Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Defrag
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Signal | compo | 4.00 | 3.83 | 4.25 | 5.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.83 | |||
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | Gemsweeper | jam | 251 | 3.78 | 3.65 | 4.00 | 4.06 | 3.87 | |||||
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | 👥 | Bee Hold | jam | 463 | 3.63 | 3.44 | 3.19 | 3.89 | 3.63 | 2.87 | 2.85 | 3.42 | |
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Malthus and The Rocks | compo | 219 | 3.45 | 3.19 | 3.91 | 3.72 | 3.55 | 2.56 | ||||
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | Packet | compo | 183 | 3.61 | 3.26 | 3.94 | 4.35 | 3.55 | 3.83 | 3.59 | |||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | Dreihander | jam | 638 | 3.47 | 3.64 | 3.23 | 3.55 | 3.41 | 3.61 | 2.70 | 3.31 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Trash Panic! | compo | 154 | 3.71 | 3.75 | 4.25 | 3.96 | 3.82 | 3.87 | 4.04 | 3.45 |
Defrag leaves an average of 23.7 feedback comments each event.
I didn't/don't understand where I have agency in this as a player. It seemed like once I committed to a door, there wasn't much I could do except go forward. Perhaps I was not clicking on the right thing, but it seemed like I always had to enter the closest door, and then was stuck moving along through the room. Was I playing as intended?
Juice and polish everywhere here. I loved the squish of plucking a blueberry just as much as nailing a spider-thing right in its little eyeball. Like others noted, the spider things' legs and movements are perfect. Great take on 'depths' with this entry.
Did I get a high score? snipbo.PNG
Pizza, Pinball, Battlestar Galatica. Hard to tell initially what was going on, but I soon figure out the deal. I felt like I didn't quite have enough authority over where I was trying to go with my limited little charge-bursts. Seems like I ended up in the blackhole about as often as I ended up careening around off of baguettes and cheesewheels, which seems totally normal to have in a 72-hour game. Nice work with the audio - sometimes jam/compo music tends to drill into my brain a little more than I'd like, but not the case here.
I... am just a little speechless. The homemade clarinet soundtrack, Dorf spinning two pickaxes at the roughly the same rotational rate as a quasar, hidden gold statues, a strange dude with a crank-powered sling. This was game was many things, and I found it to be a real delight.
Someone wrote 'slightly cozy', but I disagree. I felt like I was constantly shuffling around trying to find more places to stash my aquanauts. It took a few minutes to figure out what the core game loop was, but once I got there, it all made sense. The radar dishes might have been more useful if they could protect a larger area. The mysterious random damage seemed quite ominous at first - I was expecting some kind of giant sea monster, but never saw anything except my buildings disappearing. I was able to complete it on easy after about 15 minutes.
Nice mood, and especially nice work balancing the economics of the three resources so well!
Lots going well in this little adventure story. Art was excellent. Stories were interesting, if a teeny bit short and/or unpredictable. But that is my memory of choose-your-adventure books as a kid.
My one piece of feedback would be to allow for instantly displaying text, especially the starting text that you have read everytime. Clicking does seem to speed it up a bit, but I was a little annoyed by the friction of waiting for the typewriter effect to end. Typewriter text is always a little bit of a one-size-fits-all gamble because people read at different speeds, and the constant sound as it displays can start to grate (at least for me).
Well done effort at combining digging with deckbuilding! This didn't play out the way that I initially thought it might. I figured out the combining of ingredients pretty easily, although I didn't understand the real purpose of chisels. I thought it would let me skip some pointless shoveling, but I couldn't seem to start shoveling in the little nooks that I chiseled out. Is that a bug or intentional?
This was a fun ant-themed version of FTL. I like the gradual, well-explained ramp up in difficulty. I was always wishing I had just one more ant - that queen wasn't helping nearly as much as I wanted her to. My only critical feedback would be that it was a little difficult recognizing if I had an ant selected. Otherwise, the graphics were great. Nice work making music that doesn't end up outstaying its welcome like many other LD entries.
