dark	♥ 4	This was a great submission. Art - great all round, loved the use of the larger pieces at the start to set the scene for the story. The aesthetic was nice and consistent, and the lighting was unreal - really, really impressive stuff going on there, including how it made its way into later puzzles (buckets, movement, etc). Movement generally felt good - obviously a hard thing to totally nail down within jam deadlines, and I'm awfully spoiled by stuff like Celeste - but I generally felt competently in control of my cat. Difficulty was definitely there, but it was pleasantly challenging for the most part. I have a note on this below with audio however. Audio - music was really restrained and professional. I love the slow evolutions and introductions of new instruments (from just the synth/percs, into the keyboard, into the flute, etc). Super minimal but really tastefully put together. I didn't feel like the character sounds were as strong (kind of bassy and... hard?) considering the protagonist, but they were serviceable. One criticism on audio implementation is that having died a lot, the strings lick got pretty abrasive after awhile. First time it happened, it hit beautifully - but as the game got more challenging, it started to sting a bit. I think in a game where the player is expected to die repeatedly and quickly (and you've managed this great with quick respawns), any visual/audio cues should be a little more restrained so the player doesn't feel too punished. Oops, this writeup got huge. Well done all! Overall killer submission.
Oct 5 11:47:43	9m 54s	AnathemA	♥ 2	Mate, this was cool. I'll admit to going straight to the post-jam version because I was too curious to see how this ended up. Love the artstyle and overall energy - the little chunks of writing added a great deal to the overall mood. "Always save one bullet" says so much. Reminded me of Cultic and Dusk a bit in equal measures. Sound and feel was solid - first couple of guns felt nice and meaty, revolver a bit disappointing. Upgrade trees between nights was a great thing, especially for a jam game. Would have loved a little walk animation to make the character seem a little less slidey. Overall - love it. Super focused entry and a wild achievement for a jam.
Oct 5 11:58:02	10m 19s	Space Ends With You	♥ 1	Hey, this was cool. Like the art direction - simple and really effective. The little bit of wordbuilding there was cool - definitely a consistent aesthetic/mood. My snake boy was obviously a little wild and did some freaky stuff that I don't think he wanted to, but when he was under control he moved nicely. My biggest gripe is I have no idea what the lose condition was, or how to win. Seemed like no matter how fast I ate stuff I'd lose anyway, which made it hard to keep striving to play better. Overall, cool game especially for a solo. (And yes, as above - didn't realise I couldn't rate when I wrote this - shame)
Oct 5 12:09:27	11m 25s	Haxwell Modem: Beyond the Firewall	♥ 3	Core reflecting game loop is really solid. Nice and chunky and satisfying to nail - camera movements on click gave it a heap of gravity. Death animations would have been nice for the enemies to solidify that. Wasn't sure why enemies were bouncing projectiles back sometimes and sometimes not. Interesting universe I'd be keen to learn a bit more about. Overall good stuff!
Oct 5 12:34:56	25m 29s	File Defender	♥ 0	Movement feels good! Being able to hold mouse would be really great. Cool take on the theme. The 'system error' thing was hard to understand - I feel like I'd play for a couple of seconds then get smashed with system errors and die :'( Good stuff for your first jam mate, keep at it!
Oct 5 12:46:10	11m 14s	Spooky Space	♥ 1	Satisfying to play. Puzzles were fun and nicely designed. Artstyle was neat - loved the clouds and moon between levels. Integration of the different guitar chords was cool - felt a generally nice Necrodancer influence running through this thing. Overall nice submission :)
Oct 7 02:44:24	37h 58m	Compress(space)	♥ 1	This is really tight. Simple and effective presentation (surprised you opted out of graphics - still looks great), and the level design and emerging mechanics are fantastic. Great use of theme. DID absolutely annihilate my eardrums when I cranked my headphones up trying to see if I could hear music, and then touched a wall :x
Oct 7 03:04:58	20m 34s	Nuclear Arms 9: Tower of Time	♥ 1	Hey, this was a lot of fun. I loved the unseriousness of it - the voice acting in particular (and the bit of music at the start) was hilarious. - Difficulty ramps a bit fast (though encourages replayability - beating Timey Tim felt vindicating) - Wasn't clear what happens if you pick up the same upgrade again until after you'd done it - looked like it would just be a wasted opportunity initially - Obviously very button-spammy with the main attack, which is okay - but I think you could make it a little less finger destroying by offering maybe two attack buttons the player can 'gallop' with or something? - The K/L control scheme seemed less punishing, but then I couldn't choose upgrades or anything with my keyboard, which sent me back to using the mouse anyway Overall this was awesome - mechanics were well thought out, theme closely implemented, vibe was fun, progression was interesting. I haven't finished many jam games and this was one of them - so that says a lot! Well done team.
