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Feedback comments for LD57
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Sam Gorman's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 8 07:37:59 | Voidwood | ♥ 7 | The switch into the eldritch aesthetic was so cool! Such a great moment, especially with the music switch-up as well. I don't know if there are more stages below - I'd have to give it a few more tries. I do think the gameplay could maybe do with a bit more fleshing out, especially as you get deeper. I also felt like I couldn't really plan ahead, especially since doing well means you have no space to see ahead of you (at one point my roots got so far ahead of the screen I could only guess what was going on!). Overall, really stylish entry! | |
| Apr 8 16:36:08 | 8h 58m | Mindlayers | ♥ 3 | I like the idea of exploring abstract 3D dreamscapes, but I found the gameplay disconnected from the theme. The game is also really slow and tedious, which was made worse by some pretty significant performance issues. There's some potential here, but I think you'd need more engaging puzzles and much sharper pacing. |
| Apr 8 18:34:58 | 1h 58m | Slip Stream | ♥ 2 | Really colourful and expressive character art! I love the aesthetic. This game has a lovely charm in general. The idea of a sequel to a previous game jam game is super unique, but since I haven't played that previous game I felt like I was missing some context. (Are they shrimp or people?) I like the frantic gameplay too, but I think it could do with a bit more depth. It's definitely challenging, but there could be something more engaging for the player to do than just moving from circle to circle. I might also make the movement a little less stop-and-start - it took forever to get anywhere! |
| Apr 8 19:23:36 | 48m 38s | Plundersea | ♥ 2 | This is a really polished experience, and I enjoyed the little additions to traditional Minesweeper like the items and multiple floors. I also loved the worldbuilding from the walkie-talkie! I do wish the game was a little more than just a good Minesweeper, though. It could use something to make it stand out as its own original game. |
| Apr 8 21:26:11 | 2h 02m | Depths Scraper | ♥ 1 | Really interesting and atmospheric game! There's a great element of strategy managing each character's health and energy, and the game has a great moody, isolating vibe. It felt great delving a little deeper each time. I also got the impression there were multiple possible paths to the end, because I didn't even visit all the rooms. I think you could add some more levels of gameplay onto the base strategy, though. The battles, for example, were nothing but health checks where you clicked in a menu repeatedly. You could also do a lot more with the adventure game-styled items like the grappling hook - that was the standout moment for me. |
| Apr 8 21:44:57 | 18m 46s | Towards the Light | ♥ 2 | I love the lighting and vibes, and the 3d puzzle-platformer concept has a lot of potential. I like the body-swapping mechanic too - obviously I've only played the tutorial level, but I think you could create some neat puzzles with it. It would have been really cool to explore a bunch of varied levels exploring the mechanic further. You should consider continuing this game after the jam and seeing where it takes you! |
| Apr 8 23:38:41 | 1h 53m | Grimm Syndrome | ♥ 3 | Really ambitious scope for a game jam - the gameplay and visuals changing along with the narrative was something you don't see often in this little time. I found the game a little slow sometimes. There were a lot of long pauses where not much gameplay or story was happening. The rhythm minigames also felt off - they seemed to either get de-synced over time or just be timed weirdly, because in order to pass I had to press *really* late on a lot of the notes. |
| Apr 9 05:01:55 | 5h 23m | The Depths, A Floppy Cat Adventure | ♥ 2 | This game seems really interesting and ambitious for a solo project - there's even a character creator! Unfortunately, even on the lowest settings I can't get it to run at more than ~5 fps on my laptop, which is pretty headache-inducing. So I didn't get to try the actual submarine gameplay. I'd love to play this in the future if I can get it to work on my machine. |
| Apr 9 15:10:27 | 10h 08m | Jellylight | ♥ 2 | Really cute game! I love the variety of sea creatures you drew, the ocean feels super alive. I personally found the game a bit short and easy - it could do with some more threatening hazards near the end! I did die once at the beginning, but it was only because I missed the small light meter at the top - I assumed the light effect around the player/screen would dim or flicker over time. I think that might make the mechanic feel more integrated into the world, and it would make it feel more dangerous descending into the darkness. |
