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Ava Skoog

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TimestampSince previousGameAva Skoog's comment
Oct 9 18:33:20 Springtail ♥ 2 Very nice and very difficult! Took me probably two hours to beat. I almost got there without cheats a couple of times but once I found out they existed I decided to just use them to get it over with. Still, I barely needed them by the end… 😅 While difficult it doesn't feel unfair. The motion is good, the way you don't go bouncing off in some random direction so you can at least count on going the same way you aimed unless you hit a wall, and the way you can walk a little bit on the side of something before falling off (like a proper bug should)! You quickly get a good sense for how far you'll go depending on how long you hold. I like the music and it adds a bit of chill. Not sure how I'd do if there was stressful music and I had to race a rising flood or something. The pitter-patter of the legs is nice and the human voice is funny. Really cool animation on the legs, wish I'd been able to see it more from the side too. Procedural? I'm unsure about the depth of field. It really fits since I'm tiny, but it's not very nice for motion sickness, so a toggle in the settings would've been good. Overall very cool! C:
Oct 13 18:51:25 96h 18m Don't Scratch That Itch ♥ 1 Horrible. Nice job! Started out focussing on the grossness and ended up abstracting the imagery away and getting really into strategy. 😵‍💫 Learnt a little more each time. 136 is my best so far. The graphics do exactly what they're supposed to and I hate it, so very well done on that too! 👍 It really does feel like it's under there and not on top. The sounds being funny helps me get through it! Simple game yet a surprising amount of depth to how you play it and with a *strong* presentation to say the least.
Oct 14 17:43:37 22h 52m Personality test ♥ 1 Wow, 72 creatures and personality descriptions, and all the dessert graphics too, what an undertaking! Took me a moment to realise how I could use save files not to have to redo the whole thing every time but I still have a lot more creatures to see. Working on it! I guess the main thing is seeing all the different creatures (funny to see a poké ball in one of the chests as a nod to that) but of course there's more here in terms of the story, with the intro, the background information, the poems, and whatever mystery is going on here… I feel silly for not realising before reading Wouter's comment that the creatures jumping around at the beginning must've been previous visitors. Pondering the poetry too, and whether there's a meaning beyond the game. Obviously there was some meta stuff referring to the jam, but… :p Moody and creepy, has a similar vibe to your last game. Great work on the audio, my only complaint would be that the audio levels were a bit unbalanced (e.g. saving sound was quite loud). Cool stuff. Once again you've left me thinking… 🤔 Will try to see more of the creatures.
Oct 16 17:37:36 47h 53m Pick Up Lines ♥ 3 Wow! I like how you consistently make these games about weird navigation. It took me almost exactly an hour but I beat it, and I somehow figured out how it worked so it was very satisfying. It took me quite a while to figure out that the three initial doors lead into three different mazes that all had the same layout but different contents. I did see the doors on the big map but I was confused by the fact that my marker told me I was in the middle of the maze and not down by the doors. Making the graphics more distinct between mazes or something might've helped too but maybe that would've gone against the whole concept. Really nice atmosphere and music as always. I liked that I got a different track for a while. Never did figure out what the ping under the moon was for, but as I'm writing this I'm realising that must've been how you recharge! Now I feel silly. I never really understood the fading mechanic while playing because it never seemed to be an issue (I never had to restart due to fading away but I also barely went back to charge up as I only went there after finding something to see if that scene had changed). Now it makes more sense tho! I like the usual newspaper cutout style for the graphics and I'm wondering about those portraits. Like someone else, I ended up missing the text boxes whenever I found something because I was holding the arrows down, so you should probably have made those disappear only when pressing space. I'll go back and replay later so that I can see. Another thing that confused me was moving between edges in the maze. Sometimes there seemed to be multiple directions that had the same letter but only one of them actually worked. I'm guessing it had to do with what direction I was coming from. Some arrows on the map would've been nice, I think. Very cool, enjoyed it a lot, just a few minor things, really well done! :) For fun, here are the terrible notes I had by the end: Skjermbilde 2024-10-16 kl. 18.48.04.png
