Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Carraka
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Paper Pirates | jam | 4.57 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Paper Pirates | jam | Audio | 4.66 | |
| 🥉 | 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Paper Pirates | jam | Theme | 4.73 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Between the Pulsing Stars | jam | 239 | 3.83 | 3.60 | 3.87 | 4.23 | 4.18 | 4.06 | 4.02 | ||
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | Want Toy Naow | jam | 149 | 3.87 | 3.73 | 3.17 | 4.10 | 4.41 | 4.26 | 3.89 | 3.91 | |
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | How the Moon Got Its Colors | jam | 344 | 3.66 | 3.50 | 3.35 | 2.72 | 4.10 | 3.97 | 2.71 | 4.02 | |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | Ponding Experience | jam | 381 | 3.70 | 3.75 | 3.37 | 3.90 | 3.85 | 4.31 | 3.63 | 3.93 | |
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | The Magic Flute: Bee Proud of Me, Dad! | jam | 4 | 4.48 | 4.24 | 3.94 | 4.24 | 4.37 | 4.59 | 4.20 | 4.36 | |
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | Delivery Under the Influence: 1925 Edition | jam | 106 | 4.12 | 4.03 | 3.16 | 4.46 | 4.48 | 4.59 | 4.38 | 4.18 | |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | The Temple of KnowlEGG | jam | 589 | 3.50 | 3.46 | 3.48 | 3.30 | 3.84 | 3.92 | 3.77 | 3.50 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Reapers & Retirees | jam | 496 | 3.66 | 3.24 | 3.46 | 3.96 | 4.41 | 3.64 | 3.94 | 3.64 | |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Paper Pirates | jam | 3 | 4.57 | 4.45 | 3.64 | 4.73 | 4.50 | 4.66 | 4.64 | 4.61 | |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Bucket: A Space Odyssey | jam | 300 | 3.90 | 3.45 | 3.40 | 3.94 | 3.94 | 3.87 | 4.11 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Xenolasso | jam | 207 | 3.97 | 3.36 | 3.93 | 4.18 | 3.90 | 3.90 | 3.90 | ||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | D'ough | jam | 2483 | 2.57 | 2.27 | 3.15 | 2.92 | 3.72 | 3.73 | 3.72 | 3.15 | |
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | You Lose. Good Day, Sir. | jam | 165 | 3.89 | 3.80 | 3.94 | 4.01 | 3.50 | 3.67 | 4.11 | 3.91 | |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | Maeko's Memories | jam | 25 | 4.19 | 3.79 | 3.50 | 4.20 | 4.43 | 4.16 | 4.31 | ||
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Zoe and the Polypantheon | jam | 16 | 4.29 | 3.90 | 3.17 | 3.97 | 4.44 | 4.25 | 3.63 | 4.23 | |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | Space(bar)Invaders | jam | 506 | 3.46 | 3.31 | 3.79 | 3.94 | 3.53 | 3.33 | 3.60 | 3.25 | |
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | SneakBeat | jam | 882 | 3.13 | 3.04 | 2.81 | 3.22 | 3.59 | 3.68 | 3.31 | 3.29 | |
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | Pride Before a Call | jam | 115 | 3.93 | 3.74 | 3.70 | 4.27 | 4.03 | 3.98 | 4.15 | 3.75 |
@virtuaworlds Thanks for the heads up! I had wondered what was going on ...
@xart2012 @niconeko @tony-artz @creamybacon2 @david-greene @ismael-rodriguez The bugfix version is now working, if you're interested in seeing what we did with the game so we could enact our original vision!
A lot of cool ideas here! The out-of-game guide explaining the mechanics was definitely necessary. I had trouble with the blue ghost. It seemed like if I stunned it once and then failed to shine the beam on it then, it became immune to the stun afterwards. The soundtrack even without the reactivity that other people are describing is adorable.
Some delightful ideas here. Once I was told that signals were limited, I just never used them except for the one time there was a monster in my path. I feel like most of the time I was moving in a straight line or following a slime trail on the ground (even though no one ever said it was important, it often seemed to be the path home). The fact that I could see whether a rock was in my way on the next step made those easy to avoid as well. So removing the path and making the rocks less visible might help encourage signal usage outside of to lure monsters?
I really liked this take on the theme! I may have become overwhelmed after the cat said they could play forever...that was probably the moment to start taking notes, but I decided to just come here and give feedback instead. I guess I was less invested in winning the card game than my partner...sorry, partner. I enjoyed the subtlety of the signals. I agree with others that it would have been nice to have a signal to look for in the first round. I was really worried that I was playing it wrong.
I was really enjoying the game, but then I hit a bug that wouldn't let me proceed. I was trying to respond A BIT in response to the query of whether I was bored, but every time I got to ABI, the message automatically sent, and then I got the same prompt again. It's a shame because I really was looking forward to the story!
I really enjoyed the voice acting! Maurice's warning not to wander around after dark was hilarious too. I wish the game only reset to the most recent level when you failed rather than needing to start over from the beginning, given how long it took to navigate the levels.
It seems like all these ships have been here before--why haven't they learned to approach from the southeast XDDD
This looks really intriguing, but I couldn't figure out how to play. Also, it would be nice if the four buttons made different pitches. Then if nothing else, I could be making music!
@silky @toppervideogames @zancked @andrian Thanks for all the feedback! The post-jam version is now included on the same page. It's not for rating, but now all of the story text is accessible, and you can get different endings as well, depending on which signals you focus on recording.
@cazik21 We'll work next on making Mac versions for both the submission build and post-jam version. Thanks for reminding us to plan for Mac compatibility going forward!
@madbarron It sounds like you're doing a great job getting the clicks, but you're playing the incomplete submission build for which we didn't have time to implement the logic for the game to respond properly. If you feel like giving it yet another try, definitely check out the full post-jam version.
It took a while to get a hang of the turning controls, but I agree that the clunkiness was sort of the point. I only wish that the level didn't reset if I ran into a wall. It was frustrating to start over again so many times.
I enjoyed this game and the progression between levels! I found myself using audio more when there were fewer signals, but once there were too many, I was relying on visuals alone. This fractal animation was really cool!
This felt like Disco Elysium, one of my favorite games, and the enemy was bureaucracy and the tedium of office-life. I felt like all this needed was a longer animation on the dice roll to build up suspense to the result.
I got to the end! Definitely agree about the cursor...there was a point where I think I got some sort of desync and had to turn around in a circle to be able to click on things again.
The atmosphere was amazing. Especially with those creepy creatures around the light.
At the very beginning, movement seemed so slow that I wasn't sure I had pressed the right buttons to move, so I think the objects to interact with needed to start closer or maybe just add WASD to the instructions. Initially I missed the bridge mechanism hint, so I ended up walking into the gorge and just walking along it for a while before I finally decided that probably wasn't part of the game. There wasn't any way to restart at that point, so it would have been great to have that. Then when I went into the building, initially I only saw the section on the right, so I thought maybe that wasn't part of the game either (since the signal hadn't been leading there and I had missed the hint about the bridge mechanism). I'm still not sure what the on/off switch did. Maybe it turned on the power source? I don't know--by the time I saw it, it was already glowing. And terrifying!
Really nice game! Simple idea, but executed really well. It would be nice to get some sort of reward for reaching a certain number of houses. For example, maybe on day 1 of your job, you only have to manage 5 houses, and once you've done that for a solid minute, your day ends and you get a "promotion" and your manager says something snarky. Then on day 2, you manage more houses, and you have to press more unusual symbols instead of just letters A-Z. Then the woman living in the third house is so grateful she sends you pie in the mail. Then the next day, keys start breaking. But mostly I just wanted something to look forward to at the "end" of the game rather than just playing for as long as possible. You already wrote some snarky text for the beginning, so it would be great to see more of your writing. That would have been enough of a reward for me to do a second playthrough.
As it was, I got halfway through the second row before I was terminated. Around 17k.
Very meditative! I'm glad the energy pickups would fly to the submarine once shot, because otherwise I would have had a terrible time of it. I think the game got harder as well. I traveled 50.4 knots. There's something really satisfying about shooting what looks like a smartphone and watching it fly right to you like it's eager to come home.
What did these barrels ever do to me???
Some of the tables had stacks of cheese on them that I couldn't eat, no matter what I tried. I'm not sure if that was intended or not, but it was confusing since I was able to eat the cheese right next to it. Maybe I was just expecting more types of food.
Is there a way to regain health? Most of the time I died because of those barrels. I'm wondering what the croissants on the top right of the screen meant too. Now I'm hungry.
Well done on the random generation!
I really enjoyed the quotes and the atmosphere, but it was difficult to understand what to do or what any of my actions were accomplishing. I could figure out how to increase the population, but other than that, not much, and the sliders moved by themselves too--I'm not sure why.
Gorgeous graphics! I have no idea what was going on or why certain puzzles were a certain way, but I clicked through all the way to the end, and even after I knew it was over, clicked some more anyway just to appreciate the beautiful atmospheric experience.
The graphics and music are so beautiful that I really really want to be able to play this game all the way through, but I also can't figure out what to do about the spikes. I would keep trying, but the walking speed is so slow that it's far too frustrating. Every time I get an idea to try something new, then I have to spend too long walking from one side of the map to the other, only to learn that my new idea didn't solve the puzzle. If you could produce a version with a faster walking speed, I'd love to play it. I just can't justify walking back and forth across the map (seven times already). It's a shame that I can't enjoy it.
I was so glad to find something on political power! Well done! Just the sort of game I like to play. I wish I could've known more about this heir that I was working so hard to protect!
There might be a bug when playing music somehow decreases the amount you are loved? The resulting text seems to say that the music was well received, but then the love meter goes down.
Excellent mood, I really liked the slow realization of what I would have to do to win the game. I had been wondering why the character was bothering to tell us about the fish's name when something much more important was going on, but it turned out that all the details were connected. Even knowing that the fish had a name and that the father didn't know that name became poignant somehow.
Some of the buttons probably could have vanished when they were no longer necessary or up to date with what was going on in the game. There also appears to be bug where if you move the chair all the way to the left, you can't access the plant anymore. Would also have appreciated some sort of feedback on whether the game registered that I was clicking on the safe buttons. I spent a long time trying to figure out the number, but I think that's because our cultures write dates in a different order. That's fine, but it just means it would have been nice to know whether I was supposed to cancel out every time I failed.
Well done on the atmosphere and story!
This game was fantastic! I played all the way through! I would have continued playing just to unlock more classy humor, so the fact that I actually enjoyed the platforming aspects (especially the first volcano level) was like extra foam. The initial QTE of the long hallway probably could have been shorter. The maze and desert levels were frustrating, but not so frustrating that I couldn't enjoy the overall game. Plus, just when I started wondering why I couldn't use my newfound powers to get through the level--it turned out I could!
