Slime Crime by No whOne 2023-01-27T22:09:01Z ♥ 2

Wow this is so well made, loving everything. Cannot find any major problems and/or obvious suggestions where to improve.

I would say this is steam-ready game, if you added some roguelite persistent upgrades from total playtime achievements. For example: * killing `x` archers - 5% change to ignore projectile damage. * eating `y` rabbits - you start with first speed upgrade.

Ok, fine, maybe you should also add leaderboard scores and bigger variety of bosses 😂

HER-V by Kilirane 2023-01-27T21:15:24Z ♥ 1

Wow, this even at this stage this is quite polished game. I really like how you made your main character a mix of human-shaped robot and a combine harvester. The graphics are simple but clear enough, combined with music and sound effects gives me vibes of early PS1/PS2 games 😍

I also like how you introduce new harvestable items in later stages stages.

As others noted, it would be nice to have some visual differentiation between the holes created by asteroids. As well as some in-game hint that you need to press arrow keys to harvest crops (I had to quit to main menu and go back to read tutorial). If possible the tutorial should also be made as part of gameplay, but I understand it's quite hard to fit proper tutorial in gamejam timeframe.

I am also wondering if there were any plans for specific harvest order multiplies? for example: `A A B B B C D D C A` -> gives `x23` multiplier? Or `A B A B A B A B A B` -> `x5` that's like two rows of `A` and `B`, but mixed up in precise order.

So, like I said, solid entry 👍

Out of curiosity, are you using free edition? or paid? I can image it would be very painful to create all this in 50 events or less.

BEANSTALKERS by HexyVexy 2023-01-27T20:50:13Z ♥ 2

Nice aestethics, everything is so thematic. Great gameplay, loved that you could use gems both actively and passively.

Also great decision partition screen into ~rectangle and use up space on the sides to show reminders about gameplay, and at the same time making it look like in-game adverts 😆

My only suggestion is to add `how to play` button in the pause menu as well. I didn't read it initially and totally missed the upgrades and crafting part of the game. Then reading through the comments realized, I was missing something during my playthrough.

But then the second playthrough with all the upgrades and constructions was even more satisfying. Great entry 👍

Agent 007253859 by commanderstitch 2023-01-27T20:18:59Z ♥ 0

Ok, I have to say this is the second strangest entry in jam. After several minutes of running managed to eliminate the harvester.

Organ-ized Crime by ZungryWare 2023-01-27T19:57:08Z ♥ 1

Nice concept and implementation - find the right target by "interrogating" first. That's quite a lot of dialog and logical conditions, even if it is a bit repeating.

On my playthrough I found several cases there was the one person meeting my condition requirements, but he wasn't into anything, so I couldn't get him/her to secluded location. (or I couldn't find any other people fitting demands, if there were any).

Harvey D. Bones by Flying Dog Fish 2023-01-27T19:35:04Z ♥ 1

Nice game, had fun getting all 99 souls. The reaper on a skateboard concept really got me laughing 😂

While 3D maze and 2D sprites to look a bit weird, strange enough they fit quite well.

My only suggestion would be to add some indication for the cats, so I am not wandering aimlessly through the maze. I think it would be enough for the last ~5 (or last ~10%) of level cats. As they are constantly moving and hunting down the last ones takes some time. An extension to this could be a minimap, but the minimap only gets filled as you move along the maze. And you could see cats in the minimap only if you went over the place before. Providing a guide and as well a visual indication in case you have some space unexplored.

Octo Garden by AppoxGames 2023-01-27T18:52:19Z ♥ 0

Nice game, very satifying to swim around and see all the things getting harvested. That is until you get stuck in your own... err... _"leftover egglings"_ 😂

I really like how you manage to make each Ludum Dare entry with minimal art, but still make it look very pleasing. The polish is also superb. Now you only to add some upgrades, puzzle-like levels and it will be rather nice zen-like game.

My only concern though, that regular non-space movement should be a little stronger? Or at least the turn rate. Currently it's very easy to make mess on the screen, and get eaten/exploded.

Yeah... Not much more ideas on what to comment 😅 More various spawnable items maybe? Oh, or some kind of corridor, and you have to spawn exploding blobs to advance, while avoiding eels.. 🤔

Fairy Fang - The Tooth Harvester by boostas 2023-01-27T17:42:39Z ♥ 1

Nice entry, this has well themed, consistent graphical art direction. Smooth mechanics. Well done.

Few thoughts while playing, most likely will echo others here: 1. Since you have pickup sounds, it makes so much more apparent, that you are missing shot/hit sounds 😅 2. With enough `projectiles per second` upgrades bought, in my experience [this song](https://youtu.be/9J9haehfQeg?t=22) song works really well (or at least a remix/remake of it) 😂 3. Would be nice if I could purchace my `projectiles per second` by holding down the button, rather pretending to be autoclicker 😉 4. While huge numbers of projectiles are cool, maybe it would be worth adding some resource, like **mana**, or similar, that uses up as you attack and recharges as you run? 5. The choice to have fully top-down game is interesting, since you lose most of the charm from the 3D main character model. Maybe 3rd person camera up high in the ceiling would have been better? hard to say. My point is, you are, sadly enough, not showing off your art to the fullest. 6. It seems you are doing tooth pickup check using `OnCollisionEnter()` instead of `OnTriggerEnter()`. While it works for the pickup, it also has side-effect of registering collision in the physics engine and stopping your character for a few frames. It is more noticable as there are more teeth in one area and you are trying to walk over all of them. - More proper solution would be to have collider for collision on tooth root prefab, and a child gameobject, that would would be set to register `OnTriggerEnter` (colliding only with character layer) with a bit bigger trigger area. (Or maybe root is the trigger and child is the collider, would have to check 😅 ) That way teeth would still be affected by gravity and wouldn't fall through the floor. And the character would first enter trigger area, where you can award points, disable physics for the main object and eventually remove it. 7. The boss rat seems to get stuck if any line from boss sides are hitting wall before character (or is this `box/spherecast`). This makes it very easy to bait along the wall, make it stop moving, and just kill it. I would suggest in such case (hitting wall first / cannot find target) also do two raycasts to the sides, to see which wall is further away, and then try moving in that direction for few frames. It would look like the boss rat is smart enough to circle the player around.

All that said, great job, especially seeing this is your first Ludum Dare. Looking forward to what you make next 👍

Also, very pleasing glow effect on the projectiles 🙂

Unfortunate Harvest by redemptor 2023-01-27T15:47:06Z ♥ 1

Great entry, cute character, everything fits well: the gameplay, the visuals, the audio, the theme.

Few comments: 1. As noted by others, the sunflower feels unfair. Won't expand here. 2. The slow-moving shovel attack is an interesting choice. I can stack around 10 shovels flying in front of me while running, thus eliminating most of the enemies even before seeming them (or right as they come into vision). Maybe it is worth making the attack a bit faster and add a bigger delay? - Or like in old consoles game only allow 1-2 projectiles on screen at a time. So long-range shots while being safer take longer. And close-range shots are near instant, but are more risky. 3. Character movement is a bit slow in comparison to how vast and horizontal levels are. - Some checkpoints throughout the level would make this less apparent. And be more forgiving for newer players. And to balance out, you could deduce from time-score for each death taken 🙃 4. Some upgrades with the plants harvested would be welcome, so we can try to beat level again with powerups faster. Just some replayability idea 🙂

Looking forward to your entry next time 👀

Dr Bentham by hmrpf 2023-01-27T15:24:07Z ♥ 0

Great job on submitting, I can see you did a lot, especially working alone.

Loved the `Sorry... I didn't have time for this screen` 😍 made me laugth 🙂

Some thoughts/suggestions regarding the game. Keeping in mind, that this is a perfect scenario suggestions, and/or possibly short fixes that would (imho) improve the gameplay experience. Sorry, if somebody else already mentioned it, wanted to write my thoughts first, then read others 🙂 1. I think the first problem you have if having patients truly random. I had a row of patients (5+) that were only missing kidney. And then 6+ patients in a row that were missing a heart. Some with better variation, and then again 4+ in a row with missing only kidney. That kind of got depressing, as you cannot really do anything about the situation only wait for the new body. - I think it would be better to have the sequence manually predefined (at least for the jam), so you can fine-tune the order each organ shows up. - More complex solution would be use some kind of fake-random generator. For example have rules, that not 2-3 patients in row can have same missing organ. Or if player didn't put any organ in for some time, generate body with missing organ the player has in stash. 2. The removed part decays rather quickly (it seems about the same time it takes normal patient to die). So unless, you get two-three patients at the same time or in a perfect combination, it's really hard to save any of them even then. I suggest possible solutions or combination of them: - I would suggest making organ table actually a freezer, so they don't decay. - Then to introduce some challenge back - require ~3 second de-freezing before putting it back to the patient. Maybe also apply some medicine, so it gets accepted better. - Make the slots stackable, so you can prepare "in case of emergency". - Allow organs to be purchased for a price also (and maybe even sold). Then of course you need to generate money, so maybe, treated patients could leave you some "gifts" 🙃. Or sometimes even relatives could leave gifts in advance. The size of the "gift" could depend on their profession, their marital status. 3. The balance between decay and and number of patients. I would suggest increasing decay time as well as number of patients at the same time. And maybe even make a queue of new patients, in case you are taking too long. That way there is higher change to get right combination of organ parts, and not jsut wait untill they all die. - Additionally you could introduce some (expensive?) medicaments, that extend they decay time, so you have more time to treat them, but it could be more expensive. Especially worth doing if combined with above noted points. 4. Some kind of story / day-to-day payment, story choices would be nice, but I guess this is definitelly out of gamejam scope 😆

Oh, and after few times I could put heart on the table anymore, I think some other collider might be blocking it?

Overall, I see some interesting gameplay potential. And you did well and a lot working on this alone. Looking forward to post-jam updates and next LudumDate entry 😉

Reap what they sow by ZLuca 2023-01-27T14:22:29Z ♥ 1

Nice, a card game is somewhat difficult to make in jam timeframe in my experience, but you managed. Well done.

Interesting idea, but I am not sure where to put the gameplay feel. Here is why: * It's not really a strategy game, because you don't make choices in the shop, or not sure what the AI players will do. * It's not an engine building game, as the card bought from the shop don't really improve your current deck/action setup. * It's not a bidding game, as the prices are constant and you are not bidding for cards/action. * Not a diplomacy game either, as you don't really have any interaction options for other AI players directly. * Not a worker placement game either, as you don't compete for actions with others players. * Maybe I could put it a bit into action-optimization games basket, but somewhat hard to do it too. As the choice set is rather limited, and earlier or later your turn consists only of selling crops.

What I am saying, is I would like to see some more clear direction with gameplay. Some mechanical problems, in my humble opinion: 1. Card, that lets you steal 2 coins is kinda useless, as you pay 2 coins to get it and an action, then an action to use it. So basically it wastes two of your actions in 3 action turn. It might not be a problem, if you want to overtake somebody, but that's two actions. I would rather currently just sell 2 bananas and get 4 coins - that's worth about 3.2 coins more (because you need actions to seed and harvest). 2. Selling costing actions is causing problems. Noted above. As well as making my strategy to just grow most valued crops, so I will be able to sell them in time. It might not be such a big problem, if there was a sell action and I could sell all crops of the same type, or even choose what I want to sell. Then again, this is nearing worker placement mechanics. 3. Shop is blind spot now. I would expect to get at least somewhat more valuable cards, as I am spending action and money to buy. You also don't know that you will get. I am not saying to drop the randomness entirely, but at least some indication of possible options would be good before buying, so I can weight my decision before committing to the action. 4. Helping other is a nice idea, but it would be cool if the action also did something to the player who is helping. For example, if Mr. potatohead is watering my plant, he could get a coin? or some _friend token_ he could spend somewhere else. 5. I really like, how each AI has it's own personality. So another idea, maybe, would make this a kind of cooperation game instead of competition. So you the goal is grow collectively the best garden, but each AI has it's own preferences what/where they grow and act. And the main task for the player would be to influence the garden so it becomes the best garden. I understand this might be far off from your idea, but at this point I am just brainstorming 😅

Oh, and floating cards as actions from other players - great that you have at least some indication what is happening, but for me it was not always clear what just happened. Why did that card got cancelled? Did I just lost a card? How did they do it, I want to do it too.

