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Winnerman Scams a Game Show
Winnerman Scams a Game Show
By 100th-coin
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 24 | 4.06 | 43 | |
| Fun | 43 | 3.80 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 3 | 4.45 | 43 | |
| Theme | 255 | 2.75 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 71 | 3.86 | 43 | |
| Audio | 10 | 4.19 | 43 | |
| Humor | 5 | 4.42 | 43 | |
| Mood | 34 | 3.97 | 43 | |
Comments
Hey, I'm a big winner!
Right off the bat, this seems like a *bear* to program. Not only is it a big rewindable timeline with all your inputs, but it works for several completely different minigames. Extremely creative and ambitious premise and you managed to stick the landing. I can tell you had to scope back some of the graphics/audio in other parts, but sometimes that's necessary when you decide to program time travel in 48 hours.
For some reason I assumed that only the 7s counted as winning the slot machine, and when the last roller showed only cherries, I was convinced it would have one 7 somewhere and just needed to roll for 30 seconds or something. My fault, not the game's, I just don't know how slot machines work apparently!
As always, humor is great. I particularly liked the whole "To be clear, I'm explicitly asking you to cheat" bit. And the wacky design of the medically unfortunate game show host was great.
After careful review, I've decided to award you this **Most Unshootable Duck** award. Congratulations!
most_unshootable_duck.png
Wow I LOVED this game. It seems like hell to code this and its such a fun mechanic. Overall great game!
chomby
2026-04-20 18:16
I enjoyed playing, I like the visuals. I think the presentation of time travel was intuitive.
I think the long slot machine puzzle could be improved by letting players shift the contents of cells up and down.
msipp27
2026-04-20 18:35
the subtitles bug out easily...also is it me or is the duck impossible even with the time travel?
This was a lot of fun! The timeline shenanigans were really appealing, and the personality of the characters really shined through. I do think the gameplay was more... interesting than exactly "fun", and the overall presentation, while maintaining your signature charm, was notably weaker technically than your recent entries. This all sounds kinda harsh I suppose, but I did still have a great time with it, the tradeoffs are just more noticeable than I'm used to with your games. Here's my full playthrough!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUJVEjR1zvs
I also present you with the **Duality of Cherries** award! Keep them in mind during your next gambling escapades.
duality-of-cherries.png
Went for the TAS, it wasn't 100% frame perfect due to the last segment taking away my tools (how dare you!!) but I'm happy with it anyway :) bb.png
Anyway, this was super awesome! I really loved all the writing & voice acting here - especially the internal monologues, complete with an anime artstyle shift! - and obviously the entire concept of time traveling to rig a gameshow was amazing! At first a frame-by-frame timeline felt like overkill, but once the gambling part came along I realized its true purpose :) I'll admit that I never even tried aiming at the duck, going for the host's head from the beginning. Anyway, that was super fun, especially the boss fight (although it took me way too long to figure out what to do)!
I'm a bit confused about the basketball segment, I couldn't find a way to do anything yet always won anyway? Maybe it's on purpose for the throw pun, but still a bit confusing. Other than that though, awesome concept, awesome characters, awesome minigames - just really good time all around!
It amazes me how you've came up with a very innovative concept that's tricky to implement, yet managed to program it without any major bugs. The voice acting is just the cherry on top. My one critique is that the novelty lessens pretty quickly: just time and try again for each game (although the final battle does mix things up a bit). By the way, congratulations on helping to find arbitrary code execution in Super Mario Bros!
kanity
2026-04-20 21:31
The description is so funny, love how it's written! xD
The game itself is funny too. And the voice acting is so good!! The music is fun too ^^
It felt confusing though with the time-travel, so to say. With the frames and time moving. I did google the element for example, but finding the time to actually resubmit my answer was confusing, and I couldn't type while pausing ofc, and then the big lottery machine came and just gave me two lemons and when I scrolled back I just got them again and then again... even though I wasn't pushing the button. I don't think I am cut out to be Winnerman xD
Makes me curious though how would it be to go AGAINST this Winnerman :)
This was so much fun and had loads of personality. Especially loved the acapella theme song and voice acting. Way to play to your strengths! I very much enjoyed the math-based frame timing and the end boss messing with the timeline himself, plus the ending cracked me up. My only complaint is that it doesn't feel like "Signal" was really the inspiration here. But considering how great the game is, it's hard to worry too much about that. Great job!
