ARCADE OVERFLOW by Remco 2017-12-09T07:22:26Z

Fantastic idea and really well executed as well. Like other, I found myself really concentrating and blocking out my surroundings for this one. The game felt really challenging, however I managed to beat the game with 0 game overs on my first try, so I wouldn't mind if it were a bit more challenging. Had there been a way to gain points that might incentivise more risky gameplay and make the game more satisfying; as it is right now you get punished for doing poorly and and nothing for doing well. Alternatively, show how fast you completed the game, so you feel incentivised to making moves instead of sitting and thinking for ages. Also, on the third (I think) level of Mazemac I found myself unable to progress as one of the ghosts had trapped me in the starting area with no way to go, which was fairly frustrating.

Really fun and creative game. The music is fantastic and makes me really feel like I'm listening to 3 games at once. Definitely one of my favourites so far.

Robox! by ted 2017-12-05T18:49:42Z

Great job on the visuals! Like all the others, I found myself wishing it had some sound to go with the aesthetics, but you can't always do everything.

As for the gameplay, I felt it took some time to really understand what was going on. Does it matter which side I drop the different coloured cubes in? Do I lose if I burn too many cubes? etc. but nothing that can't be figured out with a little trial and error. The core mechanics are solid and the physics and controls feel very nice (and it does work with a gamepad for the record).

Radioactive Rumble by weeping-rupee 2017-12-07T06:17:53Z

Very fun game. Took me a while to beat it on medium. A very solid take on the theme. The core mechanics are really good for the most part. The exception is those times you punch and it looks like your hand is just flying through your opponent. Apart from that it felt great. The dodging is really satisfying once you get the hang of it. One problem I have with the game is that it's too random. It feels like some matches your opponent is just standing there giving you a free victory and other times he just won't stop punching. Since you only have one opponent this might be good for making the game feel less monotonous, but it takes away the joy of victory when it's just randomly handed to you.

Post Morton by nanolotl 2017-12-19T23:07:53Z

What a lovely game. Took me about 40 minutes to beat (pretty sure 5 of those were trying to locate a single house). One of the most well-polished experiences I've had so far.

**What I liked:** * Upgrade system * Graphics * Sounds * Driving * Controller support * Thank you card :heart:

**What I didn't like:** * House numbers * Progression stopping about halfway through the game

I was initially somewhat confused about what to do. I got into the office, grabbed a letter and tried delivering it. After a bunch of trial and error I found the house I was supposed to deliver it to. Later on I figured out you could look up the addresses. Neat, but would have preferred to know that earlier. *Then* I found out you could stamp the letters. I feel like this wasn't communicated properly in the game, which caused me some early frustration. Once I did find out I found stamping the letters quite relaxing and going to each house and putting the letters in the mailbox felt quite satisfying, except for one detail, which brings us to our next point:

*The house numbers make no gosh darn friggidy sense.*

(sorry for harsh language)

Maybe I'm just ignorant as to how house numbers work, or maybe you live in a country with a weird numbering system, or maybe applying consistent house numbering is just really hard work - no matter the reason I can't put *into words* the amount of frustration I felt trying to navigate that labyrinthian set of houses all laid out just to taunt my brain and maximise my perplexion. I've never felt so absolutely deceived, fooled and positively enraged as I did during those long lost hours trekking through the vast expanse of the coloured neighbourhoods trying to find a house that *just matches the darn hecking numbers*. So yeah, I feel like that could have been improved.

Alright. That's off my chest now. Next point:

*Upgrades are cool*

There's something magical about grinding for hours upon hours, repetitively labouring through the night, and losing all sense of priority as your mind narrows in one thing and one thing only: *I need a flipping post cannon*.

Having a goal to strive for, one that's concrete, visible, and achievable is something you should always strive to have at every moment in your game. Whether it's beating your high score, slaying the dragon, or unlocking the post cannon, goals are what always motivate us to keep playing. Upgrades are especially interesting because they're such an elegant way of transitioning the player into the next part of the game. Not only are the post cannon, sorting machine, and driver's license worthy goals to strive for, they also change the way the player experiences the game; with the driver's license you're no longer crossing the streets on foot, inching by like a snail on a treadmill - you're roaring through the streets, drifting through corners, and jumping out the door full-speed as you slam that letter right where it belongs. It also helps that the driving feels absolutely amazing: the acceleration, the drifting, the engine sound, the way the car keeps going as you exit; everything just feels *right*. Good job on that.