Oct 7 03:17:12	12m 14s	Cargo Trek	♥ 2	Really interesting and polished take on the theme. I found the movement mechanics really neat, and love how you were able to represent a complex (and procedural??) game world so effectively with simple graphics. I had a bit of trouble with the map experiences in terms of knowing where I was meant to go (both squares being red and some other things with information accessibility) but I gather that was also part of the navigation experience. Very impressive considering the timeframe - well done.
Oct 7 03:25:26	8m 14s	watsinnafridge?	♥ 2	Hahaha... this was dumb, in the best way possible. I am an adult. Loved the premise, theme application, and (wonderfully janky) presentation. Next time I pack the fridge this is definitely going to be taking up free real estate in my head. Had some issues with placement of objects (some small objects that I couldn't put on empty shelves etc) but generally, it answers the game's key thesis - watsinnafridge indeed. Good stuff.
Oct 7 03:33:38	8m 12s	BBD-MK0	♥ 1	Hey, I liked this. Adapting 'limited space' to fit into your ability selection screen was a great idea and lent itself to the gameplay nicely. Having a modular bot whose controls change is a very cool concept. I think a little more explanation early on would be helpful - the first ability assignment screen was a little confusing with no clues about what exactly to do. Movement felt great, and the art/music fit together to make a nice cohesive feeling. Good stuff, hope you keep going with it.
Oct 7 04:02:46	29m 08s	Hardpoint	♥ 4	Very impressive. Modular mech is cool as heck (especially the way the model adapts), and the tetris element feels very core. I would have liked to be able to rotate pieces but understand if that wasn't your intention with the balance. Sound design was solid - minigun felt a little underwhelming. Not sure that collision with robo bodies was ideal for keeping it fun (getting boxed in just feels kind of frustrating). Was having a great time, then suddenly hit a crazy difficulty spike and instantly died to 1000 mortars after breezing through the last level. Overall, wildly impressive entry and one that I played for a fair bit longer than I planned to :) Well done.
Oct 7 04:22:30	19m 44s	Neptune's Wake	♥ 1	There's a heap of depth here for a jam game. Love the aesthetic - really cool way to leverage simple art into something that looks great. Clouds are a killer touch. Bit of a steep learning curve but really impressive for something developed within jam time. Love the little ticker down the bottom and whatever's going on AI wise. Crazy you've managed to get all these different scenarios and so on done within jam time.
Oct 7 04:30:36	8m 06s	Space Trucks	♥ 1	Was keen to play, but had some issues with the web window loading weirdly sized and not being able to see the game window properly no matter what I did. Didn't rate - but thought I'd let you know.
Oct 7 04:47:25	16m 49s	Dark Reflect_ions	♥ 0	Good start - be careful opening with an obscure puzzle in your first LD game because people will probably just assume it's broken. I lucked out with the ESC key as well (trying to quit after a while haha). Had a hard time making much progress but it felt good and interesting. Reminded me a lot of the FAITH games in style which I'm guessing were a major influence. This looks like it could shape up into something interesting - keep it up.
Oct 7 05:09:56	22m 31s	Meowpheus	♥ 0	Hey, this was cool! Art style was really original and all fit together beautifully. The limit break felt nice and powerful and the boss designs were cool. It definitely kicks off hard - would be nice to ease the player in a tiny bit more. Would also be great to leave credits about what was/wasn't created during the jam/by who - I loved the music but wasn't sure whether to rate it as an asset made by your team or not.
Oct 7 05:20:36	10m 40s	Micromachines	♥ 0	Craaazily impressive for a jam. Loved the progression of the puzzles and the application of the theme. Puzzle design was deep and interesting, and you got humour points for the way the last level came together - what a lovely punchline. Little bit of BGM would have been cool. Can't believe how tight the physics (or simulation thereof) felt. Great, great stuff.
Oct 7 05:24:47	4m 11s	Crowded Mind	♥ 1	Cool application of the theme - I definitely see it. Visually beautiful and I love the writing and feel. Shift to breathe didn't respond properly all the time which was a bit of an immersion dropper. Would have loved to get some audio in there - feel like it would have made all the difference for bringing the aesthetic together. Well done!