| Apr 9 15:47:57 | 37m 30s | The Deepest Descent | ♥ 3 | I love how epic this game is. The intro was really cool and that music is *gnarly*. It's pretty tricky too! I agree that the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, at least in the jam version I played. I think it might help if the game was a little more lenient - maybe your hitbox is a little smaller, or your dodge roll lasts a bit longer. Overall, great entry! |
| Apr 9 18:31:51 | 2h 43m | Payback Pit | ♥ 1 | Super ambitious entry! There's a lot of systems in this game that interact in interesting ways. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, though, and I found it a little frustrating to play. My camera sensitivity was super high no matter what my mouse was set to, and there was significant lag as well, so I didn't manage to get that far in the game. Overall, solid work! |
| Apr 10 02:08:13 | 7h 36m | Crab with a Hook | ♥ 3 | Amazing world-building and aesthetics! Your underwater world was so mysterious and lush with detail. I loved the little touches like the big eye-fish or the sea serpent in the background. I managed to find all the shells and gems after some work, although I was kind of hoping for some sort of reward... like maybe that big mysterious vault opening? Anyway, if I could make any suggestions, I think the actual gameplay could do with some more interest. Other than swimming around and collecting gems there wasn't a lot to do. The traversal could also do with some cleaning up. The heavy fog did add to the atmosphere, but I could see so little in front of me and there were so few landmarks that I ended up wandering in circles for ages trying to find the last few gems. The rope also kept getting stuck inside geometry and ending up strung across the entire map, which was annoying when trying to rewind back to base. Overall, really impressive work! |
| Apr 10 07:51:57 | 5h 43m | An In-Depth Documentary about Pebbles | ♥ 2 | Really creative framing for this game. The documentary style is funny and unique, and I liked how mysterious you are about the game before you play it. The title and thumbnail really don't give a lot away. On the gameplay side, the depth of field effect was really neat, and you had some cool puzzles working back and forth. I did find it a little repetitive, though - a lot of the puzzles boiled down to running back and forth between bombs and buttons with a lot of empty ground in between. I think there could be some more interesting ways for the two layers to interact with each other, and maybe a little less walking back and forth. (Also, I would really appreciate a fullscreen option.) Overall, one of the most unique entries I've played so far! |
| Apr 10 16:20:31 | 8h 28m | Copper Soul | ♥ 2 | I expected this game to just be a tile-based strategy game, but the adventure game elements were really neat. I enjoyed exploring the question mark tiles to find new tidbits, and I wish I could explore more and solve some of the mysteries of this underground robot world! I think the strategy gameplay itself could use some fleshing out. Combat was just a number check, and the energy for movement wasn't that engaging - item cases rarely gave you back your energy, so the best strategy was just beelining for the exit. My first run I ran out of energy on level 3, but for whatever reason I could still move for several turns before the game killed me. Then my second run I found an event tile that gave me so much energy I didn't have to worry anymore. I might rethink the energy & health economy and add some more layers of strategy to managing them - or maybe some more interesting things to find in the environment. Overall, very unique take on this genre! |
| Apr 10 16:42:08 | 21m 37s | Star Spawn | ♥ 2 | I love all the monster designs you made! They were all super creative and helped keep the game interesting. I didn't feel like there was much gameplay going on, though. I picked stats mostly at random, focusing on strength and agility because I never fully figured out what "sanity" did (is it like armour?), and I never came close to dying. It mostly came down to a lot of waiting - slowly moving to the next monster, waiting for the battle to end, repeat until the game ends. I think either there needs to be more in-depth strategy, or the battles shouldn't be automatic, to give the player something to do. |
| Apr 10 17:12:19 | 30m 11s | Arctic Hell | ♥ 1 | I like the simplicity a lot, and the snowman in hell theme is fun. Great music too. The gameplay loop reminds me of old Flash games for some reason. The web build was pretty laggy though, and the snowman's collision was really janky. The snowman's model is also really big and covers a lot of the screen. Other than trying to see it, I thought the level was really easy and didn't progress in difficulty over time. I only died eventually because the game kept stuttering and I'd get stuck sideways on the diagonals or in between platforms. I think this game could shine with some technical refinement! |