Even small touches, like the random mixture of landmarks in the main city, added to the overall hilarity. Well done, stupid people. Well done.
Great game! I loved the voice acting. Such a pleasant surprise when it came on, and always adorable.
Improvement Suggestions. Maybe after the voice acting is recorded, go back and tweak some of the text a bit to match what was actually recorded. Also, since our heroic parent keeps falling asleep, maybe some different text each time they wake up, rather than the same thing. All in all, I had great fun! Especially the party "story." That was the best one.
Hilarious! At first I was annoyed that I had to stop reading your excellent scenarios in order to twoot, but then I realized how enjoyable it was to twoot about the world-changing decisions I had just made. Yes. ME. WITH MY ENORMOUS HANDS.
Was the BNN button on my phone supposed to do anything? I just got a blank screen, but it would have been nice to see some reactions to my momentous decisions.
Anyway, I feel I've learned from your game how to be president, and I am definitely prepared for the job. On my second try, I was as good as George Washington, if not better! (On my first try, I may have pressed the big red button 17 times in a row before even sitting at my desk.)
Ahh, I figured it would have taken quite some time to implement. Especially reacting to twoots. My first twoot was kovfefe.
The power of evil! Something oddly satisfying about demolishing someone by flying into their face in bat form. The splatters of the blood marking where your victims perished was an excellent touch.
It took me a awhile to figure out that bat form would take up evil power, which is kind of unfortunate, given how much I enjoyed attacking people in bat form.
I don't know how disturbed I should be over how much I enjoyed sucking the souls of all those children who were already on fire ... but the feedback for that, and watching the bar turn green and increase -- extremely satisfying!
The three levels felt rather much alike, with no increase in difficulty or change in surroundings to give me any sense of progression. The ending went towards making up for it, though! I also always felt the screen was too small to use the speed power up. Otherwise I thought I would probably speed right into some enemy that was just outside my field of vision. Great work!
Excellent game! I played all the way through, even though I failed the last few levels a multiple times. The earlier levels could have been shorter, with more frequent customers. Once I got the hang of them, it was boring waiting for the next customer to come or for the day to end. Maybe too realistic there. Only after the third level did the game have enough variety for me to enjoy it.
I liked ringing the bell for fun. How come the bell also made a stamping noise? Very mysterious.
Great sense of humor. I love how all the customers don't care at all that their gift was messed up or someone just got arrested in front of them. Even explosions don't fluster anyone.
I wonder if you would maximize your score by autofailing the gift-wrapping customers so you could move on to someone who gives more points per second. I'm not sure, since I'd have to go back to replay the levels to find out, and I don't want to play the first and second levels again.
Anyway, well done! I'm glad we both did Papers Please style games.
I see there may be some social commentary ... heh. I enjoyed the silly faces and the changing settings. It was difficult to get out of the first room. I was missing the ribbon, and I only clicked on it by accident when I was about to give up, so having interactable objects glow when mousing over would have been nice. It was disappointing that none of the other scenes had the same amount of interactable objects, but I still had fun!
@avon
I can't believe I didn't notice the reference to The Wire ... so ashamed. I second Avon's recommendation. Everyone who knows English should watch that show. That's all of you reading this comment.
The inertia made the game far too frustrating to play. I just couldn't get past the first few platforms after getting the lava immunity. From reading the comments, however, it really looks like the sort of game I would enjoy, and it sounds inventive as well. Should you choose to make a version with less frustrating platforming, please ping me and I will gladly play again.
Coffee! It slows time! I wish that had been the case with this game jam ... definitely could've been spiced up with some assets, but given the time constraints, another way to contribute to mood or humor could have been to add some text, perhaps to get different endings, or to explain what project you're working on, what you dreamed about, that sort of stuff.
Also, it would've been nice if the progress bars had started completely unfilled, and if there was some sort of indicator that one more click would have ended the game. Maybe color coding?
Well done! I'm glad I'm not a student anymore.
Great animations and sound! I found a strategy where as long as the enemy count was high enough, I could just jump and press Q to regain health and kill enemies at the same time. Not sure if that was intentional.
Since apparently there's no ending, it would have been nice to have a score counter, though the setup and graphics that made me think there was an ending still would have made it a bit of a letdown.
@malero noooo plz have mercy great one
More seriously, I was disappointed that there was no actual milk. Milk is my favorite drink. Blood, not so much. I also only drink white milk, because I am a purist, so don't try to tell me the milk was red.
This is true, it's actually in my profile ...
For some reason watching the YouTube video of the game, I thought it would be very relaxing, but the bubbles moved so quickly it was actually rather stressful.
Still, the audio and graphics came together to create a polished product. Well done! I enjoyed the British lady telling me when I was about to break my record, though she didn't do it every game. I'm not sure why.
@alexv Haha, yeah. For every Ludum Dare game I've made, I have a balance problem where the game I thought was easy turned out only to be easy because I had just spend 18 hours playing it, while most people play the finished product for 5 minutes before moving on. Some day I will create a game with difficulty modes. But the modes will probably be Hard, Insane, and Send Help.
Fits the theme perfectly, and real life too ... shopping is exhausting.
It took me a while to figure out how to fight the other shoppers, and whether red or blue meant that I had the shape I was looking for already. Also, the sudden camera shift when somebody gets all the gifts was jarring. Still, it was overall enjoyable and I played all the way through to when I won!
Good game with a great message! After the first lootbox, I was sure that I was being tricked, but I just couldn't resist those cute cats! However, when I lost, I felt it was worth it, because at least I had those cute cats, while if I hadn't bought all those cats, it was still possible that I would have lost to the dragon and then had nothing.
One suggestion would have been if you could control when the lootbox stops spinning. I think being able to do that increases the player's (erroneous) sense of control, leading to addiction. Maybe forcing a player who doesn't upgrade to also have to press CTRL several times to kill the monster (although there's no danger of them failing) would be good as well. I'm not sure if that contributes to your message, but it would make sense that resisting temptation is expected to come with a certain amount of persistence.
Good job! Once I realized that those power up ads were not a scam and some ads weren't closing because they were asking me whether I was sure I wanted to close them, the game became a little easier. The difficulty still rose very quickly, though!
I wish we had been able to shoot anywhere on the screen instead of left or right. Great humor and ending screen!
I played at myself and died at 28 from social media overdose ... seems prescient.
Good job with the theme! I wish there had been a little more variety in the choices, especially later on in the game. It would also have been nice if the game could track whether you had already proposed to your lover, though that would be huge to take on.
As much as I enjoy eating cake, I find myself pausing to consider what this game really means. As a player, I never had a choice to not eat the cake, even when I didn't want to. Was I addicted? Without losing weight, I was unable to advance. Is this meant to echo real life? If so, the result was a strangely dispiriting game that made me think about body shaming. I hope that wasn't your intent, but it's definitely food for thought ... the best kind of food.
Great game! It took me a while to figure out how to use the missiles and that I only needed them to win. Those poor innocent people that I ignored ...
Maybe a progress bar telling you how much there is left of the level would be a nice addition. Good work! The audio really made the game satisfying.
Poor kitties! I'm apparently very bad at taking care of kittens and very good and scooping up their bloody remains without leaving a sign they ever existed.
Would have loved more UI indicators, such as whether a cat was dying from starvation or... something else? And something indicating how many cats were on the screen at a time, and at the end of the game, how many cats we had taken care of overall. Good job!
@avon Papers Please was definitely an inspiration! I even told Henna (@radonkalmer), the artist, to use it as inspiration for the palette, and then we had to dial back the Soviet red ... xP
@kromeboy The calls should continue throughout the day until 5 p.m., but I calculated the time wrong. I've uploaded a new version with a faster clock so people who want to experience the ending don't have to wait around for the time to run out.
@axoona Thanks so much for the in-depth review! It's rewarding to learn that someone played it more times than strictly necessary to rate!
There is a third ending if you get five stars, but I don't think it's possible to obtain. I didn't have enough time to test the balance of the game and realize I would need to tweak caller responses to make sure it would be possible.
@axoona
I finally played my own game and I got the third ending (the five-star ending). At least I know it's possible! It was probably easier for me to do because I'm familiar with the controls and know the optimal choices.
The spinning attack looks really cool, but I couldn't figure out how to use it reliably. It took me a while to realize that I could survive bullets by attacking through them, but once I did, I ... killed three enemies before dying! I'm not very good at this game. Perhaps more UI indication on the path a prospective spin attack will take could help guide the player to make it work, because I really want to see the spin attack work. Good job!
A very atmospheric game! On my playthrough, I left half the food in the cave and the children starved to death. I'm not sure if putting all the food in the granary would have done something different. Maybe I would have starved instead?
One thing that would have helped would have been something in the art indicating more obviously that there wasn't another screen to go to, so I wouldn't spend time going to the edge of the screen and wondering whether something else was supposed to load. I think a faster speed for the cart would have helped too. Maybe it wouldn't be as atmospheric, but it would've made me more willing to go back and play to see how to get everyone to survive.
Also, the intro at the beginning was fine, but I wonder if there could have been more sentences on the screen at a time. As it was, I spent more time waiting for one sentence to fade out and the other one to fade in then the time I spent actually reading the sentence, which was a bit annoying.
Overall, well done! And the art was beautiful!
I really enjoyed this game. I played to perhaps wave 27 and maxed out five or six towers before I decided to stop playing. It wasn't until I actually just stopped moving that I realized it was possible for the game to end. Before that, I thought that you just continued playing until you decided to stop. It wasn't clear whether I was really receiving damage, and if the pink thing in the middle was killing and respawning me, or just teleporting me, so I figured I was probably immortal (that is, every time I died, I would just respawn). Also, the strategy of going about in circles seems to make the game limitless, although maybe when you run out of screen space, you would lose.
So more UI indicators about whether I was actually dying and getting damaged or not would be good.
Also, I really, really loved that the music volume changed depending on your speed, so nice audio bit there!
I played and finished the two levels! After smashing into the top of the oven the first time, I was always very stressed zooming into the oven at the end (and delighted when I succeeded). I liked the little voice, but I couldn't tell what it was saying at all. I also liked the sound effects, especially during the level intro.
There didn't seem to be any benefit to spraying the gingerbread men, and going for them just made me smashed, so I ended up ignoring them.
In Windowed Mode, the start level button after the comics intro was too low on the screen. It took me three restarts to realize that button wasn't there and the game hadn't crashed.