All in all I like what you did, it's not easy. 👍 I hope you don't find this discouraging, just wanted to point out most pain points for me, how you could avoid them in your next game 🙂

Space Garden by Yamzho 2023-01-27T11:49:38Z ♥ 1

Ah, nice, this is quite similar to what I initially wanted to do, but dropped due to not being able to balance game in time 🙂

First, the visuals - very well made and thematic, has retro (60's-70's) futuristic feeling to it 👍

Chill background music and sfx for every interaction, so well placed, I didn't even notice them being there first time playing.

The gameplay itself was interesting and fun, yet, it didn't have that `let's try a bit more / again` feel, at least for me. My though why it could be: * The working field was too big/empty, at least with what I could do with my cards in a turn. * The plants grow too fast - this is I guess in line with my previous point - longer growth times, you need to use more space. * Planting feels underpowered - you dig/harvest 9 tiles, water on average - 4, but plant - only one. Wild growth fixes that a bit, but you usually get around 3 tile more instead of wanted 7-9. And each seed takes card in hand, some even action, so if you are planting, you don't usually do anything else, and even have left-over actions. * I liked row/column dig, harvest tiles. But would want to see the same for seeding / watering. So you are then more inclined to clear more rocks. * Rock clearing is a nice addition. But feels missing something. Either you need to add more rocks? or make the card less powerful, but not used up, so overtime you would open up more and more space? instead of one opening and that's it. Unless you take another cards. Which... * ... Is usually not worth it, because you have space for your fast growing plants already. * Somewhat the same issue with the card that harvests all plants. Not really useful, especially with that price, as you don't have that many plants anyway. * Watering can was a bit frustrating, as you didn't know in advance how the water would be sprayed and could not plan around it. * I think it would be interesting this if you combined current mechanics with **Tetris** - that is each card would a predefined and randomly assigned tetris-like shape that the effect applies to. e.g.: carrot seeds in `L`, dig in `2x2` block, then harvest in `I`, then another carrot seeds card in `z`, watering can in `T`. That would also solve the watering can frustrations, and would be rather interesting puzzle.

One UX downside, is the `space gardening for dummies` (tutorial) - I didn't like it cycles automatically, and the waiting time was too short, and too long in other cases. Basically wanted to have a button, that lets you switch between pages manually.

Oh, and I managed to get stuck two times when picking a card (played `hotfix v3`): Space_garden_stuck1.png Space_garden_stuck2.png

Overall I quite enjoyed it, and would love to see if there are any more updated later on 🙂

P.S. Some run instructions (/download links) would be nice, not everybody has JRE installed 🙃

Dead End Job by fatPenguin 2023-01-27T10:35:28Z ♥ 2

Finally came around to trying this!

Wow, a lot of work put in this entry: modelling, animations, sounds, various buyable modifiers and buffs, not to mention you have sequences and and witty dialogs.

Not much for me to add here. Well maybe except the gameplay flow: * The intro is quite nice and progressive * But enemies or rather number of them ramp up quite fast, and most of the time I found myself running away from them turn to turn back and land a hit (hoping, it will be enough to kill them and my range is good enough to hit them). Which I think is a rather common problem for horde (zombie) shooter gamers also - most of the time you run away from them, to get enough time to empty your clip (or all attack) into enemies, as they have tons of health. Maybe it's worth doing some kind of twist here? For example merge many of same monsters into one single one, but slower? * Some kind of dash would be really helpful here - invulnerable-dash through the enemies and/or away from them. That would let player to keep better pace in combat. * The shop upgrades seems to be fully random? That might be a problem, I could not buy anything in first two-three shopping sessions, which I think made me overall weaker than expected monster number scaling? * The `rock paper scissor` logic and `power slash` were quite hard to wrap my head around first time. Maybe two extra levels with explanations for each mechanic would have been nice.

Overall really great game. Also, the lantern-bat is adorable 🙂

Human resources by JazzatheFOSS 2023-01-26T15:43:29Z ♥ 1

Cute game, simple, but well made.

The art is great, especially the night background outside with the moon - nice dithering there. The sound effects are nice and well places, nothing seemed out of place.

The game has such a huge number of cultural references to memes/movies/books/anime/games - it's crazy. ❗️

The gameplay wasn't too challenging or hard, especially since scores are calculated, but we never get to see any consequences, quotas or comparisons. Kept playing mainly because I wanted to see all leftover interactions with other reapers. To be fair, after Tuesday I started wanting I didn't need to walk such long distances.

I always try to give constructive feedback on how to improve game: 1. Mako scores worth something: job contract extension? new book for the shelf? new Rick & Morty posters? Buy apples to check if they are actually tasty? Give some soul-like currency, so you can try all and more of the above? 2. introduce several levels of complexity for the current reaping minigame. For example, make third attack `green`, and then `yellow` souls you have to harvest with `green` and `blue` attacks within some small timeframe. 3. Introduce a bigger variety of work minigames, so different days would be more beneficial using one minigame, and other days - other minigames. Also make souls accumulate for the minigame, you eventually have to switch between them, and not always do one minigame. 4. Some kind of inventory, so you can do favors and errands for other shinigami. For example, bring more milk, or get a disguise kit and try to help others that can't keep up with increasing portal times?

Out of curiosity would want to play a continuation, but I think it might be hard to put all the references into the game and still have coherent story that makes sense 😂 Great job 👍

Just Another Farming Day! by Paulo Brunassi 2023-01-26T14:59:09Z ♥ 2

Great entry, very nice twist on casual farming game expectations. The visual/audio design is superb for jam game. The second part is rather well balanced and feels great to play.

Not much to comment here, it seems you know what you are doing quite well. Though two points still stand imho: 1. It would be really great to see action key-map on second part. Took really long time, to figure out you can change weapons with scroll wheel. I would recommend also binding weapons to 1-6 buttons. As well as showing on screen hint like `You can change between weapons with scroll wheel` 2. I think have noted before, but I also think, that having a way to get more ammo would make the game feel more enjoyable. Because now, once you used your fancy weapons, because they feel so much powerful and great, you are forced to go back to refill them. That feels somewhat like punishment. I would recommend also giving a shop option to increase max ammo size for each weapon alongside (just add another button under the `purchase`). You can also make ammo clip expansion progressively more expensive. So you are still suggesting to try out different weapons at the start of the game, but later on player can invest/dedicate to the one they prefer the most. + less needless walking to refill 🙂 e.g: - first expansion for the weapon: 100 $ - second expansion for the weapon: 200 $ - third expansion for the weapon: 400 $ - first expansion for another weapon: 250 $

Overall, great job, very nice and juicy game 👍

Hectic Harvest! by Torban 2023-01-25T18:58:27Z ♥ 1

Nice COMPO entry, are you sure you didn't mix the theme this time around? It's not `every 10 seconds` anymore 😂 Ok, in all seriousness, there is a lot of work put into this, and it's quite _fun_ **once** you get into it.

My personal suggestions to make this fun more quickly: 1. You walk out of the garden by stepping onto the conveyer belt and never return. (possibly have to be carrying deliverable box, didn't check in detail) 2. You can (accidentally?) throw crop over the fence, to never recover them. You could set collision detection to `Continuous` for the crops and items as a quick work-around. 3. Use `Circle` or `Capsule` collider for the well (as well as the player), it was a bit frustrating getting stuck over empty space 🙃 4. Make the left farm slots restricted - you have to buy them from the shop, that way players will earlier realize, that rightmost lands are the best ones. 5. Move the seed spawners somewhere down. Because now you are not getting any visual feedback that you are carrying something, because the thing you are carrying is out of screen. If it was a bit more lower, the player could see right away, that something happened. 6. Spawn delivery crates in predefined spots and limit number of them. Because there were several times, when the left colliding box was preferred when delivering good to it, thus making my fail my order. (Or you should sort which colliding box to pick by left time, but it's would be better if you cannot try to deliver to two boxes at the same time). Instead of allowing one box to push other, as this might create a box at the moment I am delivering good, again misplacing them and failing orders. The same collision issue is existing when you are trying to pick up boxes. 7. Would be great if you pre-water tilled soil without planting seeds. Yes, would require additional checks and visuals. But it would let player feel smart, by letting prepare the plots in advance when there is nothing much going on. 8. Ability to purchase `Strike` negation would be cool. As some strikes are just accidental, so why not player extend the play by sacrificing their resources that were saved for an upgrade.

I ordered suggestions in somewhat easy to do -> hard to do order 🙂

Overall had quite some fun trying to make everything on time, slowly learning the bugs I have to work around 😂

Oh I think nobody noted, but good job on the art. The crops and tools are clear and distinctive enough. With crops having several growth frames for each. Not to mention, you actually managed to fit at least some sounds for all tools as well as background music.

Soul Gardener by taikinaaa 2023-01-25T17:46:52Z ♥ 0

Well done pulling platformer for gamejam entry. There goes more work under the hood than it seems at first. I had fun, game felt incomplete after all levels, as there are still pots left without a grown flower. I managed to accidentally drop first two drops on ground, as I didn't realize right away, that it's not a fighting level anymore and I don't need to press `shoot` anymore.

I will echo previous comments also: 1. Controls are weird, at least leave `jump`/`action` to `z`/`x` buttons. Better yet map to `space` and/or `shift`/`control` 2. The movement felt too twitch'y, I had to adjust my position a lot, when pouring souls. And missed platforms/jump points a lot. 3. Sound effects are great, with exception of `running`. I would have spent extra two minutes sampling _Coin_ sounds from **bfrx**, cut the sound a to shorter version and played them more often. (Think `Super Mario Bros`)

Also I was hoping, that fully growing a flower would grant you a new power. e.g.: double/wall jump, faster shooting, spread fire shoots, dash..

Overall, great entry - keep it up 👍

The Harvester by 0x01F0 2023-01-25T17:10:04Z ♥ 3

Interesting entry, a logic-knowledge puzzle. Loved C4 reference 😂 (Most likely missed several other ones) Some death/reason combinations were funny. Did you though of all the items in the list? Or did you do some research?

Was a bit disappointed, that digging my own grave had not special line 😞

As for the gameplay there is an interesting mismatch of intention and actual gameplay. The voice overs, visuals, sound effects are beautiful and well places, but the main gameplay is just staring at `Death book` and scrolling through it, so most of the time you don't see neither the very well portrayed surroundings nor the audio. I think this would have made a lot bigger impact if you had to match at least part of information from the gravestone engraving themselves. So - make the interaction with gravestone more, than just choosing what to take.

Which brings me to my next point - once you commit to digging, there is no way to back out. Once I clicked accidentally, on grave, that was donor, and once, I forgot what I had to harvest 😂 So an option cancel would be great, at least for double checking what I was to take.

The `Death book` list gets duplicated each time you close and open it. So after checking it 5 times, the original list is displayed 4 more times.

All in all I quite enjoyed it. The visuals and sounds were very well made, and placed, controls intuitive enough, the `Death book` list was sad to read, yet amusingly absurd enough to keep me smiling 🙃 . Then again, I would like to see a different way of delivering puzzle inputs to player 👍

P.S. _I am better human than any human ever was_

Sanity Farmer by deadgoodnik 2023-01-24T23:53:16Z ♥ 1

Right.. I would say this belongs to the contemporary art section of exposition.

Some description structuration would help to read through the text. Unless you start harvesting sanity from even before ~~`playing the game`~~ trying out the experience.

Harville by infecsean 2023-01-24T23:18:07Z ♥ 0

Good job on submitting 👍 My favorite part of the game was when new humans get catapulted from right side of the screen to the left side, usually in groups of ~5 😂 Sadly enough could time it well enough to screenshot them.

Got stuck in walls few times while reaching the merchant: 2023-01-24 17_52_32-Harville WebGL by infecsean - Brave.png (was double jumping and dashing at the same time.

