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Local Minimum

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Local Minimum's comment
Apr 18 16:44:44		Boots Of Summoning	♥ 3	I, well I was very stressed out trying to play this. I did a couple of attempts and at least managed to get more than 2 slain in the end. The sound was a very good fit for the genre of the game and the graphics was clean and fancy at the same time. Though it would have been nice with more effects hitting the enemies and some positive feedback (with bonuses) if you managed to kill say 5 without taking damage, and perhaps every 10 kills you got. Stuff like that. I didn't get super far, so I don't fully know how the game works. But it would also have been nice with some progression. Perhaps if at every minute mark all enemies are wiped clean, but what comes spawning after that includes more dangerous enemies. What I'm trying to say is that if there were more ups and down dramatically that naturally came from the game, it would be much more enticing to stay focused. I also felt like the mouse sensitivity was set very high from the start though I did notice by chance that I could adjust it. So perhaps it would have been good to lower initial sensitivity and/or actually include it in the start menu. There could also be parts of the world that changes, or falls off battle royal style. More drama, more progression. And I want a big "YOU BROKE YOUR OWN HIGHSCORE" flashing over the screen when having stayed alive longer than before or slain more enemies. Online highscore would be nice too. So I enjoyed playing it for a while. But the genre isn't really for me, and very much not for my wrists. It was nice that it could keep fire pressed though! Movement made me feel like I had a jetpack and perhaps a bit of a spacesuit on. Which I think was fine with the environment the game was set it. But perhaps it should either lean in heavier towards that in the environment/story or make the controls a bit more snappier. I must also admit, I'm not sure what killed me in the end, so perhaps there needs to be stronger visual and/or auditory feedback when things are going south, and in what way. All in all, a great entry. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/qVdmFa2RrCM
Apr 18 17:09:15	24m 31s	Echos of Players Past	♥ 1	As always very interesting game! Something quite odd happened to me though. The first time, I played on Firefox (in a private window, if that matters) and I ended up in a cursed world after the first level or so where there were no flags to reach. It was all very strange. You can see it in my playthrough below. Then I rebooted it in Chrome and I got the real levels. Unfortunately I forgot to hit record again as I got too busy trying to beat them. It was fun, and frustrating, how summoned players often assumed (probably so did I) that they need not wait a bit and just rushed to the the button or what they assumed would be closed trap doors without giving me much time to react to what they were doing. So it often took two playthroughs at least. There could be some quality of life improvements there. The game could restart the level with a slight delay when everyone is dead. And it would be nice if I could see who I summoned last attempt somehow so I don't have to memorize that person X dashes towards the button and Y goes for the traps. The last couple of very intricate levels I got by very easily because I accidentally discovered a cheat. The buttons and spikes don't cover their entire tiles, so you can just walk along the edge without triggering anything. That should probably not be the case. If someone what plays after me summons me on those levels they'll be quite perplexed at first as I just ignore what's in the way. Very cool concept though. Well made. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/ecKmBVZsnJ8
Apr 18 17:54:21	45m 06s	Summoning Circle Specialist	♥ 1	Well made puzzle game! I got to the tenth deamon and there it both felt like I didn't really get it and that it was unfair to what felt like symmetry to me! But as a whole a very good entry. I found it a bit fidgety removing lines at time and knowing exactly where the smallest and largest circle would be. But other than that the controls were smooth and the feedback while playing the game really nice. The hover help on the categories what also really fancy and useful. It could perhaps have triggered when hovering in the graph showing the alignment of the summoning circle too. One thing I noticed though was that after a couple of levels, I started by trying to clear what was given to draw my own, and since it was a bit hard removing stuff it would have been nice with a wipe the slate clean button, or clearer removal hitboxes. At time, though I understand why there wasn't any such feature, I found myself attempting to drag the nodes along the circles while keeping their connections. But I guess that would interfere with connecting nodes. It would be sweet if that was a thing though. Feels like something that ought to be ported to mobile... Very good entry. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/alKZdNu4Ru0