As for the other upgrades, they're good as well. The sorting machine - love it, the bag - gotta have that. The automatic stamping - stamping is fun at first, but it soon starts getting tedious and I feel like you get the automatic stamping just as it starts getting old, not too soon and not too late. The post cannon - The build-up from a manually labouring post-man to a fully weaponised mailbox killing machine is what really makes this game great. Driving around doing circles in the green neighborhood, flailing your arms as you throw letters left and rigth, laughing like a maniac, thinking back to the times when you were but a mere child, fumbling around as you gingerly inserted sheets of paper into glorified tin cans, always unsure of where to go next: that's a pretty great feeling.

Speaking of great feelings, there's a 4096 character limit on these comments, so I'm going to have to splice this up. Oh well, more karma I guess?

Post Morton by nanolotl 2017-12-19T23:12:05Z

Unfortunately, I feel like the upgrades are timed just a tad bit off. You get all the upgrades and - great, I still got like 200 (idk if that's accurate but you get my point) letters to deliver. All you've got left to do is to literally go to the post office, spam A, exit the post office, enter the car, drive in a circle (or a square, triangle, whatever; you can be creative with it) ad infinitum. Fortunately, driving around is still gosh diddly fun, and launching the mail as you drive around the nieghbourhood is still incredibly satisfying - it just gets a tiny bit old over time.

Speaking of time, I think it's high *time* I talk about the user interface (no? ok).

*How much money do I have?*

It's in the bottom left corner. It's right there. Also, your mail is right there. And when you stamp the papers, the name is right there and the button you have to press is right there and - you just get all the information you need. All the information you want is clearly accessible, readable and in the right place. I'd like to make just one complaint though: In the bottom right corner, where you've got your mail, there's a very visible, clear, dark spot, clearly contrasting against the other UI elements, and every time I look at it I think it shows the currently selected mail. *Every. Time.* I know there's a big, obvious *"THIS IS YOUR CURRENTLY SELECTED MAIL, YOU KNOW THE ONE YOU ARE CURRENTLY HOLDING IN YOUR HAND"*, and I *know* that's what shows my currently selected mail, you know, the one I'm holding in my hand, but when I'm focusing on my character, and on driving around in my little blue car with my stacks of paper trying to find the right house to deliver to, my peripheral vision has clearly singled out that dark indicator, telling me that "hey here's your mail dude", because it *obviously* shows the currently selected mail, it *has* to! And every time, I have to consciously remind myself that it's not, so maybe change that, idk just a suggestion.

So that's really cool but what happens when you win the game?

*Wow, I finished the game*

Well, you've done it kid. You've lapped the city about a bajillion times, you've delivered more mail than FedEx does in a year, *and* you barely scraped the car. What's your reward? What's the big reveal, the final paycheck, the cake in the basement?

Why, it's no less than the most *adorable handwritten thank you letter in the whole flippin world*. I honestly didn't expect much when I delivered that final piece of paper. At worst, I'd get nothing; at best, I'd get a screen saying "hey guys thanks for playing my ld40 game pls rate it so i can get 20 ratings and be top 34 in the fun category thanks :))". So I thought. I was dead wrong.

Oh, and the graphics are nice.

*tl;dr*

It's good, progression is nice but a bit too quick, graphics are great, controller support is appreciated, the driving is just fabulous and the game is just *fun*. The game felt like an actual game, with goals, progression and rewards and the UI is good. Sure, it didn't really hit the nail on the head with the theme, but most games that follow the theme are crap so :shrug:.

Overall I would rate this :ok_hand::ok_hand::ok_hand::ok_hand::ok_hand: and I do not give out ok hands lightly.

Sad Knight by Quaternius 2017-12-04T05:06:38Z

This is (almost) a really good game overall. The mood, visuals and audio all work together and the sword-swinging feels incredibly satisfying. Unfortunately turning around the character is too fast to be able to control accurately and it makes the game too frustrating to be fun. It's a really minor detail, but it completely overshadows all the positive aspects of the game (and there are a lot of those).

Tentagraba by Huitre 2017-12-07T20:54:27Z

GIRP meets Octodad - a combination I never thought I needed to see. Well, I've got no real problems with the gameplay. It does what it sets out to perfectly. One issue is you don't really get much of a reward for winning. The ball just disappears and you get an extre arm. Just a little sound effect would have gone a long way. Apart from that I can't really complain. My laptop keyboard wasn't able to keep up with the amount of keys that needed to be pressed after about four arms, so I couldn't get too far unfortunately, but it was really fun until then.

