cerno-b

B-Game by squaxcom 2022-04-13T20:41:35Z ♥ 1

You absolutely nailed the graphics, the game really stands out in that regard. It's funny and has a lot of character. Everything is so wacky and frantic, very well done. From a technical side, this is just a pet-peeve of mine, but I'm not really into mixed resolution pixel art. It takes a lot of the charm out of the game for me personally when the resolutions clash. Of course, having pixel-perfect art means that scale effects often don't look that great, but it might be worth a shot to try what the game would look like on a fixed grid. I think if you do make a mixed-pixel art game it is necessary to make sure that it still mostly feels like a single resolution. It's a bit of a shame because the graphics are really front and center and a core part of the whole experience.

Another minor annoyance was that the cursor was so small. A custom pixel art cursor would have been great, because I had some trouble hitting the start banner every time a stage was completed.

Cool to see 1BitDragon to be put to good use. I just discovered it myself when I saw someone else talk about it on the main page. I have played around with it a bit and like it. Seems it aid you well in writing nice music for your game.

Gameplay-wise it took me a bit to understand that I should follow the owl and avoid the rainclouds, but then it was pretty smooth sailing until I forgot about the owl again and started off in the wrong direction which spelled my immediate doom.

Again, you made one of the best-looking games I have played so far with a lot of charm. I think it could have used a little more depth to the gameplay itself, but what you did offer looks and plays great. Definitely a memorable entry among the ones I have played so far. Great job!

ZEZ by tengusheath 2022-04-13T20:13:49Z ♥ 0

This was my second attempt after I discovered the dash and I don't think I can go much higher:

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Nice game. A tried and true action formula executed well. I liked the graphics and particularly the range indicators that gave a hint about areas with higher enemy density. I think that played an important role in the game and avoided people getting stuck in places where there are no enemies to defeat.

A minor graphical thing: I found it a bit weird and immersion-breaking to allow rotating the slash graphic after it was executed. I think a slash is something that happens in the moment and should be left behind, not move with the player.

Some thoughts about game feel since this is a very action oriented game: I like how you added screenshake, although I think it could have benefitted from a little bit more fine-tuning. I can't put my finger on it, but it felt slightly off. Maybe it would have helped to have directional shake that pushed the camera away from the enemy for a few frames?

I think the audio effects could also have been a little bit crunchier. The single point of interaction of the player with the game world is hitting an enemy, so I think this moment deserves a little bit more care to make it as impactful as possible (without going overboard on the special effects)

Anyway, you might know this video, but I like to post it under games that are action oriented and could use a little bit more juice. It helped me a lot when I first discovered it and I think you can find a few things that make your game even more impactful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Nice game, I had fun.

Isn't-Land by Villfuk02 2022-04-13T19:57:49Z ♥ 1

That is a charming game. Weirdly enough I got to 73 years on my first try by just messing around and then on my second run when I thought I had the mechanics figured out, I wasn't able to exceed that score. I built some factories to afford some air scrubbers, but it's probably realistic that this is a stupid idea because I guess the factories pollute a lot and counteract the scrubbers' effects.

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I wish there was some music, or at least some ambient sound effects. Gusts of wind fit nicely to an island theme, so that could have added even more to the atmosphere that you set up nicely with the graphics.

Building a strategy game in 48 hours is no small feat, and I would probably have died trying to figure out a proper balance to all the mechanics.

That being said, I think a complex game deserves a good introduction. You tried to fit everything into a single screen, which felt very crowded in the beginning and I didn't want to go through all the buildings to get what all the resources do. I understand that a tutorial is probably out of the question in a game jam, but for complex games I always recommend an infographic using the assets your game already has, with some arrows to indicate dependencies and *as little text as barely possible* to keep things accessible. In this case, multiple infographics would probably have been necessary because there are just sooo many building types and interdependencies.

All in all a commendable effort and a fun game, nice job!

Icebreak by tylerstraub 2022-04-13T19:34:05Z ♥ 1

I like the graphics, they are very clean and create a coherent feel to the game. They are primarily what made me interested in playing.

I wasn't spectacularly good but I found out that enemies would freeze if I broke the ice in a complete row if the enemies were on the other side. This helped me crowd control a little because only half of the new enemies would be relevant for me. On the downside I lost a lot of space to move, but that was a good tradeoff because it turned out that I wasn't really good at strategizing what I could do in order to get rid of the monsters. The bishops were somewhat manageable because I could try and move straight towards them and then push them into a hole or off the map.

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Some bits where I see improvement potential: I thought it would have been nice if I could have moved without having to wait for the next monster to finish falling. I assume you did not want to break the game's turn system, but I maybe you could have delayed the monster's first move by one turn, which would have allowed the player to move during the drop. Might not have solved the problem but mitigated it. To me, that micro-pause was enough to break the flow a bit.

Then again, I should probably have thought more about my move instead of playing intuitively. Maybe having move indicators for the monsters would have helped me get into a more strategic mindset. Even if you didn't want to show the exact next move, I think adding some arrows that indicate all the different ways a monster could move, including what that meant for you, might have made the game a bit more predictable and strategic. The way it is, invited me to just move around willy-nilly I was often surprised when a monster killed me.

A shame you didn't add some music, that would have been a nice addition to the atmosphere. And if composition is not your thing, then maybe some audio generator ambient noises like wind would have fit the atmosphere of the game.

One minor quirk that I sometimes see with games published on itch: It is always recommendable to put just a single executable in your zip file, because otherwise the game cannot be downloaded via the itch client. I use the client a lot and often just drop games that don't download properly. Yours looked interesting enough to warrant the manual download. I get that it would be a decision between supporting the itch client or having multiple resolution exes in one directoy, but I wanted to mention that this was a thing.

Overall a nice entry, I had fun playing it.

[HTML5/WebGL] Be the Inevitable by leorid 2022-04-11T21:04:54Z ♥ 1

Nice and fun top down shooter.

First of all, the music was very impressive. It added a lot to the pacing of the game and gave it a sense of urgency. But since you did not want to be rated on it, was that an external composition? Would have been very impressive if it was yours.

A few thoughts about potential for improvement

You already thought about a few things to add some game feel, like the push-back on the assault rifle, but I think an action-focused game like this can use a lot more juice. In these situations I like to recommend this talk by Jan Willem Nijman of Vlambeer, it was an eye opener for me in terms of what to do to make a game feel impactful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Some specific things:

* Wall gliding could be improved so that the player does not slow down when moving along walls * Guns should not shoot much further than the camera visibilty. I was able to cheese myself through the third level without being hit a single time because I could just spray the enemies from off screen with the assault rifle * The camera should move towards the direction the player is facing or walking so that forward visibility is improved. I already know what's behind me, but I would like to see what's coming up so that the enemies do not jump me. It would be different in a horror game, but this is a classic shooter, so visibility should probably be a bit better. * Having to collect the gun right at the beginning of each level was a bit weird, especially after the intro guy handing over the first gun was an important event within the game. This broke continuity a bit. * I found the theme to be a bit underemployed. I understand that we are the inevitable and I liked that twist, but I didn't feel I did a lot to delay it, quite the opposite.

All in all it was an enjoyable game and I would encourage you to try juicing the crap out of it post jam just to see how far you can take it and see how that feels.

Good job!

Casually Comitting Tax Evasion by Frizuo 2022-04-11T20:41:31Z ♥ 1

Congratulations on your first game jam. It's quite a challenge to make a first game with limited time and handing in something complete with music and everything. Great job!

The graphics were nice and reminded me of games of my childhood. I think the whole game including the premise felt very C64-ish, games like Oil Imperium come to mind. The music was interesting, it sounded a bit like a nod to The Godfather theme, was this intended?

I can't say all that much about the gameplay because to be honest, I found it a bit hard to grasp, but I would like to comment a little bit about accessibility.

The more complex a game's mechanics are, the more important it is to deliver an accessible explanation of those mechanics to ease the player into the game.

In this case, the introduction is done via a "wall of text", which can cause players to lose interest because they want to play instead of reading a manual, especially in a game jam.

For a game with complex rules, this can generally be achieved by different means:

* Introducing different parts of the game level by level * A tutorial (interactive manual) * An infographic that visually explains what to do and how to do it.

The third option is most suited for a game jam since it only requires a single image that is mostly made up of sprites you already have. The other two take more time to set up. And if you present the player with text, make sure to deliver is in digestible chunks.

When it comes to keyboard input, it is often advisable to pick keys that are next to each other. I think you used q, t and p for centering the corresponding letters, which is a good mnemonic, but players who want to use this feature more often would struggle accessing the keys fast because they are quite a bit spaced out.

Sometimes the simpler mechanic is the better one even though I imagine it is tempting to play around with all the features a game engine has to offer (and I fall into this trap quite often). So maybe instead of using "floaty" letters that run the danger of drifting off screen, it would have been a better choice to use normal objects that stay in place, which could have made the three centering keys obsolete which would have simplified the game's control scheme and helped the player focus more on the actual mechanics of how to avoid taxes.

Overall I think you realized a fresh concept and created something new. That in and of itself is very impressive, especially for a first entry. My criticism is mostly about the tools of the trade: What mechanics can I use to realize my idea in a way that makes the game fun to interact with? How can I make the player understand the game in an enjoyable manner? These things grow over time with each game you make. What is more important is to come up with clever ideas to create games that stand out among the crowd and I think you are on the right track there.

Nice one, keep up the great work!

Warming up! by notnasiul 2022-04-11T20:08:09Z ♥ 1

Cute litte game. Classic PICO-8 charm, I enjoyed my two rounds, even though I think it did not record my high scores properly.

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My score is nothing compared to @conradoclark but I still thought I'd share. I had fun.

A Drag on Chaos by pkenney 2022-04-11T19:58:28Z ♥ 1

I was only able to achieve Double Center and I think I must have sunk half an hour in your game. I liked how unconvential it was and how it started as a simple physics demo until I realized that there are numbers that appear in certain situations, which awoke my curiosity and made me want to figure out where this was going. By the time I had the first achievement I was hooked and wanted to get all of them.

Unfortunately I really had some trouble with the mouse, which caused me a lot of the hits I had aimed for. I have never really tried making a physics based game, so I am fairly ignorant about the difficulties in giving objects a proper weight, so I would assume that a more responsive mouse would have created too much of an impact on the pendulum which would have made the game much too easy, but if I had to change one thing in this game it would be the mouse speed.

The music was very fitting and I was impressed how much of it there was. Minimalist music for minimalist visuals are a great fit. It got me into a relaxed mood.

Speaking of which, the atmosphere was very smooth. The simple shapes and meditative music made this a very soothing experience.

Pass The Torch by Dan Smith 2022-04-07T20:55:53Z ♥ 3

Going into this LD, I couldn't bring myself to tell a story around the theme because it was way too depressing. Glad to see you leaned into it like that and produced something remarkably beautiful. The atmosphere and graphics are amazing and the music fits the atmosphere very well. For me it was one of the most beautiful games I have seen so far. A haunting experience.

As much as I loved the experience, I felt as a game it was a little lacking, and I couldn't figure out how to play it well, even though I really tried to get a grasp on it. So maybe there were some hidden mechanics I did not understand, but even though I tried multiple runs, I couldn't get to round 4, but getting to round 3 was fairly simple. So there was not really a difficulty ramp between the outcomes.

So what I thought happened was that I started out with three adults, one of which carried a baby. So the first day was pretty easy and everyone survived. In round two, the baby turned into a kid and there was a new baby. During the round, based on chance, one of the adults grew old before reaching the hut and had to be left behind, but the other survived. So round 2 was doable, but only if I sacrificed the kid, who was too slow to reach the hut. So when round 3 started, I only had one adult and a second kid because the baby grew up. But in order to survive that round, I had to sacrifice the kid, so round 4 would have been the last one, but I couldn't reach it because the adult turned into an elderly and did not make it. So the crucial point was that I could keep my lineage alive if the kid survived round 2, which I never accomplished, or to barely drag myself across the finish line in round 3, but that did not happen either. Maybe there is a way to get to round 4 with enough luck, as I saw there are some RNG elements to the game, but that did not happen to me.

Going into gameplay, I was wondering what the torch passing mechanic was supposed to do. From what I could see, there was no advantage or disadvantage in passing the torch. Handing it backwards would not change anything about the progress because the receiver would have to catch up to the former carrier. Despite the game being about the unavoidable death of the group, I think it would have been great if there was a little more control about how the game played out. Managing travel speed or torch longevity through some player decision might have made the game more intense, like maybe keeping closer to the torch would speed you up but made you age faster so you would have to balance your characters' position more. Some decision making during the rest period could have given the game some additional depth. Maybe you could decide to stay longer in order to fill up the torch more, but at the risk of your people getting too old.

Specifically I would have liked if the kid was able to turn into a teen while walking (just like the adult turns into an elderly), because that would have given me the last minute speed boost I needed to have my offspring survive.

Anyway, these shortcomings don't take away from the fact that you have an amazing grasp of atmosphere and created a haunting, wistful thing of beauty that truly stands out among what LD usually has to offer.

Great job!

If you try hard enough, you can win. by Rxbbie 2022-04-05T21:05:57Z ♥ 1

Fun little game. I only managed to get to 2:12, after that it became too much to handle. I like the ramp-up in difficulty and the firing speed of the guns is well balanced.

I would have loved to have a little clearer audio feedback when I got hit because I didn't have time to keep an eye on the health bar.

Also I think a game like this would benefit greatly from a little bit more juice. I always recommend this presentation. It is a bit old but still very relevant. Not everything may apply to every game's mood but it is definitely good to know the things as options:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

FINAL BONES by everedx 2022-04-05T18:30:32Z ♥ 2

Your cover picture won me over and I wanted to know more. I was not disappointed :)

Nice game, I like the graphics and humour. The music kept in the background and fit the mood nicely without becoming annoying.

Gameplay-wise I think it would have been helpful to use icons instead of words since the game becomes frantic very fast and it takes too long to parse the actual text in a short amount of time. In the end I ended up randomly clicking any attack and hoping for the best.

I the same vein, it would be nice to have target indicators when hovering over the different attacks. Since this is a reaction game it is sometimes necessary to make a split second decision where to attack and having to remember where an attack would go in addition to what it does in that short amount of time was a little stressful.

Anyway, I enjoyed my run, good job!

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Estrella by Xiris 2022-04-04T16:15:29Z ♥ 2

I love typing games. Nicely done.

Graphics and music fit really well together. It feels like a coherent game.

The only thing that stands out a bit is the generated audio effects, because they clash a bit with the clean graphics, but other than using soundgens the only option would be to create the sounds yourself, which might have sounded a bit weird as well.

I really loved the UFO idea, it's a very easy word to type and saves you from a tight spot so you anticipate the next UFO's arrival. If only the rockets fired immediately... :D

A few technical thoughts:

* I think it would have been nice to have blanks and dashes optional which is pretty standard in typing games * Continuing the game after a loss does not seem to reset the word difficulty. My first playthrough had short words in the beginning, my second one started right with two-word concepts. After reloading the page, the first playthrough was easier again. * The rockets do not always hit, likely because one rocket can hit an asteroid that is in the way of its intended target and then the other rocket has no target anymore and shoots off. A solution would be to assign each asteroid its own "private" rocket and don't measure collision with any asteroid but only with the one the rocket was intended for. Or, maybe this was a design choice and the rockets are not meant to guarantee hitting their marks.

Overall very nice entry, I had a lot of fun and encountered words I never heard before.

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Garden of Death by Flawed_Gamer 2022-04-04T15:31:33Z ♥ 1

Very cute and well-thought out idea. The graphics are very nice and you set a very good atmosphere with the music and design.

The gameplay idea is very addicting, but unfortunately I had the feeling that the game needed some more tweaking. I played around with different strategies, but almost none of the available plants seemed to lead to success. I couldn't figure out what the light flower does, the soulcatcher was not worth the effort, since I was happy with my manual hit rate. The plants that increase soul count and speed seemed too much of a hassle to keep alive to offset the loss in funds I incurred when growing them.

So I basically adopted the strategy to exclusively grow sunflowers, one at a time. Since a grown sunflower only gives a price cut once they mature, I would simply let them die and plant a new one. This together with setting the soul speed to high was enough to carry me through the game.

It's a pity because with a little more balancing I think this could have been very addicting. It already was motivating enough to let me finish it though, so all in all, good job!

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If you're interested, I found three technical issues:

1) Whenever I pick a seed, there is a music hiccup. For some reason this does not happen with the other resources.

2) The symbols sometimes appear behind the plants which makes it very difficult to find out what they need. In some cases you can only see a single pixel poking out somewhere to assume that you need sunlight.

3) More a design choice really, but it might have been a bit more user friendly to allow changing items even if you have one in your hand, instead of going through the detour of putting it in the trash.

THERE IS A FIRE HERE by yellow 2022-04-04T14:18:50Z ♥ 1

Nice minimalist game with simple but effective mechanics.

I enjoyed trying to crack my previous high score. I couldn't figure out whether the wind does anything or whether I would be able to prevent any effect it may have.

The only point of specific criticism that I have is that I think the success of the player is too much dependent on luck. If you have a run where the clouds do not form above the fire, you would likely score higher. Maybe an indicator that tells the player where the next cloud would appear might be helpful here.

Overall I had a good time.

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Delay the Destruction!! Danmaku Downfall by matthewrobo 2022-04-04T13:34:07Z ♥ 0

I love Bullet Hell shooters, unfortunately, I'm really bad at them. This one took me on a journey. First I was only evading, which is where the fun in BHS games usually lies. Then I found out about the slowdown, shoot and bomb mechanics and started to get better at the game. Finally I found a loophole and from then on there was no stopping me:

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One important thing to take into account for the future: Don't use Y or Z in your controls, this is always messy with different language keyboards. Generally A, S is preferable instead, since WASD is supported in most countries.

It's a great, minimalistic, but very stylish game and it's a joy to watch in motion. Great job!

Heat by Wuppos 2022-04-04T13:10:43Z ♥ 1

Wow, that escalated quickly. Started really slow but suddenly chaos everywhere.

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The graphics are simple but very effective and set the mood nicely.

I also like how you found a good size of the grab region. For sprites that small it could be really frustrating if the area is too small and not challenging if it is too large.

A game like this would really benefit from sound effects, even simple autogenerated ones, e.g. with https://sfbgames.itch.io/chiptone. It's not a lot of work but adds a lot of flavour.

I love how you add a little tutorial in the beginning and also the hold to continue idea is a nice touch.

Overall a cute minimalistic game that was satisfying to try out.

Rising Tide by VivianMochi 2022-04-04T12:59:01Z ♥ 2

Amazing game, great concept and almost flawless execution. I love it.

It always amazes me how people can come up with games that feel coherent and fully resting in themselves. Great job.

Some minor points of criticism: The color scheme can sometimes make the objects a little hard to read, especially when the water rises. I also would have loved indicators at the left that tell me once I have a row completed, either by accidentally revealing the jellyfish or by placing the flags.

It went really well until RNG was not in my favor and I was presented with this:

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Either I didn't figure out how to solve this or I really had to push my luck, which was not on my side.

Anyway, a great game, had a lot of fun.

CRAB IS INEVITABLE! by luthwyhn 2022-04-04T12:16:43Z ♥ 3

I love PICO-8 games, they are so whimsical and I'm always amazed how good people make them look given the small resolution. Yours is no exception. I really dig the graphics, especially the bomb animation.

Gameplay-wise I think the game needs a bit of tweaking. It starts fairly slow so in the beginning I was hoping for a little bit more juice. After I got the first weapon upgrade the game became fairly easy and by the time I upgraded all my stuff I could actually run it on auto:

crab.png

I also had no sound at all. It would have been nice to have at least some sound effects to go with the great visuals.

All in all a fun little pico-8 game that kept me motivated enough to max out all my stats.

Dike Defender by Raptarr8 2022-04-04T11:44:12Z ♥ 2

Funny idea, I enjoyed the graphics, which attracted me to the game in the first place.

Some points of constructive criticism:

For a small screen game it would make sense to lock the mouse into your window if your engine allows that, especially since moving outside the image will stop any arm motion.

The player's hitbox felt a little too large so sometimes I couldn't get a clear indication of when I would be hit and when I was safe.

I couldn't figure out the charge attack, for me there was no difference between simply clicking and holding the mouse.

All in all I think it's a cute game with good pixel art based on a funny idea.

Dome Romantik by Rongo Matane 2023-08-26T20:53:42Z ♥ 0

Hi! Congratulations again for making this a full game on Steam. We talked today at Gamescom. Thanks again for the plushie. Looking forward to playing Dome Keeper when we get back home.

All the best!

Omnibar by DubThink 2018-12-30T10:52:44Z ♥ 1

I finally got around to playing your game. Still very impressed what you pulled off at a little over 50k. I wasn't able to play the compressed version as my virus scanner immediately deleted it, which is likey due to the auto-extract executable, so I am reviewing the "large" version.

Visually, I like what you did with the limitations you had. The archways look very nice and the water effects are awesome! I also liked the music which added to the atmosphere. I had been hoping for a classic chiptune soundtrack, but your choice fit the genre better. Unfortunately there were no sound effects. I wonder if it would be possible to integrate the bfxr code into the game so you would be able use bfxr sounds without having to store them as samples. Having shooting sfx in an FPS plays an important part in the atmosphere, but I guess you must have run out of time.

Conceptionally, there are a few things I would like to mention.

Having a ballistic weapon in an FPS is quite commonplace (e.g. grenade launcher) but if it is the only weapon available, I think a direct line of fire weapon might have worked better, especially since the enemies use this weapon type and therefore have much greater range.

The enemy AI needs some tweaking. Most of the enemies don't fire at all, while some fire rapid shots that can insta-kill you if you are in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Maybe a second of invincibility after being hit may have been helpful there as well. I think if you had all enemies fire at a reasonable rate at the same time would have made the game very frantic in the beginning, but after the player survived the initial onslaught they would have been rewarded with the feeling of superiority as they could have started to pick off the remaining enemies one by one.

All in all one of the more impressive technical entries this LD, great job!

Dungeon Runer by Andrea 2018-12-16T20:36:51Z ♥ 0

Wow, that was quite cryptic. I like the minimalist aesthetic and I think you made quite a bold move using runes for everything, especially where it counts (high-score and move explanation). This requires a very steady hand at explaining the basics to the player in a different, yet meaningful way, and I'm afraid you overreached a little there.

So I found out that I can't touch the wiggly lines and there are two types of enemies and there are blockers. I can shoot everything but most enemies take more than one shot. There are upgrades, but I couldn't figure out what they mean, I assume they increase life, shot amount and shot speed or something like that. After a while the four corners of the target area start to glow so I can finish the level. If I touch the target before that, a dialog appears and I guess depending on my answer I die? I couldn't find out whether I get a benefit from picking up the round gray things though. There are only life replenishing runes on the boss level, but I died there on my remaining life.

The game mechanics are solid, although the keyboard query seems to pick up on the keyboard repetition settings, so there is a slight lag at the beginning of holding a key. This can be remedied by reacting to "key down" and "key up" events. In between the down and up event you assume the key is held, and during the whole time, you perform the corresponding action at each nth frame. You will get much more consistent behavior.

The shooting could have used some polish. I would have liked to have faster, more responsive shots with higher range and I would have liked the shots to reload faster. All this possibly at the expense of tougher and faster enemies so that it would have more of a cat-and mouse thing.

I didn't get the sacrifice part at all though.

All in all I found the game interesting enough to understand its mechanics, but it would have helped if it were a bit more approachable. It's definitely a very unique entry. Good job!

Reactor Overdrive by JUSTCAMH 2018-12-16T20:02:25Z ♥ 1

Interesting game. If I understand correctly, the more green target fields I have, the slower my shield regenerates, so I need so sacrifice offense for defense.

I like the idea, but I feel that it could use a little more polish. I made it quite far by having only two markers, one in the middle and one below that. For me that got rid of most enemies and only let enough shots through to regenerate the shield. Maybe making the placement of the target fields a bit more strategic, maybe with tower defense-ish elements may give a better reward for placing them well.

Graphics-wise I dig your pulsing background, but mixing pixel art resolutions is kind of a red flag for me, especially if they vary a lot, and in this case, there is a huge difference between your largest and your smallest pixels. Maybe a non-pixel art approach may have worked better, but that's just my personal taste. I do like the visual effects of the shots though.

The background music sounds a bit random and becomes a little grating after a while. If that effect was not intended, I would suggest you start off with a simple regular beat and add a simple melody without too many jumps between notes for starters and improve from there. Sometimes it's the hardest part to know when to stop adding stuff, that's something I usually struggle with.

I hope these points don't sound too harsh and that you find the criticism useful.

It's a solid Compo entry, good job!

Eldritchual by arkinrev 2018-12-16T19:40:34Z ♥ 0

You made a very polished, and well-balanced game there.

The amount of well-designed graphical assets is amazing. I love the expressiveness of the characters and their little animations. Everything is visually coherent and communicates well what is happening. The cultists' faces play an important role here. Full marks on graphics!

It is generally very hard to get the player to understand a complex game like yours and although your tutorial is fairly wordy for a game jam, you set up an interesting atmosphere to get the player engaged and overcome that hurdle. The option to return to the tutorial was a very important decision that pays off nicely. The tutorial itself is great, using well-designed graphical elements to explain the game bit by bit. I half-read the tutorial, then jumped into the game and returned twice to clear some details but then it was a downhill ride as I got the game mechanics down.

The difficulty is not too hard which is fine for a jam where players tend to have limited attention spans, and finding out how to beat the game is rewarding when everything runs in a stable manner.

By the way, I love your sound effects. They don't seem to be made with an audio generator, did you record them yourself or did you find a clever bfxr setting? The soundtrack is also very good, remaining subdued in the background but setting the mood nicely.

I only have a minor nitpick, and that is that the cultists' faces are a bit hard to see behind the books in the library, but maybe that was done on purpose.

Overall a very enjoyable game with outstanding visuals

Death Wish by Derek Volker 2018-12-16T18:53:06Z ♥ 1

Man your game sounds awesome! Between the voice overs and the metal soundtrack, there nothing to criticize, full marks! Did you time the player's step length and the beat of the music or was that coincidence? If you did it on purpose, great job, that's a nice touch.

The graphics are well done, especially the animation. That must have been a lot of work! I love the blood animation. It's pretty over the top but fits the tone of the game well. there was great variety in the enemies for a game made in 48 hours. You recycled your assets well and did not stretch out the game unnecessarily.

All in all, the game was really fun and I made it to the boss, but was not able to beat it, unfortunately.

I do have a couple of remarks:

- I wish the hit animation would have been a bit faster, as that would have made the game a bit more responsive and controllable, it felt a bit laggy - Having an very short invincibility time out after being hit would help the game a lot. The way it is, if I get hit two times, then I get double the damage. I understand that it was probably so that fighting multiple enemies would become tougher, but I think the same could have been achieved by having them attack out of sync, so that the probability of being hit increases instead of the damage you get - The chicken drops were great, but the rng was a bit off. During one playthrough I drowned in chicken and was able to get to the boss, then the next attempt gave me a single one and I died during the first level. If I recall, most fighting games give you powerups at predefined places, either lying around or being dropped by specific enemies. That makes tuning the game easier and gives the player some more predictability. - It would have been cool to allow picking up enemy weapons but I understand that this would have taken a huge amount of work in the animation department. - The theme was a bit tacked on, but the game stands well on its own.

Overall a fun game that could have used a little bit of polish, but is a solid entry as it stands.

Anno Luciferus by madjackmcmad 2018-12-16T18:22:50Z ♥ 0

This is one of the most addictive games I have played so far.

The visual and audio effects play very well together and it's a joy to play.

I wasn't entirely sure when I die, I assume it's after three hits, so that could have been communicated better by adding a lives indicator. The rest of the game is communicated very well, though, so it is immediately clear what this is about, that you collect souls to enable the shot, how the hammer windup mechanics work and so on, great job!

I also love the upgrades and the decisions that go with them. This leaves a lot of experimentation to get a particularly good high score. The score board adds so much to the experience, it's such a pity that the score does not reset upon dying. I would have loved to try getting to the top, but it feels like cheating now, so I quit. I think fixing this minor bug is allowed as per LD rules and you could reset the scoreboard to make it fair again. Should you do that, shoot me a message and I'll definitely play the game again to see how far I can get.

It's a very good entry, and I had a lot of fun!

Graveyard Manager by mAnimal 2018-12-16T17:19:37Z ♥ 1

The game was really funny! The song fits the concept and despite feeling a bit simplistic, it works surprisingly well with the overall black humour. The game is very charming with all these little backstories.

I am not sure I understood the game well though. I played it twice and lost two times (once with with good and with bad karma). I suppose you can only lose the game because the taxes are crushing you eventually. Also I could only guess which corpses gave good karma, but I suppose it is like "more money = less karma". And I guessed that jobs with higher social standing gives you more money and therefore less karma.