There are some interesting ideas, and various systems in place, but sadly most of them are not working fully, or has issues. I know it is hard to cover everything, but best approach if you see you are not making it, is to cut down scope drastically. e.g.: in our game, we wanted to have inventory with different items, multiple paths to completions, extra animations, explosions, action sequences after each puzzle pieces, dialogue lines for each situation. But as the jam was nearing the end, we had to cut more and more functionality to have something working. What I am trying to see usually it's better to have something simple, but working 🙂

Platformers are actually quite hard, and if you want to overlay it with dialogues and purchases, and different weapons and other various mechanics, it can quickly get out of hand... and platform space... rather quickly

It's quite hard to comment, as sometimes it's not clear what was intended, but this is short list, what could be done with imho least effort, to get most out of it: 1. Change collision type on player and enemies from `Discrete` to `Continuous`, so you don't fall through world. 2. Jumping is weird. Especially double jump, unless you want to specifically players to double tap jump as fast as possible. Usually when setting values for second (or third, etc) jump, you want to clear current `velocity.y` value, before setting jump impact values. That allows to jump as if from ground. - From design point of view, usually you get double jump after some time, so you can appreciate it more later on. 3. Dashing while is cool, should not be possible while in conversation? I was moving all other the floor while talking to the merchant. Though, I do have to agree, it was funny in its own way 😆 4. You start with 1 million money? I think it was supposed to be debug money? Give name for the money, e.g.: `undercoins` 5. You cannot buy any tools? If first tool is free, maybe it's worth giving it to the player anyway? The purchase button was way too small 6. You cannot deposit your harvested organs for money. Maybe make a separate world object to deposit them if that's easier, or even allow sending them from straight from UI (add, a timer so there is a meaningful choice for the player when to send them off) 7. If enemy movement is hard, make them stationary, but hard to reach for the player - more platforming to do. 8. `Application.Quit()` is not a valid call on webgl builds, I suggest you hide the button with: ``` void Start() { #ifdef UNITY_WEBGL gameobject.SetActive(false); #endif } ```

Over all, I think you did the right decision on submitting game you have right now and getting feedback, rather waiting to complete your intial game vision :)

KICK by taxol 2023-01-24T15:40:54Z ♥ 0

Congratulations on submitting your first game. Well done. The idea is interesting, and content is educational, but either lacks mechanics or balancing to be challenging.

For example: the official had pay/eat more (family) sometimes, and would be more motivated to kick somebody. Or the kicked farmer would get some kind of debuf for next round.

There are several UI/UX issues that would increase clarity a lot if resolved: 1. I would argue that `click` name is not clear enough on what it does. Maybe better call it **collect levy** or **apply taxes**; 2. Order buttons visually in sequence, you want or expect players to press: for example top to down (renamed **click** -> **compensate** -> **submit**; 3. Make **compensate** visually clickable only if it does something; 4. The math expression even though helping are rather hard to read. Especially since they are animated with rather short animations. I think would be better animate them by iteratively substracting **1** from upper grain hold, and at the same adding same **1** to the _levy_ field. Even better if there is a floating number **1** from one field to another. This way the user would not need to simultaneously parse 7 addition/subtraction equations (not everybody loves math); - Second argument for this approach is players easier notice the changing elements. So even better version would be to calculate each house in sequence this way. And at the same time add to _total_ field (aldo by iteratively adding **1**); 5. Term **kick** is rather confusing in todays online community context. I highly recommend putting **game explanation** section above the **background**. As well as including it as a separate popup at the start of the game - higher change more players will read it and not get as confused; 6. A confirmation after pressing **submit** with `Ar you sure, you are missing {x} grains to submit` would be really helpful. Especially for new players. 7. If there is a end-game goal, it would great to see it on the screen as well. e.g.: 16 years left until retirement.

That being said, great job submitting **COMPO** entry 👍 . Let's see how it goes next time.

P.S. `Application.Quit()` is not valid code in webgl builds. You should hide the button with: ``` void Start() { #ifdef UNITY_WEBGL gameobject.SetActive(false) #endif } ```

The Onion Quest by Dekajoo 2023-01-24T12:55:51Z ♥ 1

Nice entry, this is so much work done over three days. Totally did not expect, that you can even choose your own path to the boss, and even with random events. This has rather simple mechanics, quite a big of exploration space for the strategy. Loved tomato inclusion as well facial expression on vegetables, especially the onion. Would be interested to see if you can evolve this further.

Now, I didn't get to the end, because, the game got stuck: stuck.png It was in the second half of the map (2 random events, and I think first battle after second event). The vegetables did their `start of fight` effects on both sides, but did not start attacking each other... I guess they understood it's better to live in harmony? 😂 (I didn't press any buttons/mouse, while `start of fight` effects were being executed; oh, bought level 1 carrot and swapped with lime)

A bit more from tech side: 1. The screen before the fight with **Havest** - took me a few seconds of waiting each fight to realize it will not fade automatically and I need to press button. Personally, from user perspective, I don't see reason, why it could not fade automatically after a second. 2. Got confused a bit in the path selection map: - The starting nodes (mushrooms) were very close to the screen side, and I wanted to scroll back more. - The available node to select (hilighted) always looked like the node I am currently on, and I wanted to select node after the hi-lighted one. 3. Would love to see some more variety of events and node types in the map. (I didn't even expect it to be there 😂 ) 4. Some area explanations labels would be nice. Took a while to figure out what is "bag". Also some visual identification for available slots would be nice, even subtle ones - better than visually partitioning space in my mind 😆 5. Was were confused about eggplant ability - I thought having one eggplant gives health boost to all **my** field vegetables as well as **enemy** ones. Then I understood, it is a positional effect and you have to arrange your army in specific way 😅 - Also, would that mean, that eggplant in the front row grants health to enemy front fighter? 🙂 6. More of a Quality of life feature, but I would really appreciate, if you could drag-swap vegetables in field/bag directly without putting them into empty space first. But I know this rather tricky to do right (especially in gamejam timeframe). 7. Some variety on coins gained would create unique and unexpected opportunities. 8. A couple of sounds would have been nice - for example: veggy hover and click sounds. (I did the same on my game 😂 )

Also would like to see some kind of special upgrades / purchases available. For example: * Extra roots - the vegetable cannot be moved anymore, but each fight gets permanent health boost; * Speed-grow potion - takes space on field, but does not participate in battle. After the fight, it gets a level-up.

Overall great entry, looking forward to future work.

#NoOneDeservesToBeAnEggHoover by bellatrion 2023-01-18T22:32:03Z ♥ 0

This is interesting. This seems like `The matrix` meets `Papers please`. At least the "egg" harvesting part.

As most mentioned I found the egg collection part rather on the boring side. I think that was mainly because you have to wait ~3 seconds with nothing happening, and then harvest all eggs in around ~1-2 seconds, then wait around 3-5 seconds more. If you had something to do during the waiting part, for example - you have to apply some sort of "nutrient paste", or "egg polish" before the harvest. But you can only hold one thing at the time, and have to go back to fill up again to apply again. Then spread out the applying part and harvesting over longer period of time, to actually still manage to do everything. Thus make the game feel more interactive, while still keeping the monotonous part in there, as that is all you do during your day.

Would be interesting to see some kind of survival-management part of the gameplay between the days. For example amount of nutrients your brain receive depend on how well you performed during the day. Or actually you have option how much nutrients you are going to receive for the next day. You could get a warning if the next day is going to be a hectic day, and you need more nutrients (or other substances) so that the time is diluted for you and you can make more options.

Another option would be to drop the mouse controls during collection phase and only control with arrow keys, as there is a predefined number of slots, that grow eggs

And there seems to be issues with text display when I played: missing-text.png and later on: eggs.png I had no idea what I was selecting (or even if I had a choice), tried all (1->5) options, that reset the text, but neither of them seemed right. (I played the webgl build on Brave browser, would have switched earlier, if I understood, that something was amiss earlier)

On game feel side of things: I really liked the suction animation and sounds were appropriate even if a bit repeating at times. The story also seemed intriguing, even though I think I missed half of it 😂

Radiance by XOREAXEAX 2023-01-18T14:03:57Z ♥ 0

The visuals and especially the audio are amazing and fits the theme well. This looks like a really nice start for a incremental idle clicker exploration game. Though as most before me already mentioned it, the game needs more story / buy options, some quality of life improvements. E.g. option to buy 10x harvesters/collectors.

One possibly quick change that would create a sense of challenge for the game would be to add some fictional goal to reach. For example: `get to 100T/s generation` and once you do you could "restart" the game on a new star (different colors). Seems like simple change it would feel more game'y.

With higher numbers of generation, you spend most of your time manually clicking the harvester button. But this shows the harvester explanation **right over the most beautiful part of the game** - the star. I would suggest putting the UI for it a bit to the side so the player can still admire the sun while clicking.

It was interesting to see the collector efficiency percentage values by the collector itself. But with a higher number of them it gets hard to read, so after certain number it would make sense to move it to a dedicated ui listing them all. Also if the text is part ugui in a single canvas it is one of reasons for bad performance. As every transform change of ui element in the canvas forces unity to recalculate all the elements in the canvas and redraw them again.

For the types of games you would also need to separate logic from visuals. As unity is not really with calling thousands of update calls - you need to manually call them from a single place.

Overall, would love to see this game explored in post-jam space 👍

Slimevulture by Feraligatr 2023-01-18T10:51:33Z ♥ 1

Well done on the entry. I like how your slime can have more than 2 arms. Reminds me a bit of the **Inside** game. The "ouch" audio was cute.

The body modification part of the game is something I wanted to toy around for some time, so glad to see I am not the only one. I would prefer though if the parts you dig up stay in the world just a bit longer. A random part drop from zombies would also be appreciated. I found myself a few times in scenarios, where all graves are "harvested already", but I still have time kill. I think it would incentivize players to go kill zombies more. As well as creating tricky decisions when the part drop from zombie, and you don't really want to go back to pick it up. And of course even more amazing, if you could see the collected parts on the slime in one way or another - e.g. random hands and legs dangling around.

Another idea to think about: should there be some downsides to collecting many parts? for example the movement speed slows down. But moving slowly all the time would not be interesting. Then you could introduce some **Concentration** parameter, that allow you to arrange gathered parts more neatly and efficiently - thus moving attacking at full power. Oh, maybe even better - make the concentration go down only when you are getting hit. And to recover it you would have to stay still in one place for certain amount of time. That way there is more of strategic element to the game when to move and when to recover, as well as not trying to charge into zombies straight on. But that's just one possibility.

There were places where it felt like I was getting stuck to environment. I would recommend using `capsuleColliders` for the slime and a combination of `Circle/Box Colliders` for the environment, if you are not doing it already. Rounder collider shapes seems to be more forgiving for diagonal movement and around the corners.

It was a bit hard to understand where are the limits of my attacks and enemy attacks. I guess my attack range was more or less the area I can reach with the sword. But for enemies - I was struggling to understand if I still have a few moments of movement before they attack or should I go already to not get hit. Some sort of visual feedback would be great.

The boss fight was a cool and somewhat unexpected addition. Especially since the boss had different attack patterns. The thing that really confused me though during the boss battle was the background. As it was the same tile all over the place, it was really hard to understand if I am moving and how fast. Is the car moving? is the Gravekeeper is moving? Some kind additional environment objects (trees, shrubs, path) would really have helped to anchor myself.

Overall great job, looking forward to future Ludum Dare submissions.

Agricultural Ascension by Sibi 2023-01-18T09:58:13Z ♥ 1

Great idea, to make a one face of Rubic's cube. I also get reminded of abstract board games that have few simple mechanics, but great depth. The `undo` button definitely helped to refine solutions to the puzzles. The music and audio are pleasing and fitting.