| Apr 10 19:00:08 | 1h 47m | Onkalo | ♥ 4 | The art is really stunning in this game - visually striking and builds the atmosphere really well. I liked the mystery of the story too, although the ending I got didn't reveal any of the answers, and it seemed like a bad ending. Ambiguous endings are often great, but I felt a little unsatisfied with this one. All I got was that there was some sort of cult protecting a magic crystal, but I still don't know why that matters. Since there were a few choices, I wonder if there are multiple endings, or if the choices just change the way you get there. (For example, I chose the cat at the start, which found me a coin that helped me escape the trap. I wonder if another item would have just helped me in a different way.) I also got some items like the golden dagger I never used. I would've liked if I had a little more agency, and if the game was more clear about how my choices were affecting the story. I could kind of tell that my choices weren't too important, because things like the cat were dropped from the story later on. The battle system that popped up a few times was also pretty barebones, although I did manage to die once because I didn't realize it was real-time. In any case, this is very impressive for one weekend. I thought the atmosphere was really well done, good work! |
| Apr 11 15:43:06 | 20h 42m | Void Plunder | ♥ 1 | First off, I love the concept, and the visual design of your world is so unique and atmospheric! I'm also generally a sucker for collectathons, and this seemed like a cool spin on it. Unfortunately I found the gameplay a little frustrating. You move really slowly and there's not much to do on the way to to the treasures, other than fend off the dragons which ended up just kind of being nuisances. I also found the balloon really awkward to maneuver, and it took me a solid minute to get close enough to one of the treasures to pick it up. (This was made more annoying by the camera, which kept drifting upwards no matter where I moved my mouse.) Overall, I think with some tighter controls and more engaging gameplay, this concept could really shine. |
| Apr 11 16:06:08 | 23m 02s | Oasis Dawn | ♥ 4 | Super impressive for one person! Very well-developed combat system, solid 3d graphics, and generally something I might come back to later (which isn't something I say about a lot of game jam games!). Also a rare 3D jam game that actually runs on my laptop. I really like your combat mechanics. They're simple but effective, and I enjoyed the way different mechanics interlinked and encouraged certain playstyles - for example, the combo system discouraging spamming, parrying allowing for both more attack capabilities and healing, and the vanishing healing crystal encouraging moving around the space. I gave it two attempts and almost beat Day 3 - it gets a lot harder when those larger enemies start appearing! In terms of critique, mainly, I think you could tighten the gameplay more. The game could do with a bit more juice - not just for game feel, but for responsiveness. The player should really feel when they or the enemy land an attack, or when things like parrying/healing are successful (parrying can be super satisfying in games, but here I never nailed the timing). That could include things like more impactful SFX, bigger/snappier animations, screen effects, stuff like that. I would also have appreciated a target button to lock the camera onto enemies - I was playing on controller, and I found myself wheeling my camera around more than actually fighting. Overall, one of my favourites so far! Super addictive. |
| Apr 11 19:19:35 | 3h 13m | Voidbound | ♥ 2 | Always impressive to see procedurally-generated levels in a game jam, good work! I agree that the gameplay was a little lacking. You die really quickly if you do get hit, but since there's unlimited ammo and the enemies are slow, that isn't likely to happen. It's great that you're planning to add more abilities and spells post-jam, but more spells aren't super useful if there's nothing to use them on. If I were you, I would focus on increasing the challenge and adding more things for the player to do. More complex/aggressive enemy types, maybe some navigation elements or something else to do in the map itself... stuff like that. Right now there's not much to do but click on enemies, and I don't know what the materials I was collecting were doing either (unlocking spells maybe?). Good luck with further development! *Note: I played the web build assuming it was your jam version, but from the comments it seems like maybe there was more in the Windows version. Feel free to ignore any of my advice if it doesn't apply there :) |