The graphics are gorgeous, but I couldn't figure out how to play the game, even after reading the tutorial in the question mark at the top right of the screen. I managed to level a few cities and pick up the biomass, but I couldn't figure out how to harvest it even though I had built a biomass harvester. This is probably a good thing for the independent units of biomass, but not so good for me surviving to defend the world, which is obviously more important.
Still, kudos! It's obvious that with just a bit more work on UI to make it less confusing, you have a beautiful game on your hands.
Loved the sync up with the music at the beginning, and the little profiles for each "walker," as well as their dynamically changing speech. The humor really added some flavor. After a while it did become repetitive, and I do wish there had been more of a walking simulator aspect to really take advantage of the incompatibility of the theme, instead of it feeling like just a racing sim with people who powerwalk.
I struggled to get through level 3, it seemed like the game was testing my patience rather than any skills I had, and since there was so little to interact with, I ended up just giving up. The number one thing that would've improved this game for me would've been an option letting me press enter to have all the text show up at once. I like being able to control how quickly the text appears, but when I pressed enter, I ended up skipping the writing altogether, so I didn't actually know what was going on.
These Call of Duty graphics were perfect and I've never even played Call of Duty. I got a score of 31, but I assume that's because I suck at bowling in real life, so it's just realistic that these pins are so damn resilient.
I really enjoyed the hand-drawn graphics. Even the narrator's humor isn't the sort of humor I usually go for, it all added together to the mood. I didn't realize you could double-jump, however, which made the first part of the game more frustrating than fun.
Also, sometimes the audio became unexpectedly loud, but I suppose you can always finetune that later. Good work!
I'd love to see the two genres mixed with each other a bit more, rather than one right after another. Also, all of the boys looked creepy ... perhaps that's why the pickup lines they dropped weren't effective.
Although--I think those pickup lines would've worked on me. Because they were hilarious.
@gamesplusjames
Those resolution bugs are tricky! I was able to play it fine in Chrome and Microsoft Edge, but it looks like every browser (on every computer) is different. We've uploaded a new version that hopefully fixes resolution problems, but if that doesn't work, I also created a stand-alone Windows build, just because you requested it! Let us know what you think!
@been Glad you liked the slower pace! I requested that from the programmer @sheldonzs since I'm terrible at DDR games too. (Meanwhile he used to play DDR until 4 in the morning go figure.)
You can follow a different route and unlock a second ending if you go for only the red arrows. If that doesn't work on your compouter, you can also try the latest version, although when we tested, it was possible to get all three endings in the submission version.
This game was hilarious. I couldn't get past the wine-pouring task. The controls were just too unintuitive. But perhaps that was supposed to be part of the challenge. It just made it more hilarious, as I continuously knocked the glass off the table and watched the wine spill onto the tablecloth. Really appreciated that I could see the stain. This game hits out of the park for me in humor, theme, mood, all those. I wish I had the patience to complete the wine task, since it looks like there's more fun stuff, but after two failures (really inventive credits, by the way), I had to give up. Well done!
This was terrifying ... I couldn't get the refrigerator door to close or the bathroom door to reopen, so I ended up trying to hide all the limbs under the pillows on the sofa. Then the pillows weren't enough and I covered the limbs with the TV. It doesn't help that I'm a total wimp when it comes to horror games, so I was relieved when Barry was finally caught.
Hilarious, though. The random physics made it fun sometimes, but it was frustrating when I couldn't walk over the pillows I had dropped and when the object in my hands kept glitching so that I couldn't tell where it would go when I tried to set it down. Still, excellent work on mood and theme.
I loved this game. Best game to play to calm my nerves while waiting for my code to compile. I wonder if there could have been some indicator of which side of the screen the zombies were coming from, but then again, maybe that was the whole point of it being incompatible. Ha. The apparition of guns was a great surprise.
The random appearance of an alien was quite strange! I'm also not sure how killing the alien (at least ... I assume I killed the alien, because I shot it three times in a row?) led to victory over the other bad guys. Still, the turn-based bullet hell was interesting. The diagonal road made it harder to figure out whether my bullets were going straight up or diagonally (to account for perspective).
Definitely one of the most polished games so far! It took me a very long time to figure out that I was supposed to be placing the tiles on a new layer. I just thought it was a weird game over bug that I could still place tiles after the game had ended. Once I figured that out, though, it was a lot of fun. I really appreciated that the tiles were all different colors. Well done.
So this is what my computer looks like on the inside! Definitely could've used a tutorial at the beginning. After I understood what I was doing, I got into the gameplay more. Would have enjoyed a level counter (or was the game just endless)? The white font was also hard to read on the yellow blocks, maybe that's something that could be easily fixed.
I also had weird issues when I was just trying to move a block one space to the left, and I couldn't do it unless I moved the block somewhere else altogether and then tried again. Maybe that was my mouse acting up? I'm not sure. Anyway, well done on making such a polished, complete game in such a short time!
I really enjoy the writing for this game, but there's no way to skip ahead in text so I can quickly redo failed missions to get to the point where I was before. Being allowed to skip would also make me want to try out random stuff just to see what happens. Would you pleeeeease include an updated version that allows you to skip text, pretty please? If so, notify me and I will definitely return to play it so I can read allll the writing and rerate. Thanks!
@Rammy294 @steve-sparkes I am not British, but I studied abroad there and appreciated the Tesco reference. Writing opinion: the more specific the better. People who want to see their own country's supermarkets can always go shopping. One way to add specificity without being confusing would probably be to fit in some writing about the country/locale, probably with the alien being confused by the concept of countries.
Great job! All my animals died pretty quickly because I didn't strategize well enough to feed them? Or maybe I'm just bad at keeping things alive? Not sure. I also wasn't sure whether more animals needed to be fed more frequently. Maybe I should've just had like one raptor and focused on feeding everything else to the raptor. But no ... with an ark, I would use it to save unicorns ...
+ Would have been nice to only be able to pick up one thing at a time. I think for a long time I was carrying 15 chickens but thought it was just a glitch--maybe it was a glitch--there's no way I picked up 15 chickens and forgot to put them down. Maybe it was infinity chickens. Not sure. I ran out of cages before I could check.
+ Was there a way to remove animals from cages to feed them to other animals? That would've been nice too.
Anyway, fun game and well done!
@mikomikisomi Once you've unlocked a level, you should be able to go back and read it in the level selection menu at your leisure. Thanks for the comment!
Loved the art. A bit weird that I couldn't jump on platforms that were moving downward and had to wait for them to be moving up again. The snail was so cute that I didn't mind the slow speed, but I think I ran into a bug in the second level where after eating the brown/tan pill, the brown/tan platforms didn't vanish, so I was unable to get to the exit.
Still, I really enjoyed the concept with the platformer and the game was fun, so I hope you continue to polish it and let me know whether I somehow missed the solution to level two!
That animation was super smooth. I got to level 20, and I'm wondering whether there was some end game or it was just endless mode. It didn't seem like the difficulty was increasing, and that brief amount of time at the beginning where everything is paused but you can still run around seems almost unnecessarily nice to the player. It would also be nice to have an indicator for the player first starting out of when an elevator is unavailable. I spent a lot of time standing at empty elevator spots not sure whether I should be waiting for an elevator to come down or for elevator doors to open.
Great job with the graphics and the polished feel!
I'm super confused. After talking to everyone once and clicking on everything, I learned new information about everyone, but I wasn't able to use that information to start new conversations. Am I missing something, or did I really just click on everything only to find that everyone had a motive and I just have to pick my least favorite person to die?
Once I read the tutorial, I really enjoyed the mechanics of the game and how deep it could go. Seems like it'll take me a bit of thinking when I'm more awake to actually beat the game, but I found this super innovative. Well done!
I love these kinds of games and wish you had had more time to flesh it out. If you do more with this, consider getting someone to copyedit and also make the font size larger. Good luck!
I agree with all the above comments about the audio. A nicely dark take on the theme, and original as well. It really seemed to reflect everything I've heard about the boredom of war interspersed with moments of high anxiety. If you end up making changes, perhaps the player shouldn't be allowed to play football forever? I played it three times in one night, I think, and surely one time is enough. Unless it's Christmas.
I played until the raid that interrupts the last card of sleep (I'm sort of assuming that although the cards were meant to appear random, they might not actually have been). That raid seemed to be unending, no matter what I did, so eventually I just kept trying to shoot people just to see what the ending would look like. So I ended up feeling some sort of agency in that I was choosing to die to advance the story? Maybe not the intent, though. I survived a rather long time trying to die.
I really liked the concept, though the theme seemed a bit tacked on. xP Still, that my shapes were recognized at all is a testament more to the engine than the drawing skills. I came across a bug where when I tried to replace the symbols, I couldn't reach any of them to replace except the rightmost bug. Not sure if this is because I resized in the middle of the game ...
Great game, super polished. I would've liked more of an ending after defeating the boss. I mean, was I really found worthy, or did they just throw me into another dungeon? The voice acting was a great touch, but for me, the best part of the audio was the shouting in the cutscene at the beginning, and the dramatic choral singing in the very last level. It makes me want to go back and retroactively downgrade every audio rating I've given so far just so your five star in audio can really mean something.
Well done! My most nitpicky things were not being able to pick up coins/items that fell into a wall, accidentally walking into the next room and never being able to pick up my loot, and not ever figuring out what any of the icons meant for whether a weapon is better (in game). Now that I read your entry more carefully, I see that that information is on your page, but it would really be better to be in the game somehow. I didn't think any of the puzzles were too difficult (they were all just the right amount, in that they could be solved without thinking if you didn't feel like thinking), and whenever I was cornered, I enjoyed either the increased difficulty or the reward I get for not planning out my movement ahead of time.
Once I put the game in full screen, I could read the font, but it would've been nice to have larger font and icons for sure. I loved all the little details, like the rotating planets, and there was even a complete animated cutscene that explained everything.
Once I got a hang of the mechanics, the game was pretty easy and repetitive, but fortunately there was an ending to strive for. This reminded me of FTL, though easier and cuter.
What is the difference between fuel and gas anyway?
I really enjoy these types of games, and being able to see everything I did at the end was a nice touch. Really creative options in here too! If you end up working on this more, I'd really want to see some of the choices you make earlier in the game influencing the choices you make later in the game. There also seemed to be some random events (family growing)? happening independently of that, and it would've been cool to see how those events were affected by or affected the choices you made. Also, the red on gray was a bit difficult to read, and the numbers were difficult to read as well, so that would be something to improve.
And I also liked that I got to decide whether I was satisfied. Wish I could have a dream that long ... would probably learn a lot. Or faff about for 9999 years.
@acactus Thanks! We already fixed that bug, but good catch! Just for you, we've added a downloadable bugfix version, just in case you want to come bug-hunting with us. It's available on the same itch.io page.