Oct 17 19:38:38 26h 01m Tiny Tribe ♥ 1 So impressive! Again. Was going to I can't believe it was made in just three days and then I saw it's a compo game and I'm just baffled. There's so much stuff, and it's overall so polished in terms of visuals, sound, and feel. Mostly I can only complain about minor things (like someone else, I'd prefer WASD panning) but I do feel like in the end maybe it seemed a bit aimless. I see you've added goals post-jam, tho I prefer the peacefulness of the original to the fighting. :p By the end my islands looked like this! Skjermbilde 2024-10-17 kl. 21.24.32.png Maybe there's a commentary on overpopulation and draining of resources here, altho the trees always seemed to regenerate faster than the creatures were able to cut them down. p: Just amazing the amount of different kinds of creatures with different sprites and behaviours you were able to add in such a short time. The music and sounds are very pleasant. I did keep getting scared by the fact that tree-cutting sounded the same as creatures taking damage! After the initial exploration process of learning about each new creature as they hatched, I mostly ended up driving around the map endlessly clicking coconuts to make sure they were fed, which was that "aimless" point I mentioned, but it was still neat to see what was everyone was up to. I didn't slap or drown them except by accident, but the saddest moment was when I was investigating a sad blob and trying to figure out what it needed but mid-read it died and the tooltip changed in front of me to "wants: nothing"… :'((( Overall felt great to play and look at and listen to, really nice tactile feedback to the different hand actions. Besides the issues you've already addressed post-jam, this is just wonderful, so high scores from me! c:
Oct 20 12:16:17 64h 37m Macro & Micro ♥ 2 Cute! The fuzzy art is really nice and easy on the eyes and the feedback (sound and graphics) of Micro's movement feels good. The main mechanics are interesting too. The music is interesting because it's almost a little melancholic, making me wonder just what's going on here. 😅 There were just a bunch of polish issues that made it rough to play (understandable with the time constraints), and some bugs. I'm sure you're aware of them since you've got so many good comments already and you've added measures like the L key. One thing I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that ZQSD is more commonly WASD so to people who aren't familiar with other keyboard layouts your instructions might be confusing; I usually just add both (e.g. "move with ZQSD/WASD"). For what it's worth, if you haven't tested, your game works fine with the expected keys on a WASD keyboard since you're using physical keys and not specific letters. :) The biggest issue I had personally was on level three where I really struggled to get back up from the tile with the key because I wasn't getting the timing right for turning mid-air so I thought I couldn't do it and that I was somehow not placing the tiles right in the Macro stage, but eventually I got it. Needs some work but it's got personality and charm and a cool mechanic that I think some very interesting puzzles could come out of if you were to keep working on it after the jam!
Oct 20 12:29:30 13m 13s Tara ♥ 2 Really good and polished puzzler! Nice consistent art style with neat characters and fitting music, and great use of just a few mechanics to make a bunch of puzzles that I enjoyed a lot. Didn't solve them immediately but also didn't get stuck on them for ages. :) Not a whole lot to criticise really… There weren't any bugs or rough edges IMO. I think you did amazing!
Oct 20 13:23:00 53m 30s PATCHONOMICON ♥ 2 While playing I was thinking "cute creatures but also terrifying what's happening to them here" and I'm glad the ending of the game validated that, well done! If you ignore the fact that they have lively faces, the sewing mechanic in and of itself is a lot of fun and you did a great job on the shader for the stitches (found this game through the post about it). I'm guessing the music isn't your own since you opted out of the audio category but it was a nice fit (wish it looped tho) and a great contrast to the scary sounds at the end. The fact that the patches aren't making any noise but just blinking at you makes it all the more unsettling, and I liked how you hinted at the ending already early on with the occasional red eyes during gameplay. Gameplay was mostly nice and smooth. The conveyor belts are cool and I like how you had them on the title screen too. Text or tooltips on the buttons and a heads-up about patches being stuck even if you changed items/palettes would've been nice. Depending on the colours I sometimes had to spend a lot of time just waiting so maybe probabilities should've been responsive to what you're working with. Overall nice work! A polished and unique jam game. Giving you some extra points in the innovation category! :)
Oct 22 19:43:47 54h 20m Tinysaurs ♥ 1 Very cute and relaxing :) More of a toy than a game perhaps since there wasn't really any goal besides whatever I was able to come up with, so perhaps the other commenter was onto something with their idea of adding a journal to track discoveries. I found it very funny that this one was just straight up called "Tyrannosaurus Rex" even tho it's missing a few parts compared to the real deal: Skjermbilde 2024-10-22 kl. 21.26.30-kopi.png The colours are nice and pleasant and so is the music. Overall I feel there could be some polish to the digging interactions (I also didn't really use the creatures to dig for me because I did it faster myself) and the camera could use some work as others have pointed out. Since it's all about the creatures walking around, some more interactions like petting them might've been nice. Pretty cool, I liked it!