Apr 19 12:28:31	18h 34m	Dungeon Summoner	♥ 1	Short and sweet game! I really like the concept of it all and there's an obvious path to extending it into a proper dungeon crawler deck builder. I think some minor tweaks could increase the drama a whole lot, like taking longer time to draw a new card so that it wasn't really possible to lazily click the same all the time. I also got the feeling that they were drawn at random with a flat rates. While if it worked more like a deck that gets shuffled, it could have been really stressful drawing 3 healing cards in a row, because wasting them means there will not be any new healing for a while. Controls were nice and dungeon camera perspective felt perfect to me (though I'm no real connoisseur). I think the cauldron perhaps should not be a tile where enemies could go, because it made it quite confusing there in the beginning. Especially since their corpses lingers. I think I would have liked the game a bit larger. Perhaps not that the level would be larger, but I think there might be something to this idea that ought to be expanded. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/LwnWmjEaYkc
Apr 19 12:56:39	28m 08s	Dreambound Metal Fan	♥ 1	I'm, I'm not that good at tower defense games. And well this sounded like it would be more of a tower offense, but it soon had my force outnumbered and not too much it seemed I could do about it. Maybe there was a difference, but if there was, I didn't notice, but it could have been fun if there was a building that perhaps didn't summon the best of mobs (or non at all) but in drastically expanded territory. Kind of like secondary towers. That also need defending, but allows quickly stretching out the domain, so I could reach settlements and murder them. My strategy was mostly, oh I can build that, lets build that. Perhaps I expanded too much north too fast, but then there was a swarm of ranged enemies that just destroyed me and I had no chance at all. I also think it would have been nice if it was easier to see which were my mobs and which were enemies. Perhaps by limiting color palettes for each and making them distinct that way. Perhaps the unit and building health bars could have been color coded too. I enjoyed playing! Good work! Playthrough: https://youtu.be/3zkZpPS186I
Apr 19 13:42:17	45m 38s	Bergmål	♥ 2	Absolutely stunning graphics and great audio work makes for a superb mood trip! You should know better with the scoping though 😆 Seriously ambitious. Again, graphics where great, not only the details in it but the visual effects placed on-top. The font seemed very fitting choice, but if there's one thing with the style, it's when we get to the presenting evidence phase. The logs honestly don't look as great as everything else in the game. And given that as far as I could tell, I didn't really need them to solve the puzzles, I think they distracted a bit more than they added. The story was cool too, though I must admit it was a bit confusing at times since the drawings where so suggestive and I'm honestly not sure if it was all linear or they came out in order responding to how I clicked on one or the other person. Really hard to pull off without being a bit confusing so I'm not complaining really. It also took me a little while to figure out that I could click on things in the photos. Or rather to find the stuff that was clickable. I think I did search them a little at first but all I found was the time stamps. I'm guessing those were meant to be incorporated in further puzzles but time ran out? Basically though, perhaps it could have been split up with a super simple first confrontation where it is really obvious what should be clicked in the photo to teach me the importance of really scanning them. It wasn't any serious issue, it just took me a couple of attempts to get it. Very well made entry! Always interesting to see what you cook up. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/nXFWK7V_Crs
Apr 19 14:53:17	1h 11m	From Hell's Heart	♥ 1	Fun game! Easy to understand and kind of hard but not so much that it became a problem. I first tried with controller and I must say it felt like the movement / bindings were a bit unnatural / off there. When I switched to mouse and keyboard it made much more sense and I could get further. It might honestly be something like the shots and actions being a bit too fast for the sensitivity I had when playing with the controller. But I didn't fidget around with the settings. I did end up outside the map at one point and had no way to get back. And that was on my thus far best run. It kind of sucked that I couldn't restart that level with my current health and that I had to close the game and reboot it. I think? I kind of got to the end when I got a level with just clones of me, so I figured perhaps I should shoot them and something will happen. But what happened was that the game crashed / Godot froze. Otherwise the graphics were neat and clear. Levels were well made in size and complexity. Sounds were also good. All in all, well done! Playthrough: https://youtu.be/cabQWTrpabo
Apr 19 17:52:12	2h 58m	Hot Wax 🕯️	♥ 1	Cool tetris variant! I got a bit confused because Z/X selection is not my habit and it never said anything in the instructions on how to start playing. 😆 So I was about to give up there. Then when I finally after pressing all buttons on the keyboard managed I played without realizing the Z/X for rotation so that was kind of a hard mode. Finally I understood the controls and got playing. I didn't realize though that the 1x1 was a bomb and that you had to snuff it to explode it until afterwards. But I think I accidentally made that happen once. It's an interesting mechanic to only clear by fire and thus having to avoid placing in certain areas. I didn't get very far but I enjoyed playing. It feels like some highscore system would have helped me stay at it and audio / music. I'm not sure if there should have been any since the rating option is still available but the game was completely silent for me. Not understanding menu: https://youtu.be/lVI7CRL9paw Playing without rotation: https://youtu.be/KvZQdwJFqwY Playing with rotations: https://youtu.be/Hrk1R2lsrec