I would have loved if the game was beatable, having the player manage a balance between money and karma, so that the graveyard is both sustainable but also affordable for people with less money. With some extensions this could be a quite addicting strategy game. Some idea:

- Communicate the economy clearer to the player, with permanent indicators instead of right-clicking - Extend the game through multiple levels and add lots to manage (introduce micro and macro economy) - Make the economy a bit more complex, like removing karma when someone is exhumed too soon - Add random events, like some star's fan who is outraged that their favorite celebrity isn't there anymore (public outrage = less money) or a family member who visits a loved one's grave that has been changed too soon with the opposite effect (less karma) - Some additional challenges, like two people who hated each other in life and may not be buried next to each other.

All in all I think it's very clever idea that fits the theme well, good job!

Infiltrate by Berkin 2018-12-15T11:18:18Z ♥ 0

Could you please set your game to “Windows Download” on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as “not available on Windows”.

Total Party Kill by adventureislands 2018-12-15T11:10:46Z ♥ 0

This is absolutely amazing. I can't praise this enough: Graphics, game mechanics, overall design, pacing, music, humor and even a fulfilling ending. Everything is polished to perfection! My first almost fully 5-star rated game in this LD.

I did have to subtract half a star for fun because some of the keys do not play well with international keyboards. For me it was Z which is next to T instead of at next to X as for everyone else. Fortunately I was able to jump via the up key. I usually suggest allowing multiple input choices, e.g. Y or X for jumping, WASD or Arrow keys for movement, etc. This is not even about different input schemes to choose from, just bind more than one button to the same action. Controller support would have been awesome, but I don't know if Stencyl supports it.

Another minor thing: I noticed you uploaded your HTML version to Itch, but didn't for the Windows version. You can also upload your sources there. That may help keeping all your stuff in one place and avoid confusion in lazy people (aka me) ;)

Overall I think one of the best games I've seen so far. Kudos!

Penance by Blodyavenger 2018-12-13T22:15:07Z ♥ 1

Could you please set your game to “Windows Download” on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as “not available on Windows”.

Maze of Death by hamrathdoesldjam 2018-12-13T22:02:39Z ♥ 1

Wow, this takes me back. Incredible to see a retro game made in old tech in just 48 hours. The graphics are good for the technology and the game concept is solid for its era.

The game overall is very hard since each step closer to the goal increases the game's complexity so this leads to a significant slowdown over time. Maybe a teleporter system could have alleviated this.

I had no sound, which was a pity because I was totally looking forward to hearing the good old SID chip again. Whether that was due to some technical issue or whether the game has no audio I cannot tell.

Overall it's a neat entry that took me back on memory lane. Thanks a lot!

Unbenannt.PNG

Limbs are Limited! by EggshellDog 2018-12-13T21:06:27Z ♥ 1

That was fun. Nice and fresh concept. I enjoyed the combination of bloody violence and puzzle solving.

The whole thing was quite frantic, but I often felt I was not in control so much. I got stuck in the level with the three walls after I could not find out how to launch the guy again after he landed. So instead I made this :D

gif3.gif

Good times.

Precedence by chauchau 2018-12-13T20:29:57Z ♥ 1

Five stars for mood. The graphics are simple but very effective. I love how the comet comes closer and the planet starts to boil and shake. The atmosphere is amazing.

I have some comments on gameplay though. It may have been better to allow the player to move just a little faster. I know it's tough trading speed for atmosphere, but I feel some polish in that respect may have gone a long way. There was a very small delay between interacting with a house and being able to continue. That totally drained my motivation to save a lot of people. When I had around 10 I decided that's enough and escaped. I did play once more and tried waiting for the end of the world, that was very satisfying.

Overall I think the game sacrifices gameplay for atmosphere which makes it less of a game and more of an experience. Maybe that was intended, but I wonder whether you could have achieved both.

Anyway, easily one of the most atmospheric games I played so far. Great job!

Hunger Sings by Swanijam 2018-12-13T20:17:30Z ♥ 1

I like it. The graphics and atmosphere are top notch. Pulling the player into the story as you do is an achievement. Great job!

Goo Glow by Birdwards 2018-12-09T21:27:25Z ♥ 0

I love your simple, yet effective visuals. I always found it hard to work with a green palette and you pulled if off really well. The blob is quite expressive, and I love the eye transition when turning from left to right. A few more animation phases, especially when jumping would have been a nice touch.

I've seen the premise in games like The Unfinished Swan, but you tied it very well into the Sacrifice theme. What I particularly enjoyed is how you folded a quasi-tutorial into the game without explaining too much. Just let the player die once and unintrusively explain why. This was really great! I found the length of the game to be perfect for the material you had. Any more levels would have required new mechanics and I enjoyed that you didn't outstay your welcome.

The controls are pretty tight, which is very important for a game like this. I would have enjoyed it even more if the wall-jump would have been polished a bit more, like for instance allowing the player to push away from the wall and then jumping so they wouldn't have to switch direction after the jump which I feel is always a bit clunky.

The sound effects, although sparse, were well picked, but unfortunately music was missing which might have added to the atmosphere more.

The M.O.N.K. by arkiruthis 2018-12-08T02:09:44Z ♥ 1

I liked your game. It is a bit slow-paced but the idea is neat and the graphics are very nice. The ducking animation was a nice touch.

As always I try to recommend not writing a lenghty intro screen explaining the mechanics with a wall of text. Usually I prefer having game mechanics explained during the game, or, if there has to be in intro screen, fill it with screenshots and arrows to get your point across. Many players will skip the text anyway and then try to figure out how to play themselves.

I wonder, why did you opt out of the Audio category? I found the ambient music quite nice.

Overall I think it worth polishing a bit more and expanding on the premise. Having multiple enemy units, more spells, maybe different factions whose inhabitants wage war against neighboring cities which you can control by strategically converting regions, and so on may worthwhile extensions. I see a lot of room for growth.

Ascend by Amour Du Pain 2018-12-08T01:49:17Z ♥ 0

Could you set your game to “Windows Download” on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as “not available on Windows”.

Sacrifice Carrier by M2tias 2018-12-08T01:07:03Z ♥ 1

I love PICO-8 games, and yours looks amazing. I loved the final boss fight.

There are a few game mechanics issues I would like to point out.

I felt the game's economy is a bit out of whack. So you rarely take damage from enemy ships, and the only real danger of dying is to lose all your fighter ships. Since you get one fighter per rock and the number of fighters you have to expend on bosses is fixed, the core concept of the game is basically to collect enough rocks, which feels a bit out of place for a game that looks and feels like a straight SHMUP.

The sacrifice mechanic could have been probably balanced a bit better, it felt a little tacked on. For instance, if the player had more fighter ships but the bosses would recover if they are not killed with a fighter (and the fighter would be lost if the boss recovers in the middle of the sacrifice) may give the game more urgent pacing and force the player to strategize with their resources a bit more.

There are a few glitches. The hit boxes on the rocks are a bit off since some shots would pass right through them. You probably know this but there are no screen boundary checks so the main ship can fly anywhere outside of the screen.

I felt the power shot, while cool, wasn't really necessary as a quick succession of normal shots would do the job as well, but this could be remedied by making the power shot look cooler and be stronger so it gives the player some bang for their buck.

Generally it's not a good idea to use the x and y keys because the y tends to be in different places on international keyboards. Ctrl and Alt or WASD (unless you use them for motion) are a safer bet because these keys tend to be standardized internationally.

All in all it's a sweet little PICO-8 game that looks great, and would benefit from a little more polish.

Expendibots by pandan 2018-12-08T00:41:36Z ♥ 1

I love the bot design. It's part militaristic and part Wall-E charming. I like how the antennas wiggle, it's a nice touch.

The music is good, if a bit repetitive. A low-key rumbling engine noise would have worked wonders for the atmosphere, especially if it rose and fell in volume with the number of tanks and their speed.

I wish you could have pushed the premise a bit harder. There were only a few situations where I actually felt that I had to sacrifice my mini tanks, in the other cases it was just my lack of skills that led to their demise.

The camera was a little unsteady which made the game a somewhat hard to control. On the other hand, I enjoyed how you constantly set up walls to help align the bots in order to get them across a narrow passage. That was well thought out.

In the end I almost saved one bot, but I didn't manage to time the jumps right so they fell to their mechanical deaths right before the finish line. I think having higher jumps may have helped me here. If you had the time, a larger map with a few more button puzzles and obstacles, paired with checkpoints, would have given the game a bit more playability.

Overall I think it's a good game that could benefit from a little polish. It's worth continuing to work on it.

H E R D by King Kujito 2018-12-08T00:19:24Z ♥ 1

I have to admit, when I first saw screenshots to your game I thought this was a Jam game in the wrong category, the graphics were just too great. Then I saw your time lapse video and realized you're just a modelling and texturing wizard. Kudos to you, for a Compo game the visuals are amazing.

The gameplay ties in nicely with the setting, although I didn't feel the difference between sacrificing a sheep and leaving it behind was really palpable. I understood the reference to the theme, but it felt a bit tacked on.

The apple mechanics I think may have worked a bit better if you used it to lure the sheep in instead of shooing them away, since it was tricky to get the herd to stick together. Maybe a free "shoo" command and a limited "lure" command (with collecting apples) may have been a better choice. Using the apple to lure would also be the more logical expectation, unless it's meant to replenish the herders' energy.

The music is nice, but unfortunately you chose "musical" step noises which created a second melody that grated a bit against the main song. Lowering the volume of the steps, randomizing their notes and using a more inconspicuous sound effects may have alleviated this a bit.

I managed to save one sheep but probably won't make it through the winter. :(

Nice game overall with outstanding visuals.

Dungeon Sacrifice by loligxp 2018-12-08T00:03:44Z ♥ 1

I liked the premise of having to juggle bodies and fighting enemies. Mechanically, I think it may have been better if there was a disadvantage to shooting and carrying humans. Like if you shoot a human the game gets harder (faster/more enemies) so you would have to strategize in which order you sacrifice the humans. If you carried a human, you could have added a disadvantage like slower reload or impossibility to shoot.

I was going to recommend the Vlambeer video, but that has been done already. Faster movement (unless it interferes with your atmosphere), faster shots, larger magazine, more weaker enemies, are all methods you could explore to make the game more fun (again, unless it interferes with your atmosphere). I wish there would have been more significant changes between the checkpoints (new enemy types, new traps, something to keep the player entertained). Look up how you can make objects slide along walls, that would help a lot for your enemy movement.

I think you made the right choice in having limited sight, and the bloodstains really helped to mark areas the player already visited. I also enjoyed that you put in a real ending, instead of leaving the game hanging.

All in all it's a respectable first entry and I would encourage you take all the valuable feedback you're getting and making your next game even better. Great job!

Cowboy Hell by dk5000p 2018-12-07T23:43:45Z ♥ 1

Good job voicing the different characters. Sometimes it was a bit hard to distinguish between the boss and the protagonist. For the lines that repeat often it may be a good idea to record multiple variations and pick them randomly. Also for lines are played in quick succession, shorter clips may be helpful because otherwise the voices keep breaking off.

Gameplay-wise I enjoyed the idea of having to level down instead of leveling up. I kept losing at the third opponent until I realized that you can increase your skills if you lower others. I found that a good way to get through the game is to increase attack and defense at the expense of health. That way I way able to get to the boss without losing any life points.

I made the decision to fight and was unfortunately locked in an endless loop, since I always missed but the boss didn't hurt me. I'm not sure whether this was a deliberate thing to force the player to choose sacrifice but with my level choices I was stuck.

I would have tried again but the boss's monologue was pretty long and unskippable, so I decided to leave it at a draw.

Temple of the Blood God by ZanyG 2018-12-07T23:28:00Z ♥ 0

Could you set your game to "Windows Download" on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as "not available on Windows".

Into the abyss by Snecko 2018-12-07T23:27:47Z ♥ 0

Could you set your game to "Windows Download" on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as "not available on Windows".

Slithering Dark by pkenney 2018-12-07T23:27:30Z ♥ 0

Could you set your game to "Windows Download" on your itch page? I would like to play it via Itch client but it shows as "not available on Windows".

The Perfect Halay by eusekerci 2017-12-28T14:37:53Z ♥ 0

That was quite a unique experience.

The game's graphics are minimalist but coherent, the music gives it a lot of atmosphere. I just wish there was a clearer indication precisely where in the Halay my dancer would enter. It was a bit frustrating to aim for a spot only to realize that the dancer would enter the spot right next to the one I was aiming for.

I think it may have worked in the game's favor if there was a way to remove a dancer from the Halay, maybe by achieving a combo of 5 consecutive numbers or something like that. The way it is, an error remains an error until the end of the game which I feel lowers the motivation to keep playing.

You should prevent a player from leaving the screen. It was a bit fiddly sometimes to find the dancer again once it leaves the screen. Also it would have been a neat touch if the inactive dancers would wander around the periphery of the room, might make the game a little more lively.

Overall I think the game was quite innovative and fresh, but could have used a little more polish.

Abstraction Blaster by antagonist 2017-12-28T14:26:06Z ♥ 2

Nice one, I especially liked the players' shot pattern. Unfortunately I was only able to play it alone, so I missed the effects of competition. The enemy shot patterns were neat and tough to avoid, as it should be in this genre.

There are a few things that I would suggest to improve the game:

- Offer higher resolution. In Gamemaker this is a one-liner (unless you want to be able to switch between resolutions, then it's a little more effort, but nothing serious). Full screen would have been nice

- In a bullet hell shmup, visual effects are king. Especially when it comes to registering enemy hits, which is completely missing in your game. Often I didn't realize whether I was damaging an enemy or not.

- I always recommend this presentation about game feel, a lot of the points discussed there would improve the fun factor of your game a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgkIXZ_13Y

Infernus: The Descent by Team Infernus 2017-12-27T17:03:06Z ♥ 1

Wow, an NSFW game at Ludum Dare, well I'll be.

It's quite impressive what you managed to put together in just a few days especially with the high quality artwork. The content is certainly there but unfortunately you didn't manage to add the necessary depth, so gameplay feels a bit prototype-ish, I would assume time to have become an issue in the end.

I think going into the castle to fight a boss that could only be beaten with leveling up the character (maybe finding some random treasure) might have rounded off the game some more even without designing a lot more monsters. This could have been achieved by keeping captured folk in the dungeon to auto-generate energy (maybe the secretary could have accomplished this during your absence) which in turn would have allowed leveling up the character (so no further assets required). Upgrading the cell might have allowed to keep more than one creature captured which again might have increased auto-generated energy and added a little more to accomplish. I know you accomplished a lot and you were likely burning at both ends towards the end, but I think some cheap coding tricks may have made the game feel a little more complete without too much effort (unless you added the boss fight of course).

Gameplay-wise the game could use a little more polish to make clicks register a bit more snappily. I tried to grind through the fights quickly but for this speedy play style it felt like I had to click twice for every action until it registered.

One specific technical issue: I am running on a 16:10 resolution and the mouse cursor does not fit the clickable menu entries, which is especially frustrating on the battle screen, since it forced me to click the option above the one I actually wanted.

Apart from that I think you are a on a very good way to make a good adult-oriented browser game that could find its audience easily. I would encourage you to keep working on it and make it a full length experience.

Dog-Off! by BrothersT 2017-12-22T17:54:17Z ♥ 2

Simply brilliant.

The idea is great. The visuals, the music and implementation all feel super polished. I had a lot of fun although I wasn't very good at the game.

Not sure whether this was deliberate, or just tolerated but I noticed that it's possible to drink and eat at the same time. Didn't really help get a high score though :(

One of the strongest Jam entries I have played so far, great job!

Castle Diorama by SuperUserNameMan 2017-12-22T12:26:46Z ♥ 2

Very short but beautiful game, I could easily see it on an app store, great job!

Cute sound effects like in Samorost would make this so much better.

Office Robber by ToxSam 2017-12-21T11:24:05Z ♥ 0

I was looking forward to playing your game after seeing the noodle arm characters on your feed, such a pity that you didn't manage to finish it.

The artwork and the music are brilliant.

Can't say much about the gameplay itself as I had trouble controlling everything because the mouse was so fast and it was turning all the time. I think having the character move in the direction the mouse is facing would have helped playability a lot. Having all these narrow doorways didn't help either.

I didn't really figure out what to do. I was able to pick up stuff, but didn't know what really counted. The coat rack and fire extinguisher were displayed in the GUI but nothing special happened when I picked them up. Also I didn't quite get what the item with the number was supposed to be. Apparently I was supposed to find more than one of them, but I couldn't.

On my first run, the countdown went to 0 and it said that I had won, but I'd only collected the coat rack, so I was a bit confused about what the purpose was.

It's a shame really, because the visuals and audio are there and from looking at screenshots, it seemed to be a super polished and fun experience. Time is a harsh mistress I guess ;)

Good luck on your future endeavors, I think you have a very talented team.

Samurai Shaver by DDRKirbyISQ 2017-12-21T11:09:53Z ♥ 1

I love rhythm games and this one is near perfection.

Everything fits together so well to create a coherent whole. The art style and to music match greatly. I admire how you fuse the classic Japanese composition with authentic samples to a retro chiptune sound. May I ask what tool you used to compose it?

The gameplay is super tight and the visual and auditive cues are flawless, from the the guys bobbing to the beat to the game actually showing you the rhythm in advance without taking the player off the action for too long.

The humor is also spot on. The basic premise alone is hilarious, but the execution with the gushing blood, surprised faces and the funny audio effect makes this a masterfully crafted experience.

The difficulty ramps up nicely as well. In the beginning still very well manageable, it turns to off beats and triplets in the final level.

The only complaint I may have is that the theme feels a bit shoehorned, but that's really nitpicking for a great game as this.

Definitely one of my favorites of LD40. Great job!

Hasempfeffer by fishbrain 2017-12-21T10:55:03Z ♥ 1

A smooth and colorful experience, nicely done! I love the sound effects, especially the bowling pin effect. the rabbits and foxes look very nice and the fading grass effect is awesome!

Thematically it's not clear why the fox would care about the green grass, so some short intro might have been nice. I wish the fox's attack was a bit wider as I found actually hitting the rabbits that I wanted to get was a bit fiddly. Some sort of targeting hint might have worked in your favor as well. The reload time could have been a smidge shorter to make the game even smoother.

Overall a fun entry, good job! I hope you are recovering well from your surgery and will reach the 20 votes.

Don't Rock the Boat! by Keke 2017-12-21T10:46:02Z ♥ 0

Nice one. I dig the graphics, which add a lot of charm to the game. The buying/selling mechanic reminds me a bit of the classic Amiga game Ports of Call.

Unfortunately I had trouble playing the game properly. The crashing mechanic was a bit wonky and I sometimes ended up insta-dying when the boat was wedged between two rocks. When I first entered a town, I thought I might go all the way and filled the boat to the brim. Unfortunately the game was broken after that because I couldn't go forward anymore (the boat went backward instead). On my next attempt I bought only one barrel and successfully brought it to the next town only to realize that the price had gone down and I actually lost money on the trade.

I think the game is on the right path overall, but needs some tweaking to really make it fun. Being able to plan trading routes with different goods and figuring out where to buy low and sell high, with a challenging and fair gameplay that rewards risk but does not feel frustrating, and finally by not ending the game on a crash but allowing you to continue with financial loss instead might make this quite succesful on platforms like Kongregate.

I'd urge you to continue working on this.

The Legend of the Bikini Armor by Sun-Wukong 2017-12-21T10:29:42Z ♥ 1

The game is quite strong in the graphics and humor department (your choice of design notwithstanding). I enjoyed the fact that there is controller support.

Controls could be a bit tighter, look up "Coyote Time". Also, in jump and run games like this it is usually better to not use "up" for jumping. Assigning a jump key to the hand that is not running is generally more ergonomic. In one instance, I was able to get myself stuck in an area where I couldn't make two-block jumps because I still had my armor on and there were no rats left to get hit.

It's a shame really that you didn't get to finish the game. It's a pretty cool starting point to make something greater. Adding sound effects and music will do wonders to the game and with snappier controls I believe it could become quite popular on Newgrounds or a similar platform.

Lose weight by kingswind 2017-12-21T10:10:47Z ♥ 0

Cute flappy bird clone. I liked the eat/lose weight mechanics.

Unfortunately the top of the screen seems to push the bird back forcefully, sometimes right into the obstacles. Other than that the game played very smoothly.

Famous Knight by Lucas Ferrantelli 2017-12-21T09:46:11Z ♥ 1

Great entry! I love the visuals and sound effects, charming and humorous.

I wasn't able to figure out why I should choose the popularity powerups. I always chose the stat powerups and the only disadvantage was that I had to repeat the first level to raise my popularity enough to enter the final dungeon. Maybe some tuning might have helped here.

Also I feel that the fans, as cool as they were, could have been integrated into the concept more. From what I understand they are only a minor nuisance (except the autograph guy) and it not super necessary to save them because you are rewarded new fans when you beat the boss. I guess it's tough to make the fans more active in hindering the player's progress and at the same time not make the game frustrating.

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, thanks!

Intruder alert by Falk Bruskeland 2017-12-20T15:53:30Z ♥ 1

Just letting you know that the game does not play on the itch.io client, likely because you haven't marked it as Windows-compatible. Tag me if you fix it and I'll give your game a shot.

Aurora by AkirAssasin 2017-12-18T17:09:45Z ♥ 1

Awesome and atmospheric game with minimalist but very pretty graphics. I enjoyed playing it a lot, a very relaxing experience, thank you.

Some minor points of note: - It would have been nice to have a reload button. - The number of bullets influencing the enemy speed seems more like an afterthought and doesn't change the gameplay mechanics much, especially since you cannot control how many bullets you have (see previous point). - I think I would have preferred it if the music had some slight rhythm that would change throughout the game and the enemy speed adapted to the music. It wouldn't fit the theme, but the game might have benefited from it. - I wasn't able to play the game in the itch client (normally this works even for web builds)

Sunken by Tay 2017-12-18T12:26:11Z ♥ 1

I love these kind of dungeon crawlers and you managed to pull of something very atmospheric. Your graphics are awesome and the game appears very inviting. Definitely an achievement in such a short amount of time.

I have some criticism though.

I think I would have preferred not having to double tap to move, for me it didn't give the game anything but was a minor annoyance when you wanted to move quickly.

The gameplay could have used an additional round of polish. I didn't feel the weight of the gold and didn't really understand how it was supposed to slow me down, but maybe I didn't get far enough. The cursed chests were more of a curse than a blessing because when I was low on health I couldn't afford to open them for fear of having less health afterwards or dying right away which happened once.

The flooding mechanics were a nice touch to give the game some urgency but I never felt it was a real threat.

All this is a bit unfortunate because I think if you had skipped the theme altogether and made a classic dungeon crawler, the game would have been outstanding and I would have kept playing for a long time.

I hope this critique doesn't sound too harsh. I enjoyed played your game and you create a great atmosphere. Doing all this in 48 hours is a great achievement, despite some aspects that were a bit rough.

Slightly annoying traffic by JOrbits 2017-12-18T11:58:21Z ♥ 1

Awesome idea! I especially enjoyed that after seeing the screenshot and clicking for the first time, it became immediately clear what this game is all about.

It was great fun to play and I can't wait to show this do my daughter, she will love it.

Some criticism:

For my taste the difficulty ramp up could be a bit steeper to have a more satisfying replay. I believe the longer the player has to wait for the game to reach core difficulty, the less likely they will restart the game.

Unfortunately the game is pretty much over after the first crash. I found the game appealing especially because the screenshot promised all this mayhem during gameplay, but when I actually played the game I realized that the really fun part only comes when the game is over.

This is all well and good (Super Meat Boy did something similar with their replay mechanic after the level was done), but I wished that the player got rewarded for playing well, so that the amount of traffic chaos after play was somehow tied to how long you played (maybe stop spawning new cars on a crash so that the crash only gets as large as the amount of cars which is directly tied to how long you have played). I get that you can let the game run and you can even interact with it after the first crash, but it is not really a reward, because it's always the same.

Maybe you can keep working on it a bit more and make the crash chaos more part of the actual gameplay instead of an afterthought because I think this mechanic makes the whole thing so attractive and fun.

Overall congratulations to an brilliant concept and a solid execution.

Cardhoard by HacksawUnit 2017-12-18T11:31:42Z ♥ 1

A brilliant entry! This has to be one of the best Compo games I have played so far. Everything is so polished and works very well.

The concept is great and the execution flawless. I love your choice of sound effects, they tie everything together perfectly, especially that "smack" sound when you mark a box. Did you record that yourself, because the other sounds seem generated except of this one?

The music is simple and unintrusive so it provides a good auditive backdrop while letting the game speak for itself.

Gameplay-wise it took me a while to figure out you were able to stomp so my first round consisted of avoiding boxes until the skull boxes accumulated to the top. At this point the games gets stuck in an endless loop because it repeatedly creates skull boxes on that column. After I figured out how to properly play the game that wasn't a problem anymore though.

Overall the game offers the perfect balance between trying to get combos and trying not to play too risky to avoid getting squashed.

Flawless balancing and execution. No major criticism. Definitely a keeper.

*Edit:* Maybe a tiny thing, although that could be by design: I think the player would have more control over the game if you allowed to break the stomp chain because if a new block arrives at the current stomping column, the player has no chance to escape and this is an element of pure luck/risk and the rest of the game is firmly based on skill/risk.

RedCell by kkneville 2017-12-18T10:46:34Z ♥ 1

Not bad for a first attempt! I like the charming graphics and the character animation.

Some thoughts:

As others have mentioned: The movement is a bit off. Normally you would expect your horizontal motion to remain in place when you jump. Depending on your programming language, you can fix this by querying all keys that are pressed down in the current frame. If the right key is down, move your character x pixels to the right, no matter whether a different key has been pressed. That way you can register a jump (jump key pressed + character standing on the floor) and keep moving at the same time.

When you land, there is this cute step animation. However this breaks the game flow a bit because the player has to wait until the animation ends. An improved version of this would be to keep the step animation, but allow the player to jump as soon as the character lands (even if the animation is still playing). You may need to stop playing the animation upon jumping if it looks weird.

Visually, I think the difference between the harmless water and the acid wasn't clear enough. It became obvious once I tried it, but these things should be communicated visually (I have trouble with this as well).

I thought the collision with the acid was a bit too harsh, as I died numerous times when I thought there was still enough space. Professional game designers use all kinds of tricks to make the game more fun even if it goes in favor of the player and against the game rules (see this awesome article: https://kotaku.com/game-developers-explain-some-of-their-favorite-ways-to-1798749279). Things like Coyote Time are a brilliant way to make a game more fun, even if the player doesn't actively notice it's there.

About audio, I would encourage you to look into bfxr to create some simple sound effects. That's basically what everyone is using. Sound effects give your game a lot of depth and are very easy to generate. If you want to get into writing music but have little experience I would recommend Bosca Ceoil. It's fairly simple to use and a good place to start.

Despite all the criticism, I think you are on a good path. Don't be discouraged when the ratings come in. Usually the comments are more positive than the numbers and many first-timers are surprised and frustrated when the two don't match.

Keep up the good work!

Robo Tomb by Xacur 2017-12-18T10:30:08Z ♥ 1

Very good execution of the theme and great concept.

I liked how the graphics and the gameplay tied everything together to a coherent whole. I wasn't very good at this game so I only played up to the end of the second level, so I may have missed content.

I think the one thing I would have preferred to make the game easier to pick up again after dying would have been to allow placing more than one bomb similar to Bomberman. That would allow me to clear less dangerous areas quicker.

One comment: usually the itch.io client allows me to download web games but in your case, I got an error message:

robo_error.PNG

It's probably not your target platform, but maybe you wanted to know.

Danmaku Burp by trabitboy 2017-12-18T10:05:14Z ♥ 1

I love a good SHMUP and you made a funny and fun variant on the genre, great job!

My favorite parts are the whimsical graphics and sound effects that add a lot of charm to your game. I wish the player character would move a bit faster and that the *frantic bar* wouldn't overlap with the character.

One bug I found was that the score does not reset when the game is restarted.

Gophergeddon by Ham and Swiss 2017-12-18T09:57:06Z ♥ 0

Fun and chaotic variant of the foxes and rabbits simulation. I liked how everything escalates after you simply try to get rid of some gophers. I was genuinely surprised when the dogs were converted. Great job!

For my taste, I think motion of the characters could have had a bit more range. It seems you chose an RNG to make everyone move a step in either direction randomly. However, by using a velocity variable I think you can make the game more dynamic and prevent all characters from bunching up in a corner of the playfield.

The Pointy Stick Hypothesis by peterthehe 2017-12-18T09:46:36Z ♥ 0

Awesome game! Full marks on mood. I especially love the music and the writing. The tree of life animation was very well designed for a minimalist choice of graphisc.

Great job overall. Unfortunately the ending was a bit sudden.

Some minor issues: The text did not fit entirely on the screen sometimes. It was still readable, but it felt a bit weird. The outside movement could have been a tad faster to make exploring a bit snappier.

A note about the music: Maybe you could have created the music in a way that it loops better. As it is there is a short moment where the player notices that the track restarts. But that's a minor nitpick.

Overall I would say it's one of the most atmospheric games I have played so far, great job!

Life's A Glitch by gamepopper 2017-12-18T09:29:54Z ♥ 1

I love the visuals and the music. It creates a very unique atmosphere.

