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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Matt Giuca's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 20 04:13:32 | ESCAPE_OS | ♥ 2 | Very hard! I think before looking at balance, look at the controls because it's pretty tricky to a) be cycling through four commands (constantly having to look at which one is selected) and b) press E every time I want to issue a command. Ideally there would just be four keys, maybe 1, 2, 3, 4 which instantly issue an order to the mouse cursor when pressed. I like the airlock feature but I couldn't ever get aliens to be sucked out. It's way too hard to identify individual crew for SHV - they probably should be more distinctive. Lastly please add a fullscreen button - it was very hard to play this in a small box in a web browser. | |
| Apr 20 04:31:46 | 18m 14s | Signal Desk | ♥ 1 | Really polished Papers-Please-like. I like the mood, the tactile controls (especially how the camera jumps between different views but you can still see everything in the periphery). For me the actual gameplay was a little confusing and repetitive. I was never really sure what I was supposed to do with the ones that neither said to accept or reject, and the summaries at the end weren't really clear about what things I did were "good" and which were "bad" (like missing bad info, is that good or bad?). The complexity never really appeared so I was just accepting and rejecting based on names. At one point it said to reject a certain frequency which made me go "aha I can see how this is going to grow in complexity and become a challenge to keep all the rules in mind", but that frequency didn't come up, and there were no further rules other than names. So I'm a bit mixed on it. Awesome job on the presentation though, I love it. |
| Apr 20 06:54:22 | 2h 22m | Notgate | ♥ 0 | Man I am not good at Sokoban games but this is a neat little twist on the formula, having to get something close but not exactly knowing where the "correct" place it should go. I got stuck on the same level as @roroto-sic. The one frustration I had is I couldn't find any Restart Level so when I completely messed up I had to spend a long time undoing all my actions. |
| Apr 20 12:36:01 | 5h 41m | Cosmic Relay | ♥ 1 | This is a super fun plate-spinning game! Really creative to have a basic "shape sorter" game interrupted by constantly having to switch screens and do mini-games, and I feel like the balance was just right. It was confusing at the start (I didn't realize why there was an X and I couldn't use it, not having internalized the screen switching controls). I also found the input prompts quite hard to read, which might be a limitation of the Pico (not sure if those input prompts are the "official" Pico buttons) but in particular the arrow keys were really hard to map in my head and could use an extra pixels to properly define the arrow shape. In terms of the overall gameplay I think the biggest weakness is the lose condition or lack thereof. From what I can tell there are basically two ways the day can end: either the message queue fills up, or the timer runs out. Neither of these are "lose" conditions as you go on to the next day all the same, and the only consequence for filling up the message queue is opportunity cost to increase your score. I personally find "score" isn't as motivating as "you might lose the game" so I would rather that filling the message queue is an actual loss condition, so a bit like Tetris, in the harder levels I am fighting to stay above water and not be filled all the way to the top. And then I would say that the countdown timer is kind of too similar to the message queue filling up (they are just two different ways to require me to move fast), so I would replace the countdown timer with a message quota that fills up: once the quota fills up, I win. That way there is a clear win condition (send X messages) and a clear loss condition (have Y messages in the queue) and I can have the satisfaction of *just* filling my quota before the queue fills up. I say the above as constructive criticism because I really enjoyed the overall concept and rated it very highly. Good luck! |
| Apr 20 12:55:02 | 19m 01s | Through the Dark Forest | ♥ 1 | Nice idea. I do think the balance is off: I managed to win easily, then on a second playthrough I wanted to see the "bad" ending so I signalled every star and still won, and finally got the bad ending on my third playthrough by deliberately skipping all the neutral stars. I think it's harder to lose this game than to win it, which is kind of a shame because I think there's thematic value in seeing the bad ending. I'm also not sure what the harm is in skipping a star - presumably there's a "bland" ending if you didn't signal enough. |