@jyrkface Thank you! Our three artists murdered themselves around the clock pouring out an incredible amount of content. I'll pass on your compliments to our sound designer as well!
@fahim-faysal You can play a bugfixed version now! Just scroll up and select the link to the bugfixed version instead of the original build. We'll @ you again when we update with additional content as well.
If you're experiencing those bugs in the bugfixed version, just clarify - we'll look into it!
Hey @aim @nava @dina @tamail @spirits @acactus @jyrkface @local-minimum @marcus-gambit @ant3331000 @webthingee @spirits @mamoniem @draconimous @gear-steak @finntastico @finalspace @rumsquawks
Thanks so much for reviewing our game! We wanted to let you know that the full story is now available to play, with the ability to unlock all seven endings. Let us know what you think of our final product! Of course, we're still taking suggestions so we can tweak the game and improve the player experience. Just head along to https://daring-owl-studios.itch.io/maekos-memories-final and let us know what you think!
Great graphics! It took me a long time to figure out that I could use the mouse to imitate a touchscreen in scrolling up and down (before that I was using the mouse wheel, which took foreverrr). Maybe some of the desires should disappear as you age? Or at least their description should change. I might have spent too much time as a senior cuddling with mum... and I might have imagined cuddling with a skeleton.
Audio would have really improved this game, so I hope you find an audio person. You can always at least find free music and sound effects. You can't be rated in audio, but it helps the mood of the game.
The maze part felt unnecessarily long, and it's especially punishing to slow down movement speed while being asked to collect even more jellybeans. What are the jellybeans for, anyway ... I wish you had time to implement more of the story. I had trouble ever sympathizing with the protagonist in the first place. Obviously he's not going to get anywhere by collecting jellybeans or failing to read contracts with someone who looks like the Grim Reaper. So even though I was playing him, it was more to rate the game than because I had any emotional investment. D: If you expand this, definitely add in reasons why Luna might be worth so many years to him, so we end up cheering him instead of thinking that even if he does find Luna, she ought to reject him because he spent all this time pursuing an idea of a woman instead of an actual one. Cheers!
At first I tried to run around all of the enemies, and they all clustered together, causing the framerate to drag, so I couldn't even kill them. After that I just killed enemies one by one and made a break for the stairwell when I saw it, like a normal unskilled person. The graphics really comes together! The music was beautiful, but it didn't really fit the frenzy or violence of the gameplay. It sounded like I was supposed to be comtemplating something, but really I was just shooting stuff and running away.
Is there a way to cancel building something when you've already selected it? I lost because I didn't have enough room to build a building I had selected, but I couldn't cancel building to destroy anything. D: It was great fun. I ended up saving as many trees as I could by just destroying temples I had already created. Progress went a little slower, but it's worth it ... for the environment. (:
This layout was super original! Maybe I'm bad at reading comprehension, but at first I thought I was supposed to cut out toxic people, not people who aren't real. Ah well.
I really enjoyed the story, and I didn't have any problems with the text being cut (maybe it's because my screen is really wide?) Suggestions: Make the selectable text a slightly different color, because pixel hunting isn't as fun as making decisions. Make the dialogue choices for the player different when they're first considering whether to reject or keep each person.
Also, when I was a kid, I totally messed up the non-sleeping side of the bed whenever I woke someone up ... just saying.
Loved the twist of this game. And it's definitely creepy. I got stuck when I came back to the house a second time and played through to the first ending to find nothing had changed. I'm not sure if I was supposed to go back to the house or do something else earlier ... there didn't seem to be any hints about how to progress from there either.
I was going to say there wasn't much to do after a while (which maybe is the point of an idle game) and ask what the game had to do with the theme, but then it dawned at me that this game makes my life the currency. Well played, well played. I should've just stopped at the whip.
-sits in mansion-
Definitely the beginning seemed best suited for a touchscreen. I had a horrible time on my mouse, but even after the mode switched to keyboard, it was way more stressful than I anticipated? Maybe I'm just very unskilled? But the level of stress was so much higher than the music that I got fed up, sadly.
The art is beautiful! I'm not sure how this connects with the theme yet, and you probably don't want your game rated in humor because it doesn't seem like it's intended to be a funny game. Also, at the very beginning of the game, I didn't see any water on the ground, and the instruction just said flick, so I kept flying up and up, trying to get around the clouds because I thought they were obstacles. In the end I fell back to the ground and realized I could have been collecting things and running from buildings the whole time. So maybe include a directional arrow as a beginning instruction. Well done! I'm sorry I couldn't reach the end, it's a beautiful game!
I couldn't understand how to barter. Eventually I just paid ridiculous amounts for a small bit of blood and it worked almost every time. So the mechanic could have used more to tell you how much to barter, rather than just the servant saying MOAR every time.
So even though I didn't enjoy the gameplay, somehow I ended up playing through every single customer just because I enjoyed the writing. And also that dress. Yes.
I love the innovation of this idea. All this is missing is more levels! Very smooth gameplay. Good work!
"I think this is just a painting of a door." This is A+ my type of humor. And it wasn't even political. The controls were a bit finicky. Would have been good to have some sort of highlight or audio when I selected an item. I ended up double-clicking, single-clicking, and never really sure which was correct. Maybe I was supposed to click and drag? Oh well. I hope there are more opportunities for body-switching in the future!
Super smooth controls! I wish I had more time at the beginning of each level to get my bearings. Just a second or two.
Overall this is the best use of the theme that I've seen so far, and the execution and polish of gameplay are top-notch as well! Why can't those waiters go around fixing broken boards instead of picking up money! That is not the purpose of waitressing. I played all eight levels and really enjoyed the progression in difficulty from level 3 and on. Those waiters, though. Grr. I wish there were some sort of ending screen to reward me at the end, but I guess unlocking all eight levels feels cool too. Well done!
This game was fun, but is there some sort of end goal? After building smithies, I didn't see what else I could do. I agree that being able to build bridges and demolish buildings will be fantastic, but the most important thing seems to be to have some sort of end goal in mind. Good luck!
I really was unable to figure out combat, despite my extensive use of timed dodging, so I died pretty quickly. Since I had to start over from the beginning each time, and there's a long walk to get back to where you were, I decided to stop.
But the humor of this game was definitely top-notch, and I liked how smooth the gameplay felt as long as I wasn't fighting. Some small tweaks might be to allow 'E' to advance dialogue in addition to clicking, since that just feels like a normal UI behavior. Also, if there's a way to see from afar whether someone will talk to you or whether a door has a talking option, that would be great. I wanted to see all the jokes in this game, so I walked to all the doors and everyone, but was disappointed when they looked the same but didn't have a talk option.
This game was a lot of fun to play. I kept dying in the Medium section, and it was frustrating to have to start over again completely. I think I died three times before I decided to stop playing. I think it might have been better to just send the player back to camp with all their items and areas still unlocked. The permadeath is just too punishing otherwise, and since it's not a roguelike, it's not like the experience after permadeath is any different or better.
An excellent, polished game! The only thing this game is missing is an ending.
The first time I got the message that I unlocked the tool shed, the game paused, but I thought it had frozen, so I refreshed and started over. The same thing happened when I built the tool shed for the first time, but this time I figured out the game was paused and so I sped it up, then slowed it down, and kept playing until the end.
The progression was a lot of fun. I've always enjoyed these kinds of games. Some things that could help: - no delay between when you mouse over someone and when you see their stats - whenever you select a villager, you automatically see their stats as well - a message whenever you're out of storage space and try to get something more. When a villager refused to pick up wood, I thought that was because they were tired and sleepy, not realizing that I needed to build more storage. The easiest way to do this would actually just be to display the total at the top of the bar. 24/24 Then it would be pretty clear you need more storage space. - display percentage chances on what might happen if you send a villager out somewhere. Increase the percentage that something good will happen if they're happy/full/awake, etc. Right now it just feels random and punishing - the worst that should happen if you send someone out is that they come back with nothing. It doesn't make sense that they would come back and also destroy the supplies you already worked so hard to create - as the game grows, being able to select multiple villagers at once to do the same thing becomes absolutely necessary. As it was, the game was hovering just on the edge of too much micromanaging by the end, but I think the UI fixes above would help.
Anyway, good job and good luck!
Loved the Easter Egg! I got as far as the part where the monk can pick up the pile of stones, and then I didn't know what to do after that. Moving around obstacles was a bit finicky with the monk. I got stuck several times because I wasn't able to jump over my own stones and had to pick them up first. It was difficult at first getting the wisp into the lanterns, but I love flying, so it was overall enjoyable.
I wish there had been a little more story, rather than just puzzle rooms. Good job!
I tried to play, but got this error: Error: Could not load game data at path '.'. Is the .pck file missing?
I really enjoyed the art! Killing the enemies was really unsatisfying. The health bar never went down, so I didn't feel like I was making any progress and had no idea how large of a monster I had to merge to fight it. Then, when I finally succeeded, the health bar still didn't go down, and the graphic of the enemy didn't even change, so I didn't notice I had succeeded at anything unless I happened to see the number in the bottom right increase. Since I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere or know how to get anywhere, I stopped playing.
But I think all you have to do is fix the feedback to the player, and then you'll have a really satisfying loop. Plus, the graphics are awesome.
I really enjoyed the rhythm of the game. It looks like due to randomization it was really luck rather than good decision-making that would help me get further, so I wish there was more way to bring more decisions into it to increase your chance to win and progress. Still, good job!
Speeding up the process was a savior! I agree that more interaction for the player would make the game more fun. Also, the rain health bonus was high enough that I never had to worry about the evil humans. I just kept boosting the tree's growth, and then the game was over. Adding more decision points could also help. Maybe there could be random events where you have to choose whether to sacrifice your followers for something else? Those events could also be an opportunity to build the story so we can understand why the tree has followers in the first place, even though the followers only get the reward of death.
The game also crashed for me when delivering the potatoes, and then tried to shut down my computer. I hope this is fixed! This looks interesting to play!
This was a very calming game, and super cute graphics! I wish there had been more of a goal, or more of a difficulty or threat. The leaves frowned at me, but they didn't do much else, and after I had seen all the flower designs, I wasn't sure what else I should stay to experience.
@satanos Thanks for playing! I hope you learned a few English words from our game, because I just learned a few French words from checking out your video!
This game has an excellent rhythm to it that makes me keep wanting to explore the next room and get better at switching between elements. Once I understood I had "health" but I could reabsorb elements, the game became much easier. I wish there had been some sort of final boss or ending, but I think it was just randomized rooms after a while. Let me know if I'm wrong.
The animation was very smooth! Never going to Olive Garden again.