How do you manage the difficulty of puzzles a _segment_ (lvl 1 -> 10). I see that the puzzles are created by taking the final version and shuffles around a number of steps. In my intuition it looks like:

``` numMaxShuffles = gridSize - 1; step++; if step == numMaxShuffles { step = 1; gridSize++; } ```

Where `step` is the number of shuffles to do to get a puzzle. I am not sure this creates truly increasing difficulty experience, but for gamejam this is more than sufficient.

Somehow this game is relatively performance heavy for what it does. Especially when adding adding/undoing new tiles. I would guess either pattern checks of sliding is done a bit inefficiently.

I would love to get a shortcut key for undo button. Another quality of life feature would be to on-hover hilight over tiles whenever the tile is in right place or not. Sometimes I spent more time comparing what I need to get with current board rather than thinking how to get there.

Now if you add hint button (since you can record shuffling actions and _reverse_ them) and allow users to create and share their own patterns in game you have a quite a decent mobile game 🙂 👍

Corpse Circle by Jonathan Lorenz 2023-01-18T00:55:11Z ♥ 1

Nice twist on the theme. Really lived how you personified the combine harvester. The visuals, audio design complements the overall idea quite nicely. Also great idea, on using sacks of wheat with wheat drawn on them to represent wheat 😂

The ghost "run" animation is quite ingenious also - it looks like the ghost remembers its personality as a person, and he/she is raising legs when running, hence the skirt gets lifted sideways a bit.

Few points to consider though: 1. Still not sure what do bees do? Are they just a guide indicator, that you are on the right path? 2. Hiding in scarecrows is really neat idea, but I would think there should be some kind of limitation to it. Maybe: `there is time limit you can stay in the scarecrow` or `you can enter only certain number of scarecrows`, or even `once you leave the scarecrow, you cannot enter another one until certain amount of time passes`. Though maybe these could be different difficulty levels and/or challenges for more variability. 3. if you hide in the scarecrow, that is right by the level wall, it gets really hard to see where the harvester is, because camera is pulled downwards into the sacks due to collision with the level wall.

Overall great entry 👍

Necromancer's Garden by animawish 2023-01-13T00:52:54Z ♥ 2

Nice to see LÖVE entry from you again 🙂 And what a brain teaser this is. Really nice twist on the theme. Requires both planning and luck (maybe too much luck). Juggling between the three resources (money/mana/time) is nice also mix of elements.

But there I find few issues: 1. It was not clear for me, that you can take as many spells even if you don't have the mana right now to cast it. As a result I took ~10x **Rot** cards at the start of the game only to try to get rid of them over next ~20 turns. 2. I could not figure out the rules of how many coffins you get each day. It seemed to scale with number of mana I have? As after reducing my mana from ~50 -> ~3 in two turns I got ~1 coffin from constant 4 every day. As a result, most of the later game, once I had **Forbidden Fruit** I had to spend all time/mana budget to only deal with the coffins I get. Maybe it also scales with money I have (as I was having 130+, as I didn't really need anything from the shop)? 3. Then the money - I didn't really have what to spend money on after buying **Forbidden Fruit**. Thus it started to just accumulate over time. 4. Not being able to pass turns when when I don't have anything more to do. Well, technically I had ~30 mana, several **Rewind** spells, **coffins** and **Crescendo** (I got from the **Purple Cap**) in hand. (and very similar in the deck) My only options were to waste mana by rewinding, getting hand full of coffins, and finally I was forced to use **Crescendo** failing my run. 5. No way to thin out your deck than actually using the cards. And I am not talking about coffins. 6. I am pretty sure this was deliberate decisions, but it really annoyed me. That the **Growth** accelerated rot by 2 days, but full rot cycle is 3 days, so you cannot do **Rot** -> **Growth** -> **Rewind** in some dire situations, even though I am wasting lots of mana just to save one plant. 7. Organ chime while thematically in place it stood out a lot (maybe audio levels/loudness?) and I found it a bit annoying. Glad you can mute the sounds, though other sounds to well placed.

Other than late(r) game chore of not getting overrun by coffins I find the game pretty enjoyable experience. 👍

Straight Line Farming by DrawRunner 2023-01-12T22:49:39Z ♥ 4

Overall - great game. Really like how you turned simple `Harvest crops` into brain-teasing-for-efficiency puzzle game.

Wanted to write a comment how it's usually not worth the risk to increase number of order requesters beyond two as well as land buying, but I see @zungryware has already all that covered in detail. Though I do agree, that it was choice to keep orders random instead of fully hand-crafted puzzles, at least for the jam version. Then again, I do agree, that hand-crafted content would be welcome, like a story element in between all other orders. For example: * A client wants to have crops harvested in specific order; * A client want gives you single seed of new type, and it must be delivered grown with some other vegetables; * Reoccurring client always demanding bigger orders of same type;

Then again, I understand that is quite hard to cram that into jam schedule.

From technical side: 1. I am not 100% sure, but it seems that buying `order time extension upgrade` does not actually upgrade existing orders only the future ones? I had quite a few times, clients would leave in anger, even if I had an extra day; 2. Again, not sure if this is happening 100%, but it seems like there are cases, where the game prefers first client order, even if I have everything aligned for second client. For example: `client 1: wheat x2 + pumpkin` and `client 2: wheat (x2?) + pumpkin + 2 corn` would say I am throwing `2 corn`. Not sure if this is has to be a super set of the first one. 3. It would be really great to have a tooltip on each purchase what does it do. Especially for the first time playing. For example I had expected buying land would allow to convert single green grass tile to farmland instead of adding full row.

Other than that, the idea is great, the sounds are well placed, the pixel art is very cohesive and clear and the gameplay loop is very catching. Great job 👍

Strange Orchardist by BoxedMeatRevolution 2023-01-12T19:55:14Z ♥ 1

Great concept and implementation. I like the thin like between challenging hard, but still beatable.

In a way I got reminded of bouldering, as you first observe the level and plan your route, but then start executing it, and something happened not in a way you expected (too steep ledge / can't reach -> misclicked direction, timed wrongly). And then you have to start again.

One negative thing that stayed in my mind, was that some fruit color combination is rather hard to distinguish from the environment and the background. I would prefer to try to reach the fruit rather than spend time searching where I had missed it.

It's also interesting to see you switch engines over various Ludum Dare entries. Do you choose engine specifically for the idea? or just want to come back to it/experiment? Just curious. 🤔

Harvest Mouse by Surfa 2023-01-12T15:25:27Z ♥ 2

Great production especially considering ~2days timeframe. Both boss battles were very cool and felt good. I was really hoping/afraid that Larry would come after me after I hit him.

Not sure if this was me only, but targeting with heavy attack was rather complicated. I would also suggest dodge use another resource rather than stamina. For example I got crowded by spiders after unsuccessfully trying to hit them with heavy attacks and could not dodge out of their way.

But overall had fun, looking forward to see something new from you in the future.

Hartifacts by lisyarus 2023-01-12T15:00:22Z ♥ 2

Great idea - great implementation. I really like you didn't go with standard "Harvest crops" game, so I can really appreciate some variation. Also always fun to see some engine variation, not always Unity/Godot/Unreal 😄 (even though I used Godot myself - trying to learn something new).

Really liked the intro/outro tile flipping. Sounds were on-point, but as some mentioned some background audio variety would have helped.

The levels were easy enough and pretty straightforward to solve. My only problem, that there was one and only way to complete the levels. Sure the order of construction may be a bit different, but you always end up with same configuration. So I think it would be great to relax possibility space a bit for puzzles, at the same time you could create somewhat more challenging ones. Then again, I fully understand if that was deliberate choice for `Compo` scope that would allow more players to complete the game.

I tried create a level with what I said above in mind - allowing more design choices for the players. But the maps were in 2D, so each pixel has 8 neighbors instead of 6 in hexgrid. Couldn't figure out which 2 pixels are you dropping to create hexgrid. Maybe example template with dropped pixels would be helpful here. Also it seems the artifact mines are automatically oriented to closes patch of land? (Thinking of a case, where should be a longer bridge to the mines, even though there is land nearby)

From design side of things, would be interesting so see more map tile types. For example: 1. Cities with exits not to all sides (then how to orient them?) 2. Pre-build oriented patches of road so you have to build around or with it.

Organigrow by Phillip Scott 2023-01-12T13:18:55Z ♥ 1

Nice solo game, you did a lot in the little timespan you had. Great job.

Few things from design perspective though: 1. I wouldn't put the seed planter on the platform; (First time playing I spent most of the time looking around for it) 2. It seems that to reach most places you need to actually use double jump. Usually double jump feels good and powerful, but only if you spend some time without. If most platforms require double jump to reach them, maybe it's better to just make the normal jump more powerful. And keep the double jump height/distance for the places that you want to be to really harder to reach. 3. Not sure if this intended, but you use hoe to till earth on brown and green tile patches. This seems a bit weird, as the best play is then just to grow everything new the collection point. Even if you allow growing seeds everywhere, it would make sense to grow them slower on green grass patches (all other weeds compete for resources). 4. I think it would be cool interesting to see some limitations on the seed/ground combinations. For example Lung plants could be only planter/harvested up high on the platforms with different soil type, (there is more clean oxygen up there). Or Heart plants only in far-side corner of the map, as there is more water there. 5. Every time I picked seed planter or pull/push tool I wanted to use scroll wheel to change the value. Also title 2023-01-12 15_16_41-Organigrow.png could different somehow (font/boldness) as this seems like another option I can select.

But overall, great entry. Nice, that you added scoring, helps to see how well players are doing in the game.

Typefarmer by Antti Haavikko 2023-01-11T13:35:40Z ♥ 1

Great game, seems like another successful entry in your word-games series 😄 What are your thoughts on zooming out camera a bit when you have bigger streak going, so you can queue in more words? (Unless this is already happening, I am not that fast of typer) So far my preferred strategy was: 1. remember one word at one side of screen; 2. type another word at the other side of screen; 3. type-in word in memory (step 1), scan for new word type in step 2, so will be at max distance from word in step 1; 4. repeat step 3..

The only problem, is if I fail one of the words, I will be left in place with no words for some time. And I can't type I have in memory, because of some their weird spelling 😂

Other than that - another great entry 👍

Tyranny Defense Simulator 2984 by WFMG 2022-04-24T20:46:22Z ♥ 0

Great idea, great and simple mechanic well polished.

By the end of the game (since I didn't have time to read the messages) I actually felt more like piloting a giant mecha and getting beaten up - showing error messages about all the damage inflicted, etc. 😂

I wanted to write about very loud sounds in the end and few other things, but after reading your long reply, I saw that you have already answered all my questions 🙂

RISING BIRD by Matheus Bueno 2022-04-23T17:47:59Z ♥ 0

Great theme fit and well chosen game scope - has a core gameplay loop, but not too much.

At first it was very hard to move just enough and not to run through the branches, but once I got used to it was pretty fun. I really liked the inverting branches idea, but there are a few things that would benefit from an improvement: * Add a concrete marker in weather line, so the player could see exact moment of change and plan accordingly. I caught myself a few times expecting branch change, only to find out I jumped to early and fall through the branch appeared just a few miliseconds later. * Even though the light branch pattern is exact opposite from dark branches, it would still be really helpful to show ghost branches. Maybe add an option to hide them completely as it is now. * I found, that branch colliders in respect to the birdy was rather unforgiving. Not once I though I was going to make it to the branch only to fall through. Or trying to stand at the edge of the branch only to find myself falling down already with (almost) no way to get back. Could just missplaced colliders on branches and the birdie. * This might be intended gameplay feel, but I found, that branches very slippery to walk on them. * Having same lateral control in the air as on ground was rather interesting - with sensitive air controls it was very easy to miss the branch.

One thing that might have helped a bit with almost all noted "issues", would be to give a small amount of collectibles, that would, by using the collectible up, allow double jumping.

Overall I had fun playing, enough though the best I could muster was ~57 seconds 😂

Across Death Street by Jonathan Lorenz 2022-04-22T21:18:49Z ♥ 1

Interesting concept. I like the twist to classic zombie survival genre that you are a robot actually.

As you said, it currently lacks gameplay. I am sure you have idea what you want to do with the game, but just throwing out a few here: * Lower robot targeting (turret turning) speed, so then it actually matters where you position yourself. * Robot could collect and provide equipment to survivors. * Maybe you need to convince survivors first somehow (dialogue, give item, threaten) for them to join you. * Maybe a switch to turn-based combat could be a thing, so the player then could control all the human survivors removing the need to write AI for them.