| Apr 12 21:23:10 | 26h 03m | Asteronaut | ♥ 2 | Cool approach using watercolour graphics, they look great and super surreal! Music was groovy too. I didn't expect the game to be pinball at all from the description, but it was pretty fun. The circular gravity and fun obstacles give this a neat twist. Initially I expected to be able to move around more after your first launch, and you kind of can, but you move so little it might as well not be an option. Without that, or anything like the flippers in pinball, your score depends almost completely on your initial launch. This isn't necessarily a problem, but since you can only see a tiny corner of the map before you launch, the game felt like an exercise in randomness. I would either let you see a full zoom-out of the map before you launch, or make your mid-air dash actually move you a decent amount. That way the player could feel more of a sense of control, which is always more fun. Overall, a fun and zany entry! |
| Apr 13 03:51:25 | 6h 28m | Leap of Faith | ♥ 3 | So, this game is absolutely beautiful. The hand-drawn/painted art is lush and vibrant, the music is epic, and the way the background and music evolve as you go down is really nuanced and especially impressive for a game jam. The backgrounds were very painterly and had some great depth, and there were I think four whole songs which I barely heard 30 seconds of each! It was varied, but all blended well, and it really places you in the world of the game. I also loved all the little details you threw in - the clouds parting was awesome, and that boss fight!!! I do think the gameplay was maybe a little basic. When you strip away all the wrapping, it's just avoiding obstacles with your cursor - kind of like a bullet hell with fewer bullets, I guess. It's also pretty unforgiving. Just two hits, with a pretty big hitbox, is tough, but it does add some playtime for sure. One thing I did like was the dash move - it's a cool trade-off between easier gameplay and better times, and adds a lot of replay value. I managed to get ~1:50 my first completion, but I may try it again another time and try to dash a little more. On the subject of controls, while the boss was a great moment with cool attacks, I don't think the spamming to shoot was necessary. It locks good times behind fast clicking ability, and I didn't even realize I could do it at first. I think the boss would work great just with a timer on it. Overall, this is a really complete experience with some incredible work from all the artists and musicians involved. With a little more depth to the gameplay to match those layered aesthetics, I think it could be even better! |
| Apr 13 04:20:44 | 29m 19s | A Hill to Die For | ♥ 1 | I like the vibes of this game a lot - the random names and little dialogue messages add a lot of character to the ants, and the music and pixel art is super fun. I also like the game concept quite a lot. It seems like there's some great strategy involved in balancing expanding your colony and blocking the anteater, and also some opportunity for expansion post-jam (more depth to building a colony, more resources to find, stuff like that). Unfortunately the game just didn't work very well for me. Certain mechanics, like how blockades and rooms worked, or when I could and couldn't spawn ants, weren't clearly explained, so I was pretty confused about how to play. Things also kept getting stuck - the tongue frequently kind of broke apart into bits or stalled in the middle of a tunnel, which often completely removed any danger from the game. Also, at a certain point in each of my attempts, all the ants would stop and become mostly unclickable. If I rarely did manage to select one, none of the options did anything. So no matter what I did, I could never play the game as intended for long. It's a shame because I really like the design! If you manage to get some of those aspects of the game fixed up, I'd love to play a post-jam version and give it a proper go. |
| Apr 13 18:05:48 | 13h 45m | deCompression | ♥ 2 | What a weird game - in a good way. Impressive work creating the whole submarine environment! It looks great and super stylized - feels like something from a professional game. The atmosphere you created was also really well-done. The strangeness of the characters and submarine, as well as the sound design, made me feel uneasy even though nothing frightening ever happened. It felt like something was wrong, but I didn't know what. In terms of gameplay, I liked the puzzles that were there, but I found myself wanting more. The intro puzzle and detail-rich environment had me expecting more in-depth escape room-esque puzzles that never came. Instead I mostly just followed waypoints which was pretty unsatisfying. The puzzles are the core of the game, and they make you feel like you really are in the submarine figuring things out - I think you should commit to making some more weighty puzzles! I also found the