Gameplay wise I am a bit torn. I found that standing on one side of the screen and spamming X and Z was a viable tactic as it prevented the glitches to come nearer, and only sometimes required to move to a lower or higher platform.

I had trouble finding out what the glitch boxed are for. Apparently they increase the amount of glitches, but what was the benefit in collecting them?

Some notes about the controls. Some control schemes mess with German or French keyboards, so using X/Z is may not be the best choice. I found that using A/S/D works for most people. If you want to stick with the X/Z scheme, you can make your German players happy by allowing to press either Y or Z for the same effect.

Personally I would have preferred to jump down with Down + Jump instead of just Down. Also I would have liked if the direction wasn't locked but instead returned to the horizontal shot after you let go of the direction key, but that could just be personal preference.

All in all I think you made a very unique game that stands out among the crowd. Great job!

Shooter Guy by sirikan 2017-12-18T09:12:09Z ♥ 1

You have all the basic mechanics of a FPS down, congratulations. I especially liked the Doom-like end-of-level switches and that you actually added a boss. Using voice work was a nice touch. I also thought the level was neat, if a bit repetitive.

I would suggest you keep working on it to find out how to make it more fun to play. Of course enemy ai would be a huge improvement, but there are a lot minor things you can improve that are fairly easy to achieve.

First of all, I would recommend this video to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

I know, it's about 2D platformers but a lot of information applies to any action genre really.

Concretely, I would suggest you work on the flow of the game. Try increasing your fire rate and see if that makes your game more fun. Then of course do the same for your enemies to see if it forces the player to be on their toes more. Maybe make the player move faster as well. Make the moment of attack of your enemies more random and give a clearer indication when they fire (e.g. muzzle flash). Maybe have the tougher enemies take more than one hit and give an indication when they are hit. Maybe you can distinguish them besides the visuals, like giving them different weapons or attack patterns. Make the bullets travel much faster (make them hit almost instantaneously). I also think the player bullets may need some more accuracy, sometimes I had trouble hitting the already stationary enemies.

I didn't think I saw the theme incorporated in your game except for that there was an increasing amount of enemies.

Sound effects were nice, but the voice work could have used some balancing so all the sounds have a proper volume (steps a bit quieter, enemy voices/shots a bit louder, etc).

For a 48 hour game it was not bad, and I am sure with some practice you can create something so much better next time.

The Exalted by Flubz 2017-12-12T20:04:49Z ♥ 1

Great job, the visuals are awesome! It's a fun and challenging game

I found a good strategy to be slowly approaching the core and spamming it with shots. Any ricocheting shots may also hurt the core, but it should be enough to avoid them half-heartedly. Don't collect any extras except health, and only if it doesn't fill your bar completely (otherwise save them for later).

The downside would be audio for me. Not sure if it was intentional, but I found it a bit too cacophonous. I understand that you probably wanted to capture the chaotic nature of the game, but maybe something more chill may have worked better. Also sound effects are a big deal for this kind of game. Bfxr should make it possible to add a few shot and ricochet effects in no time.

Overall a pretty solid entry, congratulations!

Snowmania by MouthlessGames 2017-12-12T19:41:35Z ♥ 0

I found your game very hard to control. Am I right that you can only change the snowman's path if you click very close to its feet? There was little indication that this was the case. Also it seems you added some sliding mechanic, which added to the confusion as sometimes even when I thought I clicked the right place, the snowman would not respond due to its inertia.

Maybe having some visual indication may have helped make things clearer, like a ring around the snowman's feet to indicate where the player can click. Also having some sort of visual or audio clue when the snowman is sliding may also help gain control over the situation.

On the upside, you create a very soothing atmosphere which is in great part due to the awesome, relaxing soundtrack.

Final Stand by agentparsec 2017-12-10T00:51:07Z ♥ 0

Currently watching the Tim Beaudet stream. Game is looking very good and has an awesome soundtrack! I gameplay wise, I would like to recommend this video for you, it's about 2D games but the content still applies. I think your game would feel a lot better following some of the ideas in here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

LDAX: Ludum Dare Asset Exchange by foolmoron 2017-12-09T00:26:46Z ♥ 2

Very cool innovative concept. I love the visual style, very appealing. This is a game that can do without music or sound effects and still be awesome (although maybe some soft clicking sound when pressing a button may have been nice).

It's fairly easy to exploit though, but I guess simulating a crypto market is pretty tough. Great job!

ldax2.PNG

Guy is late for school by phi 2017-12-08T23:57:26Z ♥ 1

The first genuinely funny game I've played so far. Looks inspired by Carefulzilla from LD38. I liked it a lot.

Not much to criticize. The graphics were a bit simplistic for a Jam game, but the character motion was very charming. Controls were nice and intuitive and allowed for fast and slow motion depending on your surroundings. I would have appreciated a slightly stronger camera shift to see upcoming obstacles sooner. That would have allowed to walk with fast strides more without fear that a house might appear out of nowhere.

The music is very nice, but the sound effects could have been chosen a bit more carefully to support the humor better.

All in all a very funny and fun entry.

Collateral Damage by almost 2017-12-08T20:35:22Z ♥ 2

I love the trail animation and the backdrop. Did you draw the space background by hand or use some sort of generator software?

The gameplay is very solid and the controls are tight enough to play the game skillfully. I think the idea of having increasingly powerful weapons as a curse is quite nice. My favorite was the machine gun, afterwards it just becomes harder and harder. At the four-way gun my luck left me and the planets exploded.

One thing to note about presentation, the bottom enemy indicators may have better been off above the energy bars instead of below. Alternatively the energy bars could have been placed outside the game window, or even integrated into the game itself (e.g. circular energy bar around the planet). Often I overlooked the arrows and missed an enemy wave. Also I'm not sure if it's my lacking attention, but I had the feeling that for some waves there were no indicators, which felt a bit frustrating. Maybe having them blink for a few second as a new wave arrives may have shifted attention to this very important aspect more clearly.

For my taste, the sound effects were good, but I think having proper explosions except of blips may have been more fitting. Also a game like this begs for screenshake and excessive particle effects for explosions. Look at @terracottafrog's work for reference, he uses these two concepts in tandem masterfully.

All in all certainly one of the better games that I have played, great job!

Super Economy Twins by meatpudding 2017-12-08T20:13:16Z ♥ 1

I love the idea of subverting the coin collection trope and converting it so something darker. I wish you would have expanded on that premise. The levels don't differ very much and with the same story at the end it feels a bit repetitive. I think that with a more involved story and a bit more variety the game could gain a lot by a little bit of polish here and there.

The graphics are simple yet adequate. One remark about the animation: Two-frame walking animations are tough to get right. Adding a third frame helps trick the eye that the animation is smoother than just back and forth. For 2-frame animation, this tutorial explains how to pull it off well (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20111128203610/http://www.manningkrull.com:80/pixel_art/tutorials/walking.asp

Audio-wise, I'm not sure how tight your time budget was but for a game like this, sound effects are very important. If you play around with bfxr, you will quickly find a few sounds that match the most important actions (jump, coin, squish enemy). Depending on your framework, it may not take more than an hour to select, save and add the sound effects and it will do wonders with your game feel.

The controls are good but may also benefit from a little tuning to make them tighter.

Overall a solid jump&run that shows promise but could use a little polish and variety.

A Dying City by minimurgle 2017-12-08T19:38:42Z ♥ 0

Hey, just a hint: You need to mark the game on itch.io as Windows compatible, otherwise it won't allow downloading it via the itch client.

ANTagonist by schizoid2k 2017-12-08T17:13:48Z ♥ 2

I like the concept of rescuing your resources from waves of attackers. The game plays fluidly and the difficulty ramp up is well-balanced. The graphics are clean and convey the idea of the game well.

The best quality of the game is how smooth and fast everything moves. This allows for some nice fast-paced action.

There some problems with the gameplay though. I played with controller and the thumbsticks only allowed shooting in 8 directions, which made the game unnecessarily hard to control. This is a big problem for games that require skill and reflexes. Also it wasn't clear at all times how the pickup of the food works. It seemed that you couldn't pick up the food from a live ant (fair enough), but apparently also if ants were nearby. On two occasions I couldn't pick up the food at all, maybe because it was too close to the screen?

There are some tricks I would recommend to improve the game feel. For a game with low-key graphics these tricks can make the experience feel more robust:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Overall I would say it's a solid entry that could use a little polish.

Greedy Dungeons by Nils -Gecko- Munch 2017-12-08T16:29:31Z ♥ 3

I love your logo and character design.

The lore section was pretty funny and one of the rare cases I didn't mind reading an intro text (and it was obligatory as well!)

The music set the mood well. Did I hear correctly that you composed multiple soundtracks? Nice! The coin sound effect was a bit too generic for my taste, maybe some more time with bfxr might have netted you something a bit more unique.

Overall I enjoyed playing your game, I especially liked all the different approaches to the whole "harder to play if you carry more gold" theme: The "drop it to get past danger" mechanic, the choice you have of luring the gargoyles to the fire or simply shoving them in when you drop your gold, the path planning you have to do to get past the ghosts and so on.

The main problem I saw with your game was the fact that it feels a bit too buggy. Now and then my character would simply stop until I released and pressed the move buttons again. When I dropped coins the circle around me would move inconsistently, sometimes shrinking and sometimes growing after a coin drop. Not sure whether that was intentional, but I would have preferred "drop a coin and the circle shrinks, collect one and it grows". Also getting resurrected at a checkpoint would decrease the circle, but not the coin amount.

Also I was not sure whether that was some sort of glitch but I wasn't able to make it past the golems. I read the note that they die if they can't move anymore but I didn't get it. There was one golem that didn't move and didn't die (I think it died when I killed the gargoyles in the room). And the other golems moved. When I dropped all my gold I was able to push them in a position that trapped them in place, so they wouldn't move anymore, but still they wouldn't die. Maybe I'm dumb but I felt that could have been communicated better.

All in all a solid entry, especially considering the sheer content of the game. If it were a bit more stable I would have loved to finish it.

Aimmo by WoooWooo 2017-12-08T16:02:54Z ♥ 0

The concept was well thought out, but could have used a few more mechanics to actually make this into a game.

I found the randomness of the crosshairs a bit too chaotic, maybe some swaying motion might have been better with the radius and speed determined by the amount of ammo you have. That way, aiming would still be hard, but more a matter of skill instead of luck.

Since there is no disadvantage in having low ammo, there is little incentive to actually conserve it. A simple modification would be to add score tally where you get a higher score when you hit a target with full ammo. You could award medals or stars according to the score achieved. That may increase replay value.

Loading levels from text files sounds like a cool concept to create a lot of levels fast. Shame that it didn't seem to work out for you.

The More You Snow by Evan Polekoff 2017-12-07T23:41:24Z ♥ 1

Played it with my 7-year old daughter. I think it's one of her favorite games so far.

I liked the concept of creating a misshapen ball that became harder to control as it grows.

I think the controls might have needed a tiny but more tuning, as sometimes I felt there was almost no chance to take a turn once the ball was in motion and to prevent it from dropping off the edge.

Apart from that it was a pretty fun entry.

OverPowered! by Sir Mr Dr Prof Sr Jr PhD 2017-12-07T23:13:39Z ♥ 1

Awesome idea! I also spent considerable time trying to perfect the corner-camp strategy, but it only got me to 990 points. Once the red spreaders got me it was basically game over.

I enjoyed the game a lot. I think some sound and visual effects would go a long way here and would probably be pretty simple to implement in unity (a quick bfxr session and some screenshake maybe). If you could have added a specific sound effect for each powerup that would have helped keep track of what you collected at each time.

The Graphics are very basic but do the trick, the main show belongs to your own shots as they start to fill up the screen.

From a difficulty ramp up it was okay, maybe a slightly faster early phase realized by slightly faster fire rate in the beginning. The enemy succession was pretty spot on with levels of escalation well sorted by threat. The red devils could do the most damage I think, so it was great that they came last.

Some thoughts on communicating game play mechanics. I am usually not a big fan of "how to play" or tutorials, but in this case it may have been warranted, because the game idea goes against the intuition of "avoid enemy shots to not die". If you do write a how to play, I would advise to use as few words as possible and if possible implement a "show, don't tell" approach, especially in game jams where everybody is playing a lot of games and probably prefers to get right into the action.

This video comes to mind, which discusses, among other things, how to show a player what they need to know about the game :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

Truth be told, I kinda messed that up this LD myself, though.

Gelatin Eater by Squatch 2017-12-07T21:20:50Z ♥ 1

I didn't think much of your game at first, but it opened up a strange fascination once I figured that you can make huge leaps if you wedged the ball between two ledges and bounced back and forth for a while.

I think if you focused more on this aspect of the game and added some more polish to the controls (allowing the player more control over the ball, e.g. by adding more staggered ledges or slow motion at the press of a button), I think the core mechanics could have been quite addicting. I got to 1900 points and would have continued playing if I had the feeling that I could exploit these big jumps better.

Time for Downgrade by Nenrei 2017-12-06T22:05:17Z ♥ 1

Hey, just letting you know, the itch link is dead. Let me know when you fix it, I'll be back to play your game. Looks neat.

Usagi Story by hatchet 2017-12-05T17:04:18Z ♥ 1

Cute idea. I liked the graphics. The ending was a surprise.

The difficulty ramp-up might have needed a bit more tuning. The main part of the game was extremely easy, and on the last two days the game became more challenging.

I was able to rescue all rabbits without breaking much of a sweat (except the last two levels which required a bit more effort).

Good job overall.

The Infernal Knowledge by Koficola 2017-12-05T16:33:01Z ♥ 2

That was weirdly fun.

I really like your visual style and the fact that you combined hand-drawn 2D graphics with an ego-3d engine. You can never have too many Cthulhus ;)

Unfortunately there wasn't much of a challenge, as I didn't think the Cthulhus were able to hurt me. I also got stuck in the level with the columns because the door wouldn't appear. There was one defeated enemy leaning on a column, maybe that did not trigger the door.

How to Understand Alien by Seven from SevenToad 2017-12-05T16:17:37Z ♥ 0

I have problems getting it to run. The whole screen is shifted to the side so half the text is cut off. A pity, It looks very promising.

alien.PNG

I can't select the resolution that you recommend above. The highest I can go is 1680x1050.

Let me know if you find a fix, I'll be back to try again.

Kabloo8 by samh 2017-12-05T16:02:02Z ♥ 0

Nice mix-up between Breakout and Puzzle Bobble! Really addictive. I didn't get past 51 though.

The Graphics are very nice, the sound effects fit well. The extras are meaningful and fun to look at. The speed-up button is a very important feature.

The only gripe I have is that it's pretty much the opposite of the theme, because the more balls you have, the easier it gets.

Overall a very neat Pico-8 game. Great job!

Danger Noodle by Matthew Roelle 2017-12-05T13:24:48Z ♥ 0

Wow, that was tough, I didn't make it past level 3.

The graphics are sweet and adequate for that type of game. The music also fits but is a bit repetitive.

I think I would have preferred if the game didn't have lives and you would immediately spawn back once you died.

Not sure whether this was by design, but I was not able to collect some of the blobs. I was able to finish the level without them though.

Junk by jjjjason 2017-12-05T13:01:45Z ♥ 1

I enjoyed the concept very much. Great idea turning a classic game concept into a community thing.

Some good points have been raised by other people, so I may have a few suggestions for improvement:

- Provide a quick intro. It's not necessary to read the intro text for each round. Once upon loading the game is enough. Give a short one-liner summary for the player's effort after finishing a round and let them return to the action right away. The longer text was funny, but it doesn't add a lot if you have to read it each round.

- Ask for the player's name in the beginning and remember it

- Display the name of the player whose field you take over to allow recognizing someone's name without having to reading the intro.

- If someone starts with a clean field, let them choose a name for that field and display that name while playing. Give the player the choice to continue working on the same field or pick another one after play.

- Allow the player to select from a number of fields where you show a list of contributors and what they added/took away from the field. That way, some social construct could form where a bunch of people get together to try and clean up the messy play field of other people. Offer some reward/accomplishment if they do. Some chat lobby would work well together with that idea.

- It's much easier to wreck playing fields than to heal them. Erase the "contribution" of people who are merely spamming blocks, e.g. by comparing "removed_lines / added_blocks" against a threshold. That way a team of workers can actually finish cleaning a playing field.

LD40 - SirPumpy by SirPumpy 2017-12-05T12:26:33Z ♥ 1

This is insanely beautiful. I haven't seen anything like this for a long time in the Compo. Absolutely great. The music is perfect as well. The controls are really smooth and the game feels great.

A tremendous achievement, congratulations.

There is some room for improvement though.

You don't have any clear visual or auditive indicators that you actually shot down an enemy. Took me a while to figure out that the enemies just drop into the sea. Changing the particle parameters and color, adding an explosion and playing a sound effect would do wonders here I think.

I didn't get the feeling that the game got progressively harder over time. I understand you implemented auto-heal which is fine, but should be counteracted by an increase in difficulty.

Should you keep working on this game, please let me know if there's a new version, I would definitely replay it.

Great job overall. Probably the most beautiful game I've seen so far.

Behemoth by sidewalksleeper 2017-12-05T12:05:15Z ♥ 2

I love it!

Being conservative with your shots goes against years of muscle memory so this took some time to get used to. However once I figured it out it wasn't too hard.

I absolutely love your graphics and I am super jealous of your chiptune soundtrack. I was aiming for something similar but struggled a lot and in the end I'm not really happy with the results. What tool did you use?

**Some areas for improvement:**

You provide little visual feedback when enemies are hit. A little screenshake can go a long way in my experience. I'd recommend watching *The Art of Screenshake* for inspiration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

It's not a big issue as you are doing a lot right already, but a little bit more "crunch" might have been nice.

The heat meter takes up valuable space. I see that it's crucial in the game's design, but maybe a bit smaller and in the upper corner might have been possible. Making the screen wider might have been an option but from a purist standpoint I can understand why you didn't want to do that.

The boss fight was pretty awesome, but the laser went right through it, so I was confused whether I needed to hit a specific part. But when I saw the score go up, I realized that I was actually dishing out damage.

Oh and controller support would have been really neat.

All in all I very much enjoyed the game, thanks for making it.

Infectious Void by Odrez 2017-12-05T11:52:07Z ♥ 1

Full marks on mood!

Unfortunately it looks you ran out of time. I would have loved to see more.

The visual effects and animation are very beautiful. I think some visual and auditive feedback would have given your attacks a little more heft, but I can see how that might have worked against the solemn atmosphere.

The Crushed Sky by CMLSC 2017-12-05T11:41:18Z ♥ 0

I liked the visuals and the premise, but it was just too hard for me. Couldn't finish the boss although I gave it my best.

I usually like challenging games, but in this one, the challenge feels a bit unfair, especially on the boss level. In general I think you have the right amount of things the player has to keep track of. The droppers fire at a fixed interval that is predictable, and lasers have wind up frames. There are some aspects that make these elements a bit frustrating though.

First of all, the droppers will keep following you after they've seen you once, so that often an important jump is made unnecessarily hard because the dropper is still in its position but off screen so you can't predict the shot anymore.

Then there is the most problematic aspect to my mind. Would it take anything from the game if you got a full charge on landing? Keeping an eye on the charge meter while dodging the challenging enemy patterns is just too much to handle.

Finally, I couldn't find out much to do with the charge, except that one time where it's the only way to get a crystal. Usually I used up most of my energy getting up in the air that in most cases there was not enough left to do the charge, so I skipped that mechanic altogether.

On the upside, graphics and atmosphere are top notch. The fact that you even managed to put a boss fight in is awesome!

Lava Run by sylph 2017-12-05T10:25:31Z ♥ 0

Nice idea.

I love the graphics and atmosphere, I just wish there was some music to go with it.

The click zones could be bit larger as I found it hard to hit the lamps.

Also I didn't get the connection to the theme. I saw that the lava rises over time, but is that tied to the number of lamps you have collected? Also I didn't get the concept of the danger zone and how that would help me win the game.

Overall I would say the graphics are definitely your strongest suit, but the gameplay itself might need some polish, especially communicating better how to be good at the game.

Apocalypse Corp by Chipmonkey 2017-12-05T10:16:36Z ♥ 4

An impressive result for a first game. I enjoyed it a lot.

apocorp.PNG

There are a number of things to like. Maybe it wasn't that strictly intended, but there is a socio-economic commentary in that the player gets the feeling that at one point all the money you earn is eaten up by countermeasures against the natural disasters you create.

On a less serious note, the game is quite fun to play. Using number hotkeys was a great idea which improved playability a lot.

**Some room for improvement:**

I don't think the Surgers were very useful. They automate your cash flow for sure, but you can never really get rid of the clicking because the Surger reload for the Heat Lasers was too slow. And when you have to click anyway, you can simply go without the Surgers, which I quite successfully did.

Instead of manually destroying the buildings, it should be possible to sell them to earn a bit of cash back (based on the damage of course).

It would be neat if there was a repair button, either as an on/off switch or as a second clicker. Either have each repair action cost money or add a repair building type (or both).

The most problematic issue though is that the Heat Lasers' range seems to be computed based on the center of the storm which not only makes little sense in the logic of the world, but it also makes the game unplayable later on because the storms get so large that you can't even hit them anymore.

Overall I think you can be proud of what you made and I would encourage you to continue working on the idea, maybe by adding more building types.

Should you keep working on the game to fix the range issue, let me know. I would like to test how far I can take the strategy I've come up with.

Dangle Copter by pkenney 2017-12-05T09:27:27Z ♥ 2

But mom...

That was awesome. Nice ramp up in difficulty. I particularly like that you decided to not punish the player for crashing the helicopter (aside from making the characters sway more).

The graphics are sweet and that intro sets the mood very well. Those controls with the tiny hands and the worries faces of everyone involved are very cute.

Music would have been nice of course. I remember that Carefulzilla in LD38 used a random music generator to make the soundtrack, which turned out quite well. I could see something similar in your game.

The last level (before the dev test one) was a bit frustrating because one mistake could cost you the full score and you had to start over again. I think the dev test level might have been better suited as an extra to be selected from the start screen or placed after the end game screen as I felt it clashed a bit with the rest of the game.

Overall a very well made entry, congratulations!

Yuri The Greedy Spaceman by PUARSLIBURF 2017-12-05T09:05:44Z ♥ 0

I liked your game. The background is great and the rest of the graphics are cute.

I especially enjoyed the music, which gives the game a lot of character (the whistles you used are absolutely great and adds a lot of soviet cliche).

A game as unforgivingly hard as yours needs tighter controls though, especially since the player starts over from scratch when they fall. For my tastes the character slides too much at low speeds, which makes the game a bit frustrating to play. I finished the first level and didn't really feel much of a difference between carrying no coins and carrying all the coins. Some additional tuning may help.

If this was communicated clearer (very tight controls in the beginning, looser controls towards the end), the player might feel more motivation to plan out a path. I think https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/you-are-the-coin-master is a good inspiration for motivating the player to plan a route, although he used a completely different approach.

On the other hand I appreciate the elements you did implement to make it play well. The shadow under the player helps a lot with aiming and the jump distance is quite right so that making longer jumps feels less of a risk. The fact that you gave the player about 1 pixel on top of the visual platforms (at least that's what I thought) helps as well.

Overall I thought it was a charming experience and I felt motivated enough to finish the first level even though it was hard.

Paint all the Colors by morrilet 2017-12-05T08:41:21Z ♥ 1

That was much more fun than I anticipated, good job! I actually laughed out loud at the ORANGE level.

As it is, the game is pretty basic, but I could see this becoming more serious if it had community elements, where you keep all the images in a database and show the player a random image someone else did after they completed the level. Or make it a multiplayer game where two players compete and maybe a third player gets to vote on the drawing. Score given for time and quality.

The music was quite nice and didn't intrude on the experience. Some sound effects might have worked well here (maybe a soft scribble sound while you draw).

you are the coin master by Sean S. LeBlanc 2017-12-05T00:44:17Z ♥ 2

Too buggy, zero stars.

No really, I appreciate what you did here and I did not stop until had all the coins. The graphics are beautiful and the glitch effect is wonderfully weird. The game seems frustrating at first but with proper planning it is absolutely doable.

For a game with your unique visuals, the controls need to be a bit tighter in my opinion. Using a concept like Coyote Time might alleviate some of the more frustrating points where you keep dying after slipping off the edge again and again before an important jump.

The music was a bit repetitive for my tastes.

Overall a very good game, especially considering that you made it in only three hours.

The More You Make by TerraCottaFrog 2017-12-05T00:06:26Z ♥ 0

A crazy achievement for sure. Vader was my favorite. I'm always amazed about your skills in getting game feel right even if the graphics are minimalistic.

My pet died right in the beginning and I can't even get it back to life by restarting the game :(

All in all a very unique take on the theme. I just wish the games were more than their parts. There could be something that binds them together, like an achievement you have to get in each of the subgames to finish the overall game. Or maybe I'm missing something.

TetrisTank by shrekshao 2017-12-04T23:24:07Z ♥ 5

Am I doing this right?

tetris_tank.jpg

I think I broke something. It won't let me spawn any more blocks. On the upside, I have no problems with attackers anymore. ;)

This game is an outstanding achievement and I would strongly encourage you to continue working on it to make this a complete game. I'm sure there would be a lot of takers (careful though with commercialization though, I hear the Tetris Company is really restrictive about their game idea).

I had a lot of fun trying to get the tower as big as possible. The attackers seemed to be more like an afterthought to justify having weapons on the tower. Maybe if the guns took a more active role (engage the enemy directly) while the attackers more aggressively go for the tower instead of just passing by, this might have given the game a little more urgency. Maybe make the attackers come in waves, like in a Tower Defense game, only that you only have limited time to prepare your tower.

The physics may need a little more polish, although they are a lot of fun already. I found it difficult to predict which gun's effects would counteract my other construction. Maybe you could have each weapon fire at a fixed interval. You could mark them with numbers, so that all "1" guns fire at the same time, all "2" guns fire at a different time and so on.

That way, the player would be able to counter the guns' effects, e.g. by placing a "1" gun facing left and another one facing right so that both fire at the same time in opposite directions which would give balance to the tower. Same for the morning stars. All "1" morning stars would be in the "up" position at the same time, so having too many of them on one side might imbalance the construction etc.

Control-wise I felt that requesting the next block manually was unnecessary, since you could always just shove it out of the way if it didn't suit you. The drop speed of the block was alright but the manual motion was too slow for my taste.

Graphics are very adequate for this type of game and it became immediately clear what was asked of the player.

To sum it up, I believe this is a diamond with some rough edges that very well deserves a bit more polish. I enjoyed myself immensely and despite all the criticism I have to say this is one of the most fun and innovative games I have played so far.

Sofra by voxel 2017-12-04T21:25:21Z ♥ 1

Great job!

As always your design is outstanding. You truly have a knack for visual humor. My favorites are the the increasing strain on the bunny icon and the way you keep holding more and more rabbits and can't possibly see anything anymore.

The music and sound effects created a soothing and serene atmosphere and were well-made. I assume you recorded the sfx yourself? You make a pretty good vulture impersonation ;)

My main point of criticism would be the controls. It is possible to place rabbits one by one or all at once, but you can only pick up the whole bunch. Also I found it a bit frustrating that I could not put down rabbits one by one at the same location. At some points I had to struggle to fit multiple rabbits on a narrow ledge and space them out enough so I could continue.

I think the following control scheme might have worked better: One button for picking up one rabbit, one button for dropping one. Want to drop off three rabbits? Press drop three times. Pick up two? Press pickup twice. It would make controlling much less tedious I think.

Too Many Cooks! by Bocodillo 2017-12-04T21:03:53Z ♥ 2

I love the idea of swatting away pesky cooks that try to ruin your work, and the graphics fit the concept nicely.

The controls could use some work though. I played around with the game and I tried to prevent all chefs from adding stuff but some always came through no matter what I tried. This makes the game very tough to control later on when there is a lot going on. Also, color-coding the food may have helped, as sometimes it's tough to react quickly and figure out the flavor of each food at the same time.

When it comes to audio, I wish you would have opted for a more crunchy slapping sound and maybe a slight screenshake. Slapping the chefs is the core mechanic around which the whole game pivots and I think it may have become much more tangible by adding some more heft to the slaps.

Overall I liked the premise a lot and would return to give it another spin should decide to make a post-compo version.

Sheep without Shepherd by navot 2017-12-04T20:47:13Z ♥ 1

I saved 266 sheep.

I love how this turned out in the end. The sheep design and day/night cycle work very well. I'm impressed how robustly you implemented the flocking behavior. Controller support is appreciated.

Unfortunately there is no sound at all. Maybe you didn't have enough time but putting together some simple sound effects in bfxr or even recording some voices yourself would have improved the experience immensely.

Overall a short sweet game that feels very polished.

The lost strawberry by egordorichev 2017-12-04T20:35:32Z ♥ 1

Made it with 211 deaths in half an hour. Took me a while to figure it out (I didn't read the instructions). The game's difficulty is brutal.

I love the graphics. Very impressive what you made out of three colors in that little resolution. It felt a bit frustrating at times because death often comes suddenly because of an unseen trampoline or missing floor.

