Chillen

Monkey Quest by paulloz 2021-05-11T12:27:15Z ♥ 0

Outstanding! Very fun, cute, and cozy. The environmental tutorials are really well thought out and the power curve is surprisingly good for a jam! Gorgeous graphics, the music was perfect, and the digging mechanic really afforded some new ways of thinking about combat. Fantastic across the board!

Murder on 34th Street by DanyVk 2021-05-07T20:53:25Z ♥ 0

Looks great, and a very interesting premise! Just a random suggestion, but I feel like there's room to expand into a larger game if the player were a hitman working for the police or something, so that you can do multiple crime scenes. Great premise, overall pretty good execution, and the aesthetic works very well for it.

Critiques, everyone's said it, but yeah - text speed is extremely slow and prevented me from going very far with the game. I was also really lost at the beginning and didn't really know what I was meant to be doing with the evidence strewn about. A clearer message of the goal, and maybe some example of what it would be like would have helped. Obviously I get it's beyond jam scope, but some kind of intro where you have to engage with the evidence collection + interrogation mechanics *before* digging into the actual game would help motivate what I'm supposed to be doing once I'm invested.

All in all though, extremely interesting premise and quite a good execution + aesthetic! I'd love to get deeper into it but I'm just thrown off by the text speed.

Deeper Sleeper by Seraphyi 2021-05-07T20:38:00Z ♥ 1

Aside from the unclear objective, I think the mechanics worked well for the metaphor! The "Remember" felt a bit out of place, as it was unclear if there was any reason to/to avoid remembering, unless you actively *decide* to remember the bad things, but I may not have tinkered enough. Either way, I like the implicit and ambiguous storytelling that's presented by listing some things as good/bad memories, and how much that could be fleshed out in some worldbuilding as a long-term project. Part of my thesis research had me looking into game mechanics that promote motifs and indirect storytelling, and I really like the memories as an avenue for letting the player build the story in their own heads!

Barkcheology by fusionnist 2021-05-07T20:27:25Z ♥ 2

Really great atmosphere, audio+visuals were excellent, puzzle mechanics were great. All around excellent work on this one! Very polished. I was a little confused in adventure mode how I was able to pop a bunch of gems successfully, but when I reset to the store, I only had 1 gold, but I'm sure I just missed something at some point. Either way, the loop is great! Just a little more feedback to the player to keep them in the loop with game state (eg. how long until a tile disappears, info when money is earned). Really great work here! Very impressive.

Just Another Job by ynneblack 2021-05-07T20:11:11Z ♥ 1

Very nice! The simple drawn style and music made a great atmosphere, and it was a really neat setting that didn't say *too* much about what was going on to let me fill in gaps. Really good showcase of ability in this one! 😄

Deep Down by dcrdro 2021-05-07T19:46:30Z ♥ 3

Interesting direction for the theme, and pretty neat aesthetic for the type of story being told! I think the main critique is just that the interactions felt a little arbitrary, felt a bit like I was randomly mashing left/right/123/e and then progressing the story accidentally, but it worked out well for a short little experience. Neat attempt to do a Kafka game! Great jumping off point.

Cavern of Erytin by DeBbbth 2021-05-07T19:36:09Z ♥ 0

Definitely needed some form of feedback on the attacks; sound effects, screen effects, particles, colour modulation, something to indicate when you take damage, when their attack connects, the range of the attack, or if you are actually hitting them. It's a solid tech demo! Just recommend looking into integrating nice feedback into the core interactions early to make sure the player knows what's happening.

The Adventurer Guild by DeathStorm 2021-05-07T19:30:43Z ♥ 2

Definitely think this is a great start. I think a lot of great things have already been said. To hook in players, definitely giving some fast upfront progress to feel awesome rather than starting as such a grind. It also plays very idle, but I need to check in every couple of seconds to continue/leave the expedition, and if I alt+tab it pauses, so it can't really play like an idle game on a second monitor. Having a pawn representation of the characters to really feel like I'm sending people out, maybe having some comments made by them to add flavour, and some better feedback on how dangerous sending them forward is would be nice. Lots of great systems work for a jam, though!