Tenants by spacewarp 2017-12-04T06:57:19Z

Very comfy little management game. The game is a bit hard to understand, even with the tutorial. For instance, it took me a while before I realised apartments could "hang" on to elevators amd how elevators work in general, but once you get the hang of it it's a pretty comfy experience. It's the kind of game that you can play mulling over what is the best strategy for achieving the maximum score, or play casually and just drag the tenants into the apartments, without so much as glancing at their preferences. Really fun overall.

One note though: when you use the mouse wheel to change floors you also scroll on the website, so you might want to make sure the entire page fits on the screen at the same time, or a way to play in fullscreen.

Famous Knight by Lucas Ferrantelli 2017-12-16T15:07:26Z

Really well put-together game - the art, music, sound effects, voice acting and gameplay complements each other brilliantly. The mechanics are simple but enjoyable and the difficulty curve is good. I love the bosses, especially the final boss. The way you get fans from destroying crates is hilarious.

Don't Sink by alvinasiaten 2017-12-16T14:43:14Z

Fun game with a well-executed art style. Missing sound effects and some better feedback. Also it seems like the cannonballs hit you when there's no way they should be able to.

Sharks on a Train by moocowsgomoo 2017-12-04T06:02:38Z

Loved the concept of throwing ammo at enemies to make them less effective. A great take on the theme. Start working on the sequel right away.

Dog-Off! by BrothersT 2017-12-05T22:01:30Z

Wonderful game and a superb interpretation of the theme. Love the fast-paced hectic controller-hell gameplay. Controlling your character feels just like learning an instrument, with the way you have to use both hands to play optimally and the online leaderboard makes you even more motived to play just one more round. The main menu is visually fantastic, but it might be helpful to include all the buttons on one screen, as it might be easy to miss the tutorial and you're probably not going to have a good time if you haven't played the tutorial. Definitely top-spot worthy.

EDIT: I've noticed the WASD keys sometimes stop responding entirely with seemingly no pattern or trigger.

Sanguinite by Wheffle 2017-12-07T07:06:31Z

Good game. The propulsion felt spot on, and the controls felt responsive and intuitive. The difficulty curve is good for the most part (I feel the game could have been a bit more challenging) and the upgrade-system feels really satisfying. I loved the story of the game up until the big reveal. It just didn't feel satisfying. I feel it would have been better to put it somewhere in the middle or towards the end so that the information you've unveiled could lead you to somewhere interesting. Apart from that though the game is great.

I'll Take You To Tomato Town by adamgryu 2017-12-05T22:44:27Z

Hilarious game. Short and sweet with a great plot twist. The audio clips are just brilliant and the grabbing mechanics are really satisfying. Just wish the sensitivity was adjustable.

Re:Tileation by Akusan 2017-12-05T21:27:39Z

Interesting game. I like the pixel art and the music, but the gameplay leave a lot to be desired. The idea of the bullets retaliating is certainly interesting, and would work well if I ever felt the need to shoot. But with the generous amount of regeneratin hearts I never felt like I needed to fight anything, especially since the enemies I encountered were so docile. Even jumping through spikes is no problem and I found myself doing that most of the time instead of taking longer routes.

Also, the shots just didn't feel satisfying. I've no idea what goes into a satisfying shot, so no more I can say about that.

The controls felt decent, but I feel they would be nicer if you didn't keep moving at a constant rate in the x-axis after releasing the horizontal buttons during a jump. Although physically accurate, I feel it made for a slightly less precise feeling. Not a huge deal, since you can turn mid-jump, just feels a tad weird.

The unlock-based exploration system is really well designed, with the eye-catching chests and the instant ability to use your power-ups for something useful, which make the power-ups really satisfying to acquire. Running around the map trying to find where to go next felt mostly very fun and rewarding, spare the parts that just put you in a loop, which really felt like they were just not supposed to be in the game.

The boss looks really cool, but that's really it. It's easy to defeat just by spamming rmb and you get no satisfying feedback when shooting it. A simple healthbar and a more kinematic response to damage would have felt nice here. It also felt like there was supposed to be something on the left side with the spikes (not sure why I felt that way), and I was pretty disappointed to just find a wall.

All in all, you've got a really good foundation for a game. Make the boss more interesting, and give me a reason to fight those enemies and I'm sold.

Extreme Whiski Slalom by bigbazwa 2017-12-04T04:26:55Z

Really fun game, love the humour and light-heartedness of it. Visuals and audio are great, both music and sound effects. I especially love the sound of turning in the snow, it makes turning feel really satisfying. The way the whiskey makes you turn feels really well-crafted and really makes you think twice about picking up another one.

