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tjm

Feedback comments for LD54

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		tjm's comment
Oct 2 17:46:27		Misplaced Tie	♥ 0	I like the idea; sort of a more diegetic take on Towers of Hanoi? It might have been nice if the "currently selected object" (and how you would be moving it) was a little more clearly highlighted, but that only confused me briefly at the start and wasn't a big issue for most of it. The use of spot colour to make things stand out was very nice, but it felt a little thin/underused; maybe if the selected items changed colour themselves, rather than just the selection UI? Overall, a solidly put together little game; I enjoyed it!
Oct 2 18:27:29	41m 02s	Paul Klee, Rich Harbour	♥ 3	Neat idea! The lack of any time pressure made it feel more "thinky" than traditional snake, though my losses still came from getting distracted and making silly errors. (Or from using a gamepad, which is a very different experience especially when the left stick is slightly broken. 😓) It wasn't clear to me whether the game was changing or becoming more difficult as I progressed? I could convince myself that alike colours were coming closer together, but I wasn't sure. If not that might be something to work on, since (at least with my clumsy play) the screen fills up fairly quickly and the wall density doesn't go up much past that point. That didn't interfere with the fun of the game, though. Oh, and great music; my compliments to the composer! 😄
Oct 2 18:43:14	15m 45s	Stingy Seating	♥ 1	Your games are always just a bit above my level, but I can still appreciate the thoughtful design that goes into them! 😅 The L-shape of the bus and pickup has a lot of interesting knock-on effects, I can see how you were able to get some pretty complex behaviour out of it (and of course the other mechanics increase the problem space in even more interesting ways). Overall pretty great! I always like to see a fresh puzzle mechanic, and the visuals and feedback are all clean and immediately readable. The puzzles, while very challenging, build well and I felt the instructional levels were clear in teaching me the mechanics I needed to know. No notes from me! 👍
Oct 2 19:28:17	45m 03s	Portrait of a robot climbing a dystopian megastructure	♥ 1	Finally, a game to justify my 9:16 monitor setup! 😄 I think the game successfully achieved its goal of playing meaningfully differently because of the tall aspect ratio, looking up and down genuinely felt key. RT wasn't working for me on web on controller, so I had to switch to mouse. Not a big issue, obviously web is always a bit flaky. Web performance was completely playable, and I think the industrial PS1 aesthetic served the game well. A few places felt a little cheeseable with the grapple, but for the most part the sightlines worked and kept me on a sensible path. The one part that stumped me briefly was near the end, on the big slope in sight of the path of pushers; I spent a while grappling them are trying to figure out whether I needed to use them before I found the right path. Overall a fun and unique experience, I enjoyed my time with it!
Oct 2 20:44:18	1h 16m	Vestal's Path	♥ 0	This might be presumptive of me since the jam deadline isn't up yet, but there doesn't seem to be any way to play the game right now? Even though this page is published, it currently only seems to have the source code. You probably want to export an html version of the game and upload it, either here or to itch.io.
Oct 2 21:12:21	28m 03s	Soffie's Tiny Garden	♥ 2	Really nice! Quite tough, but just the right level of puzzle challenge for me. The mechanics weren't immediately obvious (I'm still not 100% sure what some elements represent in the world), but it didn't take long to figure them out through experimentation (which is exactly how I like my puzzle games, so I'm counting that as a point in the game's favour). The mechanic is clever and a simple idea that I've not seen before. The game's relevance to the theme wasn't immediately obvious, but it became clear once I started getting stuck into the real levels (so to speak). The visuals are quite pleasant, and the audio did its job well. Overall a very fun game, I'll be recommending it to other puzzle gamers!
Oct 3 10:57:43	13h 45m	QPCA-77B	♥ 1	Excellent; it has all the modern conveniences and QoL I'd want from a modern game like this, and some interesting restrictions to work around. I'll be sure to recommend it in the puzzle game discords I'm in!
Oct 3 11:36:33	38m 50s	Greasy Justice	♥ 2	Interesting game! The art feels really good, and I like the music (even if it gets a little repetitive). Unless I'm missing something it feels extremely slow to play? Once there are a few enemies out every spawn takes a few seconds of clicking to resolve, and playing out a full wave can take minutes. I don't really feel like I'm making many decisions during that time? Enemy positioning doesn't seem to matter that much since my attacks never hit more than one of them, and they always move closer to the target anyway. The real-time elements also felt a little out of place; I was pretty much always getting stuck reels before the 90 seconds became an issue, and the timing aspect of aiming didn't feel very impactful. But still, it's a technically solid game that clearly does what its designed to do, and looks good while doing it. Good job!
Oct 3 12:13:37	37m 04s	Kefnac, the Word Grid Game	♥ 2	Not bad! First attempt took me 12 minutes. You might want to consider a blacklist/whitelist on the word generation? Not a big deal, but having the game serve up a curse word in the first setup does colour its impression a little. Seems like you know the direction placement is a little finicky, but it's perfectly playable. Overall pretty fun, and it's nice to have options to tweak for multiple plays.