Apr 20 07:58:03	14h 05m	Throw Hands!!	♥ 1	Hi could you please tag your downloads properly on itch so that it knows how to present it properly: itch-taggames.png It will probably also help with people playing your game in general
Apr 20 10:22:15	2h 24m	The Last Ritual	♥ 1	The game is seriously beautiful! But unfortunately the puzzles didn't work for me. In many ways. One of the main reasons was that walking was so slow and jumping felt very off. It didn't even jump the majority of times I pressed space and when it did jump it didn't feel much like a jump. So... the puzzles that were the main thing in the game. I pretty quickly fixed the water so I could see the Rosetta stone. But some of the symbols where kind of similar and with movement being a chore, I'd really would have liked to see them while entering the code and see them clearly. There was no fun in walking a back and forth and figuring it out that way. I mean I could have sketched out those on a paper but... I also didn't get at all get the first puzzle. My mind went: !> Earth, Wind, Fire After getting to have the translations in the ring. It did solve the part of moving about, but it kind of also ruined the mystic aura a lot. When I finally made it to the back site, it took me a while to figure out that I was looking for the plus marked. It also, while using the same prop totally subverted the function of the disk-thing compared to what the game had taught before. It recognizing a lot of words and reacting to all of them, it kind of would have needed to not look like the other consoles to indicate that it was universal. Me and my wife together could not figure out what one of the `+++___+++` words were though and as there also were a whole bunch of words that were not recognized I gave up. A lot of my progress had also been by looking up hints and solutions outside the game. So I think, with better walking and jumping and with a bit more hinted solutions in the game it would have been a really neat entry. Playthrough: https://youtu.be/6YuStyd6Fkc
Apr 23 18:05:04	79h 42m	Shards	♥ 2	Stellar graphics, and atmosphere. In general a solid entry with much flair to interactions and almost everything working smoothly. It did take me both a failed run and several attempts after that to fully understand the upgrades. I didn't understand that the gem-like things at the bottom were my buys. And I just thought the pulling surprise star towards me was a way to open it. Since you don't pull the selected in the star to buy it, I didn't at all understand for the longest time how to spend the last buy. I bought the finger restore crystal as first, and I must say all finger restores are quite overpowered since they are extra lives basically. And I found a bug, I think, because you can have more than 5 fingers with these restores so that if you afterwards should loose one it just snaps right back after the cut. There were quite a few "neighbors get get +5" and while I guess there might have been some shards that did something with their own power, it seemed to mostly make that one shard basically be worth ten more than its given value. So I didn't quite understand the strategy in that one. Equally the legendary 60 shard seemed to effectively mostly be a 30 shard (unless you actively skipped its neighbor places) and while it said -15 to neighbors at least once it for sure subtracted more than that for some reason. In all though I enjoyed the game, though it seemed quite risk-free after I had gotten the finger gem since I mostly had 5 or more fingers on my hand. I would have played to the end, I was pretty far, but then I played a shard that should draw 2 shards and the game just didn't do that and everything just stopped. Very solid entry! Well done.
Apr 23 18:32:11	27m 07s	Summoner's Recipe Book	♥ 2	Great style really! It's a pity there's no full screen button so I had to play in the viewbox that is a bit too small for the game. At first play-through, I think I rapidly and accidentally got soft-locked out of any progression. I soon found myself only with fins and claws and no matter what I did in combinations or numbers I only got the claw-producing and fin producing animals. Second I got much further and could probably have completed the game. But I must admit I kind of ran out of steam after a while. It might just be that the genre doesn't get me very engaged. But having to re-summon creatures and farm up coins to get the next thing and such. There wasn't really a risk reward. And the split between managing your herd and exploring possibilities kind of went in opposing directions. The game loop could perhaps also been a bit sped up with simply summoning when you click to do so and not require another confirm on the summoning scene. I'm also wondering if the management after each summon could be a bit more streamlined or more involved. But all in all a very good jam entry, and as I started out, the graphics is really great!
