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Aurel300

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TimestampSince previousGameAurel300's comment
Apr 9 20:45:52 Home Deep Home ♥ 3 This looks and sounds beautiful! The animations are smooth and the art is all quite clear and consistent, though I wasn't sure how best to see it (during the intro) without butchering the pixel ratios. In the game it seemed fine though. The music is very calming and I *really* liked the fade to a different track when looking at the tablet(?) pieces; very reminiscent of some classic point 'n click games. Beyond that, although it was easy to figure out some of the main things I could do, such as build various buildings and what they did, I did not manage to do "enough"? Like I did not seem to get anywhere with some of the tiles with glowing eyes nor build the building that's in the bottom-right corner of the selection wheel (it kept bouncing my gray resources, but I had plenty?). The visuals depicted on the tablet as well as the various inscriptions on the walls in whatever cipher/alphabet made me wonder what might be going on and how to unravel the story, but unfortunately the game didn't give me quite enough to pursue that... Perhaps this is how the game is "unfinished" and "overscoped" as you say :) Good job!
Apr 10 22:47:03 26h 01m Rise to the Unknown ♥ 0 This is a very pretty and atmospheric game! I would love to see more of the areas the lift is passing through, but restarting from the beginning, combined with no arrow key controls made this a bit frustrating after a couple of tries. Racing the purple fog to the lift, and the moments where the lift is *slowly* gaining speed as the fog recedes was a very nice gameplay moment for me. I might return to this, but I would really like checkpoints or something: I like a challenge, but the first seconds/minutes of the ascenscion are just repetitive.
Apr 12 11:40:58 36h 53m Tidehold ♥ 2 Quite fun :) I haven't seen a strategy quite like this, where to build things you balance not only the current amount of resources, but also the income/spending of those resources. (Then again this is not really my genre so what do I know.) The graphics were simple, but pretty and consistent (and with a nice colour palette!); the music was suitably calming and "deep" feeling. Some bits of the music reminded me of Startopia's OST, in particular the [Biodeck themes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHi2fDzJrS4). It took me a minute to understand what exactly I was supposed to be doing: I should have read the description, but the text in the menu/pause screen was actually enough. I never quite reached whatever the radar dishes were pointing at, even though I built like 15? O2 towers reaching towards the signal (on easy difficulty). I wonder how the terrain generation is balanced? In some places there was mostly space for houses and very few spots for mines, in others there were *only* "depths" for mines but no houses. Finally, the random danger that attacks you is cool but somewhat inconsequential. Losing one building doesn't change all that much, and even then it's sometimes possible to temporarily put up a radar.
Apr 12 11:52:06 11m 08s Johnny Depths ♥ 2 Nice :) It's a simple concept and the idea of delving deeper and deeper into inspiration/madness is neat. I really liked the music, with its different variants, and the more drum'n'bassy end to the third version was surprising. The changing background (called "Balatro background" by elZach :D) was also cool. Maybe it could have a more difficult mode?
Apr 12 12:08:38 16m 32s Typing at Depth ♥ 2 Very neat concept! I liked the audio and tried a couple of runs to reach ~900m. I think it could use a bit more balancing to make this really fun. Some notes: * the game starts quite abruptly and assuming Clippy is there to "tutorialise" was wrong: it always says "type (X) to (what X does)" for the latest word you pick up", but whatever, the game is quick to restart and is meant to be a score attack anyway; * once the speed picks up, auto-repeating spacebar or backspace is quite important for being able to move around quickly (but I assume this may depend on the user's keyboard configuration, no?) and even then it takes a while for it to kick in; * enter is also incredibly useful but somewhat situational, though I'm glad it at least places you on the leftmost *valid* place (at the time you hit it); * the variety of words is cool, but some of these sure are long! I don't think I will ever use "insurmountable" in a reactive fashion, only as a precaution; * your inventory blocks the screen! I guess the game could be shown in a non-square aspect ratio, with a sidebar dedicated to the inventory?