The environment looks great and the thematic lighting helps here. But in the future, I advice when determining the position where to shoot, specify which layers to hit (and ignore) in the raycast checks (keep environment object in separate layer for this reason) as currently tries to hit the base of the lamp of the lamp, when accidentally clicking on the lamp mesh (same happened with trucks and other barricades). I would expect the click to go through the lamp.

death-street-lamp.png

By the way, well done making it impossible to hit survivors - would have killed at least a few as currently they behave the same as zombies 😂

P.S. Nice twist when reaching the final sanctuary 🙃

Inferno Fox by jkniest 2022-04-22T14:22:56Z ♥ 0

Simple game well made. Good job, extra credits for automatically logging and showing highscores.

Few thoughts though: * It was unexpected for that the fox can go out of screen bounds and then drop down. Accidentally dropped out of screen a few times; * Jumps feel rather unreliable. Yes, it always reached at least one platform high. But usually the fox can second platform just right. Sometimes after reaching second high platform, it goes down through it, double jumps right under the platform, and goes back on top. Sometimes it doesn't register 2nd jump, and you just fall down. * Sometimes the fox tries to double jump from under falling-off (1 jump) platforms, of course not being able to make the second jump, because the platform has already fallen off; * While double jump is not bad in itself, it's just that currently it feels very unreliable; * Had a few runs, where right at the start received 2-3 berries for 100 points, and then rocket booster, collecting more berries on the way. That is like an hour of careful jumping; * Loved fox animations; * Rocket booster on a fox is very cool; * Trampolines was also a fun boost; * Regarding impeding fire, I feel it would make sense, that the fire should progress by itself slowly. Otherwise the fox can just jump on the same platform for several hours; * There could be slippery surfaces;

Reminded me of childhood and icy towers 😄

Popiel Defense by Minus 2022-04-22T12:50:06Z ♥ 1

Hey nice game so far. I found it really funny seeing the mice-enemies fly ragdolled into oblivion from a single archer arrow 😂

There are a few technical issues. I think you know them already, but might as well list them here: * Can't cancel building once selected (or at least I didn't find how). I expected it to be secondary mouse button. * You can click to build `tower` (and get ghost tower) even when you don't have money for it. This creates a bit frustrating scenarios when coupled with first mentioned issue. Have 55 Gold, try to build 100G `tower` => cannot cancel and have to wait doing nothing until you reach 100G. * You can click-build towers through UI. * Initial camera angle is rather `"interesting"`. * I was very confused at how the camera rotation works. I think you now do rotation purely based only on mouse delta{x,y}?; rather than change from original click position and current positions in respect to original mouse-position-to-ground raycast and current mouse position-to-ground raycast. * Can rotate below terrain, which adds to the confusion. I think Unity Cinemachine has a nice orbital camera model with rotational limits.

And gameplay considerations: * While mice and archer models and animations are really nice, usually I am looking at them from far way above; and mice, and archers look more or less like beans and dots most of the time. Maybe to show-off the animations it would sense to have a in-world first person character with which you can run around and place towers. * All 4 paths are not really balanced, some are shorter, some longer, some have more loops than others, essentially requiring less towers to protect the side. That in itself is not a problem, but if all enemies from all sides are always the same, then one path will always fail faster than others. * Once enemies reach the tower, it's really hard to place towers in range, hit main tower attackers and be useful in general gameplay. * Would love to see range of towers, when placing them. * Would love to see some tower stats when placing them, then I could translate their power output to damage done (shown in mice healthbars)

Would play again, if you have an updated version 🙂

Live, Flame, Live! by SayuriNyooko 2022-04-22T09:33:15Z ♥ 0

Got killed because I though wolves should run away from me when I am carrying light. Apparently you got close enough to blind them, then still bite you 😄

Rather atmospheric, but I didn't have much to do. Not sure what direction you want to explore further. More items? crafting? fighting? other survivors?

Also found it strange/interesting that wood is added to the fire in stacks of 8 🙂

Deck And Decay by ThorPalsson 2022-04-21T20:27:15Z ♥ 4

Interesting submission. Though I see potential, it needs quite a lot of polish.

Somehow idea that you are using cards to battle zombies on the table that fall near your made me laugh. I also liked your take on looting and pointing out obvious stuff, that most people tend to miss anyways 😄

Now the critical parts: * While it's cool to have a separate map for each location, but the movement there feels rather sluggish. Zombies almost move faster then the player, so avoiding them isn't really an option. * In the location maps or before it, I expect to do some meaningful decisions, rather than just check all piles and get into unavoidable fights. Since we have card battles, maybe we could have an altar where we can upgrade one of the cards? Or campfire to heal cards back to their original health. Maybe merge some cards to make them stronger? * In the overmap it would make sense to have some management decisions. For example to the location, you can take only 4 cards. The cards not taken into the map location might heal some life back. * The card battle: * It would be nice to warn players in advance, that they have to attack with all of their cards, once chosen to attack. * You need to tell players, that our card health is not considered when you are doing the attack. * I expect there should some card effects and combos. * Current card battle status is just `be first => pray you can 1HKO the card enemy plays => attack card, repeat`. If you cannot 1HKO means you almost always will lose card on your side as well. * In general needs rethinking and redesign, to include more systems, resources. At the moment it is very close to autobattler.

@roryh Yeah, managed the same, sharing for all, and at the same time it's a challenge, `can you stack 4 tables on your head?` 😄

deck-decay-stack.png

Hummingbird by Madbarron 2022-04-21T19:52:34Z ♥ 1

Nice, simple and polished. Had a few minute of relaxing fun.

Turning flowers to white color while draining their nectar is a nice touch.

But why is upwards movement to hard, while going sideways you can easily reach Mach 3 🙃

STONEHOLD by teamscripta 2022-04-21T19:40:04Z ♥ 1

Disclaimer: I played the JAM version only.

Well polished game. Has attack, special charged up attack and dodge-me-out-of-the-danger-roll. The gameplay is smooth, keeps good pace, graphics and sound is well placed and fits well. Reminded me a bit classic diablo-like games and classic hack-and-slash one.

Was really impressed with the ability to go and try out other players gameplay paths. 😍

Not sure if this is intended behaviour, but once you get really close to the even, you can spam attacks really fast, giving to change for monster to attack. Maybe it's because players moves a bit forward when attacking and that reset

Would like to see in the future: * More monster types with different patterns or multiple patterns; * Maybe a bit of monster scaling; * Attack pattern change, based on life left; * A choice to upgrade the hero every few levels. (If player of other players dungeons, you could still show the choice, but only allow the one the dungeon owner chose)

Also suggestion, to require to try climbing own dungeon at least once, and only then unlock wandering to other players dungeon paths.

UPDOG: The Ascension of 180 Sadie by Alchemic 2022-04-21T19:14:28Z ♥ 3

Really nice entry. Enjoyed a lot playing and trying to get good at the game. At first I was rather surprised by the 2D character in fully 3D environment, but it gives a nice touch making your character feel really special.

I really like `Grappling hook` mechanic in this and other games, BUT I got rather repeatedly frustrated trying to get onto the top of the raft. Mainly because I have no control over grappling hook once it `connects`, automatically getting to the min possible distance to the attaching point. Usually the grappling hook has `"stable"` distance the target, so it's easier to start various swinging maneuvers, and only then reel back as close as possible. So while this seems like the most fun thing in the game, it still needs some polish.

I found the crate release force is bit forceful, have lose several boxes that way.

Didn't notice, but does having several balloons in hand alter jump force in any way? or maybe grappling reel-in speed?

As someone suggested above, it would be nice if you could go through the raft from under it. Or even better: keep the collisions as it is now, but add attaching points for grappling hook a bit off the main raft body. Imagine that as metal frame to which the grappling hook could attach to, essentially making raft "catch area" bigger.

Regarding balloons it was cool, but I think it would be nice have different variety of them scattered over the clouds. For example: * red - default; * white - hard to notice in the clouds, provides same lift as red ones, but lasts way longer; * blue - double the lift of red ones, same duration; * green - reds' lift, but rather short duration, found in groups of three-five; * black - half reds' lift, same duration, but when explodes counts as a fuel crate; Of course such balloon variety calls for ability to attach multiple balloons to the same spot. Maybe also scatter additional attachment points in the clouds and Sadie could bring it back to the raft to `upgrade` it.

I understand that most of this feedback doesn't usually fit into JAM timeline, but I still think it might be useful for future version / future games.

Great entry, had fun, looking for more in the future.

Oh, and I think this is a bug - `Managed to land on the ground, had to wait for a few minutes until all balloons on the raft exploded and it came crashing to the ground` updog-ground.png

WHEN NANA SAYS IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL by alyd asmar 2022-04-21T18:37:36Z ♥ 3

This game... is soo.... ✨️ *Cool* ✨️

Played mostly in (G)Vim, so it was an interesting experience to say the least.

I really hope this spoiler free (Ping me if I should hide the image behind the link); just wanted to share my gameplay experience. When-nana-vim.png

Catronaut by fatPenguin 2022-04-21T18:05:43Z ♥ 1

Disclaimer: Only played first - no-tutorial version yet.

I think your game illustrates really well the case where you take single (maybe two) mechanic and make it feel really good.

Overall it was really fun and relaxing to guide the cute space kitten through it's own ship to avoid disasters. I also liked how you did the audio design.

Few questions / comments: 1. Is it intended that even at full charge going straight up to the first platform it's not possible to reach it? you have to use additional boosts to get on it. Just though that maybe you are ignoring framerate delta time when adding velocity / force impact in that case; Which in turn would lead to different `"jump"` height with different framerates. 2. Jumping 30-45 degree angle with sideways movement keys pressed gives way more velocity than I would expect it. 3. Boosting mid-air is really inefficient / frustrating: * Once I get the full charge, I am almost midway back to to ground. * Making lots of small `puffs` doesn't really get you anywhere. * Not possible to keep `boosting / vectoring` once you charge it, as it's usually possible to do in space-like travelling games.

Did I mention that repairing animation made me laugh really hard. It's very cute.

Alloy Song by auntieNeo 2022-04-21T17:36:07Z ♥ 1

Impressive touches to overall consistency of the game and atmosphere. Loved the small green arrow for the action call-out buttons. Also Intro and Game Over animations are really cool.

Though this game really really _really_ needs `skip`/`Fast-Forward` option, as I am writing this comment while waiting for text animations to play out 🙃

Interesting to have characters on wheels, but I like it. Once you get used to it, it fit really well 😄

One issue I noticed though: It's possible to press on the button before even seeing it. So, it's possible to make a choice without being aware of it.

Would love to see this continued and a version where your weapon/previous owner choices actually matter at later decisions. Amazing first Ludum Dare entry.

Lava Tactics by animawish 2022-04-21T17:04:26Z ♥ 1

As last time, I am glad to see Love2D entries. I can see you went over the top with sheer number of actions and interactions, lava flow simulation and even added animals on top of that. I can see a lot of work being put into this game.

BUT that's a lot of things to understand right off the bat to play the game. In addition to that you need to control 5 characters. That becomes rather unwieldy.

Some thoughts / suggestions: * Add keybinds to select your characters (1-5) and keep the visual modes for F1-F7? * Would be really nice to be able to do simple actions as digging and moving entirely with keyboard. Would play a lot smoother. * Having one action each turn (x5 while alive) against all the volcanos (9x by default) gets really overwhelming really fast. Reducing `fun` factor really fast. * Add introduce volcanos over time. That would give feeling of achievement, when finishing or almost finishing to contain one volcano. Only for new threat to appear. * Give more default actions, so player actions would feel like actually having impact. Or give some squares free movement? * Now it feels like going against final boss at level 1 in classic JRPG. * I think this time you went too much for `feature count` instead of `gameplay loop`.

Then again, all the work you did with all the options is really impressive.

Oh, and minor issue: once defaultly selected character is dead, it still gets selected by default, and you can choose actions for it. Though you cannot execute them, still had me confused a few times.

Tin Can by Hiku 2022-04-21T16:15:33Z ♥ 0

I know from past experience how hard is it to get balance right, especially for multiple interconnected systems. So giving the choice to the player here is really smart move. I really all the effort added to this so far.

Then again, as others have mentioned, some feedback mechanisms would be really helpful to feel more invested into the game.