narrative a bit unsatisfying. The mystery of all these strange characters contradicting each other was built up well, especially with how all of them refused to tell me what was really going on. At the end, though, the TV did tell me what was going on, and it was kind of a let-down. Something vague about humanity's future without any real narrative stakes. I liked what followed with choosing who to trust, but it would have been nice to be able to go around and talk to people again to figure that out. (That would've been a great time for a larger-scale puzzle like I mentioned earlier!) My choice had no real impact anyway, because as soon as I entered the escape pod, the game just cut to an end screen. Satan didn't even say anything after I chose him! I did like the story, but in my opinion it was a lot of cool setup without much payoff. Overall, this is a delightfully weird game with a very skillful setting and atmosphere, and very professional for just one weekend. Great work! I think with some more depth to the puzzles and a proper conclusion to the story (even if it is an open ending), you could fully take advantage of all that great world-building. |
| Apr 13 19:19:22 | 1h 13m | That Underground Level | ♥ 1 | This is a really fun collection of homages, and the mysterious atmosphere it was wrapped up in was a very unique take on it. Loved the simple but moody art, and the way you incorporated the music of each game into the ambient background. I originally expected this game, based on the atmosphere, to be more of a puzzle experience about finding secrets or shortcuts in this familiar level, but I liked the direction you took it as well. It works well as a fun yet mysterious little game, but I can also see potential for a larger adventure here as well (maybe with some exploration between these different game levels - I can imagine having to take a bomb from the Zelda room and using it in a Mario level, for example.) Great work! |
| Apr 13 20:04:14 | 44m 52s | Deepest Canyon | ♥ 1 | Good job making some pretty fun physics and movement within 48 hours! I liked the variety of environments you created, and there was a good sense of momentum. Super fun to fly through the air. Throughout the game, I did find it tricky to click small targets when moving really fast, which you have to do often. It was very precise timing. I think you could add some leniency there - maybe you lock on to targets if your cursor is within a certain range or something. It was also frustrating when the game's physics acted up and I lost all my momentum from a bad angle or something. There's not much you can do at that point but die, especially since your range with the hook is not very long. I also thought the level design was a bit lacking. The canyon area had a great sense of height but not much to do except click wooden bars, and when the buckets came in, the level just became a bunch of buckets in the air. (The buckets were also unpredictable since they have their own rope physics on top of your own. Also, the dark level made it even more annoying to click the small targets, because I couldn't see them at all.) Overall, this is a great foundation. I think it could be improved a lot through some more interesting levels and some more leniency with the controls. Good work! |
| Apr 14 02:03:27 | 5h 59m | Dwarvenshaft | ♥ 1 | I love how chaotic this gets when you have lots of dwarves running around super fast. It's fun just to watch them go! I did think the gameplay was a little bland. There's not a lot to do other than click on dwarves, watch them mine resources you can use to make them mine faster, repeat. I like the decision between using drills to mine resources vs. dig to new layers, but there's not much reason to do the former unless you're really lacking in resources, which is rare. In general there's just not a lot of strategy at the moment. The interface is also a little frustrating - the maps are huge with no landmarks, and it takes ages to scroll around them. I know you can use the menu to hop between dwarves, but that's pretty disorienting. It's also kind of annoying having to move all your dwarves down into the next layer every time. Overall, great work. The dwarves are super charming and it's great fun to watch them work. Gameplay-wise, there are the bones of something fun and strategic here, but I think it needs some more depth to really shine. |