One minor personal peeve: the controls didn't feel intuitive at first. I kept wanting to use a to turn my character left (as opposed to actually turning left on the screen) and d to turn him right. Nothing inherently wrong with them.

Leader's guidance by ExNihilo 2017-12-05T20:27:33Z

I really didn't expect to have this much fun with this game. I really loved the mood and the ambience of the game, despite not having having any sounds or music (though the silence almost seems to contribute to the theme of obedience and the eerie atmoshpere). I enjoyed it so much in fact that I did the five bars times at least three times despite being exceedingly frustrated by the game at that point (admittedly in the hope of some sort secret guidance appearing). The challenge curve felt just right in my opinion and the satisfaction from beating the game is simply immense, despite the only reward you get being more work.

The jumping felt surprisingly nice despite not being able to control the height, with one exception:

foot.png

When you try jumping at the end of a platform, it feels like you just go right through it. This is one of the most frustrating things that can happen in a platformer and makes it feel as though you're not in control of the character. The fact that I managed to look past this flaw and play through the whole game says a lot about how compelling the rest of the game is.

Overall I really enjoyed the challenge, the iterative gameplay and the mood of the game, and if you fix the jumping I'd definitely love to play more of the same.

SackKnight by CallumLTurner 2017-12-05T23:05:10Z

It's an interesting project, and you definitely got the mood and the theme right. The gameplay feels rather janky and unresponsove, but swinging the sack is quit satisfying and rolling with a full bag is just plain hilarious. You can also jump infinitely, which is probably not as intended, and for a game about loot it's rather awkward that I still don't know how to deposit it. If you iron out some of the bugs, make the game feel more responsive and less confusing, it will surely have some potential.

Sugarplum Summit by Michael Clavell 2017-12-07T07:53:19Z

Really got me good there. First thing I noticed with the game is that the guitar is too loud in the main. The mixing is fine during the boss battle but then you restart and it feels like the mid-frequencies are turned up to 11.

The art and the enemies are really cool. I really loved how the gingerbread men snap in two and home in on you.

Apart from that, solid game, I really enjoyed it. I was kind of confused as to what the deal was on my first playthrough, but on my second playthrough I felt really motivated to take revenge on those angels. I love how when you get more angels, in addition to having more to fight you're also more likely to release more. Also, how you have to consider the fact that you would have to go through the game alone if you don't pick up any. Really interesting risk/reward mechanic.

I loved how the star is slowly revealed on the top and you feel really satisfied before realising it's actually the final boss. And then killing it feels even more satisfying. The actual boss fight itself was pretty good as well, though it could have been a bit longer or a bit more challengng in my opinion. And although you do get some feedback from the eyes, it's not continuous through the fight. Throughout the fight I had no idea how close I was to winning, how much hp the boss had. Which parts of it to shoot wasn't really intuitive.

ESCAPE KEY by Empyrean 2017-12-14T05:43:18Z

Really innovative game, I love the feeling of "walking" around on your keyboard to solve puzzles. One of my favourites so far. Could have done with a tad bit less repetitive music, but luckily the game is fun enough that you block out the music entirely after a while.

Treasure Balloon by Relsqui 2017-12-04T03:52:50Z

Really like the colour palette and overall aesthetics of the game. The contrast between the cute and cheerful blue skies and mountains vs. the dark abyss is well executed, and coupled with the simple mechanics elegantly shape the mood of the game as well as the theme. Overall it was pretty fun for about five to ten minutes. After that it feels like you've played the whole game, which for a free game isn't a big deal.

The one major complaint I have is that you have to spam the arrow keys to move quickly, and that they operate in the same way as they would in a text editor or browser if you hold them down (i.e. one immediate movement followed by a pause and then starts moving quickly). Other than that I really like what you've done.

Gem Rush by Joe Sycalik 2017-12-08T02:43:52Z

Since I haven't had anyone to play this with I can't really comment on a lot of the gameplay, but I can say that the physics are really wonky, and more importantly you can't affect the height of your jump, which in a game that is largely about jumping isn't really ideal. I'd recommend taking 12 minutes to learn how to make a better jump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KiK0Aqtmzc

Apart from that, the sounds are nice, the fact that it has local multiplayer is great (though I haven't been able to try it out) and the bat-riding really takes the game to new heights.