Would have been nice to have instructions within the game. I think there was only one level? But I couldn't tell for sure. Also would've been nice if only the waiter that spotted you spoke, and they all said different things. They also still spoke to me after I reached the exit, though fortunately that didn't restart the level.
Also, it could be a fun idea to keep track of how many times the player was caught and then present them with a "bill" for the soup at the end. Good job!
I completed the game, but am not sure how I got the answer to the last puzzle. I knew two of the numbers, but not where they should be placed, so I had changed two of the numbers to those two numbers, and I was just randomly flipping through the possible numbers when I stumbled across the answer.
I enjoyed the time mechanic and not having to redo the puzzles I already knew the answers to. More puzzles like the dog puzzle would have been great too. The rewind animation was especially smooth and enjoyable. Well done! Definitely one of my favorite games so far.
Why won't this artist work faster? I KNOW. I'LL JUST DO THE ART MAHSELF. click-click-click-click-click WHAT MY GAME DID POORLY???
Anyway, this is a great game for your first jam! I only wish there were a way to customize the screen size, as it took me a long time to realize I could scroll down and see that my money total was going up. It would also be nice to have some sort of end goal, rather than being ... ahem, stuck in a loop. D:
Thank god for save points! I got as far as the stairs where every other step is spiked, before I was sent back to the beginning for running out of time. Some people like this kind of hardcore platforming. I'm not a huge fan, but I can see platformer people liking this. Just add a death counter, an option to remove the timer for casuals like me, and maybe a bit of story. The story can even explain why there's an ice world, which lets you keep the lack of friction if you want. Well done!
I'm so bad at driving that I accidentally escaped the loop before even completing one lap. I guess I need to get stuck in the loop in order to experience more of the story!
I've been playing this game for hours now. I wander the streets over and over, searching. Did I miss a button? Perhaps there will be someone at this dead end, where there was none before. I want to honor all their memories. But I am losing mine. I've been playing this game for days now. Or has it been years?
The graphics, audio, and mood were top-notch. The puzzles were confusing, though. I figured I had to flip the light switches in a certain order, but there was nothing to indicate whether I was flipping them in the correct order or not, or whether I had to reset at any point when I got the order wrong, so unfortunately I wasn't able to progress further. I figured that "Switch Train" just meant switch the side you are looking at, though it was still easy to get confused as to which side I was on, so I got lost in that way as well.
Hey Terry! I got to the second level and was unable to complete it. Not sure if there is a timer on how long before everyone dies or if the dodging I did helped at all. Definitely would've liked some audio cues on whether my gun is firing, since I wasn't sure whether to aim using the center of the screen or the end of the gun. Poor soldiers, stuck in a loop forever without me...
Anyway, let me know if you want to join up with us for the next jam. All we need to do is get together beforehand to work out how we would do version control ... I keep forgetting about that, and then it's too late because the jam is already beginning and I don't want to figure out how we do that during the jam.
I completed the whole game! Once I realized I could just purposefully create a loop where the train can stay while completing the rest of the screen at my own pace, the puzzles became sadly trivial and all the same difficulty. Maybe a way around this would be to force the player to use certain segments of the track, have certain segments have a fixed alignment so they can't be changed, or have the train stop at certain sections in a particular order. The train soundtrack also often goes silent before continuing again ... might need to update the audio to remove a section of silence, in order to create a more seamless ... loop. Well done!
I got through the whole game! Definitely agree with people who say you shouldn't have to reset your progress ... there's no point to it; it's not like it's more difficult the second time. Also, there were three pie-like objects on the tables, and naturally it didn't work for me until I tried the third one, so the art there could be made clearer. Otherwise, the art was fantastic, the animation was smooth, and now the next time I see a toucan I will wait for it to give me a riddle before I walk through any doors.
Definitely some of my favorite gameplay so far this jam. I got to the Jack of Hearts and then when I tried to go another level down, the game froze while I was over the pit. Not sure if that was the end of the game.
But well done, very smooth! Toward the latter half of the game, I had so many upgrades that it seemed like I could move anywhere, so the game wasn't as exciting, but there sure were lots of bright colors to keep me entertained.
I got Ending 2/3. What a mood ... once I realized that there were changes each time you went through the loop, the game was a lot more enjoyable.
I did feel that the logic of the story was missing though. Maybe I just clicked all the wrong choices, but it was never clear to me why the lake is silver on some playthroughs and black on others. Or why sometimes when you look at the tree it's fine, but later it's burning. Or why in earlier playthroughs you don't find your dad's box. Also I never used the peanut. The confusion made me feel that I wasn't solving any puzzles or understanding what I was doing or why things happened, but just selecting random choices until I reached an end, which is perhaps why it's fitting that I got Ending 2/3.
What a cute, colorful, fi--AHH I'M DEAD
Definitely would've liked some indicators that you were getting hurt. It was hard for me to tell which types of fish would hurt me. I suppose the bigger ones do and the smaller ones don't, but could they also be distinguished in terms of coloring or brightness or something else that warns danger?
Also, the game was so tall that it didn't fit on my screen, so on my first playthrough, I didn't realize there was UI at the top telling me how many lives or coins I had gathered.
It looks like you already have the right idea for how to improve the game (biomes) so I look forward to seeing what other art comes out of this!
What a beautiful game! I also encountered the error of not being able to move the camera when playing it for the second time. I played the Windows version.
For replay value, it would have been nice to skip the intro. I did two playthroughs and didn't find the item on either of them. I'm not sure whether it's possible to actually find the item (maybe that's the point)? Either way, it's not particularly satisfying. I think it would be more satisfying if you had an indicator of why you're running out of time and how much time you have left. Then there would be some aspect of gameplay in trying to manage your time, even if it's ultimately a futile effort.
I forgot to say that I thought at first that every time the objects changed, it meant we were going to a different age in your life, when you had different interests. Ultimately there doesn't seem to be much support for that hypothesis, but having sort of themed areas would tell a stronger story/character arc. Like first seeing a child's illustrations and their dreams of being an artist. And in a later part of the game, getting report cards that say they have a horrible grade in art. And then at the end seeing a diploma that they graduated from art school. A simple story.
The graphics look gorgeous. Definitely needs a tutorial. Took me a while to realize that I had to mine the ground for resources on my own. And most of the time that I died, I'm still not sure what caused it. Also maybe I was supposed to be spraying the bottom of the drill and not the top? Or maybe that made no difference.
The most horrifying walking simulator. When I got to the end and it said press Esc to exit, pressing Esc didn't even work, which was also horrifying. Not many games have voice acting, and this was top notch.
I threw the sponge over the edge of the world. I think I failed the interview. D:
These were some good puzzles! I didn't get the feeling that we were going deeper and deeper, though. Sometimes we were actually going up!
Whenever there is a death, it would help to start nearer the beginning of the puzzle or even looking at it. There were a few times after I died that I got disoriented and ended up walking to the previous puzzle. It was also be nice to get an indicator that you actually died. I thought at first I had somehow succeeded and jumped to the next page. I'm very bad at platformers, heh.
Pfft, that abrupt ending tone shift.
Aside from the puzzle with the bugs (I just couldn't figure out what order to do the numbers), I didn't need to look up the solutions.
I couldn't figure out the puzzle with the clock hands. Some of the information we were given, such as the time and the periodic table, was unnecessary, since I was able to complete the game without using those elements. Perhaps they were meant to be important, but weren't implemented.
Figuring out the final puzzle with the weather was very satisfying! I only wish I could figure out what this all had to do with the theme. Were the three people related?
It took me a while to realize that the reason I couldn't move the ship at all was because I hadn't put anyone in navigation!
This was a lot of content, very impressive. I only went as far down as the third level of pressure before losing from running out of oxygen, but I imagine if I replayed more I could get further since I would know the map better. It was pretty frustrating to have to start over from the beginning every time I died, and then doing the same thing as I did on the previous playthrough felt like busywork.
The navigation controls could be a bit more forgiving, such as not dropping as fast so quickly. When refilling oxygen, the oxygen bar can go up quicker so you're not waiting as long to go back to the depths again. And a clearer tutorial, like others said, would help as well!
I'm particularly impressed by the detail of watching people go to their new stations on the ship ... this is completely unnecessary for gameplay, but it's a nice touch. Hopefully it didn't come at the expense of too many other features.
It took me a very long time to figure out that there were menus to upgrade equipment other than just pressure. Then all the resources I could grapple stopped spawning, except at the bottom of the screen. Maybe have an option to disable coop at the beginning so that the camera can stay centered on where the player is instead of both players?
Such cute art though. Makes me want to collect things by smashing them into each other!
I tried really hard to figure out where the cubes go (after the first level with shooting enemies), and I still can't figure it out. It's a shame ... it looks very polished. Agreed with the other comments about dashing in a different direction than where your mouse is.
The writing at the beginning was hilarious! I wish there had more of it throughout the game.
I spent a very long time trying to figure out why I needed Depth or Heat. Eventually I started to think that I needed to gather enough depth to complete the game, but just when I was getting tired of doing that, I found the bottom. So I guess gathering those was just for the score at the end? I also couldn't figure out whether the mushrooms were just there to annoy me, since you always wanted to go down, not up, and when you dropped down onto the mushrooms suddenly, it was very disorienting.
Ooh, a text-based story! I love reading!
Unfortunately, from the very beginning, I couldn't sympathize with the protagonist. I didn't know who had died or how or why it mattered. The protagonist was very upset, of course ... which is understandable, but I didn't feel her grief. The explanation of who had died (where Virginia Is for Lovers is explained) still didn't hit home. It was as though Connie spent more time being sad than thinking about the reasons for her sadness, which is what would help me identify with her. What does it mean to lose someone? How does it hit at you at the most unexpected moments? What gap did that person fill? I often felt like I was watching a film of Connie grieving, but never able to peer into her mind. I still know barely anything about who Connie is or was other than a woman, a victim, and a grieving person. Which is the advantage the written form provides over the visual - the details of what's going on inside.
Later on, I think the story became about making a deal with the devil? I was a bit sad that I couldn't just let Connie ignore the devil and instead work on self-healing. I ignored him all the way to the end, until I chose the "Accept destiny" option and then was very annoyed that "destiny" just meant making the deal, because that was not what I had meant at all. But hey, I admit I'm not a fan of stories with clearly demarcated good and evil, so I'm just not your target audience.
I see a complaint above about lacking graphics, but I think that's missing the point. Still, I did notice after a while that I didn't know what Connie or Hector looked like. I also am always forgetting to describe things ... gotta write myself reminders. Happy writing!
Great gameplay loop! I really wish there were some sort of health indicator to see how many hits the monsters still need ... sometimes I felt like I was throwing straw at them ... they just didn't react.