| Apr 14 02:11:52 | 8m 25s | Rock Bottom | ♥ 1 | Love the chaotic energy. Throwing the weapons is awesome and the way they absolutely fling the enemies across the room is hilarious. The emotes are funny too - never seen those in a jam game before. The gameplay has a fun, fast pace that I like. Finding new weapons encourages moving around the space and weaving around enemies. I found myself using melee attacks a lot more than throwing, though, which is a shame because I like the dynamism throwing mechanic. Throwing is tricky to aim and immediately discards your weapon, and since most enemies die in a couple melee hits anyway I found myself defaulting to that. I agree with others that the camera was a bit too sensitive. On top of that, Unreal game jam games never run well on my laptop and by default have a lot of motion blur, which added to the disorienting feeling. I know the lag isn't your fault, but some camera tweaks could help this out a lot. Good work overall! |
| Apr 14 20:39:44 | 18h 27m | The Apple of my Aperture | ♥ 1 | Super fun interpretation of "depth"! I've seen a few depth-of-field games but yours is definitely the coolest. I like the puzzly take on the concept and the way you explore and rethink the environment to solve each picture. The game could definitely use some more depth in the camera mechanic and a more fleshed out environment, but this is pretty good for one person! I have to admit I only managed to solve the first apple. The other three I found seemed to have obvious solutions to me (looking through that hole in the wall, for example) but I couldn't figure out anywhere to position my character to accomplish them. I did find some spots that made the apples *look* in focus, but the game didn't count it. It might help if the game gave you some more detailed feedback after a failed shot (too far away, too close, etc.), because the depth-of-field effect itself is pretty hard to judge visually. Overall, a fun little puzzler! |
| Apr 14 20:50:39 | 10m 55s | Clean Down | ♥ 1 | What a fun and cute take on a dungeon crawler. It's a great juxtaposition with the kinds of mechanics you'd typically expect (even the fireball was for cleaning!). I also like the relationship between the three cleaning mechanics and how they feed into each other. I did find the gameplay itself a little repetitive. I initially planned to clean everything, but it quickly became tedious and I just beelined for the end. The amount of time it takes to cart each bag of trash over to the garbage can, for example, or the Sisyphean task of mopping up after your own slippery footsteps, got boring pretty fast. It's not challenging, but it takes a lot of time. I might try either adding something else to engage/challenge the player, or making these tasks themselves a little more interesting to do. Overall, great work! It's an adorable game. |
| Apr 15 18:59:56 | 22h 09m | Unfortunate Mishaps of Subsurface Uranium Mining | ♥ 2 | I love the stylish graphics and frantic music. It's chaotic, but you've done a good job using colours and SFX to communicate each aspect of the game to the player. It's never confusing *why* you're failing, which is good. I don't mind having lots of things to pay attention to - that's the point of the game, after all! I think the only part I found frustrating was navigating the drill on the map. It turned really slowly and you were completely at the mercy of the random generation. I ended up dying because I was running low on oxygen and the game just wouldn't generate any, which was a little annoying. When you already have ten things to do at once, there's no time to stand there and wait for the game to give you what you need. The slow turning also means you can't react to obstacles last-minute. This could apply somewhat to other tasks as well. Randomness is okay, but make sure it never screws the player over! Overall, super fun game - I can see it becoming addictive for sure. |
| Apr 16 16:55:07 | 21h 55m | Froggy Towers | ♥ 1 | I'd love to play this game, but the HTML build on the Ludum Dare site isn't loading for me across any of my devices. Is this an issue you're seeing as well, or is it just me somehow? |
| Apr 16 19:43:35 | 2h 48m | Carpathian Goodbye | ♥ 1 | Great atmosphere in this, and I like the structure of the game. It's always satisfying in games to slowly get more tools that let you make more and more progress - it gives the player lots of little wins. The mysterious shopkeeper serving to give you upgrades in between runs gave the game a great character. Nice job with the random generation also, it feels very natural. I did find the game a bit repetitive, and I lost interest after a while. That's obviously natural for this type of game, but even when I got new upgrades and made it deeper, I never felt like the gameplay was evolving. The second floor was the same as the first, for example. You weave around the same types of walls and spikes over and over, and it doesn't get any harder or more interesting as you go. Some more excitement to the actual underwater gameplay, and some more variance in the level design, could help with this. It also didn't help that treasure is rare and doesn't give you a lot of money, so it takes forever to even be able to make it deeper. Overall, great work! There's the bones of a really addictive game here - it just needs some changes to keep the player engaged and wanting to play more. |
