Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → The Last Rewinder

The Last Rewinder

By dan-whiffing

🤖 AI-Assisted

Percentile
CategoryRankScoreCountLD60Ever
Overall20
Fun20
Innovation20
Theme20
Graphics20
Audio20
Mood20

Comments

orgonedonor 2026-10-19 21:09 ♥ 1

I thought this was really cute : )

cal-clarke 2026-10-20 15:37 ♥ 1

I really like the idea of this one. Controls and visuals are unique, but both give charm. The gameplay got a little bit "samey" after a while, but I still enjoyed it. Nice one!

kredit 2026-10-20 15:42 ♥ 1

I really enjoyed this game. The mechanics are so good and the graphics are awesome. Good work

kwetka 2026-10-20 15:46 ♥ 1

It’s an interesting game, but day 3 and beyond were too difficult. Especially considering the controls

emaigualmc2-art 2026-10-20 15:57 ♥ 1

It was quite difficult to play without a tutorial or knowing the keyboard shortcuts, but once I figured it out, I found it really fun. It’s true that it gets repetitive after a while, but the mechanics could still be developed further. Great job! I really liked the 80s/90s vibe and atmosphere; it felt just like being in a real Blockbuster jaja!

danwhiffing 2026-10-20 16:14 ♥ 0

@kwetka Thanks for playing! Sorry to hear it was too hard. What about the controls made it difficult? You navigate between areas with wasd and q/e, then use your mouse for everything else. Think of it like a dungeon crawler, but a blockbuster crawler :D Is there something specific that made it challenging?

I could've gone with conventional fps controls, but felt node based made sense given the tight space and the need to move between shelves and back to the computer quickly. With a bit of practice, you can really zoom around.

danwhiffing 2026-10-20 16:20 ♥ 1

@emaigualmc2-art Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed what you played! I knew it would get repetitive, but wanted to see if I could make something that is basically a chore fun for a little while. I think you're right that a few more mechanics could go a long way.

I had hotkeys on the itch page, but added them here too based on your feedback.

Thanks for the kind words about the atmosphere, I admit I spent too much time there instead of playtesting and iterating because I was having too much fun :)

kwetka 2026-10-20 16:46 ♥ 1

@danwhiffing The controls and high volume of orders really affected the impression. Other than that, I like this game

danwhiffing 2026-10-20 16:48 ♥ 0

@kwetka I appreciate that! I was just hoping you could elaborate on your issue with the controls :)

disvent 2026-10-20 18:07 ♥ 1

I think it's such a cool prototype! I'm really bad at remembering where movies are placed, and I haven't watched 90% of them. So for me, the game was pretty hard.

At first, walking with WASD didn't work, but somehow it started working after a while.

I really love the visuals and atmosphere, and the first light jumpscare made me scream like a girl XD

It took me some time to understand how to play. At first, I didn't even understand what the game wanted from me and why I could dismiss everything. After I figured out how to walk around, trying to find movies by their names was still so hard.

By the end, I started moving around really fast and could recognize every movie just by its name in the game (without even hovering over it with my mouse).

I'm working on a long-term project with somewhat similar mechanics, and this game gave me so many ideas. Thank you!

danwhiffing 2026-10-20 18:20 ♥ 0

@disvent Thank you! None of them are meant to be real movie names, just puns based on actual movies. You're meant to guess the genre of movies based on the title early on to help you narrow them down, and they start alphabetical to give you a bit more help, but its the same movies in the same order every run so you get familiar with those titles and their location.

Seems a lot of people are confused by the controls, but these are standard dungeon crawler controls to me. I think the game would play worse with FPS controls, and its just confusing for people at first unfortunately.

The dismissing was a last minute addition in case you got stumped and were just unable to locate a movie due to blind spots or confusion. I didn't want you to be stuck with no orders and nothing to do. I should probably have not shown the dismiss button until the order was halfway expired so it didn't confuse new players.

I'm really glad to hear you persisted and had my intended experience, which is to get familiar with the store and get into a flow state :) Thank you for playing!

empeurman 2026-10-20 18:54 ♥ 1

The mood is good with the rain, graphics and music are working together well.

Maybe i didn't try far enough but 5 slots seems to much and makes the game easier. Apart from that as a non QWERTY keyboard user, it's hard to play due to no key change. When completing a mission, the mission moves one up, i didn't see it at first and didn't understand. I didn't find any bug.

Good job overall !

danwhiffing 2026-10-20 18:58 ♥ 1

@empeurman Thank you for playing! Good feedback on the fixed controls, should've had an alternate scheme. Appreciate the kind words

aidnamode 2026-10-20 20:32 ♥ 1

I really really liked this! I think it was just the right balance of atmosphere, busywork, and challenge. I actually started to get pretty freaked out by the third level - the atmosphere started getting to me and i was scared something was gonna jump out hahah. I think that's a good sign though, and I found the gameplay really fun and intuitive. Really impressive for a jam entry, congrats :) (also loved all the movie names)

ya7on 2026-10-20 20:41 ♥ 1

A cool simulator where you run a video rental store. It was really interesting to dive deep into the "lore" of this world's cinema. But I found this game quite challenging. It could really use a reference guide or something. Also putting returned items back on the shelves without losing orders is pretty difficult But at some point around day 10 I realized that I don’t actually have to fulfill every single order; I can just spend an entire day or two doing an inventory check instead.

vinnnie 2026-10-21 07:42 ♥ 1

Really fun game. Nice increase in difficulty when they start asking for specific actors and suggestions.

alexandru-barbanoua 2026-10-21 07:51 ♥ 2

I really liked your cassette store game! It has this strange, slightly depressing but nostalgic atmosphere. It reminds me of that contrast the 80s and 90s had, everything seemed so bright and colorful, but at the same time there was something dark and lonely underneath. I really like that kind of vibe.