Down the rabbit hole by bbaf 2021-05-07T19:18:16Z ♥ 2

Rode around space on a stream of books to phase into an upside down pyramid and examining the lizard people from below. I think that means I won? Pretty fun and funny premise!

The Circles of Purrgatory by sevkron 2021-05-06T21:25:17Z ♥ 1

Playing the LD version. All right, so just putting it out there, I haven't started playing yet because I just keep bobbing the paw around and dancing to the music. Quite fun! I'd say in something like this, the core interaction should feel pretty good because everything else is intentionally clunky. Maybe snap the pencil to a box when it gets near it? Another usability angle would be to add some acceleration drift when the player is throwing a paper upwards/downwards so that it flies off the desk (maybe not when it's unfilled out). That way they don't get stuck swiping upward over and over again to make it fall of the ledge, but it's a bit more "saying yes" to the player's interaction and just throwing it off. I'd say the tippytappy works for the metaphor, but with so much going on that's one fewer thing worth paying attention to.

I think the only real design feedback I could give is to maybe have a screen that showcases which applications were correct and which weren't (I played pretty hastily, so I'm not sure if this was detailed in any other way). One issue that can come up in these kinds of games is that you aren't *totally* positive if you misclicked, misread, or misinterpretted. Having something to make it clear (even just between days) if it was a misclick, hasty click, or you misunderstood that a description implied an option would be great (eg. in Papers Please, each incorrect filing immediately pops up telling you that it was incorrect).

Quite fun, well implemented!

Into The Woods by Zype 2021-05-06T21:01:57Z ♥ 2

Great toy if you're just starting out! Obviously this is more of a technical demo, but why not offer some game design advice. In the future if you want some more engaging design, think about at least these two things: Choice, and surprise.

**Choice:** Choice is having more than one option, you can't pick all of them, and good choice means that you impact the game in some way. It also means that there isn't one "obvious" choice. What choices does the player make each second, each minute, over the whole game? Did they learn something from the choice?

**Surprise:** We like things to shock us, as long as it's consistent with what we know about the game. So for each second, minute, and over the whole game - what things surprise the player? Can we add some surprising moments? When they make choices, what's surprising about the result (without making it feel random)?

Cool tech demo! Great start. I'd suggest thinking about some of these things, and see if you can add some more choice/surprise into it while changing as little as possible (just one little thing, and see how it affects the game, and repeat). Awesome stuff finishing your first LD!

Obelisk by caeonosphere 2021-05-06T20:55:47Z ♥ 1

Very cool! Looks and sounds excellent, the mechanics are quite fun, and the opponents have some cool mechanics behind them. Could really make for a good mobile puzzler if it emphasized the puzzle elements more. I think two ways to lean into it would be to make the opponent's next move more obvious to give the player more readily available info (are they going to punch me? for how much damage? Maybe they'll cast a spell? Slay-the-Spire/Into the Breach style forecasting), and then really focusing on orthogonal unit differentiation (each unit has a specific script to defeat them, and interesting choices are spawned when opposing units are mixed together).

VERY good stuff! Really liked the vibe, nailed the theme in an interesting way, and just fun gameplay.

Shoot Them Deeper by pndaa 2021-05-06T20:47:08Z ♥ 2

Style and audio is quite excellent! It took me a few segments to identify what the "Count the X" was (a bit too transparent) but it was cool once I got it. I've often told people to consider memory/attention as any other resource in your game's economy, and this really demonstrates it very well! By counting, you take up your limited "attention" resource, as a risk-reward. Really neat application of that.