The time travel is a nice mechanic! I used it to cheat on FTL :D by restoring my save points in it. Good job on that. Audio as always - top notch and quirky visuals as your trademark : ))
I wish just that the timetravelling was less cumbersome but.. it's just complicated in nature maybe..
torcado
2026-04-21 22:23
oh man this is so good. incredibly funny, well voice acted, and really interesting concept! I feel like there's so many fun ways to take this idea, and what you ended up with is great. The live reaction quips got me several times.
here's my tas time, i think it can still be improved because of the ending :)
tas.png
drainkid
2026-04-22 03:25
Screenshot 2026-04-21 202536.png
faketrap
2026-04-22 06:07
ABSOLUTE CINEMA! The game was a lot of fun, and the gameplay is really unique and interesting. It's definitely the best game at the jam!
gecko64
2026-04-22 06:21
I really like the frame time trial and realised way too late on the turbo gamblinator that i could just go frame by frame and pick when to click not just go back to before clicking. Pretty fun short game!
Like many others, and like I have before, I'm wondering how the hell you pulled this one off...
xeltide
2026-04-22 06:31
This was extremely clever and enjoyable. Congrats on a successful jam!
It's a really cool idea. It's almost as if the Signal theme is a bit far-fetched. But the execution is still fantastic. It has a Newgrounds vibe, which really stands out from other games these days.
catanus
2026-04-22 09:41
Very creative and fun! I really enjoyed the game.
alaah
2026-04-22 18:08
https://youtu.be/rKi3VJICor4
TAS-as-a-Game is a great and thought-provoking concept but I'm not sure it was utilized to its full potential:
* in the basketball game, it made very little difference compared to the typical restart-from-savepoint trope * in the gamblinator, it was just tedious * in the duck game, it was a red herring * in the bossfight, it was locked
I think the most fun to be had with TAS-ing is from programming impossible movement and breaking the game, but that's not possible in a set of minigames with only mouse as the input. But of course, this is a compo proof-of-concept, and it accomplished what it had set to accomplish. The presentation is top notch as always, and I love how the acapella theme was moved from its usual main menu spot into my inner thoughts. A bit of a bummer the game has absolutely nothing to do with the theme.
tolviere
2026-04-22 18:44
I would love to play this, it sounds incredible, but I don't have Windows unfortunately. I don't know how difficult it is to do with Unity, but a web build would be much appreciated, and would get a lot more people to play it!
Edit: I got it working and I loved it! It must've been crazy to make this in such a short amount of time. Extremely creative, and I appreciated the hints!
alaah
2026-04-22 18:51
@tolviere It's 2026. Wine works out-of-the-bottle, especially with jam games.
tolviere
2026-04-22 19:01
@alaah For some reason I couldn't get Wine to work, but I got it working using Steam's proton. That's my bad haha, I'm not too good with Linux.
Loved it, the inputs were a bit confusing but the theming and vibe was so on point as usual that it was great just seeing how things escalated. Especially love Winnerman's image of himself, and the music of his mind. I also really enjoyed the ending, weirdly? I could've played a whole game of that. Totally different atmosphere, actually really cool. Excellent work.
That was such a cool concept executed with a level of creativity that continued to surprise me. Had a wonderful time. I'd love a longer version of this game with some precision-based puzzles to compliment the more "subversive" puzzles you've already got.
Writing was so funny that it made me want to hear all of Winnerman's Live Reactions, even after I'd already solved each section. Clicking on his face during Chet Quizzly's dialog resulted in some pretty awkward audio and subtitle overlap, but it was pretty easy to work around that. I love the way his internal monologue's hair flows.