| Apr 19 05:34:01 | 57h 50m | The Dig | ♥ 1 | Great use of audio and dialogue to create an atmosphere. I like how it begins looking like a standard strategy game but becomes more sinister as you go deeper. It adds some tension and stakes to a type of game that often lacks those things. I found the gameplay pretty lacking though. There's no challenge or strategy at all, and there's not even any way to know where the treasures you're looking for are, so the gameplay just consists of clicking around randomly until the plot progresses. On top of that, the way the graphics worked as you dug was incredibly confusing. There were so many layers and weird tiles stacked on top of each other that I had no idea what I was looking at. As the player, I felt like I had no real way to engage with the game, and I wasn't getting clear visual feedback to know what I was doing anyway. It doesn't need to be hard or anything, but I think the game needs *some* depth to the gameplay. I haven't played the post-jam version, so it's possible you've addressed some of this already. I can see from the description that you added some strategy around buying workers which is great, but I think it's the digging itself which is most in need of improvement. Overall, I really do like the atmosphere and progression in this game. I just think it needs a revamp to add some substance to the gameplay, and some better visual clarity to inform that gameplay, so the player stays invested in finishing the story. |
| Apr 23 17:25:18 | 107h 51m | Cinderseed | ♥ 2 | This is a really cute little game - especially since it's already vertically oriented, I could see it working really well on mobile. I love the art style as well: it's a cool blend of 2D and 3D that looks stylish and clean, and there's a lot of character with the way the flower grows, the layers underground, and the silly things you use to water the plant. The music is super bluesy too! Gameplay-wise, I felt like something was missing here. There's not really a lot to do in the game. When you start it feels like it could either be a strategy game about managing your flower, or maybe a chaotic Overcooked-style experience, but it never really evolves into anything. It can get frantic when you're running out of time for sure (and I liked the sound & visuals that enhanced that feeling!), but the actual things I was doing were a little bland, and nothing changed as I got further. The game could also do better at giving the player information. The flower changes its mind on a whim, and there's no real pattern to how long it will stay on one item. This means you can't strategize, and the gameplay is all guesses. (This isn't necessarily bad - it could make for some fun risk-taking with some more engaging gameplay.) More importantly, it's not clear how much watering is required to reach the bottom - at a certain point the roots vanish off the bottom of the screen and you no longer have any sort of meter. I would make sure you can always see how far is left! Overall, this is a really charming game with a simple but promising gameplay loop. I think you just need to add a little more depth as the game progresses! That would make it a lot more replayable. |
| Apr 23 17:45:16 | 19m 58s | Abimes | ♥ 3 | This is such a beautiful game - kudos to all of the artists! The environment has a wonderful surreal look to it, and I love how it evolves as you go. Great use of colours to create moods as well. I also enjoyed the little touches that added to the aesthetic: for example, the school of fish that moves away as you approach, or the way the camera eases in and out to direct your attention. I do have a few suggestions to make this better. First, on the graphical side - normally I wouldn't mention this, but since this is a visuals-focused game, there should really be a fullscreen option on the web build. It was stuck in a small window and I couldn't fully immerse myself. I would also suggest running it in a higher resolution to show off the art. Even in that small window it looked pretty jagged to me. Gameplay-wise, I understand that this is essentially a walking simulator, where the mood and visuals are the real focus. However, I think some more thought-out gameplay elements could enhance that mood even more. For example, the movement right now is very stilted - you could think about creating some smoother movement that makes the player feel like they're swimming. I would also improve the navigation. The art is gorgeous, but it's often hard to tell what's a wall and what's not, or where to go next. You could use colours and light to better direct the player's attention to the path forward. In terms of new ideas, you could always add some light puzzle or exploration elements to keep the player engaged and immersed in the world. Overall, beautiful work! |