The essences served three purposes which was a bit confusing at first but I was able to figure it out. I couldn't find out what the strawberries were for though.

I'm impressed how many levels you made in that short time. You even added a boss fight. I liked it overall!

ZETPACK-99 by verysoftwares 2017-12-21T11:14:55Z ♥ 0

Your game doesn't work with the itch.io client. Have you checked whether you have set the "Windows-compatible" flag? If you do, tag me and I'll give your game a go.

Frankenstorm by TerraCottaFrog 2017-07-31T19:38:20Z ♥ 1

It a beautiful entry and I enjoyed playing it. I would give it a high score (I can't because I skipped this LD).

However, measured among your outstanding earlier entries it feels a bit less coherent gameplay-wise. The fact that you cannot die takes a lot of tension out of the game. On the other hand, if I were to judge a game targeted for younger kids (the graphics would fit perfectly), then this design decision would make a lot of sense. So take this comment with a grain of salt.

It's still an awesome, well polished game.

Precious Cargo by CMLSC 2017-07-31T19:08:17Z ♥ 2

I love it! It was a tough game and sometimes it was tricky to see what's going on but I made it through. I wish there was an upward dash because sometimes there's a row of ships outside your reach and it can make you fail the game even if you catch all the ships you can get to. You managed to make a short music snippet blend so well into the game that it does not get repetitive. Overall a very polished experience.

Have you considered hosting on itch.io? It's super convenient to play games via the itch client, which does all the unzipping hullabaloo for you. Normally I like to keep special games in my itch account but unfortunately I can't add yours.

Shekateka by voxel 2017-07-31T18:34:56Z ♥ 1

Nice one! Love the game mechanics. The big shots of the red birds can be duped by standing close to a wall. Since your shots are smaller you can shoot from that kind of cover while never being hit.

Spacy adventure by egordorichev 2017-07-31T18:25:58Z ♥ 2

I adore pico8 games, and this one is an awesome example. Sometimes it's a bit hard to distinguish between stars and enemy shots, but I love how energy conservation changes the way the player is forced to play the game.

Bamboo Life by candlesan 2017-05-26T16:50:59Z ♥ 1

Post-LD comment:

Congratulations to a Top 20 spot!

This is what my daughter and I made:

bamboo.PNG

It's A Small World by danman9914 2017-05-23T05:15:40Z ♥ 1

Post LD comment here because the ending was just so awesome.

I played the game with my daughter last night and neither of us understood what was going on, especially in the part towards the end.

When I was in bed later I was mulling it over, half asleep when it hit me. Mind Blown! I actually woke up my wife to tell her and she hasn't even seen the game.

Great job! This remain with me as a personal favorite. Well deserved place, congratulations!

BUTERATOS by buteratosgames 2017-05-20T17:14:39Z ♥ 0

I'm with @mmason. I played Buteratos back in LD37. This looks too similar to the LD37 game to be in the spirit of Ludum Dare, unless you opt out of the categories in which you used existing assets. If you really drew all the art (background and characters), made the animation, the intro, and everything else in 3 days, hats off to your team!

Escape to the Stars by justinooncx 2017-05-20T16:54:24Z ♥ 0

Beautiful, both in sight and sound. I can't praise the graphics and the music enough.

From a gameplay perspective, I would have preferred to trade permanent skills, as the items felt pretty useless after I figured out that the raw materials do their job well enough, especially heal. I think having the traders upgrade speed, vitality and max shot count would have worked much in your favor. Grinding the traded items felt a bit like a grind in the end.

I didn't like the mixed mouse/keyboard controls. I guess this is primarily a mobile game, but still, keyboard only would probably have worked better, especially for a retro game. Navigating the menu would have been more relaxed if you paused the game.

Overall a beautiful game with a few gameplay flaws.

**Edit:** I'm sorry, but I have to take back my votes. You are not allowed to make significant changes to your game after the deadline and it looks like you changed quite a lot. Since you didn't mark your game as post-compo, I cannot tell which state the game was in when the Compo ended, so I cannot properly vote for you. Next time you want to make changes, please upload two versions of the game and mark them accordingly.

Spider Collider by mooncalf 2017-05-20T04:05:13Z ♥ 0

I just watched the game on the TechValleyGameSpace stream and wanted to give it a spin myself.

The general idea is awesome and both music and graphics make the game really enjoyable. The sudden use of red together with the pixel burst when you are smashed are super effective.

If I was to suggest some tweaks it would be to the gameplay: I found myself just mashing space which worked out fairly well for most levels. The fact that the player has to wait half a second after landing before controls register again hinders the game flow a bit. I think I would have preferred instant reaction after landing together with the possibility to move mid-air a little. With tighter controls could have come more challenging levels, as currently the increasing difficulty mostly asks for luck instead of skill.

I could have done without the grappling hook, as I didn't use it at all. I think the reason for that was that it was controlled via mouse. Maybe you could try controlling it with the keyboard (A/D for targeting with an indicator that rotates around the spider when airborne). I think this would offer more consistent controls and might be more fun. In case you build a post-compo version that has this mechanic, drop me a line, I'd love to give it another spin.

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, despite some minor issues with game flow. The idea was quite unique and well executed, good job!

Retro Rabbit by wtoa 2017-05-20T03:52:00Z ♥ 0

I just watched the game on the TechValleyGameSpace stream and had to play it.

I don't really have to say much: It's nearly perfect! The music and animation are especially lovely. The way you integrate the guitar riffs into the munch mode was perfect. Maybe the transitions could have been a tiny bit smoother, but that's not a real concern.

For my personal tastes, I think the difficulty ramp up could be a smidge steeper to increase the "just one more round" feeling, but that may just be my preference.

Played to 127.309 points. Will likely return. Great job!

Miskro by ghodan 2017-05-18T20:29:36Z ♥ 0

Awesome entry! Everything looks very polished, and I love the pastel color palette.

I only found three coins, but felt motivated by the exploration setting to try and find the last one, but had to give up in the end because I couldn't find it.

When it comes to atmosphere, your game is spot on, with the exception of the "buddy"-tone of the statue's text which I found was clashing with the general soothing atmosphere of the game a bit.

Gameplay wise, I liked how you changed the speed of the player depending on its size, but I would have preferred to have the larger modes make bigger steps so they would get faster from A to B. Maybe a more pronounced ambling animation in the camera with a slight pause between two steps would have worked well here.

Overall a very impressive entry for 48 hours.

Technically I'll have to mention that you are not allowed to add anything to the game outside of the allotted time, even if you opt out of that category. If you want make changes afterwards, please create a separate post-compo version of the game in addition to the original version and mark both accordingly. If you haven't recorded the ambient music yourself, that is also not allowed for the Compo. However, in the Jam you are free to use any external assets and you also have an extra day for adding them. You can even switch from Compo to Jam in the middle of LD if you feel time is running out for you.

Just in case you wondered why you received only a few votes: You need to rate and comment more on other games to appear higher on the games list, which in turn will increase your chances of getting exposure and thus more votes for yourself.

Tiny Planet Defense by Doccrazy 2017-05-18T19:45:13Z ♥ 1

I think this was the first ego-tower defense game I have ever played and overall it was pretty neat. Despite some flaws, it had some really beautiful moments.

So first of all, the graphics are a mixed bag in by book. On the one hand you have the beautiful backdrops, earth texture and lensflare effects, on the other hand you have very simplistic character and enemy models, especially the rockets, which are just elongated spheres.

The sound effects were okay, but obviously some spherical music would have made the game's mood much better.

Gameplay-wise there are a few snags. I don't think being blocked by your towers adds anything to your game and could be removed. The intro was unskippable and takes away from replay value that way. You should definitely add a way to skip the countdown: Especially in the beginning the wait times take the wind out of the game's sails.

I think you could have communicated better where the next waves would come from. I realized after a few tries that they came from the direction of the signs, but an arrow or a shiny line pointing away from the planet towards the impending attack would have avoided some confusion here.

I managed to finish Tiny Planet Defense with just Multi-shooters and rockets and couldn't really figure out how to set up the lasers properly. It was a bit tight defeating the normals with the multi-shot, which cost me a few lives on wave 2. The rest was a breeze though, so I think the game might benefit from some more work on pacing.

The game really started to shine as soon as I had some more towers. Seeing three rockets majestically amble towards a boss and detonating it into bits with a single strike felt very good. Also the amount of debris flying around from defeating enemies gave the game some sparkle and charm in the later game.

Despite a slow start I would have loved to continue playing to see a bit more of a challenge, as the game became very easy very fast.

Overall quite a solid entry that could greatly benefit from some polishing and gameplay tweaking. Great job!

The Shifting Catacombs of Mu'ralagh by Madgvox 2017-05-18T19:07:16Z ♥ 2

Fantastic game! Full marks on mood. Even though you used a music generator, the audio fit really well to the game.

You really have a knack for level design, taking a few simple game mechanics and combining them in interesting ways. The setup is perfect and the game is really engaging throughout. There is one bug that soured the whole experience for me and that is apparently you cannot move up-left and jump at the same time which made some of the jumping puzzles really frustrating especially if you don't figure out why your guy is dropping into the water.

I would have loved to have a little outro similar to the intro, maybe with the whole catacombs collapsing and your guy escaping at the last moment, but there is only so much you can do in 48 hours.

A really lovely entry.

One remark though in case you didn't know: You can and should increase visibility of your game by rating other people. You receive a coolness score based on your ratings and comments, so if you receive lots of votes but don't vote/comment yourself, you will drop down in the game list which is a shame because I would consider your game a hidden gem in LD and I wish you all the best for getting the 20 votes necessary to end up in the ranking.

Hives (Gameboy ROM) by refreshgames 2017-05-18T18:47:39Z ♥ 0

Wow, a real Game Boy game, I'm impressed! It failed to load on Firefox, but I got it running in an emulator (would have tried that anyway to see if it would work - it did!).

I thought your game was a pretty cool idea that could use some polish. I am not sure if the fact that the game is a bit raw was deliberate because you wanted to keep a more realistic Game Boy feeling, but I'm going write this comment according to modern design standards, of course taking into account the platform's restrictions.

The graphics were really neat and the difficulty ramped up well, introducing new enemies piece by piece. The audio was good but the game was really missing music. The Game Boy had a such iconic sound that some cool chiptunes would have improved the game's mood immensely. The controls were appropriate but could use a little more fine-tuning to make them a bit smoother. I love that you added a menu and the transitions were also pretty cool.

The game design idea was solid, I liked your decision to make the main character invulnerable but let each death increase the number of enemies implicitly because the player couldn't fight them off during the cooldown period. I think however, that this mechanic could use a bit more work in order to make the game flow better. One option would be to reset the bee immediately but make it unable to shoot for a few seconds, which would give the player something to do while dead.

The healing mechanic seemed pretty unbalanced to me. If I got this right, you can heal all the hives by hovering over any single one which reduces your shield that cannot be regenerated. So the player doesn't have to take into account which hive was damaged at all. Also I assume that if your shield is empty, you cannot repair the hives at all anymore. I assume this was to give the game a limit on playtime, but you already have one in place by making the enemies come faster and faster, so I thought you could get rid of that without taking away from the game.

What I think would have been more fun would be to give each hive a separate health bar (even better an implicit damage indicator like changing the hive's sprite). Now the player would have to repair each hive which would force the player to keep in motion. Then I would consider getting rid of the shield and having the repair function assigned to the second button, which also would give the player more to actually do. With that setup you could play around with different ways to balance the game to make it most fun and get a "just one more round" feeling going. Some temporary weapon upgrade collectibles might introduce a risk-and-reward mechanic.

So overall I believe you are on the right track and I am thorougly impressed you pulled off the game in C as an actual Game Boy game, and I think with a few tweaks it could be a lot more fun.

Small World by JimmyBG 2017-05-15T20:26:30Z ♥ 1

You created a pleasant and relaxing game with well-designed graphics a moody soundtrack and some cool game mechanics.

I got the feeling that you optimized the game for controllers, as I found the keyboard layout to be a bit fiddly. This could be due to the fact that German keyboards Z and Y are switched, so I had to hold my hand in an awkward position and often fell to my death because I hit the wrong key.

Control-wise I would say the jumping mechanics are the weakest part, as I found the jump arc to be too steep and the jumps a bit too short to feel comfortable. On the other hand, I loved the way you visualized the shovel action. The way that you move the platforms by wedging the shovel in the crack and leveraging the landmass to the next location worked really well vusally.

I think the game may have worked better with discrete movement patterns where you have to decide to which side you want to jump and you jump exactly one square without having to time the jumps. That would change the character of the game from a more skill-based to a more puzzle based game, but I think it may have worked better.

I stopped playing the game in the randomized level, as I found it hard to re-focus on the new configuration all the time instead of repeatedly trying to figure out the solution to a constant level. On the other hand, I generally enjoyed bits of randomness, like the placement of the crystals and the trees.

Overall I think you made a very atmospheric experience that for me was marred a bit by fiddly controls. Nevertheless a very good, graphically impressive game.

Until Tomorrow by MSiddeek 2017-05-15T20:03:31Z ♥ 1

Wow, that was cool! You really have a knack for storytelling. My favorite part was where the old man deliberated pushing you off the cliff. You set this up masterfully by having him startle you seconds before in the room and then repeating the same motion later outside. You know exactly what he is thinking before he even mentions it. If the story was longer and I was more invested in the character, that scene might have given me goosebumps.

The missing music and sound effects are a shame though. The ambient sounds you added towards the end were quite effective due to the long silence that preceded them but I still think some music throughout the game would have been worked better. Even if not, the missing sound effects hurt your game the most.

Other than that, there were no bugs or unclear parts, you told the story very well, which I think was your main concern, so overall it was a very nice experience, thank you!

Tumblin' down by Shodanon 2017-05-15T19:46:23Z ♥ 1

Oh man, this really pains me. I came to your game after seeing your cool trailer video and I have to say the idea of the shrinking world is executed so beautifully. It's technically very impressive. I absolutely love the way you pulled off the tumbling mountains, bridges and trees. You also managed to pull off very cool sound effects that underline what's happening to the world. The music is really relaxing and fits very well into the atmosphere you create. After enjoying all this, I was really curious what the gameplay mechanics would be like.

Unfortunately there is not much here. My units are totally overpowered and even a small handful are enough to defeat a large group of enemies. The pacing is really slow, so it takes ages for the world to shrink and consequently it doesn't really feel threatening. There is just not much *game* to your game. After reading the summary I somewhat figured out what the game mechanics are supposed to be but I didn't find them very interesting.

This is such a shame, because technically you created something really special. It's just that the game experience itself simply feels slapped on. I gave the game high marks in all the places that I enjoyed and consider it a very successful and well-executed tech demo. In case you revisit the basic game idea and try to go in a different direction, I would be interested in giving it another shot.

Memory:Leak by Alex Lutay 2017-05-15T19:25:04Z ♥ 3

I was immediately drawn to your game due to its outstanding graphics and cool idea. When I started it up, I was pleasantly surprised that the music is well up to par with the visuals. After some initial confusion as to what the goal was, I quickly got the hang of it.

Unfortunately there a single thing that really takes the wind out of the game's sails and that is the necessity to click each building type again after building. Adding to that, sometimes clicking on an empty tile did not register so I constantly had to click buildings on the menu which was really frustrating. It's such a shame because I can imagine the game being super-awesome, but this was really breaking it for me.

Some notes: I think you could have done without the icon to increase population, by simply adding population through clicking on a tile. It would be much faster to control, which is important for a game that can become quite hectic.

I enjoyed the fact that you made a tutorial, although I felt it could have been a bit more challenging, by only allowing the player to solve the tutorial level by showing that they mastered the skill you wanted to explain. That way you would have a more challenging early game which currently is a breeze to finish without actually learning anything.

Don't get me wrong: I really love every single thing about your game: The premise, presentation, music, mechanics, everything. But I feel that the few shortcomings it has have a severe impact on making it as much fun to play as it should be. Please consider making a post-LD version, I would definitely want to revisit it after you gave it a little more polish.

Galactic Girl and the Puzzle Planets by GerardB 2017-05-15T19:01:57Z ♥ 2

I love the idea of jumping among planets to play the different levels. There is a lot to like in your game, from the fitting pixel art to the outstanding soundtrack and the really cool game mechanics. I especially like the idea of double jumping out of your suit which takes away your ability to double jump until you get back into the suit.

Unfortunately there are a few flaws as well which make the game less fun that it could be.

First, I found the sound effects to be a bit grating, which is extremely weird, since you have such a talented audio guy. I can only assume that you ran out of time in the end.

While the graphics are really cool, I think that sometimes the mixed resolution drags down your visual style a bit, especially when jumping out of the suit. If you stand in front of the suit, there appear to be some pixel artifacts. It's pretty hard to pull off a mixed-resolution game and not alienate pixel-art lovers and Unity may be susceptible to that, although I remember I've seen a pixel tutorial around somewhere.

When it comes to gameplay, I think the gravity mechanics could use a little more work, as I think it's a bit too hard to actually aim at planets and hit them through skill and not luck. The platforming was a but frustrating for me, especially since the heroine does not seem to move with the platforms.

A part of that frustration may be due to the keyboard layout, which I think uses too many different keys. I wonder why you chose to use Space to jump outside of the planets and W in the levels. Why not use one key for both? The same goes for O/P, since I didn't find you could remove your suit in space, why not use the same key for entering planets and entering your suit? Also I think for jump 'n' run kind of games it has been an established standard not to use Up for jumping (W in your case), which should be assigned to the other hand, like on a controller. So if you would have used A/D for motion and O/P for jumping/action, I think the controls would have become much clearer.

About the game logic, I found the fact that exiting a planet without the suit sent your character back to the surface with the suit, reduced the otherwise awesome atmosphere you created. Here an additional sprite of a rack of suits next to the teleporter may have kept the game logic intact. Something else I found a bit irritating was that you were able to just skip worlds if you wanted. Not sure whether you had to finish all levels to complete the game (I only managed to get to level 3), but maybe some token that has to be collected to piece together some sort of McGuffin would have helped tie things together.

Overall I think you managed to create a neat game with a lot of cool ideas, and a number of minor flaws. Great job!

Abaddon by Geckoo1337 2017-05-15T18:37:08Z ♥ 0

Devil Daggers! I suck at this type of game, although I love a good challenge. I got to 2700 points (probably not that good). Overall I am awed by the level of polish you offer. The graphics are outstanding and the shader you use make the game visually unique. The details on the models are awesome!

The music is pumping and giving the game the urgency this genre is begging for.

Gameplay wise there is not much to criticize, I like the general mechanics, especially the healing clouds as they create a point of attraction that is usually surrounded by danger, which creates a very good risk/reward balance.

The only minor nitpick would be that the game could have a slightly tighter difficulty curve. I feel that until right before the first spiders appear, the game could pick up its pace a tiny bit faster, which I think would improve the replay value and increase the already good "just one more round"-feeling.

All in all certainly one of the big greats of this LD!

I wouldn't worry too much about the similarity to DD though. There are so many clones of popular games at LD. Sure, it would have been nice if you had added some new twist to the game, maybe something more closely tied to the theme "A Small World", but for me, it's not a big problem. Your game is fun in its own right, and I'm pretty sure, Devil Daggers has not been made in three days.

Qwer CiTy by Le Slo 2017-05-13T18:47:47Z ♥ 3

That's an innovative idea! I struggled with the controls though, as I am so used to having special keys for moving that it takes a lot of re-learning to understand which key belongs to what house. Maybe I sucked too bad, but maybe the game needs a little more polish especially when it comes to communicating to the player that they pushed an invalid key, maybe by quickly showing an overlay that indicates what key the current house belongs to.

A comment on deploying: You shouldn't export games to Installers in Game Maker, since most people on LD don't want to be bothered installing your game which could potentially leave some unwanted files behind after uninstalling it. In order to export the game properly, you have to pick File -> Create Application and then in the file dialog choose file type "single runtime executable" or "compressed application". The exe will be the least hassle for players but may cause problems with some virus scanners, so I would suggest picking the compressed application.

(Un)Happy by pcmaster 2017-05-13T18:37:15Z ♥ 0

That's a cute little game, I think it may be perfect for kids, as the difficulty is not too high, the concept is easy to grasp and the characters are amiable. Great job.

Minor nitpick: The side thrusters are switched they should activate on the opposite side to where the ship is turning.

Entropy by SleepyStudios 2017-05-13T18:31:08Z ♥ 1

I liked the setup and once I realized what roles the different characters play, I had some fun. Playing blue, I thought it would have been unfair because as I understand they team up with green against red, but I didn't stand a chance. Every time the plants took over 90% of the land, the fire people would attack and the fire spread so fast that the balance tilted in no time.

I have to ask, has anyone ever won this game? Also what happens if nobody's joining? How are chances that I played against an AI?

Anyway, it was a fun experience, great job!

Superbugs by Breadmower 2017-05-13T18:17:05Z ♥ 1

Wow, a rock solid puzzle game, great job! It's not really my favorite genre but even so I quite enjoyed it. Since it wasn't really much of a challenge for me, it may be a bit too easy for puzzle aficionados, though.

I don't really have any serious complaints. The music choice was nice, the graphics clean and self-explanatory, and as a big plus, you managed to explain the game mechanics with a few words and images instead of a wall of text.

The only improvement I could imagine would be to add an upper limit of pills that determines whether you get a bronze, silver or gold rating, as is quite common in this genre. This would increase replayability.

Other than that, great, polished game!

rovR by morrilet 2017-05-13T18:06:30Z ♥ 2

That was certainly interesting. I found the concept of setting up the planets in a way that lets you solve the puzzle without their heads getting in the way quite unique.

The graphics and music choice was very amiable, overall a relaxing experience. I found it a bit difficult to estimate how I had to setup the planets and at what angle I could blast off safely. Not sure whether this was deliberate but I once managed to use the gravitational pull of the planet to slingshot myself around it. If it was deliberate I would have liked to see this feature more pronounced as such a move as pretty hard to pull off.

Overall a solid entry.

Membrum by Rongo Matane 2017-05-13T17:53:59Z ♥ 1

What a nasty but cool game you made. I enjoyed it a lot! The graphics are very unique and unsettling, and the idea is brilliant and fresh.

There are some issues that could have improved the flow of the game. I would probably still be playing if it weren't for these constant pop-up messages that I had to click away, thus losing focus of what I was just looking at. The other thing (which may have been deliberate) was that I would have preferred to see the life bar of all my organs all the time. The color coding wasn't very clear, as in some cases black meant near death, while for others brown was already close to organ failure.

I think I would have been motivated to stick to it til the end if it weren't for these flaws, as I liked the idea a lot and it spoke to my inner optimizer to find a stable solution to my character's ailments.

Overall a great game that I would probably pick up again if you made a post-LD version.

Penguin Deliveries by Nomaki 2017-05-13T17:31:04Z ♥ 1

Nice Lunar Lander clone. I especially liked the amiable graphics and your choice of music. What stood out was your solid handling of the gravity between the different planets.

It may have been on purpose to make the game more relaxing, but since you cannot crash, the game was lacking a bit of a challenge for me. I noticed that you don't need to land upright but can just set down your rocket any way you like.

It was a fun experience.

Pixel Town by automatonvx 2017-05-13T14:51:34Z ♥ 1

You made a cute simulation game that was fun to play. It reminded me a bit of Actraiser. Graphics and music came together as a coherent whole. After a few attempts in which I built myself in, I somewhat got the hang of it and finished level 1. After a few more tries on level 2 I managed to hold back the monsters from the west, but the ones from the east snuck up on me and destroyed my main building.

There are a few minor issues that I came across.

First, I didn't see you display the price of the buildings, e.g. in the form of a tool tip you already have in your game. That would help a lot with planning.

Second, I didn't find the placement of buildings very intuitive. Once you try and put something down, you get a message telling you why it didn't work. I think it may have been better to indicate this by using a red overlay over the building as that would allow for quick checking about where a building could be placed. The reason why it couldn't be placed in a certain spot would then be displayed next to the overlay.

Even so, I noticed that the position the building finally ends up being placed is a little different from the indicated position before placing it.

Another improvement in my mind would be to allow setting down buildings without being connected to roads. That would make organizing the city easier. If a building wasn't connected with a road, an icon would appear, marking it as inactive. That way you would retain the functionality you already have in place but the controls may be a bit more agreeable.

Overall you made a very charming simulation game that worked pretty well in my eyes and could be improved with a little tweaking.

Intergalactic Gold Rush by ArmchairArmada 2017-05-13T14:28:08Z ♥ 1

Awesome visuals! I love the way the hexagons shake and drop. The choice of music really makes the game come to life. It was challenging and fun to play.

Some things could have been communicated better. I didn't get why you had two types of magic that did the same thing, but no life bar, until I found out the squares were supposed to be hearts. It didn't help that clicking the squares also activated your magic. Speaking about communication: I would assume that many players will find it a bit tedious to read a wall of text to understand the game, especially when a bullet list would have transported the same information. There are so many games to take in every LD that this carries an additional weight.

As for pacing, I really like how you will die within seconds if you don't react, so the game starts immediately as you hit Start. On the other end of the spectrum, I didn't really feel that the game became harder over time, although it probably does. Maybe a steeper difficulty curve may keep the skilled players interested for longer.

All in all it's a very polished, beautifully looking and sounding game, great job!

Hexoworld 9999 by Lugdumdare Team 2017-05-13T13:53:58Z ♥ 0

Awesome presentation. The graphics and music are really pulling this one together. The sound and visual effects pack a punch which makes the game fun to play.

Unfortunately I feel that by choosing a hexa-layout for the game it becomes quite tough to control, since the direction of the shots changes dramatically whenever the player turns a corner, which creates a lot of blind spots where you can't hit the incoming tiles. It may be tricky to pull off, but I think hexes with rounded corners might boost the fun significantly as that would close the blind spots and would have added some measure of strategy (will I stay near the spots that give me more control or keep moving along the edge to hit more asteroids) and skill (fine-tuning the sweet spot on the rounded corner that will hit the asteroid).

Overall you made a beautiful game (sight and sound) that could have benefited from some more tuning of its gameplay mechanics.

**Edit:** After reading some of the comments, I decided to give the game another try and I have to say that after collecting a few powerups, it gets really easy. I got to 280200 points just by holding Left down until some random asteroids managed to get past me.

Glass Houses by volando 2017-05-13T13:44:02Z ♥ 1

A masterful semi-interactive story you created. The expressiveness of the characters despite the simple graphics is awesome. I love how you told the story of impending doom and human fallacy in attributing guilt. I played it twice to get both endings.

I don't have anything bad to say really. It is short, but encapsulates everything it's trying to say so well that it wouldn't gain anything by being longer.

Full marks.

Colonial Kart World by adamalexander 2017-05-13T13:09:46Z ♥ 1

One of the few games that actually might work better without music because the ambient sounds worked so well. Graphics are outstanding, but since you opted out of that category I would assume that you used a fixed asset pack?

Generally there is a lot in this game: The graphics, wave physics, AI. It's quite impressive.

One minor issue would be that it took a little too long to get back into the action after dying which takes the wind out of the game's sails (hur hur) a bit. Another thing was that if felt the waves caught my shots too often, but maybe I just suck at this kind of game.

All in all a pretty impressive display of skill from a single person. Great job!

Routine by Breno_M 2017-05-13T12:57:39Z ♥ 1

Great world-building skills! The intro and the music created a dense oppressive atmosphere. The graphics were simplistic but beautiful and very fitting considering you are a planner that is supposed to control peoples lives from in front of a screen.

It took me a while to figure out what the game wanted from me though. I thought I had to make the people meet at work or during off-times, but later realized that this was hard-locked in the game, so I figured out I had to make them meet by chance on the street.

I found that challenge a bit tough for my tastes, as the controls were a bit unwieldy. Since I could only change work during off-times and vice versa, the game felt like it was holding me back whenever I wanted to try something out, because it wasn't the right time. I managed to finish tasks 1-3 but gave up when all three rebels almost passed on the the street, but missed each other by a fraction of a second.

Overall it's an awesome set-up that could benefit from a little more refinement to give the player more control. That and maybe a few more mechanics, but of course time is always an issue.

Great job overall!

SittingDucks by Iak 2017-05-13T12:38:32Z ♥ 1

I enjoyed your take on the world defender theme. It took me a while to figure out that I could lay eggs. the graphics were pretty cool, especially the bigger asteroids and the world eater. I couldn't find out how to defeat it but it certainly looked mysterious, the way it blended into the void of space.

There are a few areas that I would say could use a little work though. The music was fitting, but it's important to create a closed loop without breaks so that the player doesn't notice the repetition.

Gameplay-wise I think the difficulty ramp-up is too slow which decreases replay value. In the beginning there is just so much time where nothing happens. The pacing for laying eggs is also a bit off: In the beginning you can lay a lot of eggs because there is still time, but as the game progresses you barely have time to lay new ones. That is really a shame because I found the idea of laying eggs and using the chicks as ammunition really fresh and one of the strong points of your game.