Apr 12 12:36:17 27m 39s Low Maintenance ♥ 3 Very solid Wolfenstein-like with plenty of content and a nice "story"! The graphics were interesting: it's clearly meant to look like Wolfenstein(-era games) but there are some differences, like the jittering shading in the corners of walls and on my own weapon. The textures were simple but charming, as were the sounds. It was cool to see there were even secrets, and the one time I was told, at the end of the level, that something was hidden at the gross toiler I had crossed earlier, I wasn't even super annoyed at having to backtrack :) The enemies were for the most part not super challenging: the blue-uniformed ones used hitscan but were easy to hide from around the generously provided corners. The "more difficult" enemies which attacked with orbs of enemy were, by contrast, easy to strafe around. I knew I entered the final level when I was given a boatload of every ammo type and lots of food :)
Apr 12 13:40:54 1h 04m Where it Ends ♥ 1 trans vibes 💜 Very tight arcade gameplay loop, though I guess by design you can't quite reach an equilibrium state where you can keep going indefinitely(?). When the text started appearing after a bit of playing, I was surprised, but it worked :) Still I found the contrast between the text and the ridiculousness of a girl bouncing around cave walls with magic hover abilities funny. The smooth-scrolling cave, the coins, and the pickup effects were all very pretty; the sound effects were fine, maybe the music could have been a bit more interesting!
Apr 15 17:30:42 75h 49m SIRTET ♥ 1 Very fun twist on Tetris! I really like Tetris and so I was immediately curious how this variant would feel. I missed the controls I'm used to (e.g. from Jstris) where you get buttons to instantly drop and also ones to turn the piece the other way or to turn it 180 degrees... But I was glad at least the "Hold" was there ^^. It was an interesting challenge and some of the behaviour felt quite surprising, especially that the piece only removes ground once it is *fully* submerged. The music was nice, the ground tiles with fossils + the excavation "depth" are a cute theme. Got to 37m :)
Apr 15 17:51:49 21m 07s Captain Peggles: That Man's Chest ♥ 4 Very fun concept! I think I enjoyed trying to decipher the instructions more than providing a map, although I have seen some that were just too cryptic (incorrect? :D)! The safety check of having to follow your own map is cool but of course when you understand the game you can memorise your treasure location and do whatever 🤔
Apr 15 18:59:22 1h 07m Cavedude ♥ 1 Great entry! You know, I thought I was somewhat good at platformers. Now, some 48 minutes and 584 deaths later, I am not so sure :) I got to the bonus levels and decided these are not for me right now, but watching your walkthrough is quite impressive. Is that a reference to classic Ogmo I see in bonus 4? This is all very nice. The gameplay is tight and unforgiving. The mechanics aren't original--maybe with the exception of touching ceilings to regain double jumps? I haven't seen this one before--but they are tuned well and the levels nicely introduce them with a mostly smooth difficulty curve. (Maybe with the exception of the sideways jump from a 1-block tall gap in "Secret of the Blue Key"? It was nice that that jump was completely isolated to this level and not punished, I guess?) Showing the timer across level transitions and *only* across the level transitions is enough to make the player think about not being TOO slow (assuming they can survive the level ...) but not pressure them throughout the game. The graphics are simple but cute; though I think the palette in the bonus levels looks a bit less pleasant. The music is neat and doesn't really get old; the intro to one of the lead passages reminds me a bit of some of VVVVVV's music.
Apr 15 21:37:36 2h 38m Narcosis ♥ 1 Cute. As mentioned by others, the music should loop! Other than that, I wished for a minimap or radar or something, it was easy to get lost. I got 3 emeralds and found the goal, so I win I guess? The goal should be made a bit more clear to the player I think: just "go explore" is not great if you don't also provide smaller sub-goals or rewards. As it is, there are: * the enemies and mines: I can shoot them for them to stop pestering me/to clear the way, but otherwise I get nothing out of this; * the oxygen orbs and repair orbs: allows me to keep exploring; * the emeralds: well, it's shiny?; * the goal. The controls are mostly tight enough and I was glad to see that the walls didn't cause contact damage, though making the player be stunned for a bit when they are hit is quite annoying! Oh and a small bug: when you shoot a mine, it explodes, but there is still a hitbox for it as it is exploding, so you can run into it and take damage even though you just shot it down.
Apr 15 21:44:43 7m 07s Are you smarter than a fisherman? ♥ 1 Fun twist on the classic fish-eat-fish games. I had to look at the instructions to see what the "fake" behaviour is after a couple of tries (for example, for the basic fish I thought it had to do with up/down movement). I think it's a neat idea but some of these "quirks" are a bit too much, I don't think I would realise e.g. that the fake carps don't visit all 4 sides of the screen :) I guess the real/fake behaviour should be spottable based on observation, even if given just 5 seconds to do it, rather than however long it takes the carps to make their visits.
Apr 15 21:49:41 4m 58s OnlyDown ♥ 1 I think some numbers somewhere need some tuning :) After a bit of confused playing, I was being chased by blobs (bad???), but my constant wave attacks (good?) sometimes got rid of them and sometimes my HP bar got to full (good?!) as a result. They were spawning too fast for me to really do anything about them so I just went along my way for the most part. I would probably enjoy this more as a kind of semi-casual "climb down safely" game where I just need to look around and pick reasonably good distances to drop, maybe with a time limit.