Some suggestions for `quick fixes` to a few layers of complexity and player investment: * Allow choosing what egg you want to use up. Basically egg inventory. So we don't need to put all the fox eggs only to be able to place snake eggs. * Allow partitioning space a bit more via trenches or barricades. So player could have one chicken-fox area to try to balance foxes; And another chicken-only area to keep health population of chickens for emergency case. There could a change that some animals can escape their areas and wreck havoc in others. * Allow player to move animals to other place. Via signaling, or just manually drag them to another place. That would play nice with different areas. * You need some actions to gain something from the animals. For example keep cows for milk and foxes for furs. * Some explanation / indication what causes player to lose health. I have no idea why I died. * Some emergency, space-related events, that would introduce player to the situation over time.

Overall this looks very promising, just needs some extra touches.

Did I say, I that I love space related games? I saw tech-y / space related themes, though I had to look for it actively. Looking to forward to future updates if any 🙂

Bropocalypse by Wizard 2022-04-21T15:51:46Z ♥ 2

Ahahaha, at first it was like `ha-ha, these no-brain muscle heads are going all around gym to get` and then all of a sudden it's like `HEY, that's my gear, put it down.... Did you just pass it to the next guy in line... WHO told you can take things behind my back...` hecktic to `FINE, punching time it is` desperate 😂

Nice, theme twist. Wonky AI pathfinding seems in line with zombie theme.

What could also benefit the game besides what @wfmg said is: * Ability to move gym gear back into place, albeit at a slower pace than normally moving. * Ability to do some workout with the gear to restore your life. * Ability to do some workout in the gym, and raise your accuracy or run speed temporarily (you know, adrenaline and stuff) * Put bro-zombies in a more wave-like manner, so then there is defense (action) phase, and then downtime-recovery (strategic) phase.

Hole by OlgaVek 2022-04-21T15:30:14Z ♥ 2

Well done with rather technically challenging game implementation. Love the crazy look on the guy, well worth it.

Took some to understand what I need to drag and drop. Sound effects really help to understand if the limb is attached to the wall or not. Though I would suggest differentiating between `attach` and `disattach` sounds. As sometimes it's possible to place the limb near the wall, think it is attached, and start moving other limb on the same side only to understand, that the previous limb is actually not supporting the guy. Oh, and now it's behind the screen... Time to wait for game end.

I would like to see `quick-restart` option. Sometimes you can see, that you have lost, but still have to wait for the stubborn dude to get buried beneath the surface.

Also a distance climbed highscore would be nice to have.

Blöd Kråk Runner by HackerGreg 2022-04-21T15:11:20Z ♥ 0

A SFML game for first Ludum Dare 😮

Cool, even double jump added. Had a bit of fun with this. Made challenge to avoid blue balls. Would be interesting to play original, non-nerfed version 😂

On another node I am pretty sure, jumps reset even when hitting platform from under it.

Would like to see other types of (timed) pickups in the future: speed boosts, triple jumps, forward dashes.

P.S. One easy change - add a highscore with distance ran. That way all players would have something to share after playing the game.

Sapper Master by yusovv 2022-04-21T14:53:14Z ♥ 0

Nice game, well-polished UI.

Though the wire cutting mechanic is very finicky. I would expect the cutting line to be well... actual `line` rather than stretched ellipse. Not once the game failed to register my cut, because, I started very close to the wire I need to cut, dragged way outwards, the final ellipse corner got positioned behind cuttable wire. Making me repeat the cut again.

Great effort, it is really just two of you? or you had a bigger team? 🤔

Cardboard People on Fire by BoxedMeatRevolution 2022-04-21T14:43:30Z ♥ 1

Such a chill atmospheric game. Love the art style choice and chill effects even the Cardboard people are on fire. Great theme fit also.

Few things to note to improve(?) the game: * More noticable sound / visual indication if somebody is on fire. * Show their `Catch-on-fire` change, when being near the person/animal. So if I come near the cat, and it's likely to catch fire soon, I could stay and watch rather then moving on to another potential target. * On fire objects could spread fire chance while on ground. * Dousing cardboard objects in fire could reduce their chance to get fire, so routine water bath would prevent fire risk, but too much water could damage cardboards otherwise. * Most of the time I spent running around looking for early fire signs, but when I noticed it and RAN to the source usually I was there too late. Maybe add another pre-fire step, that changes behaviour of the people. * And to make it more challenging, some pre-fire activities for one type of cardboards could be the same a normal activity so other cardboard types. For example dogs could usually jump up and down, but when nearing fire they would start rolling on ground. While one type of person could start jumping up and down when nearing fire. That way it you start training to see the wrong acting patterns.

How did you manage to make those interesting / creepy faces? Your own work?

Oh, and rocket-like departure got me laughing aloud 🤣

Inevitable Dungeon by Surfa 2022-04-21T14:19:29Z ♥ 0

Nice game. Good artwork and sound effects.

Intentionally didn't read instructions, so got confused how to attack, so had to go back to instructions. Was rather surprised with secondary mouse click on item and then popup to equip it. I can relate though, item drag-drop is usually pain.

Didn't manage to defeat first boss, since I usually reach it with half the life. Once dead, the inner boss gate is locked, and the keys don't spawn. Also defeated monsters are not respawned and left in the old places. So no sure if this is intentional or, but essentially there is only one try to defeat the boss right now.

Interesting choice to make enemies move in steps, but I rather like it. It's possible then to bait them and avoid them rather keeping a flow of all mobs following you.

I also agree, with others that while death bag mechanic is cool, the first item could be added automatically.

Another minor thing, possibly intentional, I noticed that fired projectiles (firebolts) have randomized offset. So if you are standing against an inner corner, half your projectiles will hit the wall, and other half hit the enemy at the end of corridor 👇 Inevitable-dungeon-corners.png

This also means you cannot shoot parallel to the wall, while being near it as all the projectiles will hit the wall immediately.

It would also be nice to fire projectiles at an angle; at least 45 degrees. You could use numpad for that maybe?

Atlantis by lisyarus 2022-04-21T13:35:10Z ♥ 2

Hey, great game, had my share of fun.

Thoughts

The good:

* Pure SDL game. * I really liked, how when you want to restart the game, pressing `Esc` just brings up the controls for a short time. * The game hits the theme spot-on, so well done there. * Simple, but clean and expressive graphics. Rather easy to understand what is what. * Well placed sounds. * Challenging, but not impossible start when you know what you are doing. * All the floating text + icons really nicely illustrates which buildings are active. * Rather nice balance between several resources and their production. * Additional placement graphics indicating valid locations for placing the building.

The Bad:

* Once you get stable, the game becomes a chore - just looking for prayers. * True random (if it's true) feels very unfair and punishing, especially at the start of the game. For example where you need that only one stone quarry, but you can never get the card on time. * All the floating production indicators pollute the view when trying to build on the island, especially before you understand, you can scroll to zoom in. * Accidentally discarded several cards, because I wanted to rotate my view by clicking secondary mouse button.

The Ugly:

* Inversely challenging gameplay - very tough at the start of the game, and rather boring once you get stable. * Easy to get soft-locked, because didn't notice that adding new building would make food production negative: * And don't get the right building to make it positive again; * Don't have enough resources to build the building to make it positive again; * Food hits 0, crumbling any chance to recover; * Don't have anything interesting to do, once you delay the inevitable.

Suggestions

* Add total production indication near the total resource count. For example `Fishing hut` + `wood worker` would produce `+1 food` in total, making it very clear that we cannot afford another food consuming building right now. * Add more possible card slots (maybe a building upgrade). That would allow keeping the desired building in queue, but still search for your next steps at the same time. Maybe don't allow stacking freeze time from cards to balance things out. * Add more actions to do after you get stable? * This could easily go into autoclicker direction; * Or allow raising back submerged land; * Terraform tiles from land to stone, if you raise it high enough;

Overall - love, would like to play more, when there is more gameplay in there.

Oh, and since we are sharing our stable villages, here is mine: atlantis-inf.png

Don't Let Them Sit There by MrEvilGuy 2022-04-21T11:45:24Z ♥ 1

Good job on submitting first ludum dare game, especially after changing the engine.

I think the idea is great, with just enough touch of humor and reality. This rather unique art style mix and self recorded audio well complement each other.

From technical side of things I had some trouble starting the game. It seems you need to press some key for people to start coming near your? I had a for about 8 stops (didn't wait more) where no person would go in my direction. They would go off-screen to the right side.

From game design side, while it's cool that each person has different personalities and dislikes, I found it rather difficult remember them all (or even look up) in time press correct dislike image. Maybe rather than trying to fit text on the dislike image, it would be better to have text written using text component / node, and just show the image without text nearby, that way it would be less visual noise, trying to recognize the correct dislike to choose.

Another suggestion would be to actually reduce number of possible dislikes. Then the dislikes could be shown in UI always at the same place, this way separating the problems the player has to solve. It would be to only identify the dislike instead of currently identify the dislike AND then finding it among possible options. You could add placement randomization as an difficulty option.

If you think that it would be too easy, then it could be a dialog between the passenger and you. The passenger says something to you (visually, or just sound) and you have to dislike with something he would dislike in the context he just said. After your response, he could have another "dialog" line, that you also have to respond (deny). After several such exchanges, the passenger could decide if he/she wants to sit nearby or not. Maybe even decide how close to you, and the sitting distance could affect the aerosol rise rate.

Maybe it would also makes sense to keep survival progress not in time, but in number of stops survived? Because, it's possible add artificial time, by choosing dislikable thing as late as possible rather than right away as you identify it.

P.S. This could also get boost from gambling element a bit. If you add choice to leave the train at some stop, you could calculate the number of stops survived, multiply it by some exponential modifier and allow to take the train again, adding to already existing score. But if you fail to get off the train in time, and get covid, your score is reset. Of course, the more stops you ride without getting off the train, the better score multiplier. So, the more you risk, the better score you can get.

Cleric Wanted by Garazbolg2 2022-04-20T21:26:38Z ♥ 1

First of all that's a lot of gameplay systems and content for a `COMPO` game, well done getting this far. I had fun playing the `COMPO` version and then seeing how post-jam version modified the gameplay a bit.

Though I have to agree with some previous comments: * I was mildly disappointed, that having a `Tank` in the party was a deadweight. Neither did it do any real damage neither did it soak up damage from other character. (Or if it did happen I didn't see any indication of happening) * I missed some attack foreshadowing mechanism, especially at the later stages, where several enemies hit like truck on my poor team of frail mages. The only real strategy is to all in my party at full life. It would be nice, if enemy attack would consist at least three steps, that have some timing between them: * *`Target`* - visually indicate which of our party member is going to be attacked; give some time to the player to try to heal it, or just ignore it. * *`Attack`* - actually deal the damage, short time slow here. * *`Cooldown`* - prepare for the next attack, giving time to the player again, to heal again. * If we have targeting then it would be nice, to have some indication on how hard the hit is going to be. e.g. is the character targeted by a mage for massive fireball damage, or just lowly goon? * Both targeting and damage scale could be something of an upgrade to be bought in the shop. So it would be an optional thing to get. * Both thing would add more strategic depth into choosing what to heal and then, rather than just trying to keep them as much at max life as possible. * As currently there is no price difference between `Goon` and other two characters, it gives little incentive to hire them. Maybe the `Goon`s could be a character that scales very well, but is hard to keep alive a lower levels. So for example in first two encounters `Goon` would hard to keep alive, but with every dungeon level their attack speed could be increasing; Or they would start more reliably hitting mages only. Just an idea.

Great entry, nice to see it updated post-jam at least once. I understand that most of my feedback is hard to fit into `JAM` or even `COMPO` time, but still leaving it here for future.

Debt Train (card construction game) by Christian Zommerfelds 2022-04-14T20:24:20Z ♥ 1

First of all the game is done very well. I think sticking to free-form rail drawing rather than grid-based was a correct choice. Sounds and visuals are spot-on especially for gamejam game. The idea and controls are simple and easy to learn.