Another fantastic compo entry! Now, if you don't mind me, I'm going to go enjoy my prize.
boyaredose.jpg
avhatar
2026-04-23 08:45
"cats dog cats dogs cats dogs bat bat bat..." what did you do to me, man :-D But honestly, this is a masterpiece — both the concept itself and your a cappella. Made my morning before work.
Gigachet as he was, no 36-year-old can stand against a time-traveling wizard and a 29-year-old, it's just science, he had no chance against my genius logic (after 13 hints from Winnerman).
Hilarious game, I recorded a video of me giggling at everything: https://youtu.be/ZyXwSKUQdXk
After rethinking it, I think I ruined my frame perfect run a lot by not immediately shooting the hand at the end. BUT STILL, as long as I call it a WR, it is, that's how it works, that's what I learned from Winnerman.
I gave most of my thoughts in the video already, but after rethinking it, another thing that impresses me is how well you interleaved the humor and the gameplay here. Especially the final part of the show, shooting the duck, you have the funny duck whizzing around, PLUS you also have it being a puzzle where you are actually supposed to shoot, so it's perfectly balanced both funny and challenging. Genius game design there, I like that a lot.
badpiggy
2026-04-23 19:34
Screenshot 2026-04-24 003401.png
Extremely innovative game. No idea how the heck you even made this, but it's honestly interesting as all hell with how it works.
Presentation wise this was immaculate. The visuals were charming as all hell and that voice acting was top notch. No complaints whatsoever in this regard
That said, I thought the actual minigames became fairly tedious after a while. The duck one was definitely interesting but the gambling machines got kinda annoying. The final boss was cool in that you didn't have access to the main mechanics, but part of me was also a little sad that it didn't build upon those mechanics if that makes sense. Still a solid final battle though
Good stuff here all things considered.
hulien22
2026-04-24 06:09
Amazing game, the music and voice acting are absolutely phenomenal!! Also really loved Winnerman's flowing hair animation
Had to go back and try to see how fast I could beat the game, 15 seconds seems pretty good :)
Screenshot 2026-04-23 230447.png
Such a creative way manipulating the game's play-through frame by frame. There were several occasions where I was like, this cannot be done within the time window given, but hey of course it could. I should have re-read the controls a bit though because I forgot about the A/D stepping frame by frame until very late in the game. I'm wondering if there was a way to give the player a friendly reminder to actually step frame by frame, though it wasn't really needed either.
The first couple of challenges were all solvable with the same solution:
!> Pause, click back a bit, place cursor. !> Well except for googling. I did love that voice-line there!
But then the game does switch it up quite a bit
!> and the shooting game's solution was something completely different that hadn't been hinted before. !> Even with the voice-line hint I thought it was about shooting the duck when the host wasn't looking.
So I'm wondering, for a bit more smooth game experience, if there could have been one mini-game earlier that did build up to that solution a little. Not sure exactly what it could have been though.
Even if
!> the boss-fight also required new lateral thinking, I didn't at all get as stuck there !> probably because the gun-challenge had primed me for it.
Over all, a splendid game-jam game! I had a lot of fun playing it
And for maximum feedbackiness: https://youtu.be/B3zAEm7g-7s
trexxak
2026-04-24 22:11
Winnerman may be European, leave him alone ;_;
In all seriousness, the mechanic of having to modify a preloaded timeline is very interesting, and I wonder what else could be done with this! Something like a point and click with subliminal messages (or just hints) hiding in still frames! Genuinely awesome concept! I have to admit my knowledge of tool-assisted-speedruns is incredibly limited, but even in that regard I now feel educated - "imagine starting up a game and hand-editing each input for every frame". Very educational! Very funny too! Just before the boss at the end, I think you performed your most convincing cartoon-villain-voice yet! Chet generally feels like exactly the right flavour of annoying for this game :D
tomssuli
2026-04-25 16:46
Nice one!