The only thing that throws me off, and it's a very minor point (especially in a jam) is that the mechanic of counting seems so out of place for the other gameplay. There's no real context that makes you think, "Oh, I'm going to be counting things". That said, as much as I like the counting mechanic as a bonus booster, I'm really not sure the best metaphor for it! Either way, excellent execution, some extra clarity on the counting goals would be nice but it works as is, very cool idea to take advantage of player attention in that way to add some risk/reward dynamics.

Conduit by reheated 2021-05-06T20:24:09Z ♥ 1

Very cool! Sound is great, visuals are very nice and consistent, tutorial text comes in well, and that core mechanic is very smart. Good design of the puzzles! This could make an excellent mobile puzzler without much more thrown in, but there's a lot of room for variance with different kinds of conduits and things powered by conduits. Definitely had a moment of "*ooooooo*" when I connected the first conduit and had to use it as a platform.

Great design, great execution!

Gulp! by oramun 2021-05-06T20:17:15Z ♥ 0

I think the game could be pretty fun, but right now I just personally find the WASD control way too clunky. Speculating, but if the clunkyness were removed (say by moving the mouse around and having the avatar follow the mouse) I feel like it might get a bit boring (Randomly run around the level to learn the buttons, click buttons, leave). So if clunky controls aren't intended, then I feel like the game might get a bit simple with "fixed" controls, and the inclusion of some more movement verbs could help add some moment-to-moment decision making(dashes, rolls, jumps).

Pretty cool, though! Also definitely make sure to opt-out of graphics/audio next year if you don't make the graphics/audio, but I think you already know that at this point :)

Hextraordinary Hexplorers by Aggrathon 2021-05-06T20:09:56Z ♥ 1

Gameplay: Hmm... "Buy Food and Arrows", but when I buy something I'm kicked out of the village and can't seem to revisit it. Oh! Pressing S kept me here. Bought some food, just 5 because 12 would be more than capacity... But now I can't buy more food. Well, got pretty deep before dying so that's cool!

I wish there was some way to see how much progress I made on a run. Otherwise, very cool mechanics! Very simple to get into, simple to progress, quite clear. A little unclear when the option for events would pop up, so I wasn't really able to plan out routes and understand what resources I would get for taking a specific path. The movement to me felt a *little* random for the most part, but that was mostly fine because it was about the decisions made at each point.

Very cool jam idea, fits the theme well, pretty fun to play! A little more resource variation and tools to give the player some more information when making pathing decisions and it could really progress well.

Abyss - A Journey Deeper by Dimi_Tree 2021-05-06T19:58:58Z ♥ 3

I'm a big fan of vignette games that try to explain some personal things through mechanics, and this is a pretty neat move toward that. I think one general improvement to focus on going forward is to make sure to provide the player with some feedback on what's working and what's not; for example, in the second level I felt like I was randomly being reset, I didn't know if colliding with the yells was slowing me or if it was a performance dip, I made it to the bed but then it reset me, but not at the start, and I was pretty confused. It also took me a while to sort out movement because the description says WASD but I had to arrow keys.

Lots of breadth in the game! Impressive amounts of stuff for a first LD, I'd just suggest spending some more upfront time in the future on making sure the basic interaction (movement) works well and the feedback keeps the player in the loop (I took X action, I know it was good/bad, I know what changed about the world/my character). Good stuff though!

Forgotten Spelunker by smilewood 2021-05-06T19:50:17Z ♥ 1

Really enjoyed the art and audio! The overall gameplay doesn't really hook for a long time, but still quite fun. I'm sure there's lots of room to add more environmental traps. If I were to offer one criticism, it would be to find some more opportunities for informed choices; maybe signpost certain chunks (TRAPS THIS WAY) that signify risk/reward. Either way, it looks and sounds great, and is pretty fun for a bit!