Oct 22 19:57:10 13m 23s Shrimpy ♥ 4 Very nice and polished! :) That is one long mouth. Was just wondering to myself on my tenth attempt or so whether the game was endless and about a second later I made it out. Despite the stress of the actual gameplay it was quite relaxing thanks to the music and the palette. I liked the occasional bubbles and the water noises. A little unhappy about having to hear the eating sound 😅 Simple but effective, and funny concept. Nice work!
Oct 22 20:13:34 16m 24s Reverse ♥ 1 Cool concept! Is there an end? After failing a bunch of times I realised I was able to basically wallrun around the entire room but nothing happened at the door or anywhere else so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Can I use the thing I'm holding? I see you opted out of ratings so I'm guessing you weren't able to finish it? :(
Oct 22 20:25:32 11m 58s Soot & Stinker ♥ 0 Cute! Well, when I'm not getting crushed, at least. Funny concept and really nice graphics. Music fits too. I'm a little unsure about the gameplay, I feel like I would've preferred keys to mouse, and the timing was tricky. I wasn't sure if the sock got stuck sometimes or if it was stunned, in which case some cue would've been good. The directions the blocks went when I bumped into them often felt unintuitive too. I think with some polish to those things this could be really cool since it already looks and sounds so great!
Oct 22 20:39:13 13m 41s Autumn Picnic ♥ 1 Love this. It's just very well put together and presented in an elegant way with pleasant colours. The caterpillar is super cute and it's just very satisfying to gobble everything up and see the colour changes and the adorable waggle at the end of each level. I'm a little unsure about the tank controls but maybe regular controls would've been confusing when you're climbing all over things (itself very cool). The crunch sound was good but a few more different sounds depending on what you're eating would've been nice. Overall super well done!
Oct 23 21:55:20 25h 16m Waddle ♥ 4 Really good, really cute! The silly looks on their faces as they confidently wave their siblings into the water… 😵‍💫 Several times I thought I just wouldn't be able to get it and then I did. I really did get stuck on level 9 tho, so I'll have to come back for that one, can't try forever :( Really enjoyed all the levels I managed to get through. They were tough! You did a lot with very little, introducing so many ways the ducklings could interact without adding new kinds of tiles or anything. Very satisfying. Of course adorable graphics accompanied by adorable sound effects and really nice music that fits the mood very well. Overall a good, polished puzzler with lots of personality, well done! 🦆
Oct 25 14:45:37 40h 50m Flea Patrol ♥ 1 Cute! I like the use of hand-drawn graphics. :) The concept is funny and the music fits well, and I like the scratching animation on the dog's leg. Gameplay-wise I guess it's a bit barebones as it felt like I could mostly just spam the buttons a bit and I would win even if I inefficiently got the fleas there one by one. Was fun to collect them into huge groups before moving tho. Overall neat but could use some work in that area. Nicely done!
Oct 25 15:05:39 20m 02s Very! Tiny Creatures ♥ 3 Wow, this looks so good! You really got that microscope look with the depth of field and rim lighting and everything. All the little particles. I like how you still made it silly with the noises :) Gameplay was cool, took me 2-3 tries even with the description to realise exactly how it worked as I initially thought it was about having to keep feeding the bots and keeping nasties at bay with the acid, but then I realised I could (mostly) take my time and that I was supposed to clear and lay down a path. Fun and puzzly! The graphics already really help set the mood, just wish there was some cool background music to really perfect the atmosphere. I feel like something low and rumbly and underwatery would've worked well? :') Overall super cool and could definitely be even cooler with some extra work post jam on more levels (and music)!