The gameplay was nice too! At first I was a bit lost and didn't really understand what to do, but once I figured it out, I got into the rhythm of handing out cassettes and working at the store. Funny enough, it felt more like working at a library than a cassette shop, haha.

Overall, I had a good time playing it. Really liked the atmosphere you managed to create!

woona 2026-10-21 11:41 ♥ 1

I played for 5 days but didn't get enough money to fulfill the quota.

I like how the game looks and sounds. Many movie titles are hilarious.

To be honest, I found the game stressful and overwhelming. There are just too many simultaneous tasks going on. Also, it requires you to focus and it's difficult to read with so many post processing effects going on.

danwhiffing 2026-10-21 12:09 ♥ 0

@woona thanks for the feedback! I added the "space to zoom" feature hoping it would be enough if people were struggling to read, but it's a fair point that the post processing is going to be too much for some and I should've had a toggle. Thank you for playing!

danwhiffing 2026-10-21 12:14 ♥ 1

@alexandru-barbanoua thank you for the kind words! I spent most of the time on the atmosphere as it was where I was having the most fun, I'm glad to hear I was somewhat successful 😊

Yes, based on the feedback I suspect some kind of tutorial wouldve been helpful but I've always preferred letting people figure things out themselves. Happy that it worked out in your case.

I really enjoyed yours as well, I'll have to come back to it and try to solve it once more!

nursultan 2026-10-21 15:31 ♥ 1

Such a cozy and nostalgic experience! Running the last VHS rental store, deciphering customer clues to hunt down tapes on the shelves, and frantically rewinding them to make rent is such a brilliant take on the Old Tech theme. The management loop feels super engaging and satisfying! Left my ratings! If you have a minute later to check out more jam projects, we’d love if you took a look at our game Meow Bomb as well. Best of luck with the jam

sparklingsushi 2026-10-21 16:30 ♥ 1

Damn, didnt order the CHIPS! Reaally cool entry, mood and the whole idea with VHS rental, love it. Thanks for this entry!

tosmaster 2026-10-23 16:42 ♥ 1

What a cool and atmospheric game! Love it! The movement reminded me of Inscryption. Was this an inspiration?

Also I love how the game is like "you cannot leave". What a metaphor for being literally stuck at work hahahaha.

One little critique I have are the movie titles themselves. It kinda requires real world knowledge of where to look. With movies like "Die Hardware" I could infer that it's an action flick because I understood the reference. Maybe add a "non-cinephile" option that helps me find the movie on the shelves? I missed a lot of orders because I spent a lot of time searching. :(

Also it's a bit punishing to drop the order when trying to submit a non-rewinded tape. On day 2 someone ordered a tape from Day1 and I was like "ok gonna grab it from the return shelf and send it away" but I guess that customer refused the order outright because it was not rewinded. Meanie. :(

mohidthedev 2026-10-23 17:57 ♥ 1

Love the atmosphere and the movie references!

jordantanner 2026-10-23 18:40 ♥ 1

Pulling on the nostalgaic heartstrings of us 90s kids, for sure. Funny references to retro movies, and the aesthetic and mood on this one was actually quite dark and spooky which was fun. Took me a second to realize I could rotate, but that's my fault for not reading instructions. Perhaps include the controls on-screen too? Overall solid entry, nice work!!

mcinnamoon 2026-10-24 20:00 ♥ 0

The concept here is very cool - I really liked the idea of managing a VHS rental shop, and the core mechanic is quite interesting. The horror vibes are just not really my thing, but the main hitch for me was the controls. I really wanted more freedom in movement so I could run around like crazy to grab the video cassettes and keep up with all the orders. A minimal starting tutorial would also help a lot just to get used to the layout. Either way, it is a very unique project. Thanks for the game!

shanzpro 2026-10-25 04:42 ♥ 0

I did a video store-related game as well! I liked this a lot but I just couldn't get past the movement. I know that is part of what makes it unique but using keys to turn started to drive me crazy! Loved the movie references.

danwhiffing 2026-10-25 15:03 ♥ 0

@shanzpro thanks for playing! I'm surprised this crowd is so put off by dungeon crawler controls. Oh well. I'll be sure to check yours out!!

sergueille-bismuth 2026-10-25 17:55 ♥ 0

The gameplay is very good. I'm impressed by the number of mechanics that are in the game! There is enough different things to do to keep the gameplay varied for many days. I liked the way the game let me on my own for how to handle returns (that is, leaving a giant pile of tapes of the returns shelf), how to organize the tapes in the store, etc. I appreciated the movement because it is confusing at the beginning, but there is much room for improvement, and after a few days I was able to move in the store with ease, so it felt great. The way the game asks you the guess the movie genre from the title is also very fun.

I have three major complaints: - the cursor is transparent black, so it is really hard to see, even on the computer - the duration of order are well calibrated at the start, but then they are quickly ridiculously fast - the game should ask more money at the beginning. When I played, for the 20 first days I won much money than necessary, but now it's day 25, orders are so fast that I practically doesn't make any money, but the game won't tell me that I lost before one more week because I have $600 left

The game is addictive, I would definitely come back to play again later.

sergueille-bismuth 2026-10-25 17:55 ♥ 0

The site duplicated my comment, sorry

glaze-96 2026-10-27 06:05 ♥ 0

The mood was pretty nice!

Loved the concept and well executed :D