Conspiracy Dive by wizard sino 2021-05-06T19:42:14Z ♥ 3

Pretty cool start to clicker adventure! Obviously a few places to improve on as a jam game. I think the two biggest keys to improving this would be to focus on feedback and input. For the first puzzle, there's just a lot of clicking that could be improved by having click-hold, up/down, only use multiples of 5. Something to reduce the number of clicks, especially when you can err the first clock and have to re-click the times for all of them if it doesn't work (or just allow for any configuration with the correct ordering). As for feedback, in the second puzzle, one element doesn't have quite the amount of feedback for success as the others (at least on my monitor), and it made it hard to know if it was a part. Without forcing the player to examine the hints, it also ends up being another "just random click" puzzle. Three of the puzzles could be (and likely might be) beaten through pretty random clicks, but that's not necessarily a terrible thing.

A lot of notes, but overall a good start! Lots of stuff to pack in during a jam, really good.

Deep Pocket Digs by ChrisAP 2021-04-27T12:16:23Z ♥ 4

Very cool idea! Definitely feel like some kind of sand-shark. Moving around and collecting is fun on its own, but I could definitely see some kind of sharky "chomp" as an extra layer in the future to make the upward leaps more satisfying.

The controls are a *little* slippery, but that seems fine for this dynamic. I think the route of my issue was not really knowing how much momentum I'd have coming out of the dig and rotating mid-air. Maybe a forward dash or something when whipping out of the ground would work well. Or maybe it's just tuning!

All in all very fun, very cool idea for the core mechanic! I love the little coins jostling around. Great touch.

Digital Abyss by TwinGhosts 2018-08-15T18:18:59Z ♥ 1

Super chill vibe, really fun, and a really cool use of the Tron tail mechanic! The level design is solid and keeps it interesting. The first round is a great introduction.

Graphics, sound, everything is solid. Can't think of many critiques, really!

Bus Mayhem by artbohr 2018-08-15T17:59:45Z ♥ 1

That was surprisingly fun for being so simple! And really hard. I like it! I liked the idea mentioned before of reducing the randomness of the space press, and making it proportional to the distance along the bus to increase the tension. I'm also not too sure why there's AD/Arrow key controls, since I can't see any scenario I wouldn't just hold left arrow down the entire game. Likewise with the enter key to start the game; this entire game could be played with a single button. Space bar to start the game, constantly move the character left, etc. and really hone in on its simplicity.

Really fun! Great take on the theme. Enjoyed it a lot 😄

BulletMan by Grewoss 2018-08-15T17:52:02Z ♥ 1

Really loved the mechanic! Really saw this as more of a puzzle game with action mechanics than a pure action game. Being able to block off enemies with bullet walls rather than kill them, limiting your shots where possible. Really good!

I think the only real criticism is consistency. Some of the enemies seemed like the took a solid 10+ seconds of constant bullet streams to kill, where others took barely any. It *does* get you to spray more than necessary, but it's never fun when games break their consistency. If it is intentional, it would probably be cool to see them at least have different colours to indicate they'll take longer, or something. You won't know exactly how much, but you can go in with a bit more intention.

Really fun game! That mechanic is an awesome take on the theme. I'd love to see it go hard on the puzzle driven solutions. Really good!

At the lab by UselessDinosaur 2018-08-15T17:39:52Z ♥ 1

Really fun toy! The gravity and wall generation is really cool. Would love to see what sorts of puzzles can be made with it. The first thing I'd toss in, though, would be some sort of reset/teleport to a safe zone, because it's really easy to get stuck (unless there *was* a reset and I just didn't notice). Really cool idea!

A Tale of Fish by dalton5000 2018-08-15T17:34:23Z ♥ 1

Interesting to see a narrative take on the theme! Everything sets the calming mood really nicely. It's definitely not my genre of gameplay, but the story was nice and the fetch quest nature wasn't difficult enough to be tedious. Fun little experience :)

35 Seconds to Arrival by watdowtal 2018-08-15T17:21:59Z ♥ 0

Not a ton of gameplay, going back to the other comments on not really having enough time to make decisions, but it's a solid attempt! There could probably be a few small additions/tweaks, like starting with the camera scaled out to see a lot and then as you approach Earth, the camera zooms in and gives you less and less reaction time (running out of *camera space*) but overall pretty good :) I kind of enjoyed going down instead of up, I really did feel like I was getting ready to come in for a landing, but I can see how it can be a bit disorienting.