What an adorable game! I'm a little annoyed at the idea that a good poet would be able to come up with poems on the spot ... that seems like an unhealthy idea to spread, because there are plenty of poets who are not improvisers.
I really liked this interpretation of the theme, though it seems like you ran out of time to get to the "and deeper" part of it. As for the word, it would be cool if some of them were a bit more unusual and you could learn their definitions too, just like reading a dictionary. Great ideas for a start!
Lawl at this credits sequence. I enjoyed the sequence of quests, but it doesn't seem like I was going deeper and deeper as much as just swimming to the next lake over and borrowing a flashlight.
Such a heartwarming story! Definitely one of the most original interpretations I've come across so far. Lookit this doggo I will wade into customer service hell for you, puppers, won't I, puppers?
I really enjoyed this story, especially the twist at the end. The dialogue was snappy and made me laugh out loud at times. The well did seem to be more of an excuse to put in the theme (really it's time passing, not going deeper), but the story was so enjoyable (or grim) that that was just a blip. I do think the story would benefit from a little bit of clarification on the Djinn's rules. Presumably the player character has tried just telling their friends their names or telling them that they made a deal with a Djinn, which would give their friends more of an incentive to try to remember. But since the story doesn't say this, I kept wondering why they hadn't tried those obvious routes.
I loved the varied soundtrack and how it changed in each level. Also the gloomy feeling of falling down the endless well. A few things got in the way of the mood: * The faces of the friends. Especially when they started following you. If you just turn around and watch them follow you ... it feels like a horror game. It might have been better for them to have no faces to avoid the uncanny valley. * In the third level, I loved the scary music as soon as you see the orange world, but then every time you speak to someone, the music mellows out to something calm and uplifting. I was left very confused as to how I was supposed to be feeling.
Thanks for the guide, because I had no idea where the mountain was. The whole valley is surrounded by mountains. Also you can jump off the mountains and take no fall damage! I appreciated that, because it would have been a long walk back down.
It's pretty sad that even though Dude/Mr.Wizard/etc. gets a name, he still can't interact with his friends because they've all faded away into the environment. D:
Why was Mr. Treble a math teacher and not a music teacher??? BIG QUESTIONS!!!
Otherwise, I do wish there had been a bit more gameplay. Other than choosing your own name at the end, the story is very linear. Though it's still an excellent story. And the running theme of making everyone just wanting everyone else to be happy was a good touch.
I killed a canary sob. I should've known. I should've known ... The humor is strong with this game. There wasn't much content (I'm guessing you ran out of time to implement), but what writing there was was hilarious. I played all the way to Level 11, at which point the game crashed, so I guess I'll never know a) what the corporation was hiding and b) why they would be willing to grant access to their secrets to their employees.
I guess I'll keep saving up for that ticket home.
I summoned Thoon. 10/10 would summon again.
I'm wondering if there were other endings, but when I restarted the game and all the passwords were different, I fear I lost the will to replay to figure out if I could've summoned anyone else.
I stumbled upon the first puzzle by accident, when I logged out and then didn't even realize I was logging into someone else's account because I didn't remember who I was. It took a bit too long to make that first leap. I think if the log out button were more prominent or in a part of the screen that the eye wanders to, it would have been easier to find the puzzle. Before that, I was wondering whether I had to purposefully fail tasks to continue the story, which would have been annoying since I had nothing to do between tasks.
I wish there were a way to stay logged in to someone else's email after completing a task. Often I would be perusing someone's email, get interrupted by a task, and then when I went back, I had to log in again, or my clipboard hadn't saved, etc., and that was a bit annoying. Still, I suppose I am very grateful that CTRL+V and TAB and other such shortcuts actually worked. Saving some time!
Loved the dog at the beginning! I only realized there was a Level Up button because I was reading the other comments before I published mine, so I hastily went back and played the game. After leveling to 10/10, I'm still not sure what leveling up does, whether I was actually controlling the ragdoll mid-fall or not, and whether I'll ever find the food my dog needs so he stops kicking me into the basement.
It's a good thing Eric takes no fall damage ...
I liked the humor in the tutorial. I do wish the tutorial had some time where you could practice aiming without losing any ammo, though. That would have helped because the aiming mechanic was very not intuitive. I wish I could've aimed with the mouse or moved while aiming.
Also, I was very excited to find some extra ammo lying on the ground, but when I tried to click and drag it into my inventory, it didn't go there. That was a shame, since moving things around in the inventory seems like a fun game in and of itself.
There also didn't seem to be any reward for killing monsters, so it was better to just avoid them or jump over them rather than waste ammo. I only got as far as the second area (pink area) before dying, so maybe Hard Mode isn't for me.
What a simple and delightful story! I was surprised that all of my more complex commands still worked on first try. I guess I do remember how Inform7 works.
I second what was said above about how having different types of scrolls made commands confusing.
And yes, the game is very short. I actually don't think it needs to be much longer. It would be nice if there was a little bit more to do on each floor, rather than just one item and then the way down. But I would actually rather have more fleshed out description to imagine the world and these hapless philosophers rather than more puzzles.
I also started the game with Azerty and thought the game was broken at first. Maybe an indicator on the main screen telling you which keyboard you're starting with so you know whether to switch? And a way to return to the menu to change options after already starting the game.
I only found 2 out of 3 of the fish in each stage ... I swam around a lot too, but I guess I didn't have the patience. It would have been nice to be able to zoom in on each fish you find after you collect them. Some of them looked super cute and creative, but I wasn't able to see them for very long before my sharkmarine just gobbled them up.
The light at the bottom was a nice touch.
I like the above sonar suggestion. Other improvements could be making the environment more visually interesting or even dangerous, or having finding the fish give you something that would help you explore deeper.
Did I mention these graphics are a delight?
Yusss, these fish are amazing. I'm going to go share them with my artists.
So polished! I only wish I were better at it. I already can't tell my right from my left. So many accidental deaths with horrible screams to make me feel terrible for my little girl.
Dum de dum de -- I SAW THAT
SILENCE THEM
omg the graphics
Anyway, on the last level, it caught me off guard that there were new tasks appearing one at a time. When I infected the three computers, I kept running around trying to find if one of the computers had become uninfected. So maybe the new tasks should always be appearing one at a time. Also, once I realized that all the worms were going to go crazy at the end, I just killed them all ahead of time. I appreciated that I could not make small talk with dead worms. Though that would have been funny.
The game is so cute in its tone! I only wish there were more customers and gameplay. This seems like a good concept to expand into a longer game!
There was an error when I played it, where the mind moved off the screen and I couldn't find it again, but I continued to fall safely all the way to the end of the game. This made for a meditative experience, though I'm not sure it's what was intended.
Definitely once you get to the 400m mark, there ought to be a music change to something less calming.
I played this right before going to bed and I had a dream that I started to see these articles. I realized that the game had been a way to send these articles from the future to help us prevent the apocalypse. So that's what your game did.
Great sound design and graphics. Absolutely fit the game. I wasn't sure whether I had to read as fast as possible, so I tried to speed read and probably missed a bunch of details. That wasn't as much fun, so maybe there shouldn't be any time pressure, especially to let slower readers play.
I wish there had been some more decision-making on the part of the player rather than everything being spoonfed. I'm not sure where this gameplay could have been introduced, though. The simplest thing I can think of is having the player select bits of information from what they find and adding it to the package of information that they're going to send. There wouldn't be any time to implement checking whether this package is actually good information, but at least there would be more interactivity?
@steve-dragon Thanks for playing and giving such a thoughtful review! We are curious to know how far into the game you got. Were you able to reach any of the endings (they say [The End])? If there are game-breaking bugs preventing you from accessing all of the content, we'd love to know.
@shell-pirate @frank-gevaerts
Thanks for the feedback! The current implementation should have clicking to complete a paragraph already, and the buttons on the bottom left of the text area allow you to change the speed at which the text appears. Please let us know if the buttons or click-to-complete aren't working for you! Or perhaps we should have just labeled them?
@frank-gevaerts You can click on it over and over again to make it as fast as you want. But you're right. I'm not a big fan of the way the text is displayed either and am still trying to find the right way to make it accessible to everyone.
Where can I find a tutorial...or something that tells me what Build or Rapire or these other buttons mean? Or the difference between a mine and a farm, other than the art? The game looks great and the music is fiiine, but I was confused. Eventually I noticed that the UI in the bottom left changed numbers depending on where I was standing, and that was when it clicked for me that maybe I should be trying to increase the stability of each square. But how to do that? Unclear...I'd recommend just writing up a quick guide to plop beneath the description so that people can at least have an idea of what they're supposed to do.
Another way to make the game more understandable would be to add sound effects or visual cues that indicate when something is happening. I definitely knew when I was building buildings because I could see them pop up, but for a long time, I didn't think any of the other buttons actually did anything, so I figured those buttons were just leftover UI from a time when you had hoped to implement more features. Even just a little ding might have made me pay attention to the lower left and realize numbers were changing. I think the lower left numbers would also have been clearer if they appeared right on top of the platform you are standing on, so it's clearly linked to the platform and your eyes don't have to travel far to read it when you're pressed for time.
Anyway, good job and I hope to see more!
Oooh, this is a unique take on the theme! And super ambitious, too!
I only wish I knew how to play this game. I read the tutorial twice, but it only told me what the buttons do, not what they mean. Is it good to have thoughts? Is it good for something to pass and bad for it to fail? If you increase the value of a patent law, does that mean the law generates more money or that the law is stricter? Why would it matter whether the law is stricter? (Maybe it's good for the inventors in that country, but is that something the game is really tracking?) How much money do we have to buy votes anyway? And what good is it to buy votes when you don't know whether you want something to pass? These were all questions that went through my head and without the answers, I had no idea whether whether all the different statistics on the screen meant things were getting more stable, less stable, or about the same.
So I think the number one priority would be to design a tutorial that explains what everything means. Ideally, the complexity would start simple (maybe only looking at one or two types of projects for one or two countries (just the Security Council?) and then introduce mechanics gradually until you have the behemoth that a U.N. simulator should be. Or, until you run out of time to implement new mechanics...
Good luck!
A good length for a game jam! I enjoyed bouncing around and wondering what the next change would, and there was a great variety of different things that could happen. After killing all the monsters in the final enormous room, the game just stopped. I'm not sure if this was a bug or if that's just the end of the content. I couldn't move anywhere, or do anything, so I just alt-tabbed out to exit the game.