Oct 3 12:41:10	27m 33s	Brainspace	♥ 1	It's... interesting? 😅 I was able to clear the first four problems just by playing around and a layperson's intuition of how neural networks work, but that was about my limit. I do want to come back to it later and try to understand the underlying maths a little more, though; I think with maybe a little more in the way of supporting examples this could be a very useful teaching tool? What's there works well and feels smooth to use (and I've written enough node-based editors to know how annoying it can be), so good work; Hopefully some other players can make it further than I did!
Oct 3 19:17:25	6h 36m	Clearing space	♥ 1	@sevansevan FYI compo rules actually specifically allow (and even encourage) the sfxr sound generator that Puzzlescript uses, so it's fine to use them in it.
Oct 3 20:06:32	49m 07s	Dwarf Monastery	♥ 0	The graphics and audio feel nicely tactile and boardgame-y! It was sometimes difficult to understand why plans were failing, especially since I often couldn't make out what the voices were saying. I'm still not sure why this didn't work, for example? Dwarf Monastery Level 4 Screenshot It would also have been nice if the "playback" of the dwarves schedules could be quicker; I felt like there was a bit of waiting around during the experimentation phase. But the basic idea is a fun twist on set-up-and-play puzzle games; I enjoyed my time with it!
Oct 5 10:41:25	38h 34m	Push Away	♥ 3	Nice puzzles! Switching between mouse and keyboard for controls felt a little awkward; it might have been nice to be able to control it entirely with mouse (e.g. by swiping)? That would make it a good fit for mobile as well. But overall, very clear how things worked, and fun to play. Good job!
Oct 5 11:17:08	35m 43s	Inside the Field	♥ 0	I think the idea of a puzzle platformer where you can effectively create platforms by moving a held object is really interesting, and has a lot of potential! Level 1 here feels like a great example of the kind of awkward environment you might be navigating in a later level of such a game. Unfortunately here I feel like the challenges just get too fiddly too quickly? Even just positioning the object so that you could pick it up from a higher level felt a little awkward. I would suggest that in a game like this it's better for the execution to be really generous (with large objects, long pickup distances, lots of snapping and backstops for throws), and for the challenge to come from figuring out where you want things to go, not from fighting with the physics to get them there. Obviously Portal and Portal 2 are cited to death, but for good reason; they did a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle work to make it easy to precisely line up jumps and portals as needed for the puzzle. Hopefully you're encouraged to continue with this, and can turn it into something great!
Oct 5 12:14:22	57m 14s	AM4LGAM8	♥ 1	222 here; the bomb spawning seemed pretty generous, so the limiting factor (appropriately) mostly seemed to be the walls closing in. In some ways it felt like combining numbers wasn't that important? Since the scoring is linear (a 1-block gets you 1 point, an 8-block gets you 8 points) combining the blocks you get doesn't make them worth more points, it just potentially decreases the number of bombs you need to clear them. It might be interesting if the values of higher blocks scaled more, so clearing an 8-block would be worth more than clearing two 4-blocks. Overall a well-put-together, fun experience, though. Good work!
Oct 5 12:59:32	45m 10s	Cubic	♥ 1	Pleasant and pretty! It felt like I was solving most of the levels through trial and error rather than by understanding them? To some extent I could work backwards a little from the goal state, but that never took me very far. Even on the repeating last level (which I solved a few times) I never really figured out a strategy; each time I was just blundering around until I hit a state I recognised. That may just be me not being great at these puzzles, though! 😅 But overall the design and audio felt very polished and I always appreciate proper undo and restart support in puzzle games. Great work!
Oct 5 13:22:59	23m 27s	A Barren Land	♥ 1	This was fun, but a lot of clicking. 😅 Especially when buying things with crafts, I didn't see any reason why I would ever want to spend part of my crafts on buying part of something, so it would have made more sense to me if clicking on "Fields (10)" would either spend 10 of my crafts to buy one field, or put all the crafts I have towards one field (whichever comes first. For assigning population that wouldn't work, but it would have been nice there if I could hold down the button to assign population in bulk. Still, the background was nice and pleasant, and the communication was clear; overall well done!
Oct 6 10:00:36	20h 37m	Stretchmancer	♥ 2	Very nice! The visuals and gameplay really evoke the era you're going for, and the axis-stretching gameplay has a lot of potential. I'm glad Jam and Compo games don't compete with each other in Innovation! 😅 A few very minor points: - The text didn't display for me in a couple of places; not a problem, since the voices were very clear and crisp. - It's possible to break the dialogue sequence on level 4 if you take the secret path early, then come back - but you probably already know about that. - There's a Source Code link on the LD page, but it doesn't seem to link to any source code? But again these are just tiny things; overall this is a very fun and well-made entry, I hope it does well!
Oct 9 17:40:59	79h 40m	Quetzals & Ladders	♥ 3	Very cool game with unique puzzles, though very hard without an undo button. The visuals have a lovely style to them! The audio is nice, but very quiet; at first I thought the game didn't have any, and only noticed it when I put my volume up a lot. But overall excellent; clearly communicated mechanics and it's clear you understand what makes the puzzles work. Great job!