Also there is no clear indication of when an egg is actually laid. As it is, laying an egg is a huge investment because it takes so long. If you let go a little too early that investment does not pay off, which is frustrating. I think, about half a second might be a good value here, as that would give you enough time to lay eggs later in the game. I think defining a separate key for picking up chicks is important, as it gives the player more control over resources. This is again about investment: If the eggs are precious because they take so long to lay, the player should not be forced to pick them up, as this sort of destroys the game's economy. But even with faster egg-laying, having more control is probably a good idea.

While I liked hitting the rocks with your head until they explode, I think the game may be more fun if you could destroy the smaller ones with a single hit. While at it, maybe increase the rotation speed of the planet a little for faster controls, and allow moving sideways while in the air.

Finally, I couldn't figure out why I would win or lose a round. My first play was a loss, because my planet's energy reached zero. My second play didn't throw me back to the start screen, so I assume I survived a round, but since the round ended with my planet being destroyed I didn't know whether I won or lost. Maybe this could have been communicated more clearly.

These points may sound like a lot, but most of them boil down to tweaking some game constants. That will likely change the character of your game, so please consider them only as ideas for trying alternatives.

Overall I liked your ideas despite some flaws and I think with a little more polish the game improve considerably.

Stardust - A space adventure by shiitman 2017-05-13T11:49:41Z ♥ 0

Awesome hand-drawn art and very fitting background music. It's a pity the game is so short, but with that amount of craft, that's understandable. I think the overall concept is great to expand upon, as your ideas for this game are very interesting and I would like to see what else you could come up with. When it comes to Graphics Adventures, your design certainly stands apart from the masses with its huge sprites, but that's what makes the game interesting.

The puzzles were a bit too easy and straightforward for me, which was in part due to the fact that there were actually only two rooms. However, you placed all the necessary items in one room and then you only had to combine everything in the second room to finish the game. So I would love to see what you can do in terms of puzzle design when you can afford to put more time in it.

From a story perspective, the characters immediately pull you into their world, but I think they could use a little more depth. Fixing the hatch made me chuckle, but the fourth wall-breaking joke was a bit tired. Humor is really tough to pull off well and while I think you are on a very good track, you may use some additional polish in that respect.

Overall it was a short but very cool experience, great job!

Bumble Jumble by bram_ve 2017-05-13T11:35:54Z ♥ 0

Wow great job on the presentation! The graphics are stunning, and the ambient music contributes greatly to the atmosphere. You actually managed to create a believable world.

Unfortunately gameplay-wise there is not much meat. I couldn't figure out what the shooting was for and collecting the honeycombs was a bit frustrating as it was fairly easy to lose them by flying into something. You clearly geared the game towards controller input, and the keyboard controls are really a bit frustrating. I think it may have worked better with controls where you fly in the direction you look (mouse), rather than having motion and camera independent.

Overall a very relaxing experience, great job!

"It's a small world!" by Ace 2017-05-13T11:24:41Z ♥ 0

Cool idea and nice design. I especially liked all the different character ideas, so visually there is not much to criticize.

Gameplay-wise I think I would have preferred a sidewalk that doesn't end by repeating the scenery. Hitting an invisible wall took a lot of momentum out of the game.

Noizy by yves 2017-05-13T10:36:59Z ♥ 1

The visuals of your game are awesome! There are some minor graphics glitches that may come with the 3D world you designed. Sometimes I was stuck in a block, but it was easy to get out of, so nothing game breaking.

Sound effects are simple but appropriate for the visual style. They have a heft to them, which is good for arcady games. The music was very nice and also fit the atmosphere well. Level progression is good, with a nice difficulty curve leading up to a boss, which felt nice and gave the game proper closure. I would say it's a bit on the easy side, as I may have preferred a tougher experience where each level is a challenge and the game would reset you to the beginning of that level, but the version you made was very enjoyable too.

My main complaint would be the controls. I think a game like yours should split up movement and action between both hands (as with a controller), therefore Space/Enter for jump/shoot is not ideal in my opinion. A/D/Enter/Shift or Left/Right/A/D might have worked better.

Overall a very enjoyable, complete and beautiful game.

**Edit:** One comment: If you don't mark your game as Windows-compatible on itch.io, it's not possible to download it with the itch.io client.

Too Big For This WorLD38 by joemid 2017-05-13T10:11:08Z ♥ 2

Sorry to be that guy, but I don't think you're doing it right. Ludum Dare is supposed to be a game jam where people make a game in 48/72 hours. It seems your project has been going on for months now:

- http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=92338 - http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=92338

While it's okay to use pre-existing assets I don't think it's in the spirit of the Jam to keep developing the same game spanning multiple Jams. It's definitely a commendable effort for a single person but I think it would be better suited for Steam Early Access than Ludum Dare.

But on topic: The graphics are outstanding and the intro is quite effective. Other than that the game feels very raw in terms of control and objective. I like the story setup and atmosphere but without a handle on the action there is not much to actually do in the game.

The Fleas In My Head by cenullum 2017-05-11T19:08:59Z ♥ 5

The Game Boy graphics drew me towards your game and I have to say, I really enjoyed playing despite some flaws. The difficulty was pretty brutal but still motivating. I think this is because you pulled off the pacing really well, resetting the player into the game immediately after death and not taking too long to increase the difficulty which would otherwise have created some problematic tedium towards the beginning.

My first thought was that the game was unfair because the hands were always destroying the houses faster than I could rebuild, so I thought I could cheat the game by collecting 30 blood and quickly building all the houses. This didn't work (good design), so I played around a bit more and noticed that the 2-story buildings actually served a purpose and I couldn't get around using them (again good design). Then I realized that the fleas were only killed when they were without shelter and a destroyed house didn't decrease your score if you rebuilt before the hands came again. At this point, the game came to life for me and I managed to finish it after a few more tries.

My biggest complaint would have to be the music which was quite jarring from the beginning, and didn't get any friendlier. I understand you may have wanted to go for a strange, insecty vibe and it might have worked better if the music wasn't so repetitive. Definitely could use some more polishing.

A minor issue was with the placement of the hands. I found no sense in going up and down since the hand would hit me whenever I was in the same x-coordinate. Going up and down didn't add any value in the building of houses, so I would have preferred if the hands came down at different y-coordinates, indicated by a shadow and then could only hit you when you were in the same position as the shadow. Also they shouldn't kill you when you run into them from the side, especially while they are going up again.

A tiny thing about the animation, which was pretty good, but I think it would have worked better if the hands didn't animate while reaching (or maybe just change one frame about halfway), but then they would scratch exactly once when they reached their destination. It seemed pretty random the way you did it and the other way may give it a more visceral, threatening feel instead of a comic one. I think this would give the game a lot more character without having to draw any additional frames.

When it comes to controls, I would strongly advise against using the Z-key for an international game because some folks have different key positions (Germany for instance). You can circumvent this by choosing keys that are the same for most players or set actions to more than one key (Z and Y for instance). Personally, I found the hiding mechanic a bit superfluous, as for me, the game didn't gain anything and I had to keep track of yet another key that I didn't end up using.

Overall I enjoyed playing the game, despite some flaws and I think its main strength is the fact that it made me come back for round after round long after a less well paced game would have had me quit. Great job!

Saucy McMassive vs The Universe by saucygames 2017-05-11T18:28:37Z ♥ 0

I came here because of the art, which is outstanding. A shame really that you didn't manage to put all assets in the game but at least you added them as a gallery. I love the idea of the cool ice planet.

Music is simple and effective, but the sound effects could use a little more oomph. Also you could add a lot to your game by adding some simple effects like screenshake, especially when you slam into the planet.

Overall, I found the game a bit on the easy side and what difficulty there was, was mainly due to some control flaws, which I would identify as the area that needs more work. First of all, I think the control scheme should be simplified. I didn't use the slow down function and I didn't miss it at all, since you can achieve the same effect by just pushing in the opposite direction you're moving in. Using mouse and keyboard in tandem can work in general, but I felt your keyboard responsiveness a bit lacking (I think you identified that as a bug already). After slamming into the planet, my asteroid is uncontrollable for a moment, which really takes away from the otherwise quite arcadey feel of your game. I think what might have worked better here would have been to invert the acceleration direction at the moment of impact, catapulting the players away from the planet. Definitely give them control over the character at all times.

In order to make the slam attack less cheap, you could have required a minimum speed for making damage and maybe deal damage to your asteroid if you are below that speed. What it boils down to game design wise is that there is little risk-reward balancing, so I can just carelessly throw myself at the planet without a second thought. I know these things are tough to tune, but I think your game will benefit a lot from some more work in that area.

Overall I think you are on the right path. I honestly wonder why you only have so few comments with graphics like those.

Our little island by tinyworlds 2017-05-11T17:04:46Z ♥ 1

Adorable game with an awesome backdrop and fitting atmospheric music. The character moves a bit slowly but it's still fitting to the relaxed atmosphere. Game direction was pretty clear from the beginning so I knew what to do. I wasn't sure whether feeding your mate made any difference though, I assumed without food s/he stops fishing.

My only complaint would be that the game is pretty short. I would have loved to see more of that scenery.

One note: I was able to download the game via the itch.io app, so I assume you marked it as Windows-compatible. However it doesn't play from the app. It plays fine from the website, but I thought you might want to know.

Edit: I recalled one thing, though: Having different keys for pick up and drop didn't really serve a purpose as you can't drop when you don't have anything and can't pick up stuff if you have something, so I think one key would have been more practical. Also having WASD for movement and then having the action keys on the left side of the keyboard as well (for US keyboards) is a bit unwieldy.

Troll Castle by berkano 2017-05-08T20:47:46Z ♥ 1

Despite the game feeling pretty raw, it was a fun little experience. I think the music and dialog was quite nice and I love the sound effects the trolls make.

For the introduction, a wall of text is a sure-fire way to scare away players, I think it would better to introduce the mechanics bit by bit. You could have shown the key for mining or growing mushrooms whenever the player was on top of a square that allowed action. You had a dialog system already, which could have aided you in showing what the game was about bit by bit.

Although the game could use some more work I think you did very well in the audio and humor department, especially since many games rely on bfxr sounds, so yours stands out in that respect.

Incidental Dimension by wildmusketeer 2017-05-08T20:29:21Z ♥ 0

That was delightfully weird. I don't know whether the boxes moved at a different speed to the terrain on purpose but it made for a pretty trippy effect. I loved how you made a world that is actually smaller than its contents.

Unfortunately the controls were a bit fiddly and sometimes it wasn't entirely clear what I was supposed to do. At one point I found a glitch that allowed me to push a box right through the outside wall, so I was able to skip all remaining puzzles and go straight to the end.

I chuckled at the flavor text in the beginning. Well done!

CHEM TRIALS by Hegemege 2017-05-08T20:20:01Z ♥ 1

A very good looking low-poly game. Unfortunately there was no music but the sound effects were pretty nice. I played it to the end. Are those levels randomly generated? Because I felt sometimes the boxes were a bit too close to the mountains to pick them up. All in all very solid entry.

World Destroyer by Move127 2017-05-08T20:07:48Z ♥ 0

I very much liked the concept of having to be careful with your bullets because every shot could come back to haunt you. That instantly clicked with me. Unfortunately you didn't expand on this idea and went in a different direction, keeping the revolving bullets as an afterthought instead of the central design idea.

What you created was fun to play anyway. I got to level 13 and appreciated that you added trophies. That hive on the pedestal really tested my patience until I had to give up. It felt unfair, because there was no indication about when there would be an enemy coming out of the hive, so it was more a matter of luck. What didn't help was that the keyboard layout wasn't at all pleasant to use. I prefer my keys next to each other, not all over the place. You could have gotten rid of the beam-me-up key, as that didn't add much to the game, but required the player to keep track of another key.

What I really liked was that the game reset you instantly (like Super Meat Boy and Hotline Miami do). For games where it's all about quick reflexes, that's great way of keeping the player motivated. Another are special effects like screenshake, which would have worked great with your entry.

All in all it's a solid entry with a very good premise, which I think deserves a second approach *revolving* (hurr hurr) around the theme of "don't shoot yourself in the foot".

Bug Attack! by Gurbx 2017-05-08T19:37:44Z ♥ 1

Cool stationary defense game. I liked what you did with the setting. Made it to wave 15.

I think your game could have benefited a lot from a more visceral feel. Everything was so tiny that it was hard to get the impression of a real battle, which is difficult to pull off I think. What could have helped may have been some additional balancing. Maybe make all your attackers stronger and spawn more weaker enemies from the beginning. Give the player the feeling they are creating a powerful army right from the start. Taking a cue from Tower Defense games, maybe allow the troops to get upgrades, possibly one upgrade that affects every single unit, e.g. by building a special building that can also be destroyed and thus needs to be protected at all costs, which would require repairable buildings and so on.

I love this video on game feel, I post it everywhere, and your game is a good candidate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Technically, one thing I found a bit strange was that there was no minimum distance between buildings so I put them all down at the same place until I wasn't able to find my barracks anymore :(

All in all a solid entry that deserves to be expanded upon.

The Spoiled Prince by silkworm_sweatshop 2017-05-08T19:11:08Z ♥ 1

Your game looks and sounds fantastic. The music is really good, and presentation wise the game is top notch.

There were some minor problems though. Controller support did not work at all, and unfortunately the keyboard mappings were not really intuitive for me. A reaction based game should not use the space bar because it's harder to push. Also using J and space was only comfortable to reach if I used the thumb for pressing space which was a bit awkward. The other issue may be due to my 16:10 screen, and caused the help text to be cut off halfway so I had to guess what the buttons were.

I enjoyed the game mechanics in general but the execution was a bit lacking in some respects. The maggot prince often didn't go where he was supposed to and those damn chickens made the whole ordeal a bit frustrating. I gave up at the stage with two platforms on top of each other with a chicken right next to them. I generally like difficult games, and yours certainly is, but a tough game need to get its controls perfect.

In summary, the game is really pretty and the soundtrack among the strongest I have seen so far, unfortunately the mechanics could use a little polishing. All in all you did a great job!

6 degrees of separation by Shivur 2017-05-08T18:48:07Z ♥ 0

Hey, would you mind marking your game as a Windows download on itch.io? That way, people with the itch.io client can download it (it will be blocked otherwise).

D4RK and the Small Worlds by abhimonk 2017-05-07T19:51:34Z ♥ 1

Wow, awesome game! I love chiptune music and yours is perfect, especially that boss theme. Did you use Fasttracker or something similar?

I found the graphics a bit inconsistent between awesome pixel art on the one hand and sketchy mixed resolutions on the other hand. The fact that the terrain sometimes was a single pixel off (not game resolution but screen resolution), is a huge no-go for me. That being said, I found the animations to be outstanding! The attack and dash animations were awesome, especially for a low-res two color game like yours.

The earth trailing you, rotating beautifully was another cool idea, although I wish there would have been more of a chemistry between the two characters with some snide remarks and quibbling. While I really enjoyed the unique and fresh backstory with its plot twist at the end, I didn't much care for the humor, which was a bit repetitive, except the very cool joke in the end which actually made me laugh out loud.

Control-wise my experience is that an arcady game like yours should never assign up to jump. If you didn't want attack, jump and dash tied to the left hand, I think down for dash would have been more acceptable than up for jump. Also down for continuing the text didn't work for me. Attack would have felt much more natural for that.

The difficulty ramp-up was very good, with some more challenges towards the end, like the elevator and the really tough and rewarding boss fight. I think the game could have done without perma-death enemies on continue, which took the challenge out too much. For the boss, I think it would have been a bit fairer if the bombs didn't sometimes appear behind it (black on black), which sometimes caused you to jump right into them when you attacked the boss. After learning the patterns it was a manageable fight that rewarded observation and perseverance. Did I say I loved the boss's soundtrack?

So all in all I found it to be an awesome experience with some minor flaws and overall one of the best games of all 45 games I have rated so far.

One Push Man by harusame 2017-05-07T19:18:11Z ♥ 1

Pretty good, beautiful game. 42 was my max score, could probably be better.

Graphics and basic idea are the game's strong suit. Looking at a picture or video of the game wants me to try it out right away.

Some points for improvement: I felt the collision with the edge was a tiny bit too early, I often had the feeling that the drop was unfair measured at where I was on screen. I also found my ability to push a blob to a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I was able to shovel them across the room like a champ, other times they offered more resistance. But it wasn't clear to me why that was. It may be linked to different colors but I didn't get the difference. Maybe a clearer cue, like size or different sounds would help understand better what effects the player's actions have.

About the items: I didn't really feel the difference between the hammer and the shovel. I felt like the hammer should be more powerful, but it didn't feel that way in the game. Some risk/reward balancing might do wonders in that respect, like using a powerful weapon really slows you down or increases your inertia, thus increasing the danger of uncontrollably falling off a cliff. The potion and the feather didn't feel like valuable additions to the game. I didn't have the feeling the potion made me much harder to push, and the increased speed of the feather didn't help pushing enemies at all.

All in all I think you made a pretty good game that could be super fun and addictive with a few tweaks.

Rocket Roller Space Polo by pkenney 2017-05-07T18:57:39Z ♥ 1

Definitely one of the coolest Compo entries I have played (of over 40 titles so far). Everything just works. The levels of challenge, the design of the terrain, the balancing of skill vs. luck, the way you have to make gravity work in your favor.

It even has a sort of implicit home run-like special move where you can make the ball orbit the planet and score 2-3 points without the robots having any chance to counter. The terrain, despite seeming arbitrary at first, plays a big role in the awesomeness of the game, having long shallow streaks as well as ridges that stop a freewheeling ball.

I managed to finish with two robots but got my butt handed to me with 4. The game kept me motivated throughout and I had a strong feeling of "just one more round" going when I lost against the 4 robots.

On the downside, there is no music (the only reason I'm not giving 5 stars) and I found the jetpack somewhat superfluous (or I didn't manage to use it well), probably because I didn't realize that it exists before I had a replay just now. A minor nitpick that is easy to figure out but could be explained a bit better is that when you start the game for the first time you don't clearly see from which direction you need to pass the line. So I gave away the first point to the robots.

So all in all there is really not much to not like, I'll definitely keep this one.

World on the Tip of a Ballpoint Pen by HacksawUnit 2017-05-07T18:46:57Z ♥ 2

I'm very impressed, your design is really special. I came across your game during the Compo when you posted a picture of the map and since then I wanted to play the game, because I found the world really appealing just from the title and that single picture. When the game was finished I looked at a screenshot and was taken aback, because everything looked like a pixelated mess. Only when I actually played the game, was the initial interest renewed, as the world oozes charm and atmosphere, especially for such a low-res title. The mystery in not knowing what the game and world is all about, the choice of undecipherable gibberish added to that effect.

My only real complaint would be that it's so short, which is a damn shame because the map foreshadows more to see and to reveal. That and maybe some more music would have been nice. The ending fits a game with this unusual presentation very well.

I can only assume that the length of the game was due to a lack of time, since I didn't see too much of the ballpoint pen concept realized in the game itself, or maybe I'm just too dense to see the metaphore here. Is the black cloud following us the ink? Do we have to resucitate a failing pen? Is the character's death somewhat symbolic for the short-livedness of utensils like that? I don't know, but I would have loved to see this expanded.

All in all I think the idea and the art design would make it a perfect fit for a game offered on itch.io, possibly even a paid title. Just expand on the concept (if you do, drop me a line, I would play it). A problem with this concrete example of a game is that it's hard to present in a still image, since as I said, it looks like a mess unless you actually dive into the world. So if you should decide to expand and publish, it might be a good idea to present it in animated form.

Great job overall!

Ghostscaling by STUDIOCRAFTapps Developpement 2017-05-06T13:16:25Z ♥ 5

I read your post on the front page where you asked for input. I'm going to give you some feedback on the post-compo version. I'm not going to rate that version obviously. This is only to give you some ideas on where to improve

First of all, I think you had a very solid idea with your game, using the two modes as ghost and rock works fairly well as a puzzle mechanic and zooming the environment was a really neat idea.

The graphics are nice, however personally I prefer true pixel sizes over mixed-pixel sizes. What I mean by that is that you should choose a game resolution (e.g.640x480) and everything on screen must fit into that resolution. You can still scale up objects by integer factors (2x, 3x), but they cannot be smaller than your game resolution allows. As an example, look at the visual effects when the stone blows out air. The pixel size of that effect is really low, and much lower than your character's pixel size, which gives it an inconsistent design.

I really liked the ghost animation. You can give it some more personality by creating a 3-frame idle animation that keeps playing whenever the ghost doesn't move.

Your camera motion is quite nice. I noticed that you precede the motions of the ghost, which is cool. However you should fix the camera wiggle you get when hitting a wall and when you change direction. Try a more inert camera that can only move a maximum distance each frame. Also when you scale, the step size is too steep. Lerp the scaling between your current and the new size, that way it will feel much smoother. The sound you play while scaling was too long, it can't be longer than the scaling actually takes and should probably be much shorter than that. Definitely so short that it doesn't sound choppy when you scale multiple times quickly.

Your terrain collision detection needs some work. When in stone form, I was able to move through certain blocks and got stuck in others.

Background music is missing, so maybe play around with some spherical music, or maybe go with some ambient sounds. [Agaric Abyss](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/agaric-abyss) created some nice wind sounds in bfxr for example. That could be an alternative if you don't feel confident composing. The music you do have isn't too bad but a bit too loud which can seem jarring.

When introducing your game mechanics, never ever confront the player with a wall of text. You could have achieved the same thing with under 30 words if you just clicked together an image containing your assets, some arrows and a few pieces of text. Players are not stupid and have likely played games before. The brain can pick up these image overviews very quickly, but reading a long instruction manual is really boring. I only skimmed the text and totally missed that the mouse wheel plays an important part in the game.

The thought bubbles were for the most part superfluous. Again, people are not stupid. When they see a red wall with something interesting behind it, they assume they have to get past the wall. When there's a red switch later on, they'll figure out how it works. Some of the fire monster had a thought bubble which appeared to indicate that you have to kill them and not the others. This is totally confusing. Get rid of the thought bubble and give the invincible monsters different graphics, best design a completely different monster/turret for that so the player can distinguish them from the soul-giving foes.

Personally I would have preferred to have lives in the game. That way you can make the experience more challenging without being too frustrating by getting insta-killed.

Finally I had trouble finishing the first level. I didn't figure out how to turn back into a ghost. I assume the stone form locks the scaling, so I didn't fit into narrow spaces afterwards and since I couldn't turn back into a ghost, I was stuck. The first level requires 3 souls, but I was only able to find 2 of them. Maybe this was due to the scaling, maybe they could have been more visible, maybe I was just frustrated.

Mouse and Blade by superpokeunicorn 2017-05-05T21:57:10Z ♥ 2

Wow that game is much harder than it looks. The graphics are absolutely adorable. I also liked the level design, sometimes dangling a checkpoint in front of the player's nose just out of reach.

The music was very good, but unfortunately it was so short that it outstayed its welcome a bit.

On the technical side, I think the hit animation should have been a bit faster and interruptible. I made the same mistake with my LD37 entry. I think for this sort of attack mechanic it is important that the player can push the buttons at a steady, fast beat and the game does not miss a single one. Otherwise the attack doesn't feel responsive enough.

I made it all the way through, but it was a challenge. Great job overall!

Edit: One more comment: I'm playing on a German keyboard, which has Z and Y exchanged. Maybe S and D for attack and jump would work better internationally.

Edit2: After reading @pkenney's comment, I may have been mistaken and the controls were done that way on purpose and I just wasn't getting into the spirit of the game. So if you were deliberate in your choice of controls, ignore what I wrote :)

World en abyme by lepatryckduffy 2017-05-05T21:19:32Z ♥ 1

I love the level in the ball idea, very cool! The graphics were very nice. If I had to change one thing in that department, that would be getting rid of the overzoom and instead zoom directly to the target size of the level. In general the level design was very good with a nice difficulty ramp-up to keep things interesting.

Unfortunately I lost patience in the first dark level because I found the collision detection to be a bit imprecise. Either that or I sucked too much. I think the game would have benefited from tighter definition of when the ball touched a forbidden surface or not. If it rolled slowly, I had the feeling that it counted as a hit before the ball made contact, but if it moved quickly it would pass halfway through the lava before registering as a hit. The physics were a bit frustrating at times as the ball would sometimes bounce back directly into an obstacle much more than I expected, but that could also be explained by me being bad at the game.

Overall a very likeable entry that would have been even better with some atmospheric music.

Leafcutters by gimbalock 2017-05-05T20:22:28Z ♥ 4

Man, a simple game like yours should have no right to keep me at it for an hour:

ants.png

And no, I wasn't running it on auto-pilot.

Even if it weren't for my strange affection towards watching numbers go up, I commend you for creating a unique little game that stands out from the rest. It's a real shame that you ran out of time for giving it a real objective, more things to do and most of all, a challenge.

Although the ants looked a bit scribbled, I overall really liked the aesthetic of the game. It's what drew me in initially. I also very much enjoyed your core mechanics that contained some biology research instead of "red ant", "blue ant".

Unfortunately there was no sound at all, which would have contributed nicely to the game.

I would love to see you continue from where you are now. You probably know that ants build intricate hives with special sections that are much more complicated than the little buggers let on, with a micro climate for optimal fungus growth and ventilation shafts. If you managed to pour this complicated dance into an algorithm that creates a realistic anthill from scratch, that would be a sight to see. A scrollable screen to see what you gatherers are up to, with the occasional trapped bug or discovered rodent cadaver to pick apart could keep things interesting. And of course fending off attackers, either as a minigame or just in simulation mode.

So much to do, so little time.

Anyway great job on your first Ludum Dare, keep it up and see you next time!

PS: While I wrote these lines, the anthill grew to 233 cm and has now over 10.000 inhabitants. I guess I'll just keep it running for a little longer.

The Czar, the Demons and the delicious Midnight Snack by Dagegen 2017-05-05T19:13:17Z ♥ 1

I like the concept of tying rockets to a planet in order to escape annihilation. I think you are on the right path with your game mechanics, especially the way you force the player to keep moving because they can't see the pentagram showing up if they stand still.

The graphics were nice, I especially liked the clouds on the planet, and the tentacle animation. Presentation-wise I think the game could be easily improved by adding some visual effects, most notably screenshake. I always hand out this video at times like this because it's great place to start learning to give your game a more visceral feeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

I think your game could use some tweaking of the difficulty ramp up. I played for about two minutes and did feel that the game became harder over time, and it has rudiments of the "just one more round" feeling that's important for your genre, but I think you need to make the experience a bit tighter. Visual effects can help with that, good crunchy sound effects are another way of achieving that goal. But the most important piece I think is to make each death feel self-inflicted instead of random.

I really appreciate you took the effort of making an intro. That's a nice way of easing the player into the game. A Trump joke is always good for a chuckle, but personally I prefer a bit more depth when it comes to humour.

Unfortunately the music did nothing for me. It just seemed like random notes.

Overall I think the game, while simple, was quite nice to play and could become really addictive if you keep polishing some more.

Calor by stevenjmiller 2017-05-04T20:28:22Z ♥ 2

I truly marveled at the scope of your game. A neat intro sequence, then a fairly complex simulation and I thought man, that's quite a lot of content! And then you go and slap combat on it for good measure.

The mechanics of the sim and the combat felt really fresh and interesting. The graphics are pleasant and convey well what's going on. The intro sequence was cute and added a lot of character to your game.

That being said, I wasn't really able to figure out how to actually achieve something, so I went and built some stuff in different sectors and tried to keep them in the sunlight, but I didn't really feel I was working towards something, or trying to evade some pending doom. Then came a fight and I had totally forgotten details of the combat mechanics. I had to connect to a red node for attack and to a blue one for defense, and I could optionally pick up these other nodes on the way but didn't remember what they were good for.

I should note that I'm not really a simulation buff, so from my naive perspective it was all a bit tough to optimize both the sim and the combat.

Against the consensus here I actually enjoyed the tutorial, although I agree that it was a bit too long to keep all the aspects in my head. It may not be perfect, but you actually went through the trouble of making a tutorial, instead of slapping on a wall of text explaining what to do as many other games around here do.

I have to say that the music is a weak point for me. I don't know whether you composed it or used a tool like Wolfram, but it sounds like random notes without much of a musical structure. It kinda worked for [Carefulzilla](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/carefulzilla/) because it's a wacky game, but if time as an issue, I think I may have preferred some spherical, drawn out notes using a pad instrument to create auditory atmosphere.

So although it's not my cup of tea genre-wise, I still appreciate all the effort that went into the game. Definitely an innovative concept that very well deserves to be expanded on. Impressive game!

Destroy The Dome by SvartTand 2017-05-04T19:49:39Z ♥ 4

I quite enjoyed your entry. The graphics are definitely your strong suit. The nuke animation was really great! I also liked the monster design, although I don't quite grasp why you chose snails and then made them the fastest monster of the game. Must the radiation I guess.

On the flipside, I think the game could do with quite a bit of balancing. I found that all weapons except the rocks (1) and the grenades (2) were basically useless since switching between the two worked so well and their reload times were really low. Speaking of which, I think the game would have benefited tremendously from having individual reload times for each weapon. The game would become a lot more fun instantly. As it is, the awesome nuke is not really usable because you are pretty much stuck for a few seconds after using it, which deadly towards the end when the nuke would have been its most effective.