- Definitely if you were to add any graphics whatsoever, the first place I would do it is making the monsters react when damaged. If the main mechanic of the game is killing stuff, just make it feel satisfying, y'know? - What was the difference between the two kinds of spells? I didn't notice any strategic advantage to one over the other, so I just spammed them randomly and got through the game just fine. - The wizard never took any damage. Not sure if that was intended, but once I realized I had nothing to be afraid of, that meant the only challenge there was was platforming (and I was actually pretty bad at the platforming on the bottom right part of the map, where I kept hitting my head on the ceiling and then falling between the platforms. Got there in the end, but it wasn't fun to deal with the physics, and I doubt that was intended to be as much of a challenge as it was for me.
After two levels, the cake-dropping machine never came back D:
It's like it knew how bad I was. I also didn't quite understand why I was getting congratulations for 4-stacks when there were only two cakes that were falling off the platform. But hey, if that's the quality that the customers want, then it's good enough for me!
What a creative approach to this game! I loved the rambling monologues too...very relatable.
I appreciate a game that knows how to close itself.
As I don't come from a developer background, I have no idea whether the following is an intended red herring, but when Player.log opened up, it had (among other things) the following text, and I spent way too much time trying to figure out how to modify sharedassets0.resource before eventually giving up and asking for hints, only to find the answer was online.
First video frame not zero: 1 (0.032943s). Result may be out of sync. Please make sure tracks all start at 0 in C:/Users/Carraka/Downloads/You Can Not Start This Game x86/You Can Not Start This Game_Data/sharedassets0.resource
There were some great jokes in here! I especially appreciated Sir Circle. I only wish the font were more readable. Also, it would be nice if after speaking to someone, you can immediately speak to them again to get their next dialogue line. I was standing in place spamming enter waiting for the option to come back, but there was no indication of when I could talk to them, so I got impatient pretty easily and didn't do all the dialogue for all the characters, which is something I usually do.
I nearly quit after finding only 4 of the 5 tokens. Turns out the fifth one was in the main map all along. I really need to commend you on the color coding in the main map. It was a great way to make it clear that there were four different areas to explore (other than the main map), setting up the expectation that you could find one flesh token in each part. So finding the token eventually was satisfying and you always knew where to go next. (The red one was hard to see on a red background.)
But speaking of satisfaction...I suppose the title of the game should have told me the twist that was coming. I'm not a fan of "it was all a dream endings." It just makes me feel duped. Like...why did I spend all that time thinking about a mystery that the writer themselves said was unimportant. Which was a shame, because until the ending, I really liked the writing and the humor and the weird square ideas. But the ending was a let down.
I'll just go back to groovin' with the worm.
Definitely a fun idea!
I think the game would improve if it were a little slower, or if at least it started slow and then ramped up. I basically never had any time to react to the color of a cube, much less attempt to place it somewhere, and if I did manage to do it for one paddle, I certainly didn't manage it for the other. I think slowing the game down would do a lot to mitigate that. I'm not sure still how much control one really has over where something goes. The paddles really only seem good at changing whether something is moving vertically, when this game's mechanics are more concerned with where something is horizontally. Maybe if there were only one paddle and you could move the paddle around in addition to just flopping it back and forth?
Anyway, after I gave up on controlling the cubes, I just let the game alone and watched the cubes fall where they may. It makes for a nice screensaver.
@dalep Thanks for the heads up about the mac build! None of us actually have a mac, but I created one so a friend of mine could play it. I'll add your command to the download instructions in case anyone else needs it.
So first of all, I love the worldbuilding that went into this project. The imagery is extremely evocative. I wish there were a way to play this without printing out the forms. ALSO: the fact that all of the forms are buried in different folders, with different names for the folders and only a few items in each folder makes me think that the electronic experience was intended. After all, if it were just supposed to be a paper experience, the forms would all have boring names and they would all be at the same level in the folder structure.
So I didn't print the forms. I just opened the folders and started browsing. The folders display in alphabetical order, which means the first folder that appears is DON'T OPEN UNLESS DEVIANT. Naturally, I opened that folder first and read the contents therein. I wish I hadn't read that folder first...I think this experience would have been improved if I had known what I was deviating against first. So, I would bury that sort of material inside of other folders so that anyone who gets the electronic-only experience would need to actually dig through to get to it.
Anyway, eventually I realized I was supposed to start with the "START HERE" file rather than just opening each folder alphabetically and reading the PDFs inside, and my experience was much improved.
I would have loved there to be more branching options for what forms to fill out next, rather than always just having to go to the next one and then the next one. For example, in the very first form, the only instruction I found was "If you have ever been convicted of crimes," etc. But what if I have never been convicted of crimes? I found myself with no option but to assume I have committed a crime and to open that form to continue the game.
Searching for the YBK form was a little annoying, since it wasn't obvious that it was in the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY folder. It forces you to open every folder and search for it. Not sure if that was intended. I would have liked a folder structure system where all of the folders were the first three letters of a form name. So the outsider folder would be YBK, and then inside the folder there would be YBK-001, YBK-253, and other YBK forms. Et cetera.
Eventually, I ended up at ODB-WR, which referred to a form PAS-S. I could not find PAS-S. I'm not sure if there's any way to reach the other forms, except to deviate.
Anyway, I hope this wall of text tells you that I really loved the world-building, which is why I wanted to come up with all these improvements. Other than that, since this game was so text-based, I wish it had more of an edit. Things like inconsistent hyphenation of non-compliant or some items having periods at the end while other items didn't really brought me out of the world. But eh, such are the constraints of time.
Hey, Terry! Hope you're doing well!
I think I got through three of the levels and then got stuck on the level where you zig zag up to get the key and then if you try to jump off it, there's a spike platform in the way, but if you take the lower path, there's a jump up at the end that I couldn't make. I wasn't sure how to proceed.
If I could make one change, it would be changing the space bar to be jump and the dash to be left shift. (I actually wasn't able to get the run to work...or if it did work, I didn't notice any change in speed.) But I think that's because my mind is so used to dashing with shift in so many games. Had to rewire my brain a bit to get a handle on the jumping, and even still, I kept messing it up.
A death SFX would have been nice too. Often I would step onto a platform and there was a pause between when I hit the platform and when the level reset.
Keep it up! The music was very calming! Just what I need to relax after a jam.
I only wish the game were longer. There was the beginnings of a mystery and the beginnings of a daring escape, but it was over too quickly.
Still, what was there was executed well. The audio was a nice touch. For the escape, I do wish there were a button that would let you restart the game. I escaped before complying (because I'm always more interested in that route first apparently), but then since I had nothing to compare it to, I wasn't sure whether I had reached the ending. The story just stopped.
A simple game with a prophetic title! I tried some different strategies like throwing the blocks at opposite sides of the screen without worrying about whether they would align. These strategies did not work. But the gameplay felt so smooth that it was still fun to try.
The graphics really went above and beyond. You know when there's an animated menu that someone has put their time into the game...and the way the camera shifted from level to level is something that I wish we had implemented for our game (but didn't think about from until way too late).
The game itself was fun, until the later levels, when I got annoyed at the puzzle design. There were missing letters and you had to fill in the right letter, but there were multiple solutions. For example, IEF and the correct option was L for LIFE, but R was an option as well, which can spell RIFE or FIRE. Or DESE came up, and the answer was SPEED, but T was also available, and STEED is a word as well. Or LITH and I'm not sure what the intended answer was here. Maybe LITHE? But I put in F for FILTH. So either design levels where there really is only word possible (definitely use one of those anagram websites to verify that there is only one possible solution), or add some sort of hint text as to what kind of potion we're looking for. Anyway, that's how I ended up with a score of 9 out of 16, failing the exam. Haha, I feel like one of those students who's trying to insist the problem is not with the student, but with the test.
In other news, I loved the irony of flinging an empty flask into a potion. And I still don't know what the O object actually was, other than that it started with O. Orb?
Thanks for the review, @jacob-schick! Would you please provide more detail about this bug? When you pressed the E button to shoot, did you hear anything or did nothing happen?
Great game! I think I got to the end boss of level 2 but lost, and then when I was kicked back to the beginning of the level, didn't feel like running through again after losing all that progress, so I stopped there.
I found the visuals confusing and easy to get lost, but if I simply navigated while the map was open, exiting the map only for combat, I had a much easier time navigating. I don't know if that was intended as a way to help the navigationally challenged like me.
Hmm, this cure seems to suspiciously cause a case of the vanishes. Maybe it needs to undergo more medical trials.
I liked how sometimes the monsters were stacked on top of one another with their silly animations. Since there's some knockback every time Dr. Stabby runs into a monster, I thought at first he was kicking them away and didn't realize that he was also losing health when that happened. Hey, but maybe kicking is a legitimate strategy...
I agree with Francis about having a goal. Increasing difficulty over time could be another way to increase engagement as well. Great to see you're still game jamming!
Came over to this game from your post about how playtesting without realizing people wouldn't know the rules was tough--so I already knew the rules. This was a gem of a game. The graphics were a delight, and I went all the way to 3000 gold before finally deciding to stop playing and retire.
It was a little too easy sometimes to milk an improbably good trade route five or six times, especially once you knew what you were doing. I'm thinking in particular of the one where you buy sugar in the lower left for 1 and sell it right adjacent for 5.
I also still can't figure out what the numbers along the routes mean. I thought they meant hardtack consumed for the whole journey (though that would be annoying to convert once you stop using hardtack), but they didn't, so in early game, I just kind of selected a journey and hoped for the best that my hardtack wouldn't be used up (before I realized that the number, whatever it is, is always higher than the amount of hardtack you consume).
I really enjoyed this game! Watching the cursors make all my mistakes again was fantastic! If I were to want two things, it would be the ability to swap upgrades (so you don't have to drag one off before dragging the other one on) and also a visual indicator of which part of the rune is missing when you're at 98% and 99% and just swiping madly hoping you find the one pixel you needed.
@justking144 The new post-jam build we just uploaded should have fixed this game-breaking bug. Check it out and let us know if you find anything else! (But be sure to base your rating on the submission build rather than the post-jam build.) I love idle games too, so I hope this allows you to enjoy the game!
This was definitely educational and left me very morose (of course humans ruin everything)! I was surprised to see a score at the end and am wondering whether the score came from how quickly I could complete the levels, though I don't have any context for whether it was a good score or a bad score. I wonder if the gameplay could be improved by spending a bit more time with each type of level--it seemed as soon as I understood what I was supposed to do for one level, I was moving on to something else, rather than getting a similar challenge with a new twist.
My one request is that the "Go back" button in the email interface goes back into the same tab that you were in, so if you were reading a Social email, you go back to the Social tab so you can read the next Social email.
Okay I lied I have another request which is that when the viruses arrived, it took me a long time to realize I should be right-clicking with them instead of trying to win a headbutt war.