Oct 8 01:39:13	20h 14m	Pitch, Please!	♥ 1	What an innovative response. You guys are definitely pushing that bleeding edge in terms of seeing what's out there to play with. I wasn't able to get speech recognition to work in the time I had, but I can see all the gears turning - very, very cool response to the prompt and use of modern tools. Excited to see where this field goes and good on you for having a play with it during a jam.
Oct 8 02:04:03	24m 50s	Auto-Pilot	♥ 1	Hey, this was really cool. I don't always finish jam games but I cleared this one because I was engaged and interested - which is a really good sign. The core mechanics and gameplay loop were super tight, and it was an interesting puzzle to keep trying to solve. - I would have like to be able to move my ships around on the grid (not sure if this was a balance choice) - Adding vertical rows, but then getting a new one behind your ships felt counterintuitive - The expand vertical button stayed available-looking even when I didn't have enough money to do it - A little music or something would go a long way toward tying the vibe together - $ and <3 signs were clear but ✟ for damage isn't universal to me, despite being the last possibility Ship designs (both enemy and friendly) were unreal, and it felt really balanced to make for a pleasantly challenging experience which is cool. Great stuff!! I'd play this - especially on mobile I think.
Oct 8 02:16:59	12m 56s	Urinal Simulator	♥ 0	Hahaha - really good stuff. I didn't think I'd enjoy managing a busy toilet so much. Was incredibly curious when I just saw the upgrade for 'minigun' pop up at the end of my urinal chain. Difficulty ramps nicely, though I got to the point on my first run where I feel like I'd hit the cap (max urinals/bots) and I appeared to just be maintaining from there. Think this could definitely expand into a successful little mobile/Steam game and do pretty well. Funny concept, well executed. Good stuff. Audio is minimalistic but well done. Didn't come across any bugs - very tight.
Oct 8 02:28:24	11m 25s	Amoeba Feast	♥ 1	Beautifully put together. The feel is really cohesive in terms of the interaction between the visuals, sound and mechanics. Definitely a vibe. Mouse movement around the amoeba could be a little janky sometimes (kind of flicked around) and I would have loved the nudge to have a little more 'oomph' to it. My game-overs weren't always clear to me how/why I got them (even on casual mode?) so maybe a little more feedback as you're approaching a lose condition would be great. Overall, this was a killer entry - loved it.
Oct 8 02:50:55	22m 31s	Pong Begrenzt	♥ 2	Hey, really cool - especially considering it was made with Scratch! Neat little innovation on the formula (even just having singleplayer Pong). Movement and sound all felt tight and bug-free. On my first play I hit the frost powerup which wrecked me - but after that, I hit a bunch of powerups on my second play and couldn't tell if they were doing anything - not sure if the powerup broke or whether it was just subtle compared to the first one I hit. Either way, good stuff - this was nice.
Oct 10 10:54:36	56h 03m	Super Low Memory Bot	♥ 1	Hey, this was tight, especially for Compo! Love the whole aesthetic, it's very convincing. Puzzle design is great. I got through the third level fine after a moment, but as above, the ramp between levels 2 and 3 feels a little steep. Nice QoL feature with the ability to take moves back. I thought that maybe the 'compiling' feature, while neat, felt a little redundant in the beginning when I was keen to just punch levels.
Oct 10 11:00:37	6m 01s	Spellbook	♥ 1	Heaps of complexity here. Love the way the spells slowly faded in the book, and the connections between the words and the spell shapes. Couldn't see a super viable reason to do anything other than just stack my 'crossword' words vertically, but maybe I wasn't playing close enough attention. Crazy depth for 48h. Well done.
Oct 10 11:05:11	4m 34s	Riveting	♥ 1	Seemed really interesting - I'm certain there's a heap of depth here. I would have loved to see a tutorial, or even an example solve for one of the early levels so I could really get a sense of how to leverage this engine you've made. The right click menu has a crazy amount of information for a first-time player - it would definitely be helpful to spoon-feed it a bit. If you ever post a video or yourself playing with the engine and showing what it's capable of, tag me!
Oct 10 11:13:52	8m 41s	Mechanizyn	♥ 1	Hey, I can confirm the same issue as @local-minimum and others - thought I was crazy seeing all these comments of people talking about later levels when level 1 felt truly impossible. I like the idea and presentation a lot - but you do seem to have a .... bug.... there.