Dear Leader's Diet Plan by Historymaker118 2018-08-15T17:06:28Z ♥ 1

This gets unexpectedly difficult! Pretty enjoyable, controls can be a bit tough to get (ended up just spamming a lot) but it definitely gets the point across. Great use of the theme in every aspect of it! Pretty solid.

Tetroids by CodeChomper 2018-08-15T16:56:12Z ♥ 0

Really fun and a great play on the theme/genre! I don't have much to add on to what the others have said; mouse controls and a restart button would be great. Maybe in place of a restart button, even just giving you one little "explosion" or something that can break you out when you're stuck, maybe recouping after so many block destroys. Not sure it's worth the time put in, though. WASD + Mouse would definitely be the best fun:cost implementation.

Really awesome concept and a solid implementation!

Cartoon Tactics by Jiri Hysek 2018-08-15T16:50:34Z ♥ 1

Not too bad! The map gen is solid and the map destroying around you worked really nicely with this style of game! It's not contributing much to say that variability would make it more interesting, that's always the case in jams :p Really good stuff for the time constraints!

MULT by AlexHoratio 2018-08-15T16:40:38Z ♥ 0

Pretty fun game! I definitely agree with @my-sweet-whomp that being able to slap restart with space bar and get right back into it would be a huge, cheap quality of life fix. Pretty fun and tough, and it gets the *feel* pretty nice :) Good work!

TrackBlasters by paulloz 2018-08-15T16:36:23Z ♥ 1

Looks fantastic, sounds fantastic, and feels great! That's really awesome. I love that it adds an almost strategy/tactics dynamic to a simple racer. Really great stuff!

Foggy raft by dimlight 2018-08-13T20:27:17Z ♥ 2

Wow! That was extremely fun but also really tough! I'm probably going to keep this one on hand and play it again after. Played a few rounds, but just couldn't get away from that monster. I'll have to keep tweaking my strategy. Sounds and graphics are also absolutely fantastic.

I normally hop into games and try to figure it out without looking at the help docs, but I'll say this one was a bit tough to do that with. There's so much content to it! Really impressive. Enough strategy to keep it going for a while.

One implementation critique, since I always try to leave a little critique! :p The hitbox around the compass seems to encroach on the map. Every time I traveled into the SW corner, it would open the help menu. Minor thing, but definitely made me want to avoid that corner!

Seriously fun, and I love how the theme bleeds into so many of the mechanics. Having your fuel source linked to the geometry of your ship was a really, really cool way to handle that resource and bring it back into the theme. Really great work!

Get Comfortable by mcccclean 2018-08-13T20:02:51Z ♥ 0

Oh hey! It's another game called Get Comfortable able getting comfortable in bed with a partner! I thought I was being so unique ;P

Love the art, the music, everything. Really adorable little game and the bonuses for different positions is an amazing add-on. It's a bit tough to tell if you're actions are good or bad aside from the comfort score, but I think that adds to the charm of it. You can just keep going, try to increase your comfort, play a few rounds, and shoot for bigger scores, or you can just have fun with the mechanics.

Good stuff!

Cardback Dicing by literallyjosh 2018-08-13T19:30:55Z ♥ 1

Great ideas there, and really enjoyed the art style. I played a few rounds, and I will say that it felt like there wasn't a ton of meaningful choice; most of what you're doing it move and attack. I think it's caused by the lack of feedback. Maybe it was there and I missed it, but I didn't notice much information that would help make your decision. For example, what an item would boost, what the stats do, or how much attack/defense an enemy has (determining if you should quaff or not). If it is there, maybe making it a bit more obvious would lead to more decision making? Also limiting the number of, "You flipped this card, deal with the consequences", because those felt pretty random.