Apr 15 22:00:00 10m 19s Miner Complications ♥ 1 It's a Lode Runner clone ^^ (but strictly turn-based) Cute. There are some things that bothered me: the constant sound as my character was falling was not great, and I think more love could be given to the graphics overall: some animations, more variety in the tilesets. The music was ok but I wish it were a bit longer. I got to 409m and was't actually sure what to do: it seems the box must get stuck in the first ladder hole?
Apr 15 22:09:08 9m 08s The Depths of the Bag ♥ 1 I'm guessing the big box with the "warning" was the end? And my wizard moonwalked there...? :D Cute. The "dash" mechanic was not what I expected just reading the tutorial, so at first I assumed the game is going to be *much* more challenging (it would be without any way to slow down ^^). The voice acting was technically very good, and it was good there were *some* variants for the lines, but it still wasn't great that the same-ish lines were repeated upon dying again and again. There was also a place where the exact same line was repeated back-to-back. The actual "level" was mostly fine, the moving spike balls provided some more interesting challenge. Although it looked nice, the walls could have been more clearly delineated, once or twice I ran into what I thought was a gap at first when it really wasn't.
Apr 16 17:23:18 19h 14m RainDrops ♥ 1 That was interesting! As you say, it's more of a tech demo than a game, but it was still a nice experience. Both the audio and the video were pretty solid (though the titles/font could have been made to fit a bit better ^^). The method of exploration worked fairly well, though for the most part I only used the bouncy balls. I guess I can see the appeal of the raycast, but you get almost the same thing (just half a second later) by sending a bouncy call that way too. It was cool that the maze had interesting shapes in it and differentiating the walls by colour made it much more navigable. I made a whole circuit around the lower section before I thought to start looking for a way to climb up :D Oh actually, being stuck in front of a ledge and trying to navigate with the rubber balls is a bizarre experience: without a point of reference it is hard to tell that you are *not* moving even though you think you are, so it suddenly feels almost like the walls are moving away from you! One minor thing: maybe at the very beginning, it would be good to give the player at least *some* idea of the camera orientation etc. If this were part of a larger game, maybe the maze entry still has lights or something. I got the idea of where I was actually looking and how sensitive the camera was to mouse movement soon after I started spamming the bouncy balls, but there are some of the things that are just different from game to game and doubly so in gamejam entries :)
Apr 17 12:44:38 19h 21m Dyamid ♥ 1 Great entry! This is all incredibly polished and smooth. The graphics are pretty, the music is great, the mechanics are interesting and you present quite a few variations throughout the game. Well done! Reminded me a lot of Nitrome games or the like. If there is anything to nitpick, it might be that, smooth/low-friction as the levels are, it is usually very clear what you have to do. I can almost just keep going and taking the obvious/only moves to guarantee that I get somewhere, without *really* having to think about what I need to do ahead of time, because the levels are set up so cleanly. Sure this makes the player feel smart, but it also removes the feeling of actually figuring out the puzzles in a puzzle platformer :) I guess with more time/scope I can imagine this being more of a metroidvania with different areas to explore, giving the player more freedom in choosing what to do/when to do it.
Apr 17 13:07:53 23m 15s Drilly's Journey ♥ 1 Cool! Nice little Metroidvania-ish puzzle platformer. The art really reminded me of An Untitled Story (from Maddy Thorson). The core idea was simple and there was quite a lot of content to explore. In terms of level design, sometimes it wasn't very clear which direction I should be heading and needed to "brute force" a bit to see where there different exits might lead. I tried a couple of times to cross the big gap in the pink area above the start but couldn't, until I found out that just falling down leads to an area I hadn't been to before. Some *subtle* way to lead the player might help here. What also didn't help was that sometimes the mechanics felt just a liiitle buggy. For example, exiting the ground close to a wall is a little janky: Drilly kind of drill a bit into the (vertical) wall, boosting my exit jump, but I don't think that's intentional? I also couldn't always tell whether my drilling would continue or not. I guess it all comes down to how many blocks there are between the ground and the ceiling (or vice versa), but it was very much vibe-based. I got to the end and had fun with this, good job!