I only made it a little over 4m. What is the high score?snipbo.PNG
Decent execution on an action-platformer. I encountered a soft-lock early on in a spike pit from which I could not die, escape, or otherwise start over from. I think pulling off this kind of game as a team in a weekend is hard work and y'all did a good job executing on it. snipbo.PNG
This was an unusual game for me, which is cool. It felt like a platformer, but didn't quite handle like one. The lack of reference points sometimes resulted in periods where I couldn't tell if I was moving at all. I can't tell if the levels were procgen or hand-made, but there were portions where I felt like I didn't quite have enough jump power. I kept wanting to do a sprint-jump somehow (like Mario), but no dice.
I interpreted the black and white color scheme as intentionally devoid of detail, which almost gave this feeling like it was trying to make a commentary on something that I didn't quite pick up on. I guess my biggest suggestion would be to either embrace the platformer aspect more, or reduce the requirement to make difficult jumps if that isn't supposed to be the main focus.
Fluid pixel art is hard to pull off, but you did it. I appreciated the novel game mechanic, but it took me a bit to understand exactly what was happening. I could not easily tell at first if there was carryover in the upgrades between runs, but eventually it felt like I was able to go deeper. Like others noted, this struck a strong Ridiculous Fishing chord for me, which I played a ton of. Great work!
Camera control could've been tricky, but you pulled it off nicely. The underwater wobbly effect was a nice touch. My one request would've been some kind of map or another diegetic way to indicate where I had been. I generally felt a little lost, especially before I upgraded my light a bit. That probably was a design choice, but there is a nagging sense that I kept missing some little alleys or passageways that, upon doubling back to search, were not actually an artifact.
Good execution on the theme!
Very slick entry. Nice work with art and music and torches and O2 tanks and shovels and everything just clicking. My only gripe is that I couldn't defeat the shopkeeper (at first...). I was hoping I could pull of a Hades-like takedown by just smashing the buttons as fast as I could. I really enjoyed the Crumbling Tower puzzle. I thought the very first level might have had a bug in the form of a dirt pit I couldn't dig, but then I pieced together that the levels might involve some backtracking - which was fun to work through then and between the other levels. I think you could explore making a much bigger version of this game idea.
5 stars.
This was well-above-average on the fun quotient, especially for jam games. It took me a couple deaths to figure out the main loop, but after that, I was in the flow. Sprinting seems overpowered; it might be nerfed by having the player not insta-stop after movement input is ceased, thereby making it more penalizing to sprint into a precision-required area (near an acid pool or arrow trap). Given more time, additional traps might have been a nice touch, or perhaps some kind of enemy that requires a little more thought. As it was, this basically became a platformer for me.
Also, I couldn't figure out what these boxes were. At first I thought they were treasure that I couldn't figure out how to open, and later I wondered if they were meant to be a trap. Either way, they never did anything to interact with me.snipbo.PNG
Nice entry!
This felt like a wet 3-ring circus - lots of running around doing different things. I was surprised by the level of effort with the different many games, and each one felt thematic and unique. The water filtration one didn't seem quite realistic, as my solution often would have hemorrhaged water out of an uncapped T or 4-way branch. The overall game became a little tedious once I figure out the extent of what I was supposed to be doing, and I had a hard time surviving for more than a few minutes. Overall, it was a complete core game loop and it felt like a game -nice work.
Were there any other minigames planned that didn't make the final cut?
I like the idea of the sub and the guessing of where the enemy was. In the beginning I could control where the torpedo hit but, near the end it kept hitting the same spot. I couldn't control where it went. The sounds were creative. I liked how it sounded like a sub find another sub. it was good for a weekend project.
Core game loop was easy to grasp, and I liked the sonar ability. Was that an early feature add, or something that came up later in the design process? If you had more time to polish, I would have appreciated a little more interesting procgen map; as it was, it felt a little disjointed with all of the strange deadends. I was surprised by the UI crack that came up when I went too deep - that was a cool bit of polish. Music was great - not too intrusive, as it often the case for 48/72 hours game! Very nice work!