You've got mail!
The music was delightful! Somehow I found myself playing for over an hour. I still haven't figured out the strategy, but it's definitely fun to try to figure it out. Well done!
I was at level 46 when I realized that I could click and drag to lead the swarm around. But I did stop playing at level 50...this game is a mesmerizing simulation.
I kept expecting the lightness of the blue to determine how much time it would take to eat through it, but was disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any correlation. It was also unclear at the beginning what exactly is making the stage go up.
I would've really like an additional game element to add challenge. Perhaps the simplest thing would be adding a timer and an arbitrary final level so people can compete against themselves to get the best time. If there's something that threatens the swarm, that could be interesting as well.
What a cute game! I discovered an exploit where I trapped three kids in a corner and just stood there and let my numbers go up due to proximity. They never fainted. I want to submit my high score but perhaps it's dishonest since I didn't have to work for it. :D
Took me a while to realize I could go to the restaurant and make orders. It was pretty difficult to figure out what the orders were, though. I totally missed there was a jar you could also fill with ingredients. Maybe there could have been a way to slowly introduce elements to the player so it was less overwhelming. I also would have loved some audio indicator to know when there was something happening on the other screen I needed to pay attention to. Otherwise, the game over screen kept coming out of nowhere.
...also the crabs were a teensy bit larger than tiny LOL
I was suspicious at first when I encountered so many tutorials, but once I had gone through them all, I was surprised that they had worked as intended and that I instantly understood the game's mechanics and strategy. With both Small and Difficult, after a while I was cruising through the second half without having to buy any new upgrades. Extreme felt more challenging at the beginning, though maybe it's just because I really wasn't treating Health as a resource as well until the end--even though I never encountered a Game Over screen, it was still an enjoyably tense experience that felt like a challenge.
The animals saying stuff when they are upgraded is so cute! Really loved the art! I do wish they stood out a bit more from the background--it took me a bit of hunting to find them.
This hamster is so cute! Any tips on getting past the second level? When I put a fruit right on top of the block, Hamilton just eats the fruit and falls back onto his back on the side he jumped from. Adorable. T_T
The music was delightful! I feel like I was really rooting for the ants though...they seemed like the underdogs, especially since I beat them on first try once I got over my desire to try everything once and actually focused my strategy. Would love to see a version with multiple levels and progression, but perhaps most of all, some story about why we have to follow the Governor's will and where this dragon comes from :D Great job!
One of the best games I've played so far! I spent so long avoiding the insect on the first level...but once I understood the insects were helping, it was so satisfying to solve these puzzles and play all the way to the end! Getting carried by crabs felt like a fantastic victory lap. I'm very glad there was a restart button. Definitely would've liked indication that existed, though I was pleasantly surprised when I pressed 'R' that it worked.
Losing health because you're a piece of butter is so funny to me! There were so many mechanics in this game, it would've been cool to be introduced to them more gradually. Also, as someone who sucks at platformers, it was discouraging to be sent back to the beginning all the time. Having a tutorial in the game itself was much appreciated though!
I really enjoyed these puzzles! Played through to the end! I might have to admit that I never really understood the rule for the orange microbe--so after I had placed the green and blue for the last level, I was really doing trial and error. Definitely agree with @loveapplegames on those UI improvements.
I really enjoyed this game! Played through a bunch of times and got some different endings. Definitely enjoy the Elysium ending. I could never figure out how Knowledge/Light is supposed to work. Also, the font was slightly difficult to read at first. Great job!
Woo I got to the end! It took me three tries x.x I settled on a strategy of just repeatedly shooting the same anthill on the screen regardless of whether there was anything there, with the assumption that eventually something would spawn there just in time to be killed. This strategy definitely carried me through the game, enough that I never had to use any sugars.
I really liked the different ant designs, though I never figured out whether the larger brown or blue ghost type ants had any different powers other than being larger (easier to hit) and looking different--just killed them too quickly to find out. To be fair, that's my strategy with IRL ants as well. Not going to sit around to see what happens to me. The GAME OVER screen really confirms my worst fears.
Took me a bit of trial and error before I understood what each upgrade did and what the blue bar meant, but once I did, it was very enjoyable. I think the base speed for everything could have been just a little bit faster to keep things moving through slow segments. Definitely enjoyed the exploration feel.
Super interesting idea with the breeding! I do wish there were some way to use a default slow movement without having to use boost. I think my experience was mostly floating at the bottom of the tank wondering why there were no fish nearby, then using my boost to go look for them, scaring them off, and wondering why there were no fish nearby. Maybe I just lacked patience?
@bumble You need to finish the Talk to Gilly quest by reporting back to his sister (the Mama Fish at the beginning in the first quest). That should open up the rest of the game for you!
@Bumble Yup, the quest should end after you talk to him. I'll see if I can fix that. Aaand it should be fixed in the bugfix version! Thanks for the catch.
@do3naut Yup, live recorded music! I will pass along your compliments to the clarinet player. (She was just complaining about a particular measure to me yesterday, so I hope this means her work shone through for you.)
I felt so terrible the first time I caused a blood splatter...but you know...the allure of seeing numbers go up is way too strong. Having the music speed up along with the game was absolutely delightful. And I am further resolved to never go to the jungle. The virtual experience is stressful enough. :D
An excellent game! Played all the way to the end! My only wish is that if the text is playing and space bar is pressed, it lets you skip ahead to see the full text instead of just skipping to the next dialogue. There was so much hilarious dialogue I accidentally skipped over because I'm too used to being able to press space to make all the text show. Great job!
Wow, Timmy sure needed help! This was a lot of fun. My only desire was for some sort of level progression to slowly learn and juggle the priorities. I spent too much time trying to move the dinosaur up for Timmy and thinking I was being stopped by physics rather than the game.
The narration was what made the game for me. Some philosophy, some Stanley Parable...the fact that the narration continued even when you died was the only thing that made me want to keep playing, because it was fiendishly difficult for me. A simple thing like adding a reticle in the center of the screen for shooting would have made the game much easier. Also, it took me a while to figure out I could double jump, and an even longer time to figure out I could double jump to avoid melee. After that, it was just grinding. Fortunately, the narration was long enough that I only had a minute or two of silence before I completed the game. As for first-person platforming...I have nothing to say to that.
Thank you for the philosophy to start my day. I don't drink coffee, so I didn't take your suggestion. Nice Stanley Parable reference. I didn't think about it until skimming past the comments to post mine, but I agree that the Depths of Winter are not the actual depths featured in this game. Well done!
What a cute little cube Chthulhu! I find myself yearning the most for some story that ties everything together. Why does the jump feel so floaty. Can this Cubethulhu fly or are we underwater? Why do we keep going down? Why do we want coins? I've never known this cosmic horror to be greedy...where are all the people? Why are some of the hearts behind walls? Are they truly inaccessible? All these unanswered questions...but at least there's save points!
It took me a while to understand, but once I reread the directions and realized I could watch the frequencies to know whether I was near something, I was able to get through a few levels. In the third level, I started getting messages that said "Garbage!" and I'm wondering what that means. Was I just fooled into picking up garbage instead of gold, or am I just really bad at the game hahaha
I was impressed there are multiple puzzles! Definitely find a way to indicate that. A couple improvements might have been letting us skip ahead to see the full text rather than having to wait for it to all appear, and also having the puzzles ramp up in difficulty.
This poor cat! Had to be drenched over and over again to make progress! I found the levels a bit repetitive after a while, but I really enjoyed the polish, and you can even play just with mouse by clicking on the buttons! Super impressive!
YOU CAN JUMP 10/10
I really like this interpretation of theme! Played all the way through to the end. I enjoyed the moments when I noticed the cat and felt like it had been sitting in front of me the whole time. Some minor improvements that could be awesome - Deduct score slightly for clicking on the wrong thing to discourage spam clicking while waiting for the color to deepen - Show on the ending screen the meaning of the scores that you have written up in the game description - Add the title and artist of each piece when the cat is found (it would be a spoiler to see it before hand because it's also really fun to see the art gain clarity and find out what it is)
Well done!!! Cats!!
This was one of my favorite games that I've played. Simple, sweet, short, educational, it has everything.
I got everything except the knife. Kept trading for a long time, but just couldn't get it. Due to luck, perhaps? I ended up taking notes on all the different categories. That's how invested I was! Now if only I could use these notes to help me win at something else...
The way I screamed the first time a different-sized Leon Spark came out of the box...omg In real-life I organize by genre and then author's last name. Larger books on the bottom shelves. Why would someone give me shade for not doing alphabetical by title??? I did end up organizing by color (which I would never do in real life though I understand some people do...)
Anyway, I am very passionate about this subject, so I loved this game. I also encountered issues with the books being finicky: * There's a bit of separation on the top shelf, so the books are floating * Sometimes I clicked on the box and all it did was shake...I'm not sure if this was telling me that I had to stop to take a photo, because after I took a photo, I was able to keep removing books. Thus it was unclear to me when the game was over. After I took one of the photos, I was brought back to the Sense of Shelf title screen with nowhere else to go, which is a shame, since I would've loved to finish organizing. * Would have loved some simple music to complete the mood, and maybe one SFX of just putting books onto the shelf as they slide into place.
Anyway, this game was enchanting! Thank you!
What a cute game! I finished on Wave 82. Bullying those crabs is so satisfying when you can finally do it. I think the game went on a little bit too long. Maybe just higher pearl rewards or lower requirements to unlock things. Just slightly.
What a fantastic, creative idea! I was very confused at the beginning because I had no windows open and didn't realize I could press Esc. Once I realized these things, the game really opened up. Things I would love: * What does upgrading a window do? I think it increases the frequency and rarity of icons, but I don't really know for sure. * What does a Fabricator do? I've bought so many and have no idea what they do. * Could there be some way to unlock knowledge like whether I've already discovered all the different types of window environments? I would love to know I don't have to open any more random programs in my computer. I still haven't collected two icons, but it's frustrating to not know whether I should be trying to find them by opening more programs or by trying to upgrade random windows and just luck into the solution. This was a lovely game to leave on in the background, and opening another program to find a new type of window was a rush of joy. I also found the godot icon when I opened godot. I have no idea whether this was intentional, but it was pretty cool.
Also I'm so thankful that when I accidentally closed the game and reopened it, all my progress was still there.
Trying to play this game while eating was a terrible idea :) I think this game needs a difficulty ramp-up, starting with just one rule, and then slowly adding to the number of rules, one at a time. I can see myself getting into a puzzle game if everything is introduced gradually, but when I barely understood the first puzzle and then suddenly was dealing with a whole bunch of papers in the second level, it was too much for me!