Apr 18 09:16:44 20h 08m A New Hell ♥ 3 Cute game! I was surprised to see a game from you not focused primarily on sounds somehow :) The core mechanic was interesting but suffered a little bit from unpredictable physics sometimes. For example, two square blocks placed next to each other, forming a flat surface should behave as one block, but sometimes hitting the exact point between the two squares would result in a rather chaotic bounce. I think overall *some* way to give the character a bit more control of the bounces would be good, but I don't know exactly what this would look like--maybe some subtle air control up/down depending on whether the attack button is still being held or not, similarly to variable-height jumps in platformers? The different areas were somewhat varied and it was nice to explore a different enemy mechanic every time. "Wrath" was maybe the most frustrating due to the enemy shots, which could be shielded of course, but which could also have been telegraphed a bit better? Also in violence, was the bottom-left enemy really subtly different with a smaller chase radius? Seemed a bit strange to be the only such case in the game. The music was nice, and the graphics were very simple but cute. Maybe it could have been more clear what the attack radius and cooldown are.
Apr 18 09:50:02 33m 18s Continental Shelf ♥ 1 Very nice and polished experience! I enjoy your puzzle games and this is another great entry in the series :) The graphics were simple but very cute and consistent. The block selection highlights, as well as the rock blocks themselves actually, really reminded me of fun freeware games circa 2000-2010. The music was alright, was fun to hear a kind of jazz-standard chord structure somewhere in there, and *mostly* didn't get too old, at least not for this many levels. The levels themselves were all very nice. For me personally, 9 was a peak in difficulty, with 10 taking less time again. I guess including a turn counter would have been nice, but it would also make the game feel a lot less relaxing. The concept of little fish in danger and blocks moving etc also reminded me a lot of [Fish Fillets](https://fillets.sourceforge.net/) :) In terms of controls, it was all good and the block sliding felt fine: I wondered though why make the distinction between controlling fish/sharks (click to select, click to move) and controlling blocks (drag to move)? Overall a great job, thanks for the experience!
Apr 18 10:45:50 55m 48s Abyss Vaulter ♥ 1 Great entry! The experience was very well polished, the graphics were great, the music was a *jam*, the amount of levels made for a satisfying experience start-to-end, well done! It's one of the best entries I have seen this jam, so the following are mostly nitpicks: * The weapons were interestingly varied, but I was not always happy to see each. (Looking at you, spreadshot.) There were situations where I would have clearly preferred to use one over the other, but this was left basically up to chance: did I happen to have a good weapon equipped for this section? What confused me a bit more was that in a couple of places there were side-by-side weapon pick ups (both at the start of a level IIRC?). This would make a lot more sense if the player were given the freedom to actually switch weapons, which IMO would make for more interesting/strategic gameplay, too. * The early levels were quite easy and not *super* different from each other. Maybe the difficulty curve could be a liiitle bit more steep. * The boss, once I got to it, turned out to be a little disappointing! Just shot it a bunch of times, it just had a simple pattern with one wave of sending some bats after me. Should be stronger! :) * I wish the shop had more exciting things to offer! I looked through the line up and for many things I thought: yeah, this looks ok, but there was nothing that I really actively wanted to save up for. In retrospect, the orb of ow was probably the most fun upgrade of the bunch. * The screen scroll was a bit frustrating at times: the levels often had two parallel paths on the left and right, and gems to pick up on each side. Once the branches connected I wanted to collect gems from the enemies/gem clusters at the top of the other path, but having got to the top, the screen already scrolled a bit. Now, there was a little bit of grace because you could still stand on the platforms that were *just* below the screen, even though you could not see them. I guess I understand that this mechanic exists to support some of the more tricky platforming sections in the later areas, where the player is punished for falling off of thin platforms, but the side effect of not being able to collect what you want in the earlier levels was not the best. * There was a strange stickiness to aiming upwards? I expected it to only last as long as I helt the up arrow key, but it was not quite that. * I had to restart once because after respawning from falling off of the screen, because the player character was placed on a ledge, but then could not move or shoot. I could only press the arrow keys to aim, but that was it. :)
Apr 19 17:46:52 31h 01m Podvodsk ♥ 3 Welcome back, it's been a long time since you participated in LD :) Very pretty, both in graphics and music. The music in particular had rather different-sounding sections, which was interesting. The gameplay itself is pretty intuitive, though for some buildings I must say the text explanation wasn't quite perfect, I really had to see what the effect was like when I placed the buildings down; but that's of course no biggie, there were not too many types of buildings and taking a run or two to get familiar with the rules is to be expected. The core mechanic reminded me a bit of the scoring systems found in some board games, in particular [Sprawlopolis](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/251658/sprawlopolis). :) After losing a run, I wish rather than the "end screen" I could see my city! The camera could do a pan over the full run. It would also be nice to show a visual indication of the max depth reached in a previous run + the score, to have a bit of a goal to work towards with successive runs. I don't know how I feel about the "rank" given to the score. I guess it's cute, but without context it's a bit hard to tell which one is "good" and how much further I could improve!