Oct 10 11:26:34	12m 42s	DISTANZ	♥ 1	Lovely graphics and audio. As other have said, very hypnotic and fun to try to master. I'd love it if the death/restart loop was way snappier - the lengthy wind-down and restart menu etc got in the way of getting into a flow with it. I'm not 100% on the music restarting either - though I understand it could be an incentive for the player to try and stay in the game to hear more of the track.
Oct 10 11:31:11	4m 37s	The Giant's Globe	♥ 3	Hey, this was cool! I interpreted it as well as being 'limited use of the space key', but the theme connection does feel like it could have been laid out a little more explicitly. Puzzles and art were cool. I found the dialogue at the start a little hard to get around (felt a bit disconnected to me) but I'm curious to learn more about Mink and his world. Controls were solid (if a little floaty), and the mechanics were interesting with the rotating abilities. Good submission!
Oct 10 11:41:02	9m 51s	CASHBLAZER	♥ 1	This was pretty funny. One of my favourite takes on the theme - even if it was kind of infuriating to play, hahaha. Whether it's for humour or not, I'd recommend not allowing the ship to be obscured by UI elements - whether it's the popup, or particularly the HUD down the bottom. Sound was great, and while the ship was tricky to control, it was fun to get the hang of. As before, I definitely had a good chuckle at the interpretation of the theme. Well done.
Oct 14 00:13:10	84h 32m	Kung Fu Alien	♥ 1	Hey, this was pretty neat. As with some others I found the laser a bit hard to get my head around, but it was generally a balanced and well designed experience. As some others have said - keyboard controls would make it feel a lot more flowy I think (even just numbers 1/2/3). Overall, nice entry. Make sure you rate some games so you get some more ratings back to qualify!
Oct 14 00:20:52	7m 42s	To Hell With You!	♥ 2	Really nice art and presentation - amazing amount of detailed and cohesive assets for the game timeframe. Music feels nice and appropriate to the setting/energy of the game. Nice work implementing some voice acting in there to help set the tone of things. Audio implementation-wise I definitely don't think the voice-line spam was a good idea (the 'welcome' one) - it comes up way too often for it to be desirable for the player experience. Definitely a little bit of a confusing experience at the start, but I really like where it's headed. Nice work everyone.
Oct 14 00:35:25	14m 33s	Pipeline Ride	♥ 1	This game is hardcore. Controls well and definitely makes you feel like it's your own fault for being bad, which is a great sign. Nice take on the theme. Visually nice and clear and cohesive, and audio definitely gets the job done. Also didn't encounter any bugs myself, which is a really impressive feat for the jam. Wish list: Difficulty obviously ramps up fast - a couple more levels in between to ease the player into the mechanics would be good (but I get it, jam balancing is rough stuff). Player experience wise, I think a little more zoom out on the camera would be nice to help see things that are coming up - while I understand it's a part of the experience, a lot of the 'green zone into red zone' type challenges felt a little cheap. I'm curious about a smoother way of controlling speed (e.g. scrollwheel for those that have it) - sometimes the input spam needed to raise or lower speed fast enough felt a little excessive.
Oct 14 00:44:59	9m 34s	Firebounded	♥ 3	Hey! Beautiful concept and art I thought, and even though you didn't make it yourselves, I thought the audio choice was smart in tying the mood of the whole thing together. Your world is definitely coming together beautifully here, and it feels like it could be a wonderfully emotional journey. That said, I feel like at the moment, the fire ring itself is a little too hard to work around to be a 'fun' challenge for the player at the moment - my play experience was pretty frustrating unfortunately. From what I could tell, the ring didn't harm enemies - that might be a nice way to offset the limitations it imposes? Even just giving the player some 'health' (3 chances or something) might make it a little easier going to start with. All in all, this was a really brave and innovative entry - I hope you keep going with it.
Oct 14 01:11:50	26m 51s	Too Maneon Loots	♥ 3	Amazing presentation! The visual style was incredible - very, very professional presentation. As some others have said, a little more time to build up to the pace would be wonderful - I'm not sure I was able to really do anything with the mechanics because I was just so frantically clicking and replacing things based on very vague understandings of what the items were actually doing. I love this concept for an auto battler though, and once again, the presentation of it is incredibly impressive. Just a little more refinement in execution and you'll have a banger on your hands here!
Oct 14 11:37:30	10h 25m	Bubble Space	♥ 1	Hey mate, similar problems to others with the browser build unfortunately. Made my (reasonably powerful) system hang for a bit, eventually loaded, then crashed within a couple of seconds. This is on Ventura running Chrome - will have a go again later on my Windows box.