Though as some have mentioned before there are quite a few areas to improve it: * After 30 or so card I want a checkmark that allows to automatically pay out the debt card when draw; * Placing station (cards) sometimes covers whole area I am interested in building over. Making it hard to see if all buildings I am interested are covered and if I have left-over track to build on later; debt-train-ui.png * After losing it would be nice to zoom out to max, to look at your railroad empire; * Would be nice, if initial automatically built station would not be directly at the end of rail. That way you could give player more flexibility where pursue money, rather than always upwards; * I am sure the theme this time is a poor fit for this kind of game. Drawing `Debt` so much debt is somewhat discouraging; * The game excitement / chore ratio is rather bad. It's very easy at the start (and fun) then it rather quickly gets tedious (played to see if I actually can connect all houses) and then the math kicks in, bringing inevitable doom; * What could help here are more actions; * More clearly defined `Rounds` rather than infinite deck of actions; * Maybe even allow choosing what cards are added to the deck depending what houses are included into railway network. * For example there could be standard houses (gives money), commercial (gives houses or money) and industry (gives rails or stations, but takes money cards from the deck) map locations. That way there is another layer of strategic choice where you want to build to. * Paying money would allow shuffling discard cards into deck. Essentially doing extra calculations and weighting if there are more negative cards in the deck than positive, and if it's worth paying up-front to increase chance of drawing a positive card; * Special rail cards to place across water, to heavy industry (oil)?

I could go on and on :)

Oh, this is my map if you are interested: debt-train-endgame.png

Overall the game gave me `Transport Tycoon`/ `OpenTTD` vibes. Interested if you will develop anything further and what choices you will make!

Screen of Death by A-Flat Miner Studios 2022-04-14T18:44:58Z ♥ 1

Very well answered main theme. I like the retro GBC-like look of the device. Nice hints to the games of that era. Impressive you managed to fit everything in 72 hours. What would have been funny in my humble opinion is if you slotted in `Credits` cartridge, the screen would magically get fixed - that way allowing everyone to see real names in the credits :)

Settling On Mars by Daniel Whittaker 2022-04-13T21:35:39Z ♥ 2

Well done making a core city builder. Few things that caught my attention: * It would make sense to show current resource near the buy price of new building; I noticed I was always looking at the build price, seeing I don't have enough. Going to the top bar to check how much away I am from building it. Then I have already forgot how much I need. * Show the defensive radius of turret towers. Now I have no idea how close up or loose turrets needs to be to cover my whole economic zone. * Add disappearing decals to the places the meteors hit the ground. This also ties in to turret towers. It would allow estimating if I need more turrets in the area, or am I good to move onto next region. * Add explosions when meteors hits and damages buildings :) while it's nice we see visual change the building is damaged, I usually can only see it after the shower chaos. Sometimes making it too late. * I also agree with some previous comments, that the disasters are scaling too fast, taking more than 80% of gameplay time. Making the game into frantic repair clicker, rather than strategic defensive resource utilization game. It also renders radar almost useless, because answer to question `When is damage incoming?` is `Always`. Maybe instead of doing whole-screen meteor shower, make them localized? That way radar could show with some probability where the impact will be. * I also noticed sometimes it gets darker for a time and later brighter again. I assume this is to simulate day/night cycle. Is/was there some gameplay mechanic related to that?

ENDURACE - Drift Or Die by Phillip Scott 2022-04-13T21:01:12Z ♥ 2

Great game. Had some fun in both tracks. While I understand a choice have minimal to no HUD, adding some UI to show your place in the race (with total of cars remaining) would really help to keep the intense feeling of destructive racing. I noticed there there text saying my place in the race in info boards, but never manager to actually read it, as I was focusing on driving and smashing other cars. Maybe instead of two numbers in fixed place have a line of scrolling "news" text e.g.: `"Purple rager" has hit "Green wacky"; "Green wacky" is forced to retire from the race` or `"Red rusher" has hit the track at a bad angle. We can see the driver rushing away from the exploding car`.

Another nice (not critical) UI addition would be a top-down minimal view of the race track and all the racers in it. That way it would be easy to see how much ahead / behind are you.

Other than that really nice game. Actually I am interested how did you set up your AI? Are there some pre-recorded paths randomly assigned to each car? Did you do some training? Is the car crashing design decision, because you didn't want to do flock avoidance logic :) ?

Icebreak by tylerstraub 2022-04-13T20:32:03Z ♥ 1

Nice game. Always nice to see pure c+SDL creations. The only inconsistence I experienced was that if I am near the monster I can press the arrow key to face him and then push him away. BUT if I want to repair a hole that is sideways from me, I have to step away and then go back facing it directly. And only then I could apply repair action. Instead of turning in-place as being near the monsters (which doesn't even consume and turn) and pushing them away.

I get it, it somewhat makes sense thematically, but somewhat inconsistent. Noticed I was always asking my brain if can turn in place here, or do I need to move away and come back.

Bee Rescue by DmitryGalias 2022-04-08T06:17:36Z ♥ 1

Nice simple game. Your almost never idle. But never hitting the woodchopper makes the game too easy, and trying keep him away makes it practically unbeatable. Especially since later woodchoppers have more health AND deal more damage to the tree.

Also it was a nice touch to be able to choose several new tree, but left me confused a bit. As after building first one, I also wanted to build a second tree, so I had to wait respective amount of honey/bees only to find out I am not allowed to build a second tree.

Overall well done, especially with the cinematic transitions at the start of the game.

BetterAI by Ziggy 2022-04-07T22:06:26Z ♥ 0

Well done with all the terminal feel 👍 Not sure if it's intended, but first time I tried playing, I pressed red button in the dialog when it had just started _Transferring_. Which closed the terminal, left it very easy to disconnect the nodes and stopped transfer progress altogether. So, I managed to delay infinitely in first minute.

Nice touch adding quit dialogs (and not crashing on webgl 😄 )

Jelly Strike: Tower Offensive by DaNaiX 2022-04-07T21:28:31Z ♥ 2

Nice concept and implementation especially for first __compo__ game. What I really missed though is a _speedup button_. Because once you set up your team and let them go, there is nothing much more to do, but wait till your team reaches the finish (or gets destroyed). So sadly enough I spent more time _"watching"_ the game than playing it.

Few other things to update / keep in mind for next game: - It would be really nice to be able to see the team composition you are building; Even more so because the order of it matters. So maybe a vertical visualization of different jellies as they are added and removed from the team. - Assuming we have visualization of jellies, then naturally you would want to drag-drop the cubes into and from team composition. - Current Jelly _Add_/_Remove_ buttons are way too small. They are basically the only thing that the player is allowed to interact with (and most interacted with). Yet the buttons are the smallest elements in the game. While still able to press them I get psychologically annoyed, that I have to do precision pointing to just press the button. - Tooltip for each Jelly is very nice, but the font + it's color is rather hard to read.

Looking forward to updates and your next work. :)

Void Prison by Tadas Migauskas 2022-04-07T20:59:23Z ♥ 2

As always, well chosen scope and great execution. Forward to seeing more.

focus by r_p 2022-04-07T20:47:05Z ♥ 1

Good start. All is left to do now is to add is: - several timers - pickable boosters - multicolored blobs with different AI options - permanent upgrades - in-game shop - skill trees - rebindable controls - voiceovers and facial animations

;)

Cemetery Pinball by DDesignDude 2021-10-21T20:05:23Z ♥ 1

First of all, nice job on DS Compo entry. The is well crafted for such a short amount of time. As many noticed, it's easy to get ball stuck in a loop, but I guess that's why there are bumps 😃 Impressive work anyhow.

Unbalanced Brawl by yopox 2021-10-21T19:46:23Z ♥ 3

Very enjoyable, good match of gameplay, music and art. It's amazing you managed to put all the different mechanics in play for each card. I like how each faction feels distinct from one another. Though I wouldn't mind some interplay between factions - like spiders getting weaker/stronger if you have a (specific) mushroom played. Or merchants generating extra gold, if you are keeping 2+ robots in hand.

Instability of the shop didn't really affect me. Had some cards in hand, or just froze the shop / upgraded. It influenced my decisions, but not to a degree, where it was challenging. Maybe more "unstable" interactions between field and hand would be nice, rather than just shop prices.

Would be great if attacking rules (if there are any) were explained somewhere. Like `Highest health first attacks lowest attack creatures` or `Merchants target insects first, then robots, then randomly`. It was sad to see my `22/35 cannibal spider` **attack** `3/2 poisonous spider` and get killed 😢

At least partial preview of next fight's enemies would be nice and add some strategic depth.

From technical side - animations were not always playing during combat, so it was hard to track what was happening.

Great work anyways, looking up to future entries.

Keep talking, and Bob might not die by MakimoPL 2021-10-21T19:00:42Z ♥ 0

Nice idea; good implementation; simple, yet effective. Don't know if it's my mic settings, but it was really hard balancing between `loud enough to keep moving, yet not too loud wake the bear`. Kept making speeding car sounds 😂 because that seemed funny and very effective at driving Bob forward. Liked your pun to `Keep talking and...` game ;)

Fractured Space by JesusOnWheels 2021-10-21T18:49:13Z ♥ 1

First I though this game was a 2D Katamari Damacy: collected bunch of junk, the camera zoomed out. Then I tried joining one of the bigger asteroids butmy collection of precious space junk exploded all around me. Flinging the character across the multidimensional rifts. So, looks like my space exploration was a success 😂

On my second try kept trying to move diagonally, to gain bigger absolute velocity value to get a bigger camera zoom-out. Finding old crewmates floating in space was a nice, yet a sad touch. Took them with me anyways. Don't know what kind of technologies might be available in those rare alien worlds. Then a pair of very colorful alien friends got attached to me. So I couldn't break their heart, and took them with me on my journey. And then the sad reality hit us - `Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.` (Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Adams Douglas). Well, at least I have some colorful company for discussions until we hit some planet.... Or more likely a black hole..

space debris.png

Scootles by Surfa 2021-10-21T18:21:07Z ♥ 1

Nice game, love the audio and background story 😃 So many reflections!! I was enjoying scooter controls and at the same time hating it.

One thing I missed though was the ability to turn head (camera) to see if there are any people sneaking up on me, when doing a turn.

Default cube game by Dreamerflow 2021-10-13T15:14:20Z ♥ 1

Nice little platformer. Good idea / artwork mix. Personally would have liked more quick movement and jumping experience. On the other hand, this allows two-three jumps get to level end 😆 . Wasn't sure why arrows kills me, but oh well. As a first gamejam, very well done.

Shaky Shapes by joaosilva22 2021-10-13T10:09:26Z ♥ 1

Simple, yet challenging and addictive. Glad to see Love2D is still alive and kicking. Good job adding screen shake and sound effects.

Diamonds in the Rough by animawish 2021-10-13T09:46:52Z ♥ 2

Love to see LÖVE entries. Good idea for mechanics. I like how both snakes and bobs shake the same, making it a risk move to either try picking them up or leaving and hoping it's not bomb. The art is also well fitted to gameplay. Different game modes (card decks - I assume they are the same each time per mode; with exception of chaos) is nice cheap way to make game more replayable.

I also like how you get choice to use magnifying glass and potentially reveal snakes making it more difficult, or just show where are value cards. My only disappointment is that it didn't seem worth using magnifying glass, especially at the start, as using would still tick turn timer. So generally it seems not worth picking it and using it. 2 turns to pick and use glass vs just 2 turns picking non-shacking cards nearby shaking ones. On average it seems I winning at least 1 diamond card not using magnifying glass, due to possibility of shaking card being a bomb.

Maybe it would be worth limiting active bomb cards on board. Also maybe some rarer `time freeze` card?

CalmR - Rock Skipping Mindfulness by Eli Delventhal 2021-10-13T08:04:03Z ♥ 2

Very well aesthetically done. At first I was really calm, then as I started trying to hit targets got increasingly frustrated :D Good meditation subversion. Played on PC with mouse & keyboard, so I am sure I am missing throwing motion experience. Was mildly disappointed, that intro dialogs were same after finishing the game and running it again 🙃 But overall - good job.

Unstable Memories by potkirland 2021-10-12T22:18:40Z ♥ 0

Nice art and sound mix, I would say creates fitting atmosphere. Activities seems simple enough, but after several attempts I still couldn't figure should I push level in the same direction as the darker "hilight" under it, or in the opposite side. as doing either seemed to do nothing. Or little enough to not get noticed by me :/ Good job having working game though :)

Normal Human by Profugo Barbatus 2021-10-12T22:01:24Z ♥ 2

Very well done. Great mash of theme, art and backing gameplay. Characters are cute and have a character. Was pleasantly surprised by word dragging mechanics. Both how challenging it is and how well it fits into the theme. :D

Unstables by mar3k 2021-10-12T21:14:02Z ♥ 1

Interesting mechanics and ability to change form. Whole unstable mechanic reminded me of `Mob Psycho 100` anime :D

My only complain, is that I had to click several times on attack action for it to be selected. It was a bit annoying to track if the attack or any other action is selected, because it's not always responding and to check it I have to look at the other side of screen where I was clicking. Some sounds here would have helped here, but I understand not everything goes the way you planned.

Ok, fine, I would mind some more clear animations when monsters are attacking. Currently it happens so fast I have no idea who already attack and how much. That would help to decide which enemy to focus first.

Dimanchine by NiKaDra 2021-10-11T21:59:07Z ♥ 1