This was a clever puzzle with mechanics I had never seen before anywhere! As always, voice over was top notch. I liked the humour and the boss fight was good break of pace to the already defined mechanics. Hand drawn graphics are always bringing character to games and yours already have established a trademark style that says "made by 100th coin"
I didn't realize first that I could remove clicks and it took looking at keycommands and some forwarding and backwarding to understand what I was doing wrong when things just happened when I tried to replay timeline... But after that it was pure joy :)
Good job!
I wonder if TAS is really as fun as your game makes it seem to be. Kinda wanna try doing it with my NES games (I've found that someone already did it to some of them 😅)
Captura de tela 2026-04-25 194330.png
PS: I loved Chat Quizzly, gives "Bill Cypher" vibes :)
vidarn
2026-04-27 16:29
This is so good! The concept is brilliant and so much fun to play around with. It felt great having the power to edit the timeline and get all the tasks perfect.
But it's so much more than just a nice game mechanic, it's the whole package. A compelling world with fun characters, nice voice acting; a quirky, engaging story with twists and surprises. Really amazing work. Your experience shows, being able to make a game this complex look effortless to pull off.
Loved all the little details and polish, like Winnerman's hair waving and the awesome pause menu music.
I made a little piece of fan art of Winnerman :)
winnerman_fan_art
Edit: Hmmm. Image upload seems broken for me :( Here's a [link instead](https://www.vidarnel.se/images/ld59/winnerman.png)
jimbly
2026-04-27 21:41
That was fun! Even in the post-jam build I was completely unable to figure out how to finish the game until I watched a video earlier in the comments... and even then I had to frame-step through it to see what happened :joy:. I think shooting the hand was the first thing I tried, but, of course, it was blocked by the eyeball, so I thought I needed to get behind the eyeball, or make it dizzy by flying around it 5 times, or other things I tried to no avail :laughing:. Voice acting was great as always! Really interesting execution, and very smooth UI for such a seemingly complex set of inputs =).
thyoi
2026-04-28 09:31
Gaaaa, this game is absolutely hilarious!! I was completely in the flow, laughing out loud at every single joke.
(Especially this part — when I filled in all the squares with crowns, only to find that the last square had just a cherry pattern.) (I laughed for ages. And that wildly moving target was super funny too!)
Illustration3.jpg
jpat
2026-05-03 15:42
Absolutely had a blast. A frame-by-frame timeline mechanic that cleanly slots into multiple totally different minigames? In 48 hours?? Insane.
I laughed so hard. Chet Quizzly is exactly the right amount of insufferable. The acapella theme moving into Winnerman's inner monologue (with the anime art shift!!) was perfect. This feels so polished. Loved every minute. Thanks!
Cool that you turned TAS into a game! Always wanted to try to make a TAS, so glad to have a first experience at that. Who knew cheating could be this much fun! It's nice that you have the many shortcuts to properly navigate the TAS tool. My only problem is that I feel like there is a wasted potential with the type of games. The basketball was the most fun, and I wish there was more of that. For the slot machine I was going for 7s, only to find out the last one only has cherry, and requiring me to do it all over. That wasn't exactly enjoyable. But I get that with compo time it's difficult to make the more difficult mechanics. Overall a nice game, and great design on Chet Quizzly!
Fantastic technical achievment and a pretty fun entry, too! Laughed at loud at Winnerman's expressions and general attitude. Seeing your dynamic music return was fun and helps convey what 'state' the game is in. Many of the technical and 'flow' aspects I would bring up have been mentioned by other commenters, so I won't go over them again, but I will say the final cherry bit was a great 'comedy through design' moment.
Also, just general props again for the technical aspect here. You implemented an entire keyboard interface, physics basketball (even if it didn't seem to matter if it went thru the hoops), slot-machine, shoot-the-target, on top of all the interstitial animations, and it all feels pretty effortless. AND, they all work with the frame manipulation system. Just, amazing work.