| Apr 20 12:57:27 | 2m 25s | Earth Assimilation Readiness Protocol | ♥ 2 | Yeah sadly I am stuck loading the web version at 0%. The Itch link goes to your edit page, not the public-facing game page. Reply here if it's fixed because I'm up for trying a janky overly-ambitious prototype! |
| Apr 20 13:05:59 | 8m 32s | Signal Run | ♥ 1 | The lack of reset without reloading the game is painful on a game where you die in the first two seconds. I was unable to figure out the timing to jump over the first obstacle. |
| Apr 20 13:17:29 | 11m 30s | The Lineman | ♥ 1 | I like the simple story, it's clear a lot of work went into this. I had a lot of trouble with the actual signal UI. Firstly I was very confused about up and down ... am I right that the main switch "up" is on and "down" is off? That's not how most power switches I am familiar with worked and I got stuck for a long time on that. Needs an LED to show "on" / "off" status. And also I couldn't figure out what the signal 1/2 buttons were for, especially on the first one. (I think those were just breakers right, not needed in the first puzzle?) |
| Apr 20 13:31:36 | 14m 07s | Telepathy, Rhythms & Fingers | ♥ 1 | Great idea. PICK A FINGER. I liked "reverse engineering" a drum machine. In terms of UI, one request would be that clicking a slot would play the sound that that slot makes, so I don't need to actually put something in the slot and play the whole sequence just to learn what sound that slot makes. Other than that I thought the moment-to-moment was pretty fun, but it dragged on too long (there wasn't enough variation to support 10 rounds - maybe could have limited to one hand each). And when I finally got all 10 fingers, there was no ending? It just said "Take this" and there was no tape and nothing to grab and so I just had to quit. |
| Apr 21 02:57:33 | 13h 25m | Misplaced | ♥ 0 | I like the concept of only being able to see the ground when you jump (or something like that), but it was kind of undercut by the fact that I'm always jumping and I could basically see everything at all times. Near the start there was a pit of spikes in partial darkness, indicating there might be more puzzles where you have to use the signal mechanic to probe your environment before moving, but there wasn't really anything else like that. So it ended up being a fairly straightforward (if difficult) platformer. The hardest part (the second set of windmills) would drop you down right onto an old checkpoint, so you couldn't easily retry, you had to climb all the way up again. I would have liked to see more exploration of the cool vision mechanic, perhaps if it was based on a limited resource rather than simply jumping. |
| Apr 21 03:05:38 | 8m 05s | Blacksmith's Apprentice | ♥ 2 | Cute idea. I was a bit confused about whether I was supposed to follow his instructions or just do my own thing (turns out it was the latter). That could have been made clearer with better visual AND auditory feedback when my strikes are working, rather than waiting for the percentage at the end to understand if I was doing it right or not. (I guess it's got particles that show that, but it wasn't that clear to me.) |
| Apr 21 03:17:17 | 11m 39s | LoS: Linked | ♥ 1 | Great concept, I think this could have been a really interesting one, but as others have said the controls were too unwieldy. Aside from the control on the craft itself (why is it unnecessarily wide and asymmetrical?) I could not figure out how to place a single relay. I eventually managed to pick up a cube but I was pressing Space and Z and nothing happened. Near rocks, away from rocks. I couldn't figure it out. |
| Apr 21 06:13:17 | 2h 56m | Warning From Deep Space | ♥ 2 | Cool, I like how it's pretty chill but slowly terrifying as you uncover the message and more black particles appear. The particles don't seem to hinder you really, maybe they could cause the message to change location so it is a bit of a setback and you therefore need to avoid them. |
| Apr 21 06:28:16 | 14m 59s | Sine Factory | ♥ 2 | Cool Zach-like about manipulating sine waves. It was cool to play with for awhile but multiple limitations compounded to make it feel extremely space-constrained / claustrophobic and the challenge was less about how to route signals and more about getting the layout perfect. The addition of the oscilloscope is cool but it's so space-constrained that it's hard to use. I got stuck on the "`sin(x) + 1`" level. I can't figure out what's going wrong and there isn't any room to route the signal to the scope so I can see if I'm wrong or if there's a bug. Here's what I've got: sine-factory.png (Basically `sin(x) + sin(x) / sin(x)`). - I wish you could rotate pieces. - I wish the board was a little bigger (or maybe infinite). It's weird that you can zoom in and out even though the board is so limited. - I wish you could connect an output right next to an input and it would connect without a wire. With all of those limitations stacking up, I have *just barely* enough room to connect everything up to the output gate, and there is no way I can route the output signal to the oscilloscope to inspect why it isn't working. |