Another feedback piece that could help: Letting the dice sit for a second. I agree with hammers that speeding up the animation's good, but at the same time, some of the dice would disappear so fast or merge so fast that if I stopped paying attention for a sec I'd miss what was going on. When I first started playing and noticed the dice disappearing I was like "Oh no! Why did those disappear!". It didn't immediately click that they were failed rolls. Then having the dice merge at the top, I didn't quite catch how many successes I had. A bit odd, but not unplayable.

All that said! It was a really fun concept and I really enjoyed playing through. Aside from some player feedback and maybe having more "make a choice" cards, the implementation's great. I could really see myself blowing hours into a fully built out version of this, where you could navigate a dungeon, move forward in it, make pathing decisions, and have a bit of an indication of where you're going. Really good stuff!

Follow The Light by DraperDanMan 2018-08-13T18:54:06Z ♥ 2

Extremely fun! The sensitivity felt just right, the levels are really fun to navigate, and the timer is a great way to have the player mess up a little on their first run and want to play it once more after getting a handle on the mechanics. "The floor is lava" levels are really great at teaching the player to stay up high to get better times.

The only real nitpick I have, and I really can't be sure what an elegant fix would be, is that for the first 5 deaths or so I didn't realize the wall behind me was killing me and I was really confused. I'm not sure of any clean way to give feedback to the player, though. The only thing that comes to mind is a wall rumbling sound that gets louder as the walls close in, to let you know the wall's about to smack you, but that runs the risk of ruining the great ambience.

Lots of fun! Definitely returning to this one when I've got two minutes to spare to try and improve times :)

Postman by tulipekoni 2018-08-13T18:35:51Z ♥ 0

Really loved the art and sounds! The only issues were the obvious audio/jumping bugs assumedly caused by Unity WebGL as you mentioned. The core loop is super fun. Had you tried allowing the player to pick up boxes they're standing on? I wasn't sure if that was an intentional way to up the difficulty or not (that bottom left platform, oof!)

Great stuff. Really fun time playing it :) The biggest, potentially low cost improvement post-LD I can think of would be showing some approximation of the throw trajectory. I was hitting ceilings a lot! Without it is fine, just takes time to get used to the height. Really enjoyed this!

Get Of That Damn Island by LaytanL_ 2018-08-12T23:57:36Z ♥ 1

Pretty good! A few bugs here and there, as to be expected. The movement is a bit rough, especially when I'm sprinting to a block (here's looking at you, level 3) I'm spamming the arrow key as much as possible. Did really enjoy the mechanic of the top block being removed before the ground! Level 2 was an interesting puzzle. I didn't realize there were tutorials and was really confused, but when I went back and did them it cleared it up and was really neat! Good job :)

Never run out of SPACE: a ZIP folders journey by Swini 2018-08-12T23:45:40Z ♥ 3

Solid first entry! The cheapest quality of life improvements would probably be sped up text at the beginning (and pressing spacebar before the dialogue ends skips the animation), and differentiating some of the data sprites. For example, getting into level 2 took me a minute just because you were trained in the previous level *not* to touch the blocks, and now they're your platforms and some of them are bouncy. A bit confusing, but sprite creation is definitely one of the things that can take a hit in compo :)

Emissary by Handle 2018-08-12T23:31:09Z ♥ 1

Really loved the core loop personally! Took a little while to get the hang of it, but I think I'll be coming back to play this again later. Really good and really tough! Also looked and sounded great.

Viral by BigBossErndog 2018-08-12T23:23:16Z ♥ 0

I got so distracted by the folder and virus names I didn't even notice I'd lost! Awesome stuff.

Zombie Royale by Devilzinn 2018-08-12T23:17:26Z ♥ 1

Really fun and really hard! The biggest QOL upgrade for least effort would probably be a sprite change or some notification that the dynamite is about to blow. Really great stuff!