I think fullscreen would have been important as it would have prevented the game from losing focus all the time when clicking outside the boundary of the window. That happened a lot, especially since I had to drop the grenades from the top of the screen and often found myself frantically dropping some rocks on approaching monsters at the very edges of the screen.

The difficulty ramp up worked quite nicely for me until the very end when it was a matter of luck to find the sweet spot of not fighting the monsters anymore but spamming grenades at the dome on a race to see who loses first. That part could have been improved.

Overall a very nice entry that could greatly benefit from a little polish. Great job!

Blackhole Escape INC by teekeks 2017-05-04T19:18:38Z ♥ 1

The game looks really nice, props to you for going through all the pain of making a custom engine. It took me a while to figure out how to play it though. Unfortunately I ran into some trouble. For instance, the turrets wouldn't attack the monsters (I figured they were supposed to). I had no sound whatsoever, but I read in the comments that there was supposed to be sound, so there was something off.

It's a pity really that I wasn't able to defend myself properly, as I had the feeling that from the moment I grasped the concept of the game I would have loved to finish it, as I think the general idea of starting with only a little and building/expanding from there was very well executed which motivated me to stick with it. The inventory shows what you need in order to beat the game and it created some anticipation of reaching that goal. The eerie atmosphere contributed to that, pity that I didn't have sound. The crafting system was well-conceived and geared towards base building and exploration.

Now that being said, I see some areas for improvement that I would like to expand on.

First, the game starts with an info dump, which is quite off-putting, especially in a game jam where people are playing a lot of games in a short amount of time. It would probably have been better to chop up the info into smaller bites and present them to the player piece by piece. There, I would suggest handing out the backstory first, to create interest, then explain the controls.

Even better for explaining how the game works would be to create an overlay to show what to do inside the game world with arrows indicating points of interest, something like "place mine here". You can also explain things implicitly using the game mechanics, for instance, by allowing to place a building that needs energy only when there's a generator nearby and giving some information what is missing.

The inventory as major part of the game mechanics should have been explained more clearly, which also goes for how the mines just dump their produce into the inventory. Here I would have preferred to pick up the stuff, as it gives the player an additional activity to keep the game interesting.

I wasn't a big fan of the controls, I think WASD and mouse would have worked better and offered tighter control over the action. Also I think you need some indicator when something was hit, and probably knockback and invincibility frames for the player.

Finally, I found a bug where you could place a building on the player's position which made him get stuck.

Overall a very promising game that I could see myself replaying should you decide to keep working at it.

House Escape by Piotrek 2017-05-04T18:41:29Z ♥ 1

I really like minimalist graphics and I think you pulled off the visuals very well. I just wish the game was longer, with different environments. Music would have been nice to enhance the atmosphere. I reall liked the idea with the scaling text.

Matching the theme was a bit of a stretch, though. I think it would have worked better last LD.

Unfortunately I found the game to be a bit buggy, as I was able to pick up everything more than once even if the item wasn't on screen anymore. When I used the coin or ball with the washing machine it flew across the room and rolled on the floor, which was very confusing. But since I was able to pick up all the items again, I was able to solve on the second attempt.

Overall I think it's a solid idea with a somewhat shaky execution. At its core, I think you're on to something, so with some additional polish, some music and a more fleshed out story it could become quite great.

Edit: Despite what I wrote above, I would agree with @blacksheepza that the execution of the scaling text was indeed a bit jarring, but to me that was because of two things: First, the scaling was too strong, so the text changed from very large to very small quickly, which is straining on the eyes. Second, I think the scaling was not smooth enough. I assume you scaled based on length, with length being the number of letters. Since there are wider and narrower letters you get a jaggy transition. Adding some lerping might help. The effect itself was fine I think, but since text holds a lot of information, you have to make sure it's pleasant for the eyes to follow.

The Adventure of Malvin by Tyler 2017-05-03T20:01:44Z ♥ 3

Lovely little game! I adore the graphics, and you pulled off a whole bunch of game mechanics very nicely. Great job on the level progression! The way the player learns that slide can knock out enemies or that you need to run in order to jump far are very well thought out. I also enjoyed how you built tension by first traveling to the anthill and then enter it for a change of atmosphere. Nice nod to Mario Bros on the boss, I also liked the way you introduced it with some heavy screenshake when the game was very toned down on the special effects before that. Gives the sudden shake all the more impact.

The music is good, albeit a bit repetitive, and for my taste you should really consider creating a closed loop. This very nice talk gives some insight on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WoepccKGSI

The section about loops is at the 19:00 mark.

With respect to the controls, I think the wall-jump could have been a bit tighter, I kept sliding off a lot.

As for gameplay in general, not much to criticize, as I said above, but one thing put me off a bit, and that is your design choice of lives and checkpoints. So hitting an enemy reduces a life, but falling down a hole doesn't, that's a bit inconsistent but nothing I haven't seen before. Now falling into a hole resets you to the last checkpoint with the current amount of lives left, but losing the lives resets you to the start of the game? That was a bit confusing. The classic approach would have worked better I think: Fall in a hole and be reset in front of the hole with one life lost, hit by an enemy loses one life. All lives lost resets you to the last checkpoint.

All in all it was a very atmospheric little game that I enjoyed to play despite minor nitpicks.

Rock my Ship by Hethsin 2017-05-03T19:01:44Z ♥ 3

That was a really weird experience for me. On the one hand the game feels very raw, with no audio whatsoever and a few game-breaking bugs. On the other hand I couldn't put it down although I failed to build the ship to completion for over half an hour (I got to twelve metal parts, how many do you need?). I think your game is a diamond in the rough.

I love what you did with the deformable terrain. It was a very clever trick building the planet from circles and removing each one on impact. The graphics were low-res, but very fitting in a retro way. The missing music is regrettable but missing sound effects is a crime for this genre. I liked the planet changing color each round. I also liked the core mechanics, balancing the need for stones against the planet's health. I feel that one could have been explored a bit more.

About the bugs: I was able to shoot my ship into space with a rock. Not only was that frustrating, but it also broke the game, because the guy didn't want to build a new one after that. The other bug occurs when the ship is hit by an asteroid while the guy is building it. If that happens, the poor guy never finishes his building animation and gets stuck. A minor issue was that I had to get really close to the ship in order to upgrade it. Also the clickable area for the menu items was shifted a bit, so it took me a bit to figure out where to press the buttons.

Now, I hope you don't mind if I shoot some possible improvements your way \*cracks knuckles\*.

First, I would suggest you head over to bfxr and create some cheap explosions for the asteroid impact, that should take about 30 seconds. Next, add some screenshake, and while at it take some more advice from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U.

With these two changes you will already notice a world of difference.

Now, personally I would tweak the mechanics a bit. Having the throwing stones interact with the ship doesn't add anything to the game so I'd get rid of it. I would increase gravity a little for the guy, the metal parts and the ship, so everything responds a bit faster when upset. I feel a round of the game is too long for dying in one hit, so maybe add some lives. Maybe make the guy a bit faster. While at it, why not make everything a bit faster, have more asteroids appear at the same time, while making the planet a bit more sturdy. Don't destroy the ship immediately but have the asteroids take away the last upgrade.

I know that the changes in the last paragraph will totally change the feel of the game, so please only understand it as a place to start exploring different mechanics and see what works and what doesn't. I would really be interested in replaying the game should you decide to keep working on it. So drop me a line in case you're doing a post-Compo version.

My world by Erkberg 2017-05-02T20:51:11Z ♥ 4

At first I considered giving up because the controls were really tough. The dash almost always slung me into the water. Then I realized there was some story to the game and I stuck with it. Good decision, because I found the game to be very likeable.

The graphics and music create a really nice atmosphere that works well with the story you are telling.

Let me go into a bit more detail about the mechanics. Purely gameplay-wise I think the game could use a bit more tweaking. The dash's acceleration was really strong which resulted in immediate death if you don't hit the opponent. Maybe reducing it a bit may work better.

About the water threshold, I think I would have preferred if you don't die right away once you touch the water. Allowing the player to enter shallow water and struggle their way back to land would probably alleviate a bit of the frustration caused by dashing just a little too far.

Conceptually, I found it a bit ironic that the best course of action was actually avoiding the enemies until they run into the water instead of attacking them, which sort of breaks the moral of the game. Also since they are quite aggressive from the get-go, the final message falls flat a bit. I think the game would have benefited greatly from a bit more consistence with the theme here, e.g. by making the enemies passive at first and appeal to the players gaming reflexes to attack, then moving on to a more aggressive stance.

All in all it was a game with more depth than anticipated. I really appreciate that you took the effort to tell a little story here. Great job!

Agaric Abyss by chris-delta 2017-05-02T19:58:36Z ♥ 1

I love what you attempted to do and it looks really promising, but for me, the controls were not very approachable. Even after reading up on the different things you could do, it was tricky to get it right. Having to 'hold' the left mouse button to transport water was not mentioned anywhere and even after I figured it out, I had trouble getting the water infused. I managed to grow one mushroom but then gave up.

I think with complex controls like these, it is important to have an organic level design that introduces mechanics bit by bit. It's probably a lot to ask for in a game made in 48 hours, especially after you put a lot of effort into the mood.

The game looks and sounds fantastic and creates this very dense atmosphere. I have to ask: How did you produce the wind sound? Did you tune a synth until you got it right? It can't be a real recording. Very well done. I also loved the water effects.

I think if you polish the controls and level design, a post-jam version of the game could become really great.

Doodles by Lazzor 2017-05-02T19:45:39Z ♥ 2

I absolutely love the notebook aesthetics complete with scribbles on the paper. The transition animation was really great as well. My version didn't have any audio, I would have loved to hear some rustling paper or scratching of a pen for sound effects, and also music as well.

My biggest complaint would have to be the controls themselves. First of all I think it's consensus that the up-key is never a good idea for jumping. Instead using one hand for motion and one for action is generally preferred. Controlling the character feels a bit twiddly, for instance since you have to wait for a second after landing to jump again which often caused me to run into spikes or miss jumps. The physics need a little tweaking as well, especially on the last level where the boulders drop down but hiccup on the diagonal and just stay there.

The level design was well thought out, but I fell there could have been a little more as the more interesting levels that require actual through only come up towards the end.

All in all I had fun and the graphics reminded me of drawing trap-filled dungeons on squared paper in my childhood days.

Carefulzilla by glimaleite 2017-05-02T19:00:49Z ♥ 0

Am I doing it right?

carefulzilla.png

No, but really, instant favorite, my first 5-star rating of LD38. Tremendous job making a game that is both fun to play, funny, challenging and addictive.

There are some graphics glitches if you move carelessly, especially if you try to kick the indestructible buildings (looks like I broke its toes). On the upside, kudos for getting the toe animation just right. The way Carefulzilla is tiptoing around obstacles and very carefully placing his foot is hilarious.

Orbitunes by ColeSlaughter 2017-05-02T18:52:40Z ♥ 0

Sorry, I messed up. I put the review to a different game here. I'll play yours in a minute.

Dwelling by tcstyle 2017-05-02T18:40:24Z ♥ 2

The atmosphere you create is really special. It's a melancholy game about life and death portrayed through the eyes of a dog and its ability to be reborn to reach the heavens. Really good stuff. Graphics and music tie it all together really well. The short texts of the other dogs give the game even more character.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish the game. I reached the top after sacrificing two lives to get the maximum jump height, but then it told me I was too heavy to stay in heaven. Not sure what to do. I tried shedding more tears in order to maybe get lighter, but since I also lose jump height that way, I don't seem to be able to reach the sky like that. Also the plants on top die off faster than I can regrow them, which made me give up feeling frustrated a bit.

When it comes to room for improvement, I would say the watering, eating and withering mechanics could use some tweaking. Maybe I was just not good enough, but I felt that part was a bit unbalanced. Giving better visual indicators that help guide the player while at the same time integrating well with the aesthetics as not to break them is probably a tough nut to crack but I feel the game would benefit from a little more work in that direction.

All in all a very charming entry with some unique mechanics. Great job!

The World At Your Feet by Geared Games 2017-05-01T21:24:56Z ♥ 1

Pretty cool and fresh concept. I made it to 7,58m. Keeps you coming back for more and try out different strategies in order to get higher.

Graphics and music are adequate (nice Mega Man paintover) ;)

I would have preferred some more control though, maybe the option to slow down or speed up the rotation by pressing left and right might have helped a lot in making the game a bit tighter.

Also I think it may have been nice to use two different keys for jumping and dropping items, as often when I wanted to jump from a building to reach a higher place, the guy dropped another house.

I wonder why the game is 30 MB though. Did you pack some debug stuff into the exe?

Pretty neat that you made a post-jam Android version.

Crumpets and Cannons by Temmy 2017-05-01T21:11:59Z ♥ 3

Awesome graphics and atmosphere. You pulled off the English Aristocracy theme so well and it's really fun to read (I tried a similar theme in my game but it doesn't show too much). The graphics are amazing (although I'm not a big fan of stretching pixel art), I just wish there was some music and sound effects.

In my opinion it would help the game a lot if you just skipped the intro (and especially the pre-game explanations) after death, it sort of takes away the motivation to try again.

Gameplay wise, I found the action to be a little too short and at the same time not quite tight enough. Since you apparently can't shoot down the enemy shots, your success depends largely on how well you hit the aliens and I found that to be a bit twiddly. Still managed to barely finish the game on the second try.

One minor bug: If you rotate the cannon to the far left, it will shoot to the right (while still pointing left).

Inner World by negativice 2017-05-01T20:57:55Z ♥ 4

Overall the idea of the inverted world is awesome and would be a good starting point for a fantasy story.

I really love how you actually recorded narration for your game. That's something I always wanted to do in my projects but never got around to. I also appreciate how the camera has some inertia. This makes the game feel very smooth.

Now on the downside, I think you know this, but the game is really short and you cannot die. Also the jumping mechanics don't seem to have a real purpose.

It seems like you ran out of time, which is unfortunate because I can totally see how this game could have become a neat little experience with a bit more fleshed out story and actual things to accomplish.

Maybe you can spend some more time on a post-compo version with more narration and adventures. I would revisit it. Tag me if you do.

Worlds Project by TheMonsterFromTheDeep 2017-05-01T20:47:49Z ♥ 1

Very nice idea of a sandbox game. I followed your updates a bit so I had some insight in your frustration of building a sandbox that was not much of a game initially.

You got the core mechanics down and everything works nicely and is inviting to play around with in order to see what happens.

Since sandbox games are not really my best genre, I may not be the best person to say this, but personally I would have liked some sort of goal, even if it was just a simple one. Maybe some sort of resource you need in order to change things. Starting from that, you could set up different worlds with different goals, like terraforming a volcanic hellscape or colonizing a micro-island nation. You have all the pieces in place to make this a fun "classic" game beyond what is currently possible in the sandbox.

Overall it's a very unique game that dares to try something new. I would love to see where you can take this concept.

Space Honey: The adventure of Little-Bee 🐝 by thiagowaw 2017-05-01T20:32:04Z ♥ 1

Man, I wish you'd had more time for polish.

I followed your game from your initial sketches and thought it was a very neat concept. Ultimately, I think the game would have benefited a lot from some way to zoom out to see the different planets, like in your sketches. The hive was a bit hard to find and the by minimizing the travel time between planets and hive, I think the game could be much more enjoyable.

I was very impressed by the pixel art. Seeing the hive for the first time was a really nice experience, which would have been perfect if you added some epic music on approach.

Finally, I wouldn't personally worry about changing the keys at this point. There is a certain leeway given about what constitutes a bug and what is the unallowed addition of features. Since the choice of keys significantly impacts the gameplay and it's really just a very minor change, I would assume that changing the keys should be no problem at this point. Maybe you can just add the W and S keys to the existing keys so it would be even less of a change.

All in all I think the game has a lot of potential. I would be interested in what you can do post-jam.

I Want To Explore by joekinglake 2017-05-01T11:00:48Z ♥ 2

Your game looks nice, I will play and rate it later.

Just a comment: Please mark the game as Windows-compatible on itch.io, otherwise it won't be playable from the itch client.

Near kingdoms by Hadik 2017-05-01T10:55:35Z ♥ 3

Nice game, I managed to finish in on Normal difficulty after I found out that just spamming woodchucks and horses while not worrying too much about my own castle works fairly well.

There is a minor bug where the "insufficient money" message pops up after you buy something that reduces to your funds to a very low amount, I would guess the "money available" check might be below the spending code at the moment.

Cellular Defense by Evannex 2017-05-01T10:38:55Z ♥ 3

Solid tower defense game. Took me a bit to figure out a good strategy but then I made it to wave 26 with just Splashers and Fasts at 100 health and 32.000 leukocytes left. Unfortunately from that point on the game waits 60 seconds between stages so I decided to leave it at that. Not sure if that is a bug though, maybe because I use fast forward a lot and the timer is not affected by that.

I found a bug when you use 2x and 3x speed up, in that case the towers hit the opponents much less frequently. I assume this is because when you speed up the positions of the shots change by a greater step size, so they skip the opponents' position more frequently. So whenever I am in danger of being overrun, I turn down the speed to 1x and immediately back up to 3x, but yeah, you may want to fix that.

I don't know whether there is an end to the levels as I quit at 26, but I feel the game could be improved by having shorter rounds, maybe by increasing the difficulty ramp up, but you said you ran out of time towards the end, so this kind of balancing probably fell victim to that.

Control-wise I would have preferred the tower placement to be inverted, i.e. select the tower type and then select the position, because that would have allowed the player to place multiple towers of the same type more quickly.

All in all I enjoy tower defense, and yours is a decent example of the genre. With a bit of polishing and improved graphics it could become really great.

Space Hummus by voxel 2017-05-01T09:43:39Z ♥ 1

I have to say, you are really talented when it comes to setting up a game and telling a story. The little comic in the beginning sets up the game tremendously well and the one at the end gives it proper closure. It was a very fun read.

The game's graphics are pretty good and fitting the comic vibe you set up in the beginning. The music is atmospheric and sets the mood well without becoming too repetitive. The sound effects are really cute. Did you record them yourself?

The game itself is a lot of fun and you managed to bring together a lot of different planet mechanics that keep the player entertained. Although there were frustrating bits, I never had the feeling that I wanted to quit the game before finishing it.

I very much appreciate that you can press Enter at any time to reset the level. It alleviates the frustration of failure by setting the player back into the game quickly (Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy do this very well)

My biggest (and to be fair only) complaint would be the gravity mechanics. It took a while to figure out how the game works and it is playable, but it is not very intuitive. The gravity changes opposite to the direction you jump off to, which makes gravity relative to your position which feels very unnatural. Also there is absolutely no gravitational pull of the other planets, so you can almost touch the next planet, but are still dragged down to where you come from.

It may be a matter of choice here, but it may have been worth exploring real gravitational mechanics. It might competely turn over your design, but it would have been more accessible.

That complaint aside, I had a great time playing Space Hummus.

Small Kingdoms by anarbitrarymustache 2017-05-01T09:15:14Z ♥ 0

I love the basic premise of having a very small-scale strategy game. Then taking that idea and turning it into a working game in two days is an intimidating task. So first of all, I think you did a very good job pulling it off. From the start, it feels inviting to play and has a lot of charm.

Unfortunately the AI is really weak (as you mentioned yourself), I wasn't even able to lose on purpose. I think writing a good AI is not easy, especially on such a limited time budget, but if I had any major complaint, it would be this.

Some more specific things I noticed:

- I played the game twice to the end and afterwards it gets stuck in a weird bug that allows you to use the level up button on the menu screen but not start the game again. - When the Orc has his turn, you see its level up button, which I found a bit confusing as I thought it was my own. I think it would be better to hide that button on the opponent's turn

Overall I think it's a solid game that could have been really special with some little additional polish, especially the AI.

SmlWhrld - A Puzzle by OldeTobeh 2017-05-01T08:36:22Z ♥ 0

I'll give the game a try later, just letting you know that you (probably by accident) put it in the Compo, but play by the Jam rules (multiple participants). Not sure whether you can switch at this point in time though.

Frag Saga by guoboism 2017-05-01T08:24:25Z ♥ 0

I love the idea of building your own level and using stepping stones to get to the goal. I like how your little character looks like he's going for some 2D-Counterstrike and then the game turns out to be more cerebral in nature.

The game itself could definitely benefit from some more polish, for instance, I got stuck in a block when I placed a room to save myself from falling. Also I would question whether you actually need mouse controls (maybe with the exception of placing rooms). The game's controls might feel tighter from keyboard-only controls when you steer the guy around the room.

I appreciate that you added music to the game, but I think it was a bit too playful for the general feeling of the game.

Overall a solid entry with a very unique idea that I could see outside of Ludum Dare if you gave it a few extra rounds of polish.

_Save_ by Jexel 2017-05-01T08:08:32Z ♥ 4

Very fun little game. The screenshake is very important and works in favor of the game. It would really come to life more if it had some music.

I really like the idea of not protecting your ship but a small world. I will go into a bit more detail about this mechanic because I think there is room for improvement.

First of all, your ship is basically invincible, which was a bit confusing at first. I think it is a good idea to not have two things that could die, but I think it might have worked better if there was some way of being punished for getting hit, like being propelled across the screen or not being able to fire for a few seconds.

Next you chose to counterweight the power of the special weapons by allowing them to harm the planet. While I appreciate the thought, I think the weapons are not useful enough for such a big disadvantage, especially the laser which can decrease the planet's life quickly. The weapons feel great and it's fun to use them but they feel impractical after a while.

Finally, have you thought about getting rid of the energy bar and instead show the planet's life implicitly, e.g. by reducing its size or having chunks blasted off it when it's hit? I think it would avoid the initial confusion that it's not your life bar but the planet's.

From a replayability perspective, I think the game's difficulty should ramp up a bit faster to get that "one more round!" feeling. Maybe introduce the weapons bit by bit instead of all at the same time. Maybe play around with the idea of having rounds instead of a single continuous level.

Overall I think it's a very solid game with a few flaws. I really like minimalistic games like this and the feel of the game is spot-on. My suggestions for improvement would be to tweak the mechanics a bit more.

Gaia by PowerSpark 2017-05-01T07:50:10Z ♥ 3

I absolutely love the atmosphere you create, especially taking it slowly in the beginning when you only show the planet and then introduce the title screen. The music is really good at contributing to the mood and presentation-wise there is not much to criticize, great job!

The ending was pretty good. I suppose you were aiming at a creation myth background and I think you pulled it off quite nicely, although it took me a while to realize there is actually something happening here.

Gameplay wise, I liked the mechanics, and you spend some effort in introducing them in an organic way, but it took me a while to figure out you were supposed to call back the clouds and use them as spring boards.

The puzzles were well-conceived, but for the difficulty you chose, I think the controls should have been tighter. This is actually my only real complaint. Sometimes was dragged up through platforms, and that little jump at the end of landing was a bit annoying. So it became a bit frustrating towards the end.

Overall a very solid entry. I had fun.

Krilgor by Sheepolution 2017-05-01T07:29:18Z ♥ 2

This is awesome! I didn't expect much and came for the Game Boy graphics but the game is actually really great. It's rare to find an actually funny entry on LD. What I especially liked was how you kick off the game by having the player find the main character. That part gets you right into the game's world.

The graphics work pretty well, especially that nasty tweezers animation when you squash something. Character design is fitting, especially the boss. The weak point here is the car that looks kind of generic.

Sound effects are really nice, but the game definitely lacks some music.

Gameplay-wise I have three things I would like to address:

First I was able to kill the guards before getting the task to do so which lead to a hiccup when I actually got there. An easy way to solve this would be to hide parts of the game that are not accessible yet by a blank screen.

Second, I think the game crashed when I defeated the boss. I couldn't move my character and he wasn't saying anything. I was able to use the tweezers but couldn't figure out what to do with them. I'll probably replay the game with my daughter, so we can check whether it works a second time.

Third, the boss fight itself. It would have been so much cooler if you could have put the car down away from the boss and see it run him over. I had to try a few times to actually get the crash right, so I was confused for a bit. But it was still clear what to do, so it's not a big deal.

Overall I enjoyed the game very much.

W.R.L.D. (World Reconnaissance eLite Defense) by TerraCottaFrog 2017-05-01T07:11:33Z ♥ 1

2300 points and certainly coming back for more.

It's immediately recognizable how much thought went into this game. From draining health to introduce a natural timing factor to the continue functionality that allows locking the difficulty. It has everything it needs, be it screenshake effects or even a highscore table to keep up the motivation. There are a lot of little touches, like the soft outer boundary and menu transitions. It's a very polished entry and I love it!

On the downside, I found the music to be kind of monotonous. I assume you wanted to go for a chilly atmospheric vibe, but it seems a bit repetitive. Maybe the base line is a bit too prominent.

Also I thought the controls were not quite tight enough, but that could be an "easy to learn, difficult to master" thing. Specifically since you can only thrust forwards, and the orbital cannons always fire at you head on, it's quite tricky to avoid them. Even if that is by choice, I think the momentum mechanics could use a little tweaking. I found myself struggling with picking up the extras because I had some sideways momentum left.

My biggest complaint however would be the lack of fullscreen, which to my mind, would not only have a positive visual effect, but might also help with the controls since a bigger screen allows for finer interaction.

Despite the complaints, I think it's a very fun game, and I'll keep it in my itch library for replay.

Mr-Vpn by tobia88 2017-04-24T09:53:22Z ♥ 1

Looks really cool! I bookmarked it and will give it a spin when the voting starts

RAINWATER (is free) by yuigoto 2017-01-03T01:52:00

Very nice entry! It's simple but very polished.
The music is great, the graphics cute. Controls are really smooth.

Like it a lot!

Claustrophobia by Obvious_San 2017-01-03T00:22:00

It's tough but good. Visuals and audio are really nice, the game is fun to play.

I wish the balancing was a bit better. I wasn't able to pass the stage where the shooty guys appeared and I tried different strategies. Getting the shotgun first and then upgrading fire rate seemed to work fairly well, but I got entangled in the dashers too often.

So my only complaint to an otherwise very well-done game would be these balancing issues. The dashers could use a smaller hitbox since it becomes frustratingly hard when they come at you at a specific angle and you can't do anything to evade them. Maybe the game might be better off without solid enemies that the player can pass. For me that would alleviate a lot of frustration.

Overall it's a really fun game though, one of the games I played longest this LD. It's really motivating to go "just another round".

Heroes of Okarine by jlcarruda 2017-01-02T23:43:00

I absolutely love the music! Also neat camera work and cool character design.

The different resolutions between characters and background were a bit jarring, maybe you could have simply doubled the character resolution. There was a lot of detail in the design that was hard to appreciate because everything was quite small. Also in a pixel game I would advise you to switch off pixel interpolation (there is a setting in GM:S).

I had a controller connected so it started a two player game. While controller support is really nice, apparently there is no proper way of playing the game with one player and a controller because you always get two characters.

There is a video on youtube called "The Art of Screenshake" which I would highly recommend. Your game will become so much more fun if you add some of the ideas presented there (I didn't have time to do that for my game though).

Keep up the good work!

Hypercell by PixlWalkr 2017-01-02T23:07:00

Very nice game. Graphics and music are great. Gameplay is pretty smooth, might be a bit tighter.

The only real complain I have is that it seems that a new virus can spawn at exactly your location which makes you lose immediately and there's nothing you can do about it, which is a bit frustrating.

With a bit of polish this would be nice on an app store.

BreakAround by Xanjos 2017-01-02T22:52:00

Great idea, a Breakout clone in 3D. It was a bit hard to really control the ball and I had to reset the balls a lot.

Music and sound would have added a nice touch, maybe some visual effects.

Overall it was a really interesting experiment.

One Room - 30 minutes earlier by wowa_u 2017-01-02T22:06:00

The graphics are marvellous, especially what you are doing with lighting.

If only you had the time to add some music and sound effects.

The language might need some polish as there were some typos and some sentences did not make much sense.

Overall it is very playable though and I got some of the endings until I figured out the right one.

Great job!

Don't Stop Me by breno 2017-01-02T21:53:00

Stunning presentation. The parallax scrolling does wonders to the game. All animations are silky smooth.

The music was generally very good, but the high-pitched notes become grating after a while.

For me the controls were a bit too much to handle. Juggling four keys with one hand (keeping one pressed all the time) was a bit frustrating, especially for a game this fast. Maybe having a stationary character or auto-load whenever the player is in front of the computer may be an possible alternative here.

Gameplay-wise I liked the game, but sometimes the initial shot of a newly spawned enemy came so quickly it was hard to shot the windows in time.

Finally, sometimes the player wouldn't shoot which I attributed to a bug at first until I found out that he doesn't shoot the walls (makes sense). Some indicator, like a colored mouse cursor or something like that might help avoid confusion here.

Overall a very neat game, especially visually. Loved the ending.

Arena 3000 by automatonvx 2017-01-02T21:34:00

Nice game, a similar idea to my LD35 entry: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=83463

I love the custom sound effects.

This is a game that would greatly benefit from some of the ideas presented in the youtube video "The Art of Screenshake".

Good job.

STEREOJO by ChuiGum 2017-01-02T21:23:00

This game has so much potential!