Oct 25 15:19:41 14m 02s Spoders Run ♥ 0 I love the spoders! I think I won? I got them all to another white flag but nothing really happened. The timer did stop, so that felt like a win, altho I could get the timer going again by moving. Did I do it right, is there no other feedback? Or did I run into a bug or do it wrong? :( Neat idea, wrangling many creatures as once is interesting. I'm wondering again if maybe I did something wrong because I saw another commenter say it was tedious to do the same level five times but I just got them all to the end together as a group in one go so I never really ended up controlling them one by one. The way I could just jump against a wall to collect them all did feel a little wrong tho so maybe that wasn't intended? :') Overall I liked it with the nice colours and cute spoder graphics and the concept, but it feels like something is missing so it would be nice to see that worked out. Wish there was audio too, of course, but jams are hard, and the compo is even harder!
Oct 25 17:54:46 2h 35m Skyward Soar ♥ 1 Very cool! Neat concept and nice animations on the flying squirrel, altho I think the running was bugged out for me: it looked nice and smooth sometimes, but most of the time it just seemed to be flip-flopping very quickly between frames. :( The levels were pretty good. A few more mechanics would've been nice but it's always difficult to do a lot for a jam of course. The one thing that didn't feel so good to me was unfortunately the gliding itself which was a bit confusing. The boosters were great, but regular flight seemed to have lift to it which didn't feel that obvious, probably due to the camera. I often felt like I was descending but then I ended up reaching a platform above the one I started on anyway, which was good because it was the only way to progress, but it felt like I had done it wrong. Usually I pressed space twice and sometimes even again in flight which seemed to work better but I don't know if it was intended, or even all in my head. Hope that description didn't come off as too harsh! Just difficult to explain exactly what it was. :') Overall the game really was quite nice and I enjoyed getting through the levels, especially the trickier one where you had to go under and inside all the big blocks. Giving you a pretty high score in the overall category! :)
Oct 25 18:34:14 39m 28s Micro Wars ♥ 1 Been looking forward to my session on a Windows machine so that I could play this one! C: It looks amazing. The texturing surrounding the scope viewport is really nice and the shader magic going on inside the scope itself is very pleasing. The gameplay itself is mostly really nice and I like how you were able to get a lot of variation out a single movement mechanic and the visual indications you went for with the circles and arrows around the viruses. Very elegant! I did struggle a lot tho, to a large extent because I ran into the same issue as others in the comments. :( With arrows/WASD it was relentless and I kept stopping dead in one direction or another (seemed to happen mostly left-right, not so much up-down if at all). I tried with a controller too and it was better but still seemed to be there to some extent. Overall I felt the inertia was hard to get a hang of and I don't know whether that was due to the bug or inherent to the game. Would've liked more damping I think. I also got confused as to the mechanics of defeating the viruses. Sometimes I'd have to circle the first type of enemy up to 3-4 times even if the circle was gone. I was thinking it had to do with the little arrows that seemed to point inward sometimes and outward sometimes but often I was unable to defeat the same type of virus with the same type of arrows twice in succession the same way so I just don't know and I feel like I might just be thick! :') Disregarding that—which I'm sure you could clear up—overall it's just really good. The virus graphics look great and they have that nice microscope feel to them with the rim light and fuzziness. I don't know if there were more than three types as I never managed to survive for more than a minute after a long time of trying, so please do tell if I missed anything! MicroWars.PNG
Oct 25 18:50:17 16m 03s Tiny Tale ♥ 1 Nooooo, seeing the decay around the house got me worried, and wondering, but I still wasn't prepared for the ending to be *that* grim, I just thought the family would've moved and left the toys behind or something. :( Makes me wonder why it took so long for the toys to start looking for them if they were alive the whole time, since the house must've been empty for a while… Very good atmosphere and nice suspense. Scary! But also funny with some of the dialogue and characters. Very linear, but nothing wrong with that if intentional. Allows you tell a story, and you sure did. :) Those poor tiny creatures. The ball of yarn freaked me out because the colours you'd chosen made me think it was some mess of flesh and bone, and I was quite relieved to learn that the dog was a plushie and not a real one! Music helps a lot in setting that mood, as does the gloomy art. There was some inconsistency in resolution between different assets, but I know that easily happens in a jam with little time to plan, I've done it too. Overall great job! (PS. you labelled the game as *Tiny Tale* here but as *Tiny Tail* on itch.io)
Oct 25 19:02:27 12m 10s Snail away ♥ 1 So slick! And slimy. It's just really nicely presented, starting on that gorgeous itch.io page with the thoughtful background design. Seemed like the snail was at least partly a procedural mesh so that you could stretch it easily, and that you extended the same kind of vectorised graphics to everything else which made it all very nice and cohesive and scaled up to look great even on my 4K monitor in fullscreen mode. The music is nice and the snail sounds are good. I especially like the shell sound when you drop. Moving around at any angle without falling off (except at will!) is a lot of fun. It does get a little confusing at times pressing the opposite key to the direction you're actually going, but having to change keys would've been even worse so this is probably the best solution. Because you don't have to be fast, it's not really a problem. Just chilling out and collecting all those ladybugs (which is kind of a bizarre thing to do now that I really think about it, haha). I don't really have any complaints except that it would've been fun to see more levels with more challenges but for a jam that's always a struggle of course. And this is a compo game too, so wow. Great job!!