| Apr 21 06:40:27 | 12m 11s | Astral Pilgrimage of Sound | ♥ 1 | Very cool one. You required me to do the thing I was hoping I would be (but ultimately wasn't) required to do in Outer Wilds - line up planets and listen to the signals stack up. What let it down for me was the movement, which while realistic, is too floaty and unresponsive for a game as I would constantly be drifting past where I wanted to be. Getting around is quite painful. I think one quick fix would be to have an (unrealistic, I know) "brake" key that would slow down the ship's velocity towards zero, so if I am about to get an alignment I can slow down. I managed to get one alignment and that was enough for me, but it was a cool moment. Thanks! |
| Apr 21 07:08:38 | 28m 11s | While You Were Here | ♥ 1 | Wonderful style and vibe. I like the simple puzzle mechanic of controlling the golem remotely and having to manipulate the box. The third level became an exercise in frustration for me (even after your hotfix), taking around 15 minutes as every little thing went wrong (it is so easy to get stuck in that level if anything goes in the wrong place. It's hard to get the box from the 2nd platform onto the golem, and the last facepalm was that I went to the exit and the golem was slightly out of range so I was stuck on the right side). Is there a reason why the signal has a limited range at all? If I could signal from anywhere that would remove one source of frustration. Anyway, a really classy entry. I'm glad I was able to finish it. |
| Apr 23 01:17:41 | 42h 09m | Dr. Cool Whale Against The Electronicles | ♥ 1 | This is super neat, very polished, and a good mechanic. I am always a fan when action games make you change your play based on the different enemies and think about who you're trying to attack. The TVs (low freq) have a lot of health, but it actually makes the upgrades more meaningful (even if the strategy doesn't change between runs): increasing low-freq damage is better because it helps you deal with the harder low-freq-absorbing enemies. |
| Apr 23 01:25:55 | 8m 14s | Phantom Hunt | ♥ 0 | Cool idea of a "turn based shooter" where you can think precisely through the moves, and undo is a great addition. It almost has a Superhot feel. I couldn't really figure out what the blue/red lines were for. The first level with that laser it went off when I killed all the ghosts, but I got stuck on this one: phantomhunt.png I figured you had to kill the ghost to block the laser with its grave, but it didn't block. |
| Apr 25 01:16:03 | 47h 50m | Midnight Transmission | ♥ 1 | Nice little adventure. I like the shady men in black catching you (would have been good if they moved around a bit or something, but as you said, you were time constrained). For now, it's at least good that they seem to spawn more over time so they end up being a bit of an obstacle near the end. The "triangulation" is a bit funny if you think about it - triangulation is normally required to determine a point in space given that you know its distance (but not angle) from three other points. In this case, you know the angle, but not the distance, and it's in 2D, which means you can find the point with just two scans. The third is just a confirmation (and helps narrow down the inaccuracy of the first two scans). But I did find myself getting a bit annoyed having to find a spot for the third scan, given I already knew roughly where it was from the intersection of the first two. Perhaps only require two scans, but reduce the tolerance for the angle (so I am required to be quite accurate on the first two scans). And also build in a middle colour which is "close but not good enough to lock in". |
| Apr 25 01:32:28 | 16m 25s | Echo | ♥ 2 | Really cool idea and very polished. I like the slow introducing of new mechanics like echo towers. (I didn't ever really figure out what the stain-glass windows actually do, but managed to get past them anyway.) I'm stuck on what some commenters say is the final level (the 5x5 grid) and it's a bit frustrating, I'm not sure if there's a trick to it or if you just fly around and keep hitting them until they're all orange, but I've tried for 5 minutes and ran out of patience! But a very well deserved high score overall. |