Coin Collector by dafunk 2017-12-06T00:04:44Z

Kind of a fun game. Would be nice if you could dodge the coins a bit easier; as of right now, it feels like you get a coin cannon at the wrong place at the wrong time and you get fed coins with no way to recover. The first time I lost (that wasn't to the fire) I felt rather confused as the game kept running and there was little feedback as to what happened. Just making the game pause would be nice.

The soundtrack is a tad repetitive, but the instruments and the melody are fine and fit the game well.

The jumping feels really floaty and making a solid jump would go a long way in making the game feel more responsive and leaving the player feeling more in control. I'll leave a link to a tutorial to making a better jump, since it's something that most beginning game devs don't know how to do and it takes so little effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KiK0Aqtmzc The tutorial is for Unity but the logic aplies anywhere. If you don't find the tutorial satisfactory there are plenty of other videos on the topic.

To sum up, it's a fun game for a couple of minutes, the music is fine and fits the mood/style of the game. The jumping could be improved, the game feels a tad luck based and the comeback mechanics are a bit weak, but can make for some exhilarating moments like almost going into the fire before throwing yourself into spikes to get away faster.

DarkPixelAdventure by magicdidac 2017-12-04T05:51:09Z

Great elegant puzzle-platformer. The darkness surrounding your character when you pick up coins is a really effective way to challenge the player and enforce the theme. I initally thought the game would rely too much on memorising the map to make it through and that it would become too frustrating, but when I noticed the minimap, I had just enough information to navigate through the darkness and the darkness makes for some really satisfying leaps of faith. My only lament is that you opted out of the mood category because the visuals, music and the darkness theme coupled together in a most wonderful fashion, and I was more than prepared to give it a good rating.

Shape Invasion by RonanRory 2017-12-16T15:38:25Z

Neat game. The shooting felt surprisingly satisfying and the sound effects and the music work quite well. I love the no-nonsense straight to the point intro, but I felt like the game progressed a bit too slowly after that. Obviously that's a good thing for learning the game, but on subsequent playthrough that means you have to sit through the boring parts in the beginning, which makes the idea of replaying the game really unattractive. Another probem I have with the game is that you don't have control over the jumping. How long you hold down the button doesn't matter for the height, which doesn't feel good. Here's a short video about how to make a better jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KiK0Aqtmzc

I feel like I'm spamming this video at this point but jumping in video games is something I'm really (oddly) passionate about.

Apart from those things, the game is pretty well put together.

Shape Invasion by RonanRory 2017-12-20T14:17:11Z

@ronanrorry Don't worry about the fact that it's a Unity tutorial - it's the logic that's important and that stays the same for all engines.

Robed Bird Reckoning by alexrose 2021-05-09T18:14:12Z

Only complaint was the ear shattering splash screen. Everything else was top notch and beatifully put together. Music and art are great, and the controls felt good, but not quite perfect imo (don't know what I'd change tbh). Didn't notice the slowdown, but the game was pretty beatable without it. Would have played more, and might have appreciated some more difficulty for this kind of game. A no checkpoint mode could be very enjoyable here given that the game is pretty short. Would love to see what you could've done with this in a week or month :)

River, Carry Me Away by Noire 2021-05-09T18:43:25Z

Gorgeous. Gameplay would be nice, but you more than made up for the lack of it.

Untitled Simulator by Eugenik 2021-05-09T18:31:08Z

Repeating dialogue and slow text are my two major complaints. The prose could be improved (there were some grammatical errors), and the Hitler animation is somewhat distracting, though his dancing is quite nice. I enjoyed it for the effort you put into making a serious game about Hitler that's not a complete meme.

Afraid to Turn by rhoff95 2021-05-09T18:56:17Z

Loved the atmosphere! That wolf's gonna give me nightmares. Art style is great. Audio is great (except the howling is a tad too loud). I agree with some of the people above that the throwing is a bit weird, and just the interactions with the wolf in general. It wasn't obvious that the moon was the start button, and I had no idea I was supposed to return to the wizard, so on my first playthrough I just ran to the right non-stop.

Cave-In by JPshoe 2021-05-10T15:18:45Z

Got to level 11. Like the idea and mood of it. The upgrade system is really confusing tho and the way it scales with the amount of workers you have seems really weird, and I found myself kind of wanting my workers to die. It's also not obvious what stuff you have "selected"? (I think that's how it works?) I like idea that you get to the "end" but then oh what's this, there's more. I think some factor of that is pretty much needed for incremental games like these so nice. Rebalanced and with some UI tweaking I'd definitely waste some more time on this