| Apr 23 18:09:53 | 24m 37s | Depthshift | ♥ 2 | Alright - I made it through a few levels but I had to stop because I was getting a headache... There's a lot I like here. The puzzle-chamber structure reminds me a lot of something like Portal. There are some pretty neat puzzles, but the best are those that use the focus mechanic which sets this game apart - for example, one early puzzle I liked was having to adjust your focus as you walked across a bridge to keep it solid. The visuals of the puzzle chambers are also pretty neat! The depth of field system, to me, made the game extremely frustrating to play. So much of the game involved just scrolling back and forth to see things, which isn't really a puzzle. Some puzzles didn't even use the focus mechanic, and those that did (like the laser bridge I mentioned earlier) don't typically use the visual aspect of it. This means the game world is impossible to see properly for little gameplay reason, and you end up struggling to even find anything to read or interact with. This was especially tedious because the amount of world you can have in focus is extremely small (this can even make the non-visual gameplay annoying to line up). It just feels like busywork rather than puzzling. On top of the gameplay frustration from the blurriness, it's also just exhausting on the eyes trying to focus on a tiny sliver of world which is constantly scrolling back and forth. Solving puzzles is hard enough without a headache! Overall - I think you guys have some real potential with your puzzle designs. There was some clever stuff going on! The depth-of-field mechanic just needs to be re-designed with a focus on player experience, gameplay, and clarity. The blurriness aspect of it either needs to be toned down or removed entirely, to be honest (most of your puzzles would work just as well if the DOF was just a box on the ground). With the visual aspect improved, players could propely focus on your puzzles! |
| Apr 25 22:13:40 | 52h 03m | The Amberstone | ♥ 1 | It's always fun to see a 3D platformer in a game jam, and I liked that you really experimented with the format! It took me a minute to fully understand the gameplay loop, but once I got it, I found it really neat. You scout ahead to find the platforms and traps first, then when you're confident, you can take your totem to the next altar. I liked the ambience a lot too, and the exploration/multiple endings aspect was interesting. I found the platforming itself a little frustrating. Even with a torch, you can barely see the next platform, let alone traps. Sometimes when there's a bigger drop, you can't see where you're going at all. The game is also pretty unforgiving - one single fall or trap kills you instantly, and it can feel cheap when you couldn't even see it coming. In general I felt like I was dying a lot not because of tricky level design, but because the game was working against me. There are also a few technical things you might want to iron out. Picking up and throwing objects is in general a little janky - the game is third person, so it's not clear where you have to click to pick things up, and the physics of throwing and holding things seem a little temperamental. Respawning also seems to be glitched - sometimes it will kill me several times in quick succession when I respawn, or do some weird stuff with held items. Also, when you die for real and restart the game, you seem to no longer be able to pick up items? I had to reopen the game every time which was kind of annoying. Overall, really unique take on this genre! |
| Apr 25 23:43:50 | 1h 30m | Game and Physics: Water Cat | ♥ 1 | This is a really well-constructed game! The mechanics are simple but creative, and there were some pretty cool little puzzles. I also like that after you solve the puzzles, the focus on speedrunning adds another layer to replays. It's like two games in one. Love the fake retro console too :) I thought some of the puzzles were a little basic, even near the end. It makes sense that they shouldn't be too time-consuming, in order to facilitate speedrunning, but I never felt like there were "clever" solutions to any of them - I kind of just threw things onto each button as I needed them, and everything worked out. I don't think you necessarily need any new mechanics to make them more interesting - just try to think of out-of-the-box ways the player could interact with the game systems. It's definitely tricky to design puzzles that are both interesting to solve and able to be done fast, but I'm sure you can do it! (To help with that, I would suggest increasing the speed of changing water levels/floating objects. It's sluggish right now and gets in the way of the speedrunning.) In general though, this is a really concise package that does a great job at integrating multiple styles of play - that's not too common in jam games, which tend to be one-trick ponies. Nice work! |