The graphics are nice, the soundtrack outstanding. The idea is fresh and promises some really neat puzzles. I would have loved to see more.

Unfortunately the controls are not very tight which makes the game really frustrating. Up key for jumping is a no-no, also the wall jump was a bit fiddly.

Gameplay-wise the stereo-mechanics look and work pretty well, but I would have liked some way to reset the effect. When I missed a jump it took quite some time until I could try again which breaks the game flow a bit.

Two minor things: Sound effects would have been really nice (bfxr ones would fit perfectly) and a Game Over screen instead of restarting the game would be a bit more satisfying.

Overall it's a great entry. I liked it a lot.

The Dash Club by bigbuggames 2016-12-30T14:31:00

That was great fun. Made it on my first try.

Graphics and music are insanely well done and the hand crafted floor patterns feel like a lot of thought has gone into them.

Great job!

Bruce, the escaping ant by pcmxms 2016-12-30T14:14:00

I love the ant's walking animation and the bare-bones design. Also the gameplay is fast which is fitting for this type of game.

The game itself is tough, which is perfectly fine, but then the controls need to be very tight as well. The ant doesn't jump properly when next to a wall. There are situations when the lizard cannot be avoided. The hit box of the spider is too small when taking into account that the targeting system is a bit fiddly. Also a game like this needs a really fast restart after dying (see Super Meat Boy for reference).

Overall I had fun with the game and I was really motivated to finish it because the flow is really nice, but I had to give up due to the controls. I managed to kill the spider, but was killed at the same time.

The Library by Stending 2016-12-30T13:54:00

This one is so stylish. From an artistic standpoint, it doesn't get much better than this. Graphics and music are brilliant!

The idea of transforming the room through music is terrific, there are many nice touches like the "score" being made up from words and removing the books from the shelved by wriggling.

What could be improved from my point of view is the gameplay. Better visual indicators for when a key was hit correctly would add to the feel of the game.

Unfortunately the controls are not temper-proof: I was able to finish the water song with almost no errors just by spamming the keys. Since there is no penalty for mistakes it's easy to cheat.

Also the reward for getting segments right is purely visual but it is disconnected from the actions. It doesn't become clear throughout the game how to actually reach transformation points. Is is by playing a section correctly or by getting a certain number of notes right? Maybe some better visual and aural cues about when a success was achieved might improve the game.

Overall it's easily one of the most stylish games I played during this LD, great job!

Rhythm Rink by shillingburg 2016-12-30T13:34:00

Cool game, impressive presentation and neat music.

Unfortunately the gameplay isn't temper-proof. I managed to get over 16000 points just by spamming the three buttons, much better than the score I got when I actually tried to play well.

Apart from that I enjoyed playing Rhythm Rink.

Horror Rush Saga by larles 2016-12-29T19:55:00

Wow, great satirical entry about the state of gaming in 2016.

Awesome work! Deep too.

Interrogation Room by DiscoFish 2016-12-29T19:49:00

Great entry! It's a little messed up and a bit too easy/short but it really shines.

How did you do the sound effects? They are pretty neat!

The Walking Closet by andyman404 2016-12-29T19:40:00

I'm so glad you made this game! Believe it or not, I was brainstorming a similar game where you play a house with legs and arms that eats people who are having a party in its living room, but I didn't think I could pull it off so I made something else instead. Really happy to see the idea actually executed in some form.

About the game: It's really well made and fun to play but hard (impossible?) to beat because it is not clear what the victory conditions are and there is no indicator about how much time is left.

Again, thank you for making this.

Tiny House by ChatPion 2016-12-29T19:29:00

Nice game, but too hard for me. I was stuck on day 1 but at least I managed to reach one object.

I used to play Sokoban as a kid so it's a great take on that. Some background music would be a nice addition and some intro or explanation about the goal of the game would help a lot.

Are the levels randomly generated? Maybe a tutorial room in the beginning that is hand-crafted might soften the learning curve a bit.

All in all a very solid entry!

Moving In by impbox 2016-12-29T18:55:00

Awesome entry!

Similar yet very different from "Was ist das für 1 Room?" It took some getting used to moving the furniture out of the way to place other items, but it was a lot of fun. I played till level 8.

Music was toned down enough to not be repetitive, graphics were very nice although for some items it was a bit hard to figure out the correct orientation (especially desk and fridge). The comments mechanic was a really nice touch to remind the player what was amiss while staying in the background and thus not breaking the flow of the game.

That this was a compo entry made this all the more impressive. Kudos!

Was ist das für 1 Room? by blinry 2016-12-29T18:26:00

Awesome game. I wanted to do something similar to your idea but I would never have pulled it off so well.

The puzzles are really tough and I tried for over an hour but I just can't finish levels 13 and 15.

Great job overall!

One Room Dungeon by Trasevol_Dog 2016-12-29T11:07:00

Very nice entry. I love the pixel art although it's sometimes difficult to see what's going on, especially since you have to be quick to react to a new level. This sometimes makes it a bit tough to get off to a good start.

Overall the game has a lot of charm and I will certainly revisit it to try finishing the game (I only made it to 1 - 2/3 - 1/4)

Hamsterical Nuts by mirta000 2016-12-29T10:59:00

Visually very nice, especially the animations which are awesome! I also really liked the music.

Gameplay could be improved to be more snappy. Sound effects and hit feedback would do wonders for the game.

Homes under the Hammer by Tijn 2016-12-29T10:31:00

Very nice entry. The overall atmosphere is very good. Graphics are simple but fit the genre. Audio is perfect.

Gameplay-wise I'm not really sure I understand how to win. First I thought it was a puzzle game but upon replaying I wondered whether it was a guessing game instead. I didn't understand how to spot the supporting walls.

Anyway, with a bit more polish and a lot more levels, this game would be perfect in an app store. Very well done.

Walkie Talkie by managore 2016-12-21T01:51:00

What can I say. Certainly one of the most innovative entries I've seen so far. Great job! Some simple sound effects would have been really neat.

Code Red by oultrox 2016-12-21T00:48:00

A really really well made entry. Visuals and atmosphere are awesome, the music is really fitting and the special effects add a lot of fun to the game.

The difficulty is tough but appropriate.

The only real crime are the controls. Using up for jumping is not really my favorite and game like this absolutely needs controller support. Keeping shift pressed at all times really cramps up my fingers, so I wasn't able to finish. That's a real shame because I would have loved to see the end.

levelone by dietzribi 2016-12-19T21:59:00

This is one of the games Ludum Dare is made for. It is brilliantly made, introduces a fresh concept and is generally a joy to play.

The graphics are simple but effective, the humor is spot-on, the game is full of surprises and the ending satisfying.

I love the creepy sound the hands make when they hit the wall. Great job! Certainly one of my favorites this time.

Tangent by rxi 2016-12-19T10:41:00

Awesome game overall. I came here via your timelapse posting which I found very impressive. The game itself is no less.
It was challenging with a very good ramp up and kept me motivated throughout the more tricky passages.

The level of detail in the graphics adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game and the music was fitting to set the mood.

I especially liked the subtle separation from the one room mechanic at the end as sort of a release from the confines of the game.

My only point of criticism would be missing controller support, which is fairly easy to set up in Game Maker, and my personal (subjective) preference of switching x and c for interaction and jumping.

SpaceBeaver by OWC 2016-12-17T21:21:00

Gorgeous pixel art and design. I loved the idea of the circular level layout.

I wish the difficulty ramp was a little slower to be able to get a grip on the controls and what the specials do. Sound effects an somewhat faster fire rate would also help.

Besides that, a very neat entry.

Obelisk by Almax27 2016-12-17T21:16:00

Really neat game! The controls are tight and the pixel art is very pretty.

My only concern was the grappling hook (love the idea!). It often did not drag in the enemies which resulted in me losing patience and not taking care of timing enough.

Also faster player movement may have been nice. If you restricted it to a small radius around the obelisk you might have reached a similar effect in game mechanics but with smoother movement for the player

Cozy Christmas Village by juxipolo 2016-12-17T21:06:00

Gorgeous pixel art and atmosphere, great job!

Unfortunately it clashes a bit with the non-pixel art parts in the menus, especially the text.

Controls are were bit wonky for me. Navigating the menus is a bit of a hassle, and some items should not revert back to the standard cursor, like street lamps and trees.

There was an audio glitch that caused a click sound to play about every 2 seconds.

But overall still very impressive for a Compo game.

BullyBully Classroom by My Sweet Whomp 2016-12-17T20:58:00

Cool entry, love the graphics.

Unfortunately it crashed on my towards the end of day 4 or 5 when I got all the nerds on my side and was about to kick the last bully's butt.

#BUTERATOS by PolygonTeam 2016-12-17T20:44:00

I love the art, the humor and the music.

Implementation-wise it is lacking a bit. The game could benefit a lot from tighter controls, visual enemy hit feedback, animated shots, special effects and sound effects.

I like to recommend the video "The Art of Screenshake" for some pointers on how to make your game feel more powerful (although I have to admit, that my own entry is lacking in that department as well).

Abberbury by Splendidus 2016-12-17T20:33:00

Those visuals are insane! Great work! Sound effects and choice of music were really good as well. I liked the melancholy atmosphere.

The controls were a bit wonky though. Jumping next to a platform didn't give the full jump height and hitting was delayed, which took a bit out of the fun for me.

I found out by accident that the yellow barrels contained gold and the red ones health, I guess this could have been communicated better. I thought the red ones would explode.

I managed to finish the game though and only afterwards I found out that you could block. All in all it was a nice challenge and I had a lot of fun, despite some frustrating moments. My favorite part was luring enemies into the ballistas.

Smoke and Mirrors by SmokeNMirrors 2016-12-16T18:44:00

Nice and gloomy atmosphere with decent writing, good job! I played until after the first fight and would have probably continued if the character had moved a bit faster, which was a bit of a turn-off.

The problem with RPG Maker games is that they tend to look quite similar to each other so I always have a feeling of deja vu when playing one. I guess it's pretty hard to make a game that looks truly unique with this tool.

Also, did you do all the sprites yourselves? If so, that's very impressive! If not then it's hard to judge the art side of the game because it's impossible to tell which part you added and which was taken from an asset pack.

Anyway it's obvious that you put a lot of effort into the story, and I think that part is what really stands out in this game.

The IT Room by Bumblepie 2016-12-16T16:38:00

I imagine this is a fairly realistic depiction of a normal work day at a webhosting company ;D

Neat game, fun concept. Could use some polish, especially since you are permitted to use sound effects and music from the internet in the Jam.

Concretely I would have liked if the character was flipped when moving to the right.

One Room Hotel by TerraCottaFrog 2016-12-16T16:32:00

Great job! Easily my favorite so far.

I loved your LD35 entry and this one is even better. I honestly don't have anything negative to say.

However I found a bug: When you start out with all the same rooms (say only swimming pools), the game freezes.

Little Room of Horrors by phoenix1987 2016-12-16T13:01:00

I made it to Wave 26, then gave up. I liked the concept of feeding the room blood to not die. I think I would have more fun if the game cycles were shorter, i.e. that the difficulty ramps up more steeply so the player is challenged to try again and increase their score.

The merchant was an important addition as it keeps the player motivated to level up their stuff.

The game would have benefitted a lot from adding some sound effects and music (freely available on the net).

I had some issues with the hit direction and it was not clear to me how to control my direction of attack, which was a bit frustrating.

Overall, neat little entry that could use some polishing.

One Broom by SbstnC 2016-12-16T00:23:00

Outstanding art style and rock-solid game design. The sizes of the witches were well reflected in the level design. Cute writing rounded everything off and motivated to stay til the end through the challenging final stretch.

Music was obviously missing and the game could easily have benefited from some open source music from jamendo or a similar source.

Another minor issue would be that the branches look a bit unnatural in their square form, so a little less strict edges might appear less sterile.

Overall a great entry. Real shame that there was no music.

Nightmares by Yami no tenshi 2016-12-15T23:06:00

Played until 149 then gave up. Graphics are really cool and the mood is awesome. It would have been neat if she followed the cursor with her eyes or head. Also nice touch to set up the game with throwing the stone out the window.

From the game mechanics, I could see some improvements. Maybe you could omit having to click to raise the arm, that's a bit extra effort that does not contribute to the game and makes the controls a bit confusing

I was not able to aim down, which was a bit of a bummer, since the creatures on the bottom are a bit hard to hit that way.

Some progression would be nice. Not necessarily extra monsters, but a faster ramp up in difficulty. Maybe you can try tweaking it so the rounds become shorter by reaching a challenging difficulty level faster. That way you may invite the player to replay in order to top their high score.

All in all a very solid entry.

Great Collapse by Khaoz_Fang 2016-12-15T22:51:00

Seriously cool entry. I love bullet hell shooters and the added collapse mechanics were a really neat idea. Graphics range from wicked cool (enemies, especially the boss) to a bit too much (high contrast textures, jarring colors).

Would you do me a favor? Watch "The Art of Screenshake", apply what you can agree on to your game, decrease the size of the player's hitbox in true Cave SHMUP style, add some sound effects and then upload the results on itch. I'll keep the game in my collection so I'll know when you update it. I would really like to play a more polished version of it.

One comment about deploying over itch.io: Make sure you mark your archive as Windows-compatible, otherwise the itch.io app won't install the game.

GhostGun by pyokoanarogue 2016-12-15T22:37:00

Funky little game. The reduced graphics and animation were nice. I loved the ghosts with guns and how you used shades of gray to convey damage.

I would recommend watching the video "The Art of Screenshake", you will find some good pointers on making your game more responsive and fun.

Dark room by cushycode 2016-12-15T22:21:00

The trick is to look for a cat that is not black, but brown. :D

Initially I found the cat by accident because I was standing right next to it when I tried what happens when I press space. When I knew what the cat looked like, it was fairly easy to find it a second time.

Graphics were nice. Movement could have been a bit faster and mouse support for swinging the flashlight around might help the game pick up the pace. A moving cat could counter the decreased difficulty by having faster light movement.

Facing Through Delusion by SirSpite 2016-12-15T22:11:00

Such a depressing theme.

The art is really great, but it seems the game design itself is lacking a bit. Don't give up, though. There are some pretty cool videos online with some simple pointers that show how you can make more out of your game.

For starters have a look at "The Art of Screenshake" and "Juice it or Lose it".

Stack Overflow by DillonEA 2016-12-15T22:04:00

It's a great concept, but it was too confusing for me. Maybe a slower version? Or having the ability to stop time? Or even a turn based version?

The implementation is really smooth, but I wish the controls were more precise, which is probably easier said than done for this idea.

Presentation was top notch though.

Overall it plays like a diamond in the rough.

Hitlers Cactus or only you can stop Trump by stupidmindlessf 2016-12-15T21:57:00

I count myself among the people who didn't understand how to solve this, but I tried a lot anyway. The premise is brilliant and the idea of reading the papers at the end to find out whether your actions actually achieved something was a nice touch.

I wish it were possible to visit the different times as often as you wanted to play around more with the cause and effect side of things.

Actually extending the idea beyond this competition would be really interesting. If you can make it a game where you have to time travel to achieve a specific goal but a lot of things you can do have a butterfly effect and you end up worse than what you originally tried to prevent and have to dig yourself out of that mess.

Last in Time by lonesurvivor 2016-12-15T21:37:00

Neat entry, at first I thought it was made with RPGMaker but apparently it's Godot. I really liked the graphics style and the soothing music. Also the idea of switching between future and past was pretty nice.

Some of the puzzles were a bit far fetched, like the one with the worms but at you tried to find unconventional solutions to obvious problems, like the chainsaw puzzle. It might need some work to make them convincing though. It kinda reminds me of the puzzles I would make for an Adventure game only to feel annoyed later that it isn't logical enough.

I wonder whether you can convince Godot to use a more precise pixel representation, because your pixels are all different sizes (look at the berries in the trees, which are sometimes square and sometimes rectangular.

Overall presentation is really nice and all assets tied very nicely together. Controls are butter smooth, which is cool.

Color Factory by erdiizgi 2016-12-15T20:19:00

I only got to 222. It's a neat concept that could use a little polish. But the basic premise works. I could imagine the game on a mobile store if you get someone to redo your graphics (you know the competition is harsh over there)

Let me elaborate a bit on feedback since you held my entry in such high regards.

The basic setup works for me, the difficulty seems to ramp up by introducing more complex shapes, but there is little sense of achievement since all you do is rack up points until you die. Take a look at the mobile game "Threes" which has a similar buildup but is really rewarding in getting the player into the "let's see if I can top my previous score" mindset. Well it may help that Threes oozes charm. As an experiment, try to add googly eyes and stickman-arms on your paint canisters and let them give a little cheer when you clear a line. It's cheap but it might give the game some more personality. Another cheap trick would be to add a simple back story. Nothing fancy, just a few lines of text to set the mood.

One important factor here is that the gameplay should be pleasant and smooth. The controls and animation are really smooth in this case, so it may be the sound effects that make the mood a bit jarring. Also the factory looks a bit drab, which may be a bit of a problem. Since this is the jam, you could have just grabbed some free relaxing music and slapped it on top of the game which would have greatly increased the mood.

Next up are the special tasks you are given. It's a neat idea to break up the monotony of the main game, but it does not feel like a rewarding goal to follow. Once you finish your task, you get the next one. It's like work. One option here could be to drop the endless game mode in favor of a mode where you can actually finish a level by achieving a number of tasks that are presented to the player in advance. They could be either to clear a certain number of lines or to produce certain shapes.

That way they have more sensible control over how to structure the incoming colors and you can have increasing difficulty paired with small achievements of finishing a level, something really important to keep motivation up in a mobile game.

I found one minor thing, you seem to use a fixed 4x4 grid for your shapes and place the mouse cursor at a fixed position relative to that grid. This causes problems when you have a single stone because the cursor is not centered on it as would be expected. A solution may be to take the position of the top left and bottom right block within the 4x4 grid and average those. That could be your mouse pointer position.

I hope you were able to find these points useful. Good luck on releasing a mobile game one of these days, I think you are on the right track with this.

Non Euclidean Room by NuSan 2016-12-15T17:02:00

I love the shader, it gives the game a lot. Making a game with that presentation and that name sets the expectations really I, so I was a bit let down that you cannot actually walk up walls and thus get a better sense of where you started.

Overall it was a solid entry and I really enjoyed playing it.

Room 007 by Lancelot Gao 2016-12-15T16:52:00

Lovely art, I had my eyes on this one ever since I've seen the WIP. The whistling adds a nice touch and I had a good chuckle. The "success" whistle could use some variation especially since the first levels are quite easy and you tend to hear the same recording repeated a lot.

For all the great ideas and the awesome visuals I wish the gameplay itself offered a few more surprises toward the end but over all it's a very good entry.

antiroom by pta2002 2016-12-15T16:41:00

Nice idea. I loved Antichamber and I see the reference here. I wish you rolled a bit more with the premise and added some more surprises beyond "Dead end, turn around, new path". I like the art style and the controls were smooth. A jumping sfx would be neat as would music.

Overall a solid entry that is worth getting a few more iterations to flesh it out more.

Zombie Fight by burnedkirby 2016-12-14T17:50:00

I liked the music and the overall gameplay, which runs quite smoothly.

If you want some pointers about how to improve the game, I would strongly recommend Jan Willem Nijman's talk "The art of screenshake" on Youtube. If you implement some of his ideas, you will see a difference of night and day.

Good luck to you!

Break The Trance by calcitherin 2016-12-14T14:02:00

The idea was very creative, the premise allows to go much deeper, so I would like to see what you can do when you build up on what you have.

There may be different ways of breaking the trance (like breaking line of sight or manipulating the victim instead of the vampire. Add more than one vampire/victim per level and you may have a neat time-based puzzler.

The weakest point are the controls though, so you may want to work on those first:

- You can only pick up the picture if you stand next to it (extending the hitbox would probably be easy).

- The mix of mouse and keyboard controls (game vs. menu) forces the player to switch back and forth. A game like this can perfectly do without the mouse which would keep the player in one control mode.

Don't get discouraged though, I see some promise in your game.

HourGlass Collector by skorpyo 2016-12-14T13:39:00

Awesome entry!

Despite the simple visuals your game has a heart of gold and just works. I had a lot fun. Controls are spot on and every new hourglass gives the player a new surprise. Using the mouse as a design element was a nice touch.

Two very minor things regarding controller support:
A game like this should really support the D-Pad. Playing it with thumbsticks was a bit weird.

You assigned "quit game" to one of the controller buttons, which could lead to frustration if someone decided to try other buttons later in the game and accidentally booted themselves out of the game.

Great job overall!

Death Room 4000 by DalesDiscountTires 2016-12-13T11:52:00

One of my favorites so far.

I am a real sucker for games with tight controls and you pretty much nailed it. The game hat a lot of bite so I wasn't able to clear it but since you immediately restart after dying (reference to Super Meat Boy?) it keeps you motivated. I haven't found out why you can shoot, but maybe that comes later.

The only issue that really nagged me was that the game does not support D-Pad. Playing a tight retro game like this with an analog stick really is a crime.

TISIC IZIEB by Split82 2016-12-13T11:30:00

Those. visuals. are. insane.

All other aspects are really solid too. The puzzles are well thought out and the difficulty ramps up nicely and keeps motivated. I could totally see this as a commercial title with added mechanics.

Ymen - Danger Classroom by grifdail 2016-12-13T11:11:00

I absolutely love the graphics and animation.

The game could benefit from a little clearer direction, especially some sort of scoring and level progression. A game with such great graphics deserves tighter control.

Bob & Bernard Against the Nazis by arcadehero 2016-12-13T11:00:00

Awesome graphics and design! It had really nice feel to it. I love the idea of watering the whale.

The game could benefit from faster ramp up and to me the dubstep was a little out of place for the visuals.

Overall it's a really tight game.

Chamber Talk by invi 2016-12-13T10:45:00

Funny little game. Didn't make it though though. I ended up getting stuck trying random answers since I wasn't clear which path was the right one. Love the graphics. The writing is not all that bad.

Alien Cats Need a Place to Chill, Too! by madameberry 2016-12-13T10:35:00

Cute game, graphics and sound fit very well.

I wish you would be able to trash the place, let the owners get what they deserve for leaving us alone at home.

The Two of Us by Pixeye 2016-12-13T10:32:00

Awesome graphics and great atmosphere. The game itself felt a little slow, which may be deliberate to set the mood.

One Room Resort by MiniBobbo 2016-12-13T10:24:00

Lovely game. I really enjoyed it although I didn't find the instructions that easy to understand. But it was a nice and chaotic experience. I had a chuckle at the ridiculousness of the premise of a constant mismanagement that resulted in only one bedroom for all the guests. Nice work.

Huge & Cute by michidk 2016-12-13T10:12:00

Nice puzzler, I really love the presentation.

Not really my genre though so I only played a little. This being a Jam entry, I would say that some mellow music would have done wonders to the game.

A marker would help identify the distance between each person and their corresponding switch, so that the player doesn't have to guess whether the characters are placed correctly.

One Room, One Core by mpe3us 2016-12-13T10:05:00

Nice Tower Defense game. I think it may benefit from some upgrade functionality and the possibility to replace towers.

I was able to get through quite well by spamming basic towers.

Cryogenic by TeamCryo 2016-12-13T09:55:00

Very cool entry. I enjoyed the story very much, although I didn't finish it. Makes me want to retry and get through a second time. I didn't realize at first that you have to freeze more than one person at a time to keep them alive longer so everyone died when I met the lichen people.

AmmoRoom by HazmatPajama 2016-12-13T09:42:00

Cool little game. I enjoyed the core mechanics and the sleek visuals. I would really like to see this more fleshed out. If you have any updates please let me know, I'll be glad to give the game another shot.

Some recommendations from my point of view:
- One life is pretty harsh, especially since it takes a long time to build up your upgrades
- A game like this really comes to life through sound effects. It will take you about half an hour to generate effects in bfxr that will be perfect for your visuals.
- Controller support is really easy to implement in Game Maker and it would make the game so much better.
- You didn't tick the "Windows" box on itch.io, so I can't download the game in the itch downloader which I really like to use.

In One Fell Swoop by Patomkin 2016-12-13T09:27:00

Lovely game, I really enjoyed it. Feels very polished and complete. I didn't finish it though. Anyway it's a keeper, maybe later I'll challenge it again.

Very minor nitpick: When you run out of moves it would be better to fail the game immediately instead of letting the player try another turn that never happens.

For Whom The Bear Roars by caryoscelus 2016-12-13T09:13:00

I wanted to play your game, but I don't have a google account. Maybe you can host your game somewhere else?

nO mooRe by frittatenbank 2016-12-13T03:47:00

Awesome entry, congratulations! The music sets the mood very nicely. I love the idea of the changing rooms to solve the puzzles. It took me a while to figure out what the fan was for because I thought it was a seashell. I liked it a lot overall.

2045 Henkei no Densetsu by Rock Eaters 2016-05-09T19:43:00

Terrific effort. The graphics are gorgeous, as is the animation. The visual design overall is super smooth and fast paced to perfection. The music accompanies this splendidly and sets a good fast beat that matches the frantic shooting going on everywhere.

Unfortunately for me, the gameplay does not quite catch up. The screen scrolls too slowly compared to the player speed and the limited range takes a lot of otherwise fast paced fun out of the game. I feel that either shooting upwards full screen or hacking in four directions with limited range would have worked better. Rescuing villagers does not really seem to have that much of an impact.

Don't get me wrong, I totally love this game, but in cases like these where I see a lot of potential for making it even greater, I tend to nitpick a lot which may sound like I have a low opinion of your results. Quite the contrary!

Overall I think you can be proud of your achievement. I could totally see an extended version of this with more in-game story and more variety on Steam in the future.

Varrer by CarlosPidox 2016-05-09T19:17:00

Really tough but well-made entry. I love the triangle guy although I got the best dumping results with the shockwave dude. Couldn't make it past 6 dumps though.

I found it funny how rapid firing can kind of create a counter point to the music's beat.

Sluggy's Tiny Adventure by FrankieSmileShow 2016-05-09T19:08:00

Awesome entry, I wonder why I didn't find it sooner.

The amount of content you put together in 48 hours is mind-blowing. I wish there would have been music, but I guess you can't have everything if the rest is so good.

The difficulty was spot-on for me and I totally got that Metroidvania vibe I am sure you were going for. Awesome atmosphere and even a boss fight.

One of my favorite entries.

I voted for your Greenlight project, all the best of luck for that. A recommendation for the upcoming work: I think the controls need a little bit of polish and they lack a certain visceral quality which can probably be achieved by working on sound effects some more, especially when jumping, landing and hitting. Let the player feel the impact. Also it should be visually clearer which platforms you drop down from and which have a wall to one side.

Go Away, Zeus! by Crimson713 2016-05-09T18:50:00

Really funny game. I love how it turns into a cacophony of man-made animal noises. It gets really tough after a while so I stopped listening and started shooting all animals that moved too close to my wife. The graphics are hilarious.

As a suggestion, maybe you can introduce new mechanics after each few rounds that add something fresh, e.g. something you have to click on within a time limit to divert the player's attention.

Geometry Garden by Evgiz 2016-05-01T17:09:00

I got 1474. Very nice little game. I love the aural and visual feedback you get when the shape changes. Also the multiplying mechanic is a very nice touch and feels like a very important decision.

One suggestion would be to add some visual cue about how many hits are remaining on a monster. Since it seemed to me that you need two hits per enemy, I guess a second sprite that shows a damaged monster would be a sensible addition that can help with strategy.

Overall I really liked the game!

Shallow Shift by rahulparihar 2016-05-01T17:02:00

Awesome little game. I like how self-contained it is and how the progress is constantly visible. You even threw in an awesome ending.

Graphics are a treat, music is serene and fits the atmosphere.
I like it a lot. Great entry!

Splitter Critters by GertJohnny 2016-05-01T14:45:00

A really creative and well-thought out entry. Unfortunately I'm too dense to get past the first levels but I can see that it deserves all the praise it's getting.

Morphling by SecondDimension 2016-05-01T14:38:00

Very nice entry. Everything feels so polished. The art is very nice, the music supports the visuals without being repetitive and overall the game is a lot of fun.

What stands out though are the controls, which are super tight.

PS: I didn't find it too hard, but then again I just came back from a Dark Souls session so my judgment may be a bit off.

Infinity Access by Hyoga-3D 2016-05-01T14:34:00

Definitely one of the more memorable games. Unfortunately, the gameplay part seems a bit unbalanced. If the goal is to collect GBs, then that is easily accomplished by rolling the ball until you run out of GBs, then spamming the upper screen with mouse clicks until the ball is full. Repeat for infinite GBs.

Maybe more of a challenge would have been nice, as otherwise the game is visually very appealing and your choice of music is spot on. Very nice entry!

Look at your Feet by Verz 2016-04-29T20:34:00

Very nice entry. I almost made it, or so I thought. Only 4 shoes left but ran out of fingers.

ANTI-VIRUS by Kitty553 2016-04-29T20:05:00

Wow, very innovative use of screen space, I really like the idea. Kudos for being brave enough to upload a file to Dropbox called ANTI_VIRUS.exe. Dat end game screen tho. ;)

Great job!