Apr 25 16:25:51	45h 53m	Shadows of the Devils	♥ 1	Really fancy looking game! All those different effects really elevated the feel of the game. I got to the second to last stage, I think. First time around I killed myself, because I didn't notice that summoning cause a candle to go out. Perhaps the lighting of the scene could have become a bit darker or more focus had been put on it so that the player doesn't miss that. Which also led to me killing myself because I was summoning away a bit too eagerly. As with the stages progression, given that you presented more or less perfect information from start, it kind of removed the need for choice there almost. Or so it felt. It didn't seem to be a strategic benefit to do fights so why chose those that had more fights? If I the paths were a bit more interconnected and you only got to know the options for the next step once you completed a stage, then that might have made for interesting choices on the stages view. Basically I didn't see much of risk-reward going into it. So it could just as well been a linear path. The game was hard too, and a bit unsure what really I could have done better in the end. My thinking was summon as many as possible, use heal so that all of them get new health and hope for the best. I don't feel like my timing was that off so what I'm angling for here is that I'm wondering if there's some balancing of the difficulty that is a bit off. To be clear, the actions down to the details of how they were implemented were really nice. It's more that when I lost, I didn't feel like "lets try another and see if I can get it better" because I didn't really understand what I should have done differently. Really solid entry!
Apr 25 16:42:02	16m 11s	Hellevator	♥ 1	I think the idea was fun, the game admittedly is really quite stressful from even the first level while the controls takes some getting used to. I was too busy trying to shuttle souls up and down to really notice the information on the right side, so I think there need to be clearer UI right in the middle of the screen that helps the player know that they have saved X of Y that is needed and Z that will spawn on the level. I'm guessing that the need to jump into and out of elevators was for later levels, but that one needed to keep track of which way to exit felt like an uncommon mechanism, and I wonder if it couldn't have been simplified to just exiting while remaining on the elevator position and then being free to move about. And elevator only picking you up when you enter the elevator tile. An, I'm guessing unintended aspect of how this worked was that it's entirely possible to lock oneself out of playing any level by exiting the wrong direction twice when at the level select screen. That could have been fixed by having the elevators start descending after not having been in use for a couple of seconds. All in all though, a good entry!
Apr 27 10:53:07	42h 11m	rotator	♥ 0	I liked the art! The mechanics was a bit awkward to be honest. I managed to select no card at all as well as getting one card left when all opponent's cards had been played. It seems to me to be entirely a game of chance without any strategy to it, which does take away some joy of playing. A small change that might be interesting to test would be to show the opponents hand but not their pick until you've selected yours. That way you know their distribution of cards and it might give a bit of strategy and agency to the player.
Apr 28 08:40:49	21h 47m	Bobblevision	♥ 1	Really fancy shader work! It was a bit hard to navigate around in the world and read the objects, walls and such. But not impossible. One detail that could have made it easier would have been if the circles were attached to the objects rather than the screen. If one strafes now with some object in view it is very clear that the circles are on the screen, as if it is one's own vision/sensor, rather than an effect on the objects. So if they could parallax it probably would ease parsing the world a whole lot. I also enjoyed the initial narration.
Apr 28 08:57:43	16m 54s	Summoned at 2	♥ 1	Wonderful art! Really fantastic work with that. It was all very thought through. The one thing with style though. The font looked really nice... with the exception of the apostrophes... they were really off: badaphos.png The humor and narration was top notch. It feels a bit related to my own entry, though coming from an entirely perspective with the botched summoning ritual. It had a smile on my face all the way through. Admittedly the game play was very limited, but the interactions in the mini-games where very nice and tactile. It was a bit odd each time they started though. As if the game was wanting me to do something when presenting it but not reacting and then it started. If it was just a delay, then I'd consider shortening it and perhaps adding some effects of feedback if the player is impatient like me and starts clicking it. Very good entry.
May 3 13:10:31	124h 12m	THE SALMONING	♥ 2	I had quite a lot of fun playing this to the end. I must say though that level design wise, the progression and fine-tuning of each could have been a bit better. The first levels were very simple, to the point that I though there would be no puzzle at all to the one in the middle where you had to be quite precise with a limited number of attempts to catapult the fish across the screen to the later all chaotic but actually simpler levels. That the initial level(s) were trivial could be fine, or even great, especially if there was more intent in the design of the later levels. Then it could make the game really shine. The simple controls could be a good fit for a mobile port. Once I had no more fish left on a level, or not enough fish to make the goal, it really should have been really clear that "[R]eplay" was the way to restart the level. I think the graphics and the fish movements and designs were super well made. It was a bit hard to scroll to the right one and not over-scroll it. So making the selected stand out a bit more would have been nice. Very well made entry.