Ahaha, was looking around for red cubed near the edge and didn't notice one right under me. Got lifted out of the game area by it, as shooting it didn't seem to do anything. (maybe bullets were spawning inside the cube, or maybe didn't have enough ammo / repaired enough) Waiting for future developments 👍

BLAME IT ON THE RAIN by bellatrion 2021-10-11T21:48:45Z ♥ 2

The weather forecast was unexpected ⛈️ . That's a lot of artwork for gamejam. Somehow got remimded of `hotline miami` 😂

Formula Dare by Taffaz 2021-10-11T21:11:06Z ♥ 2

As a fan of dice placement games, I can see that this is a lot of work done. Well done getting initial rules feedback to the player - without coloring slots green or yellow this would be nightmare to figure out. Finished full game first (spent maybe around 5-10 min reading and trying to understand), then tried beginner version. I am still not sure how Front Wing rules work. Nether the less I really enjoyed trying this out.

Yet I agree with most comments here, that it would be worth introducing each component / placement area separately. Or at least build up on what was introduced before. For example: * First race in one day and you only need acceleration (either tires or gearbox) and braking. * Next race in two days - additionally need top speed; show what weight increase does. * Third race in 3-4 days - cornering, drag, alternative acceleration. * Fourth - dice manipulation, stability, auto filled areas... and so on.

Also even with chapter-by-chapter mechanics introduction I think it would be good lock some options (but still display them) until some condition. For example, you need at least 4 dice placed in engine to start working on gearbox. Or Unlock highest value tires only after filling in 5 dice in gearbox. That way it would make the car filling feel more connected, each playthrough would feel more unique, because of mistakes/tradeoffs you are forced to do. While at the same time limiting available options early on (reducing mental evaluations required) and thus expanding options when most obvious places are already filled. Also unlocking previously unavailable spots would feel more rewarding as `it's a choice in specializing` in one or more areas.

Looking forward to future updates.

Mountaineer by vsi- 2021-10-10T21:13:36Z ♥ 0

This is nice implementation of rock climbing game, reminds me a bit of this years' Japan Olympics' doodle minigame. Great SFX and BG music. Would have reached the top, but it's really frustrating, when 1/3 of the time rope / shovel wouldn't work even after pressing it (idk why? maybe too long distance, maybe to secret delay between actions). Also not sure how to lose weight? It looks like using rope multiple times reduces more energy and less weight, than restoring it by eating chocolate. Looking forward to UX feedback updates.

Super Stable Tower Constructor by Jonathan Lorenz 2021-10-10T20:21:00Z ♥ 1

Catchy music. The gameplay is nothing really new, would have liked to see some experimental mechanic twisted in.

Servers VS Hackers by jkniest 2021-10-10T20:08:33Z ♥ 0

Love the neon theme. Interesting twist to tower defense genre. Though I find, the gameplay a bit stale, where same strategy applies to all levels: 1. Build all coin miners -> forget money problems. 2. Wait for enemies 3. Build best turrets in the lane enemies are coming. 4. Build more turrets / firewalls in respective lanes to hold off incoming enemies. 5. Wait for all enemies to spawn.

To solve this, maybe some build cooldown timer could be added, at least to coin miners. Possibly increase their cost. Maybe having more coin miners would make this server more attractive to hackers and thus increase enemy spawn rate?

Order of Tharanak by ThorPalsson 2021-10-10T12:26:06Z ♥ 1

There are interesting ideas, but it lacks some feedback to the player on what is happening. I also found mouse responsiveness is really low in FPS mode, making it really uncomfortable to turn around. First time picking the bright ball almost blinded me 😂. What is that transparent face while player camera is lit? 😕

The dimension/reality swapping reminded me of `Soul Reaver` / `Legacy of Kain` games somehow.

Boomsheep by leggy 2021-10-10T12:04:21Z ♥ 4

Great entry: well balanced, good game design, graphics and well placed sounds. The difficulty increases over time to try to manage all the sheep. Reminds me of really old demo game, where the wolf had to gather all the sheep over time to the truck to get them cut 😂 Though I have to say this game is quite challenging (in a good way).

Temple Of Tozi by Denzil Gomes 2021-10-10T11:54:24Z ♥ 1

I know how platformers are complicated to get right. Beautiful coherent graphics, well matched with chill music. Good job with platforming part, especially platforms, so much polish there. And then you have such well thought out level design with unintrusive tutorial texts.

For last puzzle had to think a bit, and even then it was quite tight on time to execute solution. Would love to see enemy / boss mechanics involving same platforms. Reminds me a bit of old `Zelda` / `Alundra` games, where bosses have some weak spot, and to hit it you have to interact with environment and then time it well.

Unstable Prison by Barrier 2021-10-10T11:35:37Z ♥ 1

`AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA` I am done. Nice atmospheric game. Tooks several tries to figure out mechanics and memorize routes. And even though I expected the unexpected, they still got me good, HAhaha :D Well done with sounds to make game eerie enough, but still curious enough to play. Liked the rather indirect hint with hop. Also kudos for good jump controls, would be insanely hard without it.

Polygonal Animal Stacking by Flying Dog Fish 2021-10-10T11:09:02Z ♥ 1

Always nice to see a mix of traditional art in video games. Wouldn't mind few more animals/shapes. Maybe that could allow creating artificial barriers when well placed.

Moonbound by Alchemic 2021-10-10T10:38:12Z ♥ 2

Great answer to the theme and interesting concept, but I think it's lacking some game design polish in early start. What I mean by that is: * You hardly can get fair fight with starting stats / money. * Enemies drop very little loot. * It's way easier to spend few minutes in market manipulation to get decent stats / money, than fighting enemies. First thing to do once spawned in game. * Once you get decent stats, fighting + healing becomes trivial. Both because you have fighter stats and because you can just stop to trade market to make more money. * IMHO, market change is too fast, once I notice and start buying, the prices rise very quickly and then drop very fast. So it looks like I am more or less clicking there randomly.

To address these I think there are a few simple solutions: 1. Make `enemy drop value` part of market, but don't give a way to manipulate that. (At least for now) 2. Make game turn based. So you have more agency over market buy/sell choices. - Limit number of buys / sell per turn. Stops abusing market. - Values like speed and attack speed could be better appreciated. - You don't need to stress and fight / check market at the same time. 3. Discourage hanging out in same room for longer time (say, 100 turns or less, if there are no enemies in the room) by spawning more regular or invincible in the room.

Also it was quite annoying to find out I cannot efficiently step back and fight at the same time, as moving away from the enemy would turn me away from him and attacks are always in the direction I am facing.

Cyberwalk 2049 by Nachodlv 2021-10-10T09:55:23Z ♥ 2

Great mechanics idea, well done art and music. I like how twitchy robots' movement is.

I would really like an ability to out burnt out powers from the back pack. Or at least being able to reorder/sort them, so more important powers to me are more to the bottom of backpack and less likely to drop out when jumping.

I also think, that getting hit is currently too punishing - you lose life AND get knocked back losing some powers. I would say either of the effect would be good. Would be nice, if I could hide behind platforms to avoid enemy fire.

But overall very well done.

Reef Gobbler by BoxedMeatRevolution 2021-10-10T09:39:07Z ♥ 1

Great entry: coherent art, non-intrusive sounds, solid system and great answer to the theme. Love how you managed to create the system and leave "balancing" to the players 😉

While I like the on-screen scenery, on the other hands it's sad to see you species last example go to the corner, and never come out.

Also would be nice, to have some near-death indicator for each bug, or at least spiders. Wasted few opportunities to feed spiders to Merlion while waiting for them to get bigger 😞

What is Watt? by XOREAXEAX 2021-10-10T07:48:15Z ♥ 2

Great concept and implementation. Really liked all the animated building with faces. In-theme catchy music and well placed sound effects give so much to the game.

Gameplay-vise it's quite good. But there is a bit of waiting time after your first building - for consumers to catch up on the power generated and money generated, so you are not in the red anymore. And "endgame" after a few minutes after you can build wind turbines and nuclear plants, it's just a matter of waiting and adding more.

Since you implemented somewhat realistic demand curve over the day, I really want to see some energy storage buildings, that could be stored during the day when it's lower demand, and used up during the evening.

Or maybe an option to manually turn on/off coal and steam turbines (turned off building would not use maintenance)? Again, to better adapt to demand curve, and lose less money over the day.

Ideas for future: * Random govermental contracts that adjust demand curve for specific time periods. * Energy storage buildings. * Infrastructure breakdowns with manual repairs. * Selling off extra energy. * Research to unlock new building tech.

Overall great entry, looking forward to update 🙂

Elbatsnu's Brewery by Feraligatr 2021-10-08T23:53:07Z ♥ 2

Nice Rng puzzle game. Non-intrusive music, quite a variety of cards makes first playthrough enjoyable to finish. Would be nice to get shop options that remove existing cards (maybe with limited amount of them). Finished lvl 8 in 10 potions, though pretty sure it's possible even faster. got 60% in ~8 tries :) Elbatsnu.png

The ApprenDice by ChuChuGeralt 2021-10-08T23:01:46Z ♥ 2

Overall really great dice placement idea, really enjoyed the puzzle.

Didn't read rules, took cauldron to 15 to finally figure out all mechanics details. Took some time that you can actually use potions. I thought that with `Turn` I could choose a (visible) side, that will be on top rather taking opposite die side.

Current setup really favors 1⃣ / 6⃣ over any other result.

The only sad part that currently there is not much replayability. I think that could be easily remedied by increasing number of available potions and recipes and picking from them randomly. For example in next game `Rewind` could cost 1⃣, 3⃣ or 5⃣. Some other action suggestions: `-1`, `Duplicate`, `Select`, `Combine`

Sacrament of Alchemists by MachaonOrientis 2021-10-08T22:07:43Z ♥ 2

Interesting idea. Could be explored more by giving player more agency over what color comes next (or next after that). For example give a player a way to speed up or slow down color change.

Currently with random color change and as most mentioned above hard to control jumps, I spent most of my waiting for correct color to up next. Or falling down to to say `Hi` to supersized cultists enjoying their daily dose of acid bath. And then again, waiting for the correct color while prying that the next color after will also be one I need.

Also I am interested to hear what biggest challenges you faced while using `Unreal 5`, if you don't mind sharing.

Unstable Mines by AppoxGames 2021-10-08T21:41:20Z ♥ 1

Great layered design. First tank bombs, then robot bombs and walls you have to hit multiple times to remove them. This hits me a bit in nostalgia corner: bomberman meets tanks meets minesweeper. Wouldn't mind some random drops from destroyed blocks restore some health back or give a shield to tank.

Away by Martynas 2021-10-08T21:24:13Z ♥ 1

Great thematic color scheme choice. Well placed checkpoints. So many little polish details all over the place.

With `WASD` this game is way harder than with mouse. Also when using mouse there seems to be times, where the guy still tries to swim even, when I am pressing mouse button. Maybe it tries to queue mouse presses and then execute them in order?

Beanboozled by JustCola 2021-10-08T20:43:13Z ♥ 0

Nice concept, but looks like at least two player game to me. Managing both beans and ground at the same time seems to be overwhelming to be really fun.

I suggest giving "currupted"? block more easily distinguishable colors OR reduce corruption rate. It's really hard to even notice what is happening.

Noticed bean capturing fails if I am not following the bean with the mouse cursor while it's moving. So either reduced capture time or only cancelling capture on click release would really help.

But keep going, looking forward to your next jam game.

PS.: `Application.Quit()` should not be called on webgl builds 🙃

Power Supply by DOMO 2021-10-08T20:26:31Z ♥ 1

Nice idea. Simple controls and multiple working cameras. Helps you can see miniview of each area though I have to admit I was looking more at danger bars all the time. I think some sound effects for danger zone bars (different sound for each zone) would really make this more enjoyable. From UX side of things, dragging feels sluggish in waste removal part. Interested in seeing what comes out in next jam/compo :)

Deeper Bros. Digital Computer by Adam Selker 2021-04-29T20:41:42Z ♥ 0

Wow, a stack based programing puzzle game for a Compo. Just wow. And also python based 😍 . Only thing missing thing for full Zachtronics-like experience is a printable PDF manual :)

Great idea to add `Deeper` custom user code functions.

To be fair, I had struggled quite a bit to get down to it, as I had wrap my head again (read - remember) stack based programming. What would really have helped is an ability to `debug` step through my code rather than executing everything at once. I think it would make the game a lot more accessible to wider audience, as it would make it easier to see, understand and learn how it's working. Would love to see a bit improved navigation, debug-stepping and more puzzles, but overall it's already very impressive. P.S. Thanks for showing Blessed, time to go make `Space DwarfFortress | ADD|OUTPUT` => SpaceFortress.

Deeper & Deeper: Attorneys at Law by NvrSkipGameDay 2021-04-29T20:15:31Z ♥ 1

Wow, well done in such a short time. Liked the twist in the story. Did you use some library/package for dialogue system or wrote everything yourself? Wanted to check, but didn't find any full source link (or maybe I am just blind :D ).

RK XK by NiKaDra 2021-04-28T20:56:49Z ♥ 1

Great game. Sometimes hard to understand why you lose health while digging down. I guess I happen to hit a mine? Also sometimes I mistype 4 instead of 3, getting blown up; So my strategy usually is to spend all bombs and then go exploring. Would love to see more background variations with some item depending on the current background. Overall fun, but somewhat missing more content :)