StealthShifter by PixelRetro 2016-04-29T19:55:00

Wow, really unique little game. Reminded me of Nethack, but as a puzzle game. I liked it.

I wish you would have opted for a WASD control scheme. Using ULDR tied to pressing the enter key gets a bit tedious after a while.

Also adding PC speaker-like beep sound effects would be a treat.

KAIJU VS by plko 2016-04-29T19:37:00

Awesome idea! I think it's worth exploring more. I see a lot of potential here! Love the fact that you can carry around your Kaiju by storing the code somewhere.

Please consider giving more insight into the evolution process. Make the connection between the input and the upgrades more visible. Maybe use a dictionary to assign certain words with skills and upgrade accordingly. There may be a word list around that already makes the connection between words and themes, maybe you can use a thesaurus.

You can put a lot of psychology into it I guess where positive comments will create a more loyal creature while being negative can grow a mean bastard.

Gameplay-wise I think it could be extended to contain a single player campaign. The fighting format can even stay that way, only the enemies are randomly generated and grow stronger from fight to fight.

Black Heart by luquio 2016-04-29T19:24:00

Nice rendition of a match-the-shape game. The hearts are a nice touch that add another dimension. The black ones are a bit difficult to spot though.

The music is nice and the visuals fit your game well. The design is solid over all.

I feel that this genre really benefits from a control scheme where each shape is assigned a specific key instead of cycling through the shapes. I found going from square to circle to square to triangle instead a normal cycle between the three shapes a bit confusing.

CYGLiDE by ocarson 2016-04-29T19:05:00

The game came out well due to the very nice character design. Add to that the procedurally generated landscape and I have to say you achieved a lot in two days.

The main weak point is the challenge that might be improved by adding missions or levels. It may be even more rewarding if the gameplay was a bit snappier, which is in part due to the controls.

I guess a VR version might be worthwhile as it fits your mood and the control scheme better. That way it plays its strengths as an exploration type of game which does not need snappy controls and a challenge.

Elementary by oparisy 2016-04-28T20:22:00

I really like the graphics of your elemental, the cubey particle effects work really well. I couldn't figure out what the other particle thingies were. After reading the manual I was able to win the game pretty easily.

I wish there would have been sound fx and music.

Now for some criticism:

Overall the game would gain a lot by being a bit faster and more challenging. Since you only need to stock up on wood and only quickly change your shape to fire and back when at a torch, there is not much competition here. Maybe you can play around a bit with different mechanics, e.g. introduce enemies that chase you and drain your energy. Make the player fill up a fire gauge at a torch before it is lit. The gauge will increase while you are burning at the torch and it will decrease over time as you move away (e.g. while you avoid monsters).

Then if time remains you could add multiple levels where the number of torches increases but at the same time each level introduces something new, like a new monster, a new skill etc.

If you get manage to offer small rewards to the player they will keep motivated and if you offer a challenge you will reward that motivation.

It's a solid concept for that short amount of time, I am sure you can expand on it. First you should add some sfx though, you'll see how that will do wonders to the feel of the game.

Prince Charmless by Pietro Ferrantelli 2016-04-28T20:07:00

You sir are a genius. Your uncle too. Please tell me that you will make a full length game out of this. It is so cool!

Limber by Wefiends 2016-04-28T19:42:00

Awesome! I totally got that Katamari-vibe. One of the rare cases I gave five stars for innovation. This one is exceptional. Great job!

Devil's Hand by Kuupu 2016-04-28T19:29:00

I am really bad at FPS but this was so great! Really took me back to my old Doom days. Even more impressive that you did it all yourself and nailed all graphics, coding and composing. You sir/madam are a talented person. Kudos!

Pity that the shapeshifting part didn't work out but the game stands its ground easily nevertheless.

Flesh Mess by radmars 2016-04-28T19:19:00

I love the graphics style and PC classic gaming midi soundtrack. Awesome entry with lots of personality. Difficulty is quite brutal, so I couldn't finish the boss. A health bar would have been nice.

Personally I would have preferred a different control scheme for keyboard (arrows and x/z for instance), other than that it's awesome!

Star by Madsj 2016-04-25T19:29:00

This is exactly my kind of game! The retro charm combined with fluid gameplay.

Unfortunately I cannot play it due to my qwertz keyboard without breaking my fingers. Maybe you can make triangle either y or z. Or allow 1,2,3,4 as an additional input scheme.

I'd love to play this some more, especially since there seems to be a boss involved. So if you decide to extend the control scheme, drop me a note and I'll come back to give it another go.

The Cargo Shift by DesignerNap 2016-04-25T19:23:00

Wow, the mood is really great. The music plays a big part in this. Missing sound effects fit the space theme well. I really loved watching the packages slowly float in position.

The actual game part could have been a bit tighter as to provide more of a challenge that is steadily increasing in difficulty.

As a prototype it's really great though and I can see it as the basis of a more complex game. Great job!

Brutally Shifty Dance Crew by Franklin's Ghost 2016-04-25T19:14:00

Visually beautiful game. Did you rotoscope from an existing source or did you record the dance moves yourself?

Unfortunately the music was a bit grating and it took me a while to understand that I had to push each shape multiple times to stay in the game.

One complaint: You might have chosen to punish hitting the wrong key as the game is easily winnable by spamming all four keys at the same time.

//SHIFT/haxe by juxipolo 2016-04-25T19:07:00

Really lovely game. I liked the awesome retro graphics and the procedurally generated bosses. Congratulations on a very polished game.

The Creatures of Pflaumotopia by Yazara 2016-04-25T18:59:00

Very beautiful game. Hard to believe you crammed it all into a compo entry.

Maybe you should add a "loading" and "saving" message as people might get confused when they have to wait a lot after starting the game. I guess that would count as a patch.

I wish you good luck for more people to play this!

SUBJECT 26 by MSiddeek 2016-04-25T18:48:00

Very polished and well-made game. Music and sound effects would add so much more to it. Please consider extending the game with new mechanics and a deeper plot. There is a lot potential here. You hit the mood just right and the butterfly imagery is very beautiful.

Henkan Pachinko by AnaGF 2016-04-25T18:33:00

I like the idea.

The graphics and music are good. Physics works well. Sometimes I have the feeling that the levels could have been thought out a little better. For instance, I was able to complete the last one with two balls left.

All in all, a solid entry. Maybe you can polish a bit and release it on an app store?

Beach Bods by Rulrite 2016-04-25T18:28:00

Your game definitely stands out due to its unique idea. Great execution as well! I could see it in extended form as an app store download.

Rude Bear Requiem by Alex Rose 2016-04-25T18:22:00

Wow, really really good. I love a game with a twist and yours was very satisfying. I love the crass contrast and especially that you get to run around in the nice world and see what you have done. The music really works in favor of the game.

The only room for improvement I have is that the balloon form could use a shadow to indicate that we are actually flying up. Other than that a great entry and one of the most memorable games so far.

SHOOTING GAME THING by BPO_Jeff 2016-04-23T19:38:00

Can you feel the thunder inside?

Wow, just wow. You, sir, are immensely talented. The visuals, the music, sfx, tight controls, balancing. You totally nailed it. Great job, one of my favorites this LD. I played it a handful of times and will certainly return to it.

My only complaint would be that after a few tries I had no motivation to return to the robot mode, as I didn't really need the faster firepower. The bigger enemies had too tight shot patterns to squeeze through.

Overall, great game, kudos.

Light Shifter Temple by SengiG 2016-04-21T21:18:00

Can't play it unfortunately. I get the error message "he browser could not allocate enough memory for the WebGL content."

I'm in Win7/Firefox. The game looks really wicked, I was looking forward to it.

Spinstar by Gamepopper 2016-04-21T21:14:00

I came here after watching your timelapse which was super interesting. The game is awesome too. Challenging but good. Fits the theme well. Some sound sound effects for collecting the balls would have been nice.

My only complaint would be that the collision detection could be a bit more precise. Overall a challenging and fun game.

I see you also used chronolapse for your timelapse, but somehow yours seems to be much more fascinating than mine. Probably because I spent most of my time in Visual Studio ;)

Green Box Game by knason 2016-04-21T20:46:00

Wow, Ultra-compo in just 3.5h ;)

Even if it didn't grow beyond a tech demo everything is there except music, sound and additional levels. Great job so far.

A few hours more and I'm sure you would have quite a good puzzler on your hands.

Changelings' Lair by Haighstrom 2016-04-21T20:40:00

So you went ahead and made a lo-fi Dungeon Keeper in just two days. That is pretty insane by itself.

The execution is very neat, I love the pixel art, the music and the sheer volume of content.

I found a bug though that made it fairly easy to win the game (unless that is by design). When I heal the bear, it does not cost me 10 mana but instead it gains me 10 mana. So it means I cannot lose and I can easily rack up mana points to get more workers to get more gold to get the good rooms to kick out the heroes.

All in all one of my Compo favorites of LD35. Great work, would definitely be worth pursuing further. A well made, low resolution content-rich Dungeon Keeper game would be something I could see people pay for. I might.

Harvest Meadow Madness by joekinley 2016-04-21T19:59:00

My record is 117 points but only because I found an exploit where you could wall yourself in with unwatered seeds. The bugs can't eat the seeds and you can harvest inside your fortress as long as you want.

To me the difficulty needs some tweaking, and the controls could be a bit improved (I would like to be able to click the icons at the bottom). Graphics are very basic though (understandable given the format), but the excessive screenshake made up for that (at least for me).

Apart from these issues though the game has a lot of potential. It feels great, it sounds great, it made me want to try a few rounds to get behind the mechanics. I probably would have spent even more time if the game was better balanced.

I think you are onto something here and would encourage you to keep working on it. I can totally see that format in extended form with proper visuals in a mobile store somewhere.

Great job!

princess, castle, etc by Steve | tacospice 2016-04-21T18:18:00

Despite the basic hero visuals there is a lot to like here. The animation is really lovely and the sound effects super funny.

As was said before, it was very short and the controls could have been tighter (especially the hero acceleration was much too slow).

Overall I really enjoyed what little there was to see. Good job!

The Amazing Adventures of Rat Man by Gugino 2016-04-21T18:12:00

I hope you had fun making the game and learned a lot.

There are a number of issues, which I assume you are aware, like getting stuck in the walls sometimes, or the audio glitch when you press hard into a tunnel in human form.

I very much liked your audio effects, especially when you picked up the last remaining cheese. The music shows promise and reminded me a bit of classic 80's scifi movies.

BlowRider: Legends by WojtaW 2016-04-20T21:50:00

It's one of the concepts that you grasp instantly. Blow up one wheel to make a turn, nice. I only played the solo mode and that was quite fun.

I think the concept could be expanded on and the main character is visually unique to make the game interesting to a wider audience if polished some more. I got a bit of that Carmageddon vibe.

The Government Job by WizzardMaker 2016-04-20T21:45:00

Took me a while to understand that I had to copy objects in the world, and even after that I couldn't get the hang of the game really.

However I admire how you pulled off all the visual content in the allotted time and put together a nice looking game like this. Kudos!

Crops of Carnage by fanatiko 2016-04-20T21:27:00

Unity player tries to allocate too much memory and doesn't run the game (Win7/Firefox).

I'll try the windows download instead.

CHORUS by Pantelis Petsopoulos 2016-04-20T21:23:00

The music is a bit grating, but finished with 40870 points on hard. I may be mistaken, but I also found the visuals were a bit off the beat.

As a gameplay recommendation, it would have helped to have each shape on a different key to make switching more intuitive.

Good job overall.

ShapeDriller Company by psychomonster 2016-04-20T21:15:00

Good job. I like the graphics especially the spiders. The dong drill was a fun surprise.

Have I understood correctly that I can just dig up the spiders with no negative effect?

From a presentation standpoint I think the game would gain a lot if you wouldn't progress in a checkerboard manner. If you could instead progress the screen pixel line by pixel line and also only dig up the ground for the width of the drill, that would look terrific.

Morph_rulette by MalyTimi 2016-04-20T20:13:00

Awesome graphics, but I didn't really understand the gameplay part. Is the shape that you turn into completely random? If so, I guess it's impossible to play it with a strategy.

Music would have been nice.

S H A P E s h i f t: A Game About Shapes by wissuk 2016-04-20T20:05:00

A simple shapematching game that fits the theme. Graphics fit the task, music is nice.

I would have preferred to have one key per shape which makes reacting to the requested shapes faster.

Also I can totally fit some of the shapes through the wrong holes (which of course is an error, but looks doable).

Goo Shift by Arg410 2016-04-20T19:45:00

The boxes keep getting stuck in the ground :(

Maybe some criticism for improvement: For me it was not quite clear why the blob could kill the baddies while in box form, especially since pressing attack in box form just made me quit the box. Maybe a visual cue could help here, for instance have an attack animation that plays every time you exit the box so that the player knows that's the way to attack.

To get bang out of your game I would suggest the video "The art of screenshake" by Jan Willem Nijman of Vlambeer. It gives a lot of good pointers for adding more crunch to your game.

Of course, music always helps to set the mood.

Everyone's Evil Twin by JJJANEE 2016-04-20T19:32:00

It took a while to figure it out because I didn't understand right away who the shapeshifter was. I think the game concept overall is very good and the graphics fit the theme well.

Music would have helped the mood a lot.

The point that made me quit after winning round two was that I couldn't skip the story, which I found hard to get into, especially since the text progressed quite slowly.

I think overall it's a very solid entry that needs a little bit of extra polish.

Ludum Bear by DifferentName 2016-04-20T19:20:00

Nice one! Is there an end to it? I got swarmed to death. I like the different shapes with their unique attacks. I wasn't able to find a good strategy though.

How do you pronounce your game anyway? Ludum Bah-ray? ;)

Lycan Trail by Souperstrawer 2016-04-20T19:09:00

I love the graphics: Parallax scrolling, the motion of the sky, the horse animation.

Gameplaywise there is also a lot more depth than meets the eye. The upgrade mechanics, the obstacles that force the player to keep in the middle and having to shoot the barrels for bonuses.

For me, personally the difficulty ramps up too much. I upgraded reload and damage in the first night and stood no chance in the second night.

Reloading on RMB would be cool, or at least E instead of R, since R is too far away from WASD, especially since the player needs it constantly.

Some spooky music would really augment the experience, as would better and more sound effects.

Overall great entry!

Shifty Witch by jordgubben 2016-04-20T17:40:00

I love the graphics and style. It would have been cool to have music. The shifting mechanic didn't really make a difference to me. Are the cloud's shots weaker than the witch's

Shape Collector by Jogy34 2016-04-19T10:41:00

I really like this. At first I thought "Meh, it's just a Kami clone", but where it really shines is the vs. computer mode. The transition effect is very well done.

I wish there were some tranquil music to go with it and you could add a sound effect when the player chooses the same color as the opponent to know that you can't pick it (I thought it was a bug at first).

Witches and Werewolves by Capitals 2016-04-19T10:34:00

Looks very good, but it's not really my genre. I like the concept though. Some music would be nice. Witchy McWitchface! :)

Matchlock Alchemy by sockfolder 2016-04-19T10:30:00

Looks good.

I can't wrap my head around the transmutation wave mechanic though. Do I understand correctly that I need to have the color wheel memorized in order to know where the wave has an effect? Maybe some info graphic somewhere on screen in the game would help here.

Monster Shift by swamppenguins 2016-04-19T07:27:00

Great pixel art and music. I have to agree that shifting is not really necessary to beat the game. Nice idea though.

Arnold Stallion's Pump or Die by arzi 2016-04-19T07:21:00

Sometimes the game won't load for me (Unity tries to allocate too much browser memory), sometimes it just takes a lot of time (Win7/Firefox)

When it works, it's great though. The theme is spectacular.
Using Alt for Kicking in a browser game is a bad idea though as Alt activates the menu bar in Firefox.

Morph Ranger by mrnannings 2016-04-19T07:15:00

Beautiful little game. I love the upgrade mechanics and the art.

It's short but sweet and doesn't outlive its welcome. Great job.

Minor nitpick is that some keyboards have the z and y keys switched so allowing z and y for jumping would really help.

Heart of the Forest by hregrin 2016-04-19T07:08:00

Despite its shortcomings you managed to make a beautifully looking game. I would encourage you to continue working on it a little more since some of the missing things shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

Sound effects can easily be generated with sfxr or downloaded from the web and there is lots of royalty free music available.

It would help to move your character away from her shadow when flying, that should give a good indication of what's happening there.

Monstershifter by Diel Mormac 2016-04-19T06:56:00

Awesome art and music. I agree that the shifting animation takes too long. Also I seem to die when standing next to a wall and shifting back.

Was it on purpose that I trap myself by destroying the block in the first goat level?

Overall a great puzzler and I am amazed that you created this in 48 hours. Kudos!

Court Mage by urfbound 2016-04-19T06:38:00

I couldn't play it either. It just loads a view of the maze with the instructions but nothing is happening. I clicked the game to give it focus but it doesn't work.

I'm on Windows 7 / Firefox

Pasowix's Magical Shapeshifting Workshop by glaze_96 2016-04-19T06:35:00

Very cute little game. I chuckled on some of the jokes and I feel they were quite clever.

From a mechanics standpoint I didn't get why you needed the scrolls and the fact that there are only two of the menu fields active lets me guess that you had planned more for this game.

I like it and think the concept could be expanded. Good job.

FriendShift Madness by vini60 2016-04-19T06:19:00

Very innovative concept, I had fun.

One thing that could improved is the accuracy of the collision check when shifting. I had to try an average of about three times until I transformed even though I was really close to the character.

SHIFT by Wevel 2016-04-19T06:13:00

I like the concept of having a real-time turn-based card action game. Although the graphics are basic, they show what you had in mind with the game. I didn't get far but from what I've seen I like your idea.

Rocky by CMLSC 2016-04-19T06:07:00

It's a good concept, but I feel the execution could have been better. It's a bit tough to find out how to play without reading the manual.

Once I found out that you have to build momentum I was able to see how this may work after all given a bit of additional polish to the controls.

ShapeShift for Cheese by Adipson 2016-04-19T05:45:00

It's a fun beautiful entry, well done. The art is really amazing. I never tried hi resolution games in AGS but it seems you made it work without trouble.

I found one bug though: After cutting the wire you can still get electrocuted if you touch the wire on the balcony. That had me second guessing whether I missed something else, but I solved it in the end.

Scevus by rosden shadow 2016-04-18T20:14:00

Solid entry. I like the randomly generated levels and audio feedback when you slice enemies to pieces. You also added a visual cue for when the enemies are about to fire, which I found very important. Presentation overall is great and the theme is well represented with a fresh idea.

Now for criticism:

First, for me the random environments were too uneven in their difficulty. If the areas are narrow then chances are high that enemies get cut off and you have less room to maneuver. The enemies pile up and you stand little chance.

Second, it is easy to get stuck on blocks was a bit annoying when I was close to getting one of the foes shortly before they fire and then they suddenly got just because I tripped over a corner. With one life and fairly long levels that dampened my enthusiasm to play more.

In general I see this idea with a lot of potential for continuing work on this game.

The Furniture is Alive by Bemmu 2016-04-18T20:02:00

My Firefox/Windows 7 does not like the Unity player version of your game (it tries to reserve too much memory)

The Windows executable ends with an error message that it expects a data folder. I can extract the exe file (it's just a zip container), but there is no game inside, only game data files.

If you fix the issue drop me a message and I'll try again.

Desperate Times by yokcos700 2016-04-18T19:49:00

I love SHMUPs! And yours is a very good example. I had a lot of fun with the different weapons configurations, trying to empty the useless ones and conserve ammo for the good ones. The graphics are beautiful. The audio feedback is very nice and hail of bullets very satisfying.

All in all a great entry.

Two minor complaints though:

1) The spaceship moves soooo slowly. I guess it is necessary to help avoid all the projectiles, but maybe a slowdown key would help here (especially since you only have one action key for firing). That would allow the player to move both quickly and slowly based on the situation

2) There is no death invulnerability. So once I got killed in a corner and there was an incoming bullet shower that I couldn't avoid, so I lost two lives almost instantly. Two seconds of invulnerability after a hit would be great.

Shapeshifter by TideS 2016-04-18T19:31:00

Wow, I don't know what to say.

The atmosphere is great, the graphics very nice, sound is good and I really like the idea of having a game set to a poem.

But I don't get it. So we're two, I guess ;)

What went wrong? Out of time? Out of ideas?

Since you already invested all the effort to bring it this far, maybe you can continue working on it and turn it into an interactive story, where lines of dialog the player chooses have an influence on something that happened in the past and is revealed through the poem.

Stasis Core by Eshford 2016-04-18T17:36:00

I can't praise this game enough. As a sucker for pixel art, you pretty much nailed it with the flowing animations and cool tech design. The difficulty is hefty, but the game kept me motivated throughout. This is bited-sized fun on a very high level. My overall LD35 favorite so far.

The only issue I have are the controls. Let me elaborate:

- I found the jumping served no purpose because it wasn't possible to fire at the same time. Air-sliding is possible but I didn't see any advantage.

- The combination of up+left for firing up was not assigned, so I couldn't use that although it would have been more intuitive.

- It is not possible to slide while firing, which could be pretty useful. I don't mean to slide and fire at the same time but to have the slide command override the fire command so I can slide without letting go of the fire button

- I would recommend a different control scheme which I think may be a bit tighter (with YXCV keys I mean the ones on the lower left on the keyboard which may be different depending on locale):

* Arrow Keys: Move left/right, aim up/down
* Y: Fire
* X: Jump (allows jumping while firing)
* C: Slide backwards (instead of two keys for sliding)
* V: Block

This allows to keep the Fire button pressed and have the slide and block function interrupt firing as long as they are active.

Please let me know what you think about this scheme.

- finally the game over screen takes a long time to disappear. It's possible to speed that up by pressing ESC but any key should do the same.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the game and you got the highest score I have given in this competition so far, I just feel the controls stick out as being less streamlined than the rest of the game.

Shape Soup by jeroenwimmers 2016-04-18T17:01:00

Outstanding entry. Almost nothing to argue about. I really love the presentation. Maybe a second difficulty without pulsating shapes? It's a tad too easy as it is.

I think you could extend this a bit and sell it on a mobile store. Great job!

Turbo Transform by Robber 2016-04-18T16:19:00

Awesome. I love how the shape juuuust fit into the holes and how you can vaguely make out the next shapes through the holes in the upcoming shape.

Minor quibble: I wish there would be two difficulty settings because once you've got the knack it takes too long until the game becomes challenging again. I grant five stars.

Ward 52: Bullet Hell by Mithreindeir 2016-04-18T11:09:00

I see you were hoping for the "You are the weapon theme" ;)

Overall nice game, although a bit frustrating at times because it's too easy being hit in bullet form. Only made it to stage two once. I like the concept though.

Formation! by Saladon 2016-04-18T11:03:00

Very innovative concept. With a little bit of polish the game could be really great. For instance, if you made the shift take a second and indicate which shape will come up next it would give more strategic depth.

It would be neat if you had a clearer indication of which shapes win against which other shapes.

A technical note: The Unity Web player went to 100% and then took its sweet time finishing the rest of the download, so it seemed like it was stuck. Manual download confirmed that this might in part be due to a slow server connection.

Execution Antoine by HawkSandwich 2016-04-18T10:53:00

Neat game. I had some fun laying traps for the zombies. For balancing, I would suggest slowing the eating time for the meat to make laying the traps a bit easier. Also I found the traps taking too many points to activate. It was much easier to just stick to the dynamite, which undermines the whole shapeshifting idea. The art style is very creative and fresh.

Shieft by nicso 2016-04-18T10:37:00

Exceptionally done. I love the marriage between old-school pixel graphics and modern 3d dof-environments. The puzzles are really nicely done. One bug I need to mention: If you drop off the edge in the first room before picking up the map you get stuck in the main game without an inventory.

SUPER DEEP GAME BRO by Membrane 2016-04-18T10:26:00

Good game! Not sure whether it's by design but it would help if the bottom bro grew, the top bro standing on it would rise with him, instead of staying in position and then dropping down when selected. Overall it's a fun concept.

Cat-amorphasis by UltraRat 2016-04-18T10:21:00

Very funny entry, good job.

Weapon Shifters by Nick Weihs 2016-04-18T10:17:00

This is insane. You must have a lot of experience with the genre in order to pull if off that well in such a short amount of time. The graphics are oustanding. The music takes me back to my old Amiga days. Pacing is very good and you even threw in a satisfying boss fight. I'm impressed. Five stars.

Photagogue by ChuiGum 2016-04-18T10:04:00

I also got a blank screen, but the screenshots look promising.

Shapeshift runner by LordHannu 2016-04-18T10:01:00

Great graphics judging from the screenshots, unfortunately I am not able to play, since the character immediately falls through the floor at the beginning. :(

The Canis Incident by srakowski 2016-04-18T09:47:00

Brilliant! So you've taken the Vlambeer design approach. Awesome. I laughed out loud at the narwhal unicorns. Very fun game, five stars. Nitpicks include the simplistic music, navigating narrow corridors and coins moving slower than the character, but overall I love it.

Biscuit Switch by retrogradeorbit 2016-04-18T09:41:00

You made a fun little game. I love the walk animation. It could be a bit more challenging and follow a purpose more to keep the player entertained, like i.e. machine parts getting broken or the boss changing the order mid-production, but overall it is promising.

Quest for Humanity by pixlark 2016-04-18T09:24:00

Ah, a text adventure, it has been a while. It was fairly fun, although the almost rectangular map made it a bit too easy. For that medium, I would love to have read a more immersive story though.

SlimeShift by darksshades 2016-04-18T09:17:00

Very cute. Took me a while to figure it out. Without reading the manual I would have been lost. A little less repetitive music and more visceral audio feedback are my only points of criticism. Very well done.

Quarantine by nicotuason 2016-04-18T09:05:00

This is awesome. It looks so polished and atmospheric. The sound effects are really good. As an exception, having no music is actually a plus here. The ambient sounds fit much better to the scenario. I have to say though that I didn't get the cues that allowed me to identify the shapeshifters, mabye with more time...

Bortman by Rscar 2016-04-18T08:57:00

Very polished graphically and gameplay-wise. Nice to see how much you crammed in there: Graphics, parallax scrolling, physics. Music would have been nice and the sound effects sound very generic, but overall, a brilliant entry.

The Materialistic Shift by XAND 2016-04-18T03:21:00

It's good. Although I'm not really a fan of the genre I can see that some thought has gone into planning this. Maybe the levels may be a bit smaller in the beginning to allow for a bit more motivation. Sadly, background music is missing and I found that the object sometimes hangs at corners. Other than that, a good game.

The Ooze by Danman9914 2016-04-18T03:16:00

Really really well done. Not only did you motivate me to stick with it til the end, but you also threw in a story, incorporated it in the game design and finished with a nice ending. One of the best entries I've seen so far.

ShmupShifter by TerraCottaFrog 2016-04-18T02:58:00

I love SHMUPs and this one is very well done. If I had one request, that would be to allow pressing Y in addition to X since on German keyboards these keys are switched and it's really hard to play like this (maybe other locales require key switches as well). The only game so far that I would continue playing after LD (if that keyboard thing gets fixed that is). No music is pity though.

Hunter & Fox by lumscum 2016-04-18T02:53:00

Beautiful little game. I especially love the graphics. The controls are a bit clunky since the player has to move the mouse away from the screen's edge before transitioning and I encountered a few bugs. Once I got stuck in autofire in hunter mode (convenient), and a few instances the characters were stuck in position. The music is nice and mellow but the game could really use some sound effects.

EXTREME DUNGEON MEGA SHIFT RPG PINBALL DELUXE by Somelife 2016-04-18T02:47:00

Nice little pinball machine. Not much for presentation, but it has some charm due to the cute sound effects. I wish the RPG-theme would have gone a bit further and the Shifting theme did not really convince me, but overall it's a good application of a physics engine.

Ogre Time! by michalpypek 2016-04-18T02:38:00

The graphics and audio cracked me up. OGRE TIME! The controls didn't really grab me, as the main character is really slow when he's not a ninja, but the game has a lot of charm and was worth my while.

Shifting Shadows by Max Amaden 2016-04-18T02:34:00

Very beautiful and polished pixel art game. I love the presentation and all the details. Could do with a little more AI (of course hard to accomplish in 48hrs) and the music is really repetitive. But overall, I liked it a lot.

Rayshifting by ponk 2016-04-18T02:26:00

Great one! I love how you represented the different distortion parameters using two axes. Only minor quibble (apart from the obviously missing sound and music) is that it wasn't clear to me whether I have to click a pixel or just hover over it. After the third try I figured it out though.

Druid: Wait I'm a What? by NCBRdev 2016-04-18T02:19:00

Neat little game. I think it would benefit most from explaining more what the shifting is for. So I managed to shift into two cat forms, but couldn't figure out what they do. Also the attack range was not visible, so it was a bit guesswork. I love the title image.

Sky Panic by ladybenko 2016-04-18T02:15:00

Cute little game.

I like the graphics and how polished everything is. The music gets a bit repetitive but it's subtle enough to not overdo it.