Oct 25 19:19:50 17m 23s Motomon ♥ 2 Pretty cool! You got a lot of characters in there for a game jam and the voice lines for them were funny. The sprites look great. Driving felt pretty good. With how curvy the track was I think some drifting mechanics would've been nice, but braking works too. The one thing the game really lacks for me is feedback, both in terms of the driving itself (some particles and some audio besides the engine which got quite repetitive) but especially to let you know whether you've managed to hit one of the opponents with your missiles. I was never really sure how well I was doing, and the transition back to the main screen was very jarring whether you'd won or lost. A think a game like this really needs some music too, but of course in a jam that can be difficult, and you managed to do so many other things! :) Would be great to have just a little bit more of a description on this page. It does say "battle" but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that it would be the same as "battle mode" in Mario Kart, so at first I was just trying to drive as fast as I could around the track to win, until I realised there was no finish line… :') Once I did catch on tho, it was quite fun! Unlocking new characters was exciting and I got to hear the next funny voice line. I'll admit I didn't play enough to unlock all of them since it didn't seem to change much, but do tell if I missed anything by not doing that. Overall nice, just needs some polish and feedback IMO. :)
Oct 25 19:54:00 34m 10s Globlins ♥ 0 This was really good! Hope you two are alright, seeing as you both seem to have disappeared from the LD website after submitting this game… :( Really nice graphics with a consistent style. Nice to see the pixels only move in chunky pixel amounts even at a big resolution. Pleasant colours and cute characters, with equally pleasant music to set a nice, calm mood as I'm puzzling along. :) Similar to Lemmings of course but with some nice twists. This level had me stumped for quite a while: Globlins.PNG After I beat it tho, it was fairly smooth sailing. Good ramping up of difficulty with new interesting mechanics being gradually introduced. Good amount of puzzles for a jam game. Overall this is just super polished and super well done, can't really complain about anything! I do wonder how to interpret that ending… 👀
Oct 25 20:02:27 8m 27s Goober City ♥ 0 An experience indeed! I think you have a funny concept here, and I really liked the presentation going into it, with an amusing description and amusing characters, and music that fits the vibe as well, but as others have pointed out, the game itself seems kind of broken? :( I got a very bad framerate as well, and this is definitely not a bad computer, so I'm not sure what's going on. The models of the buildings seem very detailed, so that might have something to do with it. The camera kept zooming in and out which might be the linear interpolation overshooting due to the low FPS? Movement also didn't seem to change with the camera angles, so it was very difficult to move around. The actual game also didn't look much like the screenshot for me, so I'm not sure if it just looks wrong on my machine or if the image is not actually from the game. If you can work the issues out I think this could be neat! :)
Oct 25 20:54:58 52m 31s Paquito ♥ 0 I did it! Somehow. Wow, that was intense. At first I was very confused. I'd gotten stuck after getting the shears. Twice I'd managed to do the right thing with it, but I wasn't sure because the rope/branch graphic was subtle and I noticed there was a hole in the wall with something behind, so I thought I'd just clipped the shears through the wall and lost them down the hole. I tried for a while to jump through the hole to no avail. Eventually I tried pushing the furniture downstairs and found the right way into the chandelier room. The graphics are quite nice and the character and the important pickups being 2D was a nice touch. Maybe the keys and the shears should've been 2D too but of course it helps that the totems are unique. The interactable items being physics-based was a double-edged sword I feel. It was great to be able to drop them down from the balcony and stay upstairs, but they also kept getting stuck on things which was annoying. Only the crates really needed to be physical. The music is great and really