This was a fun game. I was initially a little skeptical that it would be a trivial "get to the bottom" vertical Flappy Bird, but I was pleasantly surprise. The use of the light was interesting, but I didn't quite understand its use until later. I've found that lighting in WebGL builds does make games feel a little laggier, but if it is critical to the gameplay, then you can always just direct people to the download.
I was impressed by the random level generation. Procgen levels always interest me, but I've never taken the time to execute on one for a jam. Maybe next year! I like when the level RNG makes little sights this fish - he just bounced back and forth over.
Great entry, awesome sounds/music that contributed to 5* for mood - one of the best mood-setting games I've seen in this jam. snipFish.PNG
The title menu is pretty sweet, and the theming seems to fit together very well. Cyberpunk was definitely communicated; however, I felt like there was a point in playing where I was a little disappointed by what the core game loop ended up being. The CGL was well-executed (move/dig while unblocking your vision), but felt jarringly simple when compared to the investment in the cyberpunk theming. Overall, that is a small gripe in a well-execute jam entry!
I'm intrigued by the thought of sharing my little dude with friends, but I felt like the game moved rather slowly while still requiring pretty constant input. I was away for what felt like 5 minutes and by then my egg had died. Is there a way to speed up the development? Or is there a way to meet the egg's needs in a longer-term manner?
Cute platformer. Not too hard but not too easy either. Nice work exploring the space with the different elements. Like someone else said, the holographic spikes were a nice touch, as was the personality test. Great entry for a weekend!
Much to like in this little game. Everything felt very complete, and the sounds and music went together so nicely. At first I thought the way the levels would advance without me 'completing' one was a bug, but I suspect that it was intentional. I wanted to retry the immediately previous/higher level, but that feeling always seemed to kick in just a moment or two too late. My best run on yielded 6 of 21 gold. Very nice entry!
Did you start out with the design choice of just two tools and terrain types? What things were you planning that didn't make the cut due to scope?
This reminded me a bit of Flappy Bird, but in the vertical. I would have liked to have a little easier time earlier on in the level, or perhaps a little more lead time to see the next upcoming obstacle wave. As it was, I kept dying after just making it past 1 or 2 lines due to simply not being able to move fast enough to dodge the next wave, which was frustrating. On a plus side, I like the simple icon-like graphics - the jellyfish in the background were a nice touch too. Nice work!
I appreciated the simplicity of the game. The art was great, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the different aquatic life change as I went deeper (angler fish). I died pretty early on the first two runs after getting stuck on an eel. If I could change one thing, it might be to start out with a higher glow amount, and then increasing the glow decrease rate as I went deeper (if you think you'd want an increasing difficulty challenge as the game progresses). Nice work getting a complete game out there!
I was a little befuddled by my first couple playthroughs, but then it started to click. Like someone else mentioned, I didn't understand how to ascend or descend freely until I recognized that some tiles were highlighted and others weren't. I couldn't come up with any strategies that seemed particularly helpful, but I was really impressed by the innovation with the recursion. Is there any limit to how deep you can go?
Seems like a complete game. I did have trouble restarting the game on the Itch build after dying, but that was just a simple page reload to solve. Music was nice, gameplay seemed simple. I played for about 3-4 minutes with just clearing rooms and once finding a healing cube thing. However, I never saw any other creatures to switch into. Looking at some of the other reviews, I guess I just needed to play longer. It could be nice to show the player a new creature a little earlier in the game, just to demonstrate that part of the game before possibly moving on to another game, believing that they had seen all the content or mechanics already.
Voiceovers were great. Gameplay was definitely reminiscent of original Rampage, so nice work there.
Very well done, especially for 48 hours. How did you implement the puzzles? Did you create the win condition and then work backwards to a start state? I always wonder about the most efficient way to create puzzles for games like this. 5 stars from me in multiple categories.
Excellent work. Music was perfect, animation of the tiny creatures was clean and emotive. I want to believe that there are a lot of emergent strategies, but there may have been a couple too many families of cards for me to keep track of. I found myself going back to cards over and over again to optimize my decisions. Perhaps more time would have helped find the ideal number, and perhaps I'm below average in my short-term memory!
Also, am I correct in reading that you made a completely different second game in the same 72-hour period!?
Music is great. Gameplay is simple. Others have noted that the difficulty seems directly connected to how many ants you have. I weirdly liked watching my ants get steamrolled by the pillbugs!
Great entry. I'll second the comment about the gameplay being intuitive. After watching the first turn get resolved, it all made sense to me. I like the simple strategy of prioritizing honey production and damage output while still trying to keep my bees from becoming too huddled together.
Were y'all inspired by anything in particular when you came up with the idea? This seems like a very nice scope and idea for a jam game. Well done!
Novel approach to the theme - good job finding something different and nailing the execution. I got to the "You Win", and probably had about 60 seconds of gameplay to do so. I was expecting some pickups to increase my available memory, and perhaps some stronger enemies - I understand the time constraints you were operating under though. I thought your polish and game systems that did make it in were excellently done. I'd be interested in seeing what this might have looked like if you had another 48 hours to expand it. Capture.PNG
Cute, complete game. I was surprised by the blood-splosion when my first baby penguin was gulped. Later, I lost about a dozen to an ill-time orca arrival. The fun-meter dropped for me a little bit after I felt like I understood the whole extent of the game. I like the push-your-luck aspect of the escape whale, but I would have liked to see a new challenge arrive once I'd gone through a bit of gameplay. Maybe some polar bears arrive? Do polar bears eat penguins?
Very nice Compo entry. Well polished, and remarkably well-balanced for a 48-hour game. Graphics were lo-fi readable and the whole UI/UX felt tightly integrated. Concept was clever, and very quickly understood. I enjoyed the rogue-like elements of choosing different upgrades, although I felt like I was dealt a rather weak economic hand initially. I also didn't understand that my buildings regenerated after each run until I eventually lost one and then saw it come back after surviving the night. Once I saw that, my strategy changed slightly.
Did you consider or test a version of the game where you couldn't move any buildings once they were placed? Perhaps that would be saved for a hard mode.
Nice work finding your core game loop. The graphics weren't immediately readable, especially for the enemies. I had a hard time with the really fast moving dudes, which I initially thought were the projectiles of the enemy and therefore unshootable. I think others already mentioned it, but the UI popping up over the player when hitting the invisible paywall (and stopping the ship completely) felt punishing, in a not-so-fun way. Unless getting the player to memorize the invisible paywalls is critical to your planned experience, I would include visual hint when the player is approaching a border, at least after the first contact with it. To continually hit the invisible walls just kind of sucked the fun out of it for me.
That said, I felt the ship movement was pretty tight. You did a good job coming up with a few unique enemies as well. Nice work fitting all that in on a 48-hour timeline.
This was one of the few LD entries that I desired to fully explore. I was intrigued by the prospect of different synergies. I elected to go with a Gold build, which carried me through wave 17. I occasionally had what seemed to be a bonus cast - ie, an extra salvo of three gold tornadoes would be fired when I expected the next spell to trigger. Maybe that was a part of the synergy? As it was, I only saw the synergy kick-in as an extra bullet/tornado/whatever being fired in a salvo. I also don't think I understood what the 'ultra' or 'quick' was trying to tell me. The systems were interesting, graphics and audio helped sell the story, and the CGL was fun.
Did you have a favorite build to go use when testing this?
This was a clever take on the theme - nice! As far as mechanics go, I couldn't really tell what a good strategy should have been. I just sort of pressed buttons until I beat the CPU. Turns out that is my strategy in every fighting game! I appreciated the features you included in this, but perhaps a little more onboarding would have helped me make sense of what was going on.
Really nice Compo entry! Puzzle games in LD make me always cringe a bit because balancing/testing always skews towards way too difficult or trivially easy (due to time constraints). However, I felt like you had a great escalation of difficulty over time. I thought each level built on the previous one. I don't quite understand the in-game lore of why the plant vines/roots block me and water seedlings, but I don't supposed that matters a whole lot. There is a lot in this 48-hour entry, and you should be really proud of this!
This felt a little line Tetris mixed with Dwarf Fortress. I appreciated the non-competitive sandbox element to the gameplay, but I didn't feel much eustress ("good stress") from anything. Without a currency limiting me other than the space (which felt plentiful, once I actually realized I had to build the block-building machine), it was hard to keep motivated to keep expanding. This could be the start to a really thoughtful and fun game. That said, the systems you had seemed solid. Nice work!
Really simple mechanics is the way to go for a Compo, and I think you nailed the easy-to-learn, hard-to-master with this. I wish you had had more time to the the post-Compo graphics in the original submission, but I think you prioritized things correctly. Were there any blocks that you planned for but didn't have time to include? I thought that some kind of reward block with extra gems in it might be nice. Also, did you hand-make all the levels, or is there some kind of procgen running to create the world as you fall?
I picked up on the Oregon Trail mechanisms pretty quick, but I appreciated the point-and-click aspect of each encounter as well. I ended up dying pretty quickly, presumably due to poor luck on getting antidotes after being infected. I thought the polish and audio was great, especially in the Mood category. This was a great Jam submission!
Nice work! I appreciated that the enemy team seemed like giants compared to my dudes. Music, SFX, graphics were spot on. Dash and space were used heavily, and I made it to 17 yards. My two suggestions would be to tone back the screen shake a bit, and to reduce the padding on the camera. I found myself at the far edge of the screen a couple times and soon learned that I had to hang back for the camera to catch back up before moving on. Great submission!
I liked the mechanic of actually building your ship. I think a few more modules may have helped with the depth a bit without adding too much complexity. Maybe a radar, or seeking missile launcher? Or a recharging shield? Only so much time in a jam game. I hadn't seen anything like this before, and the hand-drawn bits were a unique art-style as well. I enjoyed rolling over some aliens for a bit in my take on the X-wing:
I think I had a similar struggle with the controls. Above is a snip of my 2 cents. I like the simple gameplay of this - no complexity to overcome. That didn't make it any easier though!
Nice entry. I jumped right in and picked it up quickly. It wasn't until I had quadrupled my weapon shots that I realized the danger in doing so. Spraying bullets meant that I had to spend a lot more time reopening the arena. That adds a really nice, intuitive tension to gameplay.
One quibble - I think that using audio that you didn't create/creatively derive (ie, used from Freesounds) means that you shouldn't be rated in Audio.
5-star audio and innovation for me. This was incredible for a Compo. This feels finished. I don't know what else you could do to improve, except maybe get this in a cabinet and put it in an arcade somewhere. Very, very nice entry.
This was quite possibly a perfect Compo entry for me. I didn't quite catch the save-point mechanism at first, but once I did, giving two save points was great. I really like the subtle push-your-luck mechanic that really creeps in there - "Can I make it through just one more challenge before I burn a save point"? Excellent work.
I enjoyed watching the timelapse of this game coming together. It's pretty neat seeing it get built in just 6 minutes. For the game itself, I had the same question as the reviewer above me - does placement matter? I feel like I should put the police station near the housing, but my guess is that location has no bearing. I also wondered what I could do to increase my cash inflow. I was perpetually out of cash. Finally, I also could not manage crime. Both times I played, I lost due to crime. Great audio, BTW.
I guess I missed something, or maybe the game is more of a narrative thing than a mechanic-based game? I suspect that I am supposed to wedge my way through the bedlam in the room, but I have utterly no idea of who I am. I did chuckle reading some of the quips of the super-violent fellow passengers.
Good work on implementing the fog-of-war mechanic. I liked the mood created by the tile-by-tile, limited knowledge (and memory) exploration. However, I didn't understand the differences between the enemies, other than the visuals being different. Oh, I liked the subtle animation of the black shadow guys. Nice work!
I managed to win (at 0:22) after my third attempt. I encountered the same issue that others had where the cylinder stopped listening to me. The game itself had really simple gameplay. In fact, it was so simple, that I wasn't sure if I wasn't missing something. However, after a few seconds, I figured that the game really was just put the cylinder into the hole!
I maxed out at 30-something bees. I thought the movement was strictly determined by my tongue strikes, only to read in another comment that I could have moved around via keyboard! Honestly, I think the mechanic of 'attacking determines movement' is really intriguing, and could make for a more interesting game in the long run. I would have liked to have seen an end-game panel that I can't just click through. I kept missing my final score because I was clicking too fast when I died.
I kept dying, but I don't know exactly what was killing me. Do I lose a heart for entering a death zone, or just staying in it too long? I felt like I had to sometime quickly run through the deathzones, and that I wouldn't lose a heart sometimes. I think some additional hinting would go a long way - maybe screen shake upon imminent damage, or some edge vignetting. Good job getting the upgrade system in there - many entries seem to scope for that but never get around to implementing them well (or at all).
This gave me some unpleasantly accurate flashbacks to college. This was a really unique take on the theme. I managed to get 4/6, but I don't know that my scrawled notes were all that helpful. It still felt like I was kind of guessing. I suppose I still don't understand the Voynich language. Thanks for making me feel like an unprepared student again!
I felt very smart working through this. It took me a while longer than I normally would spend onboarding with a jam game, but I stuck around long enough to solve a couple of the problems. I liked that the problems aren't immediately obvious, and that I had to deduce the solution from the tools presented to me. This type of game probably isn't exactly my cup of tea, but I am really impressed by what you pulled together in just a weekend. To code a game about coding also seems a little mind-blowing to me.
Nice connection to the theme, and unique gameplay. However, it seems like the benefit of making colors contiguous is merely that you get to save a single space by not needing to have a buffer. My initial expectation was that some kind of Tetris/match-3 style block removal would take place. I didn't grasp the core game loop for a while. Because the gameplay is novel, you probably would have to spend a little more time walking the player through intended gameplay.
I'll second the comment that this felt like Mini Metro's spiritual predecessor. I like the gameplay. However, I didn't understand what caused me to fail. Is it too many people waiting on a floor, or too many people in the elevator, or too many people getting into the elevator at once? If there was some kind of hinting at which it was, I missed it. However, the audio was nicely rhythmic.
The graphics threw me off for a bit initially, but I'm glad that I stuck around for two full playthroughs. My high score was 4750 on my second run. This was a surprisingly tough little puzzle game. I like that the core loop was easily grasped and required very little onboard. The controls and visuals felt very tight and snappy - I think you nailed the speed of the square's movement on the board. What was your high score as the developer? I'm interested if there is some kind of strategy in this beyond just filling in the outer square layers first.
This was 5* for theme and innovation for me. I love a game that nails the theme with simple, original gameplay. I don't have a cat, but I've seen enough cat videos to appreciate the weird accuracy of this. The game felt very polished and well-designed. I don't really have any critical feedback, and my guess is that you probably hit the game experience you were aiming for, right?
Ok, maybe my only feedback would be that the tiny boxes are really tough! I consistently can't get the cat's bottom in if I stop the head even a few pixels too soon.
I appreciated the tried-and-true gameplay - no tutorial needed. Excellent graphics, especially in just 48 hours. I would have like to have seen something original to keep me going beyond a few iterations, but this has everything a game needs to be a game. Nice work!
Fun game about a group of friends just trying to make it through the zombie apocalypse at the local mall. I liked the way that you control a group of survivors instead of just a single hero. It also made it not too painful when a person succumbed to the horde. I tried walling myself in, only to realize that you could easily starve to death if the zombies didn't break down the walls in time to let me out.
Nice pixel work, great soundtrack. Don and Tony - great work rolling this out in 72 hours in a new engine. Lightyears beyond where I would be in Godot.
Fun blend between FPS and puzzler, in a way. Each enemy felt like it a secret that made the level feel rewarding. The white beasties were the hardest initially, but I managed to eventually beat them with some elaborate jumping. Unfortunately, I couldn't get back the unhinged cats in level 22. This was a fun game to stick around in for 5+ minutes, which is really great for a game made in a weekend. Novel concept, and clever use of the them. Play_0.gif
Really tight blend of speed-rush and control, feels awesome. Jumping puzzles can be tricky, especially when the dash is look dependent, but I felt like the demon things weren't too difficult to hit. I made it through 7 levels I think before I kept dying too much to keep progressing. The tutorial does a great job onboarding the different mechanics too. Excellent jam entry.
Oh, and I