underlines the hecticness of it all, and the character's running animation fits it perfectly. The title screen music is very pretty too. I see you opted out of the audio category so I assume you didn't make the two tracks, but good picks! :) Great atmosphere and setting, cute character, fun to play, just lacks polish I feel. The mouse sensitivity was way up for me, so a setting inside the game would've been nice. I feel there should probably have been some more sound effects for feedback. Not sure about the point of the staircase collapsing; it's a great set piece but either you're done upstairs and it doesn't change anything, or you're not done and so you just have to restart anyway… P: Overall I think you did a great job and that you could fix these issues after the jam if you wanted to continue to work on it! :) I'm glad I found confirmation that I was doing the right thing with the shears in the comments, or I probably wouldn't have been able to finish the game. I did have a lot of fun during my last few attempts where I knew exactly what I needed to do, and just had to make it in time. Paquito5-litn.png
Oct 25 21:04:52 9m 54s Cheesiesta ♥ 1 Very cute! Sleeping cat animation is great. Wish there was audio of course. I like the graphics and the walls not being perfectly straight is a nice touch, as were the tombstones. :) Short but sweet, not much of a challenge perhaps once you figure out how not to alert the cat, and I think some feedback (especially audio) to signal the cat waking up and so on could've added a lot more to that tension. But overall nice!
Oct 25 21:20:59 16m 07s Pusherfish ♥ 0 Nice and sleek game, funny twist on the Sokoban formula. :) Nice and pleasant audio and graphics that do what they need to do, and great puzzles as far as I was able to figure them out. I've played several puzzlers this LD and gotten stuck for a while but eventually figured them out after trying for a while, but this time I feel completely stumped unfortunately. :( puffer.PNG Other than that, it's hard to provide a lot more critique, it's a simple but good, focussed game and I think you did a very nice job of it!
Oct 25 21:39:20 18m 21s Stacked Creatures ♥ 1 Thanks for this game, it was really good. Hope it helped your mind for a while. You certainly seem to have put a lot into it, because it was super polished. Can't really find anything to complain about except maybe that I've seen similar things before, but that's not necessarily a bad thing~ Nice graphics, simple but with lots of personality. Looked great even on a huge monitor in fullscreen mode. The music and sound effects are very nice too and fit the pixel art of course. Gameplay is the star attraction here tho, and you once again did a lot with very little by introducing the slight variations in the creatures without adding more inputs to worry about, and you introduced each new mechanic without words in a very nice way. Of course quick resets also help a lot. In general, just good ol' tried and true game design principles that you stuck to nicely. :) Overall an impressive amount of stuff in here, with so many levels also, as well as an intro. The fact that it's a compo game is quite amazing to me. Really good job, and best wishes for the future to you.
Oct 25 21:49:46 10m 26s Spowe ♥ 1 Very pretty! Oddly enough this is the third game this LD that I've commented this on, but you—like the authors of those games—managed to capture that microscope look quite well with the rim light on the cells and the chromatic aberration getting more intense along the edges. :) Pleasant to look at and pleasant to listen to. The music is already nice but the bubble sounds add a lot. Graphics did get a bit blurry on the larger cells tho, so maybe some shader-based circles unaffected by resolution would've been a nice fit for this game since the graphics are so simple. I'm not sure whether it was intentional, but after a couple of minutes of playing and getting quite big, things got very sluggish. I moved very slowly in all directions, and I wasn't really able to catch anything, because as soon as I finally got close to something it changed directions and started fleeing from me as fast, or faster, than me. :( Overall a really nice vibe, like a prettier and chiller agar.io but needs some balancing I think as you get bigger so you don't run into my issue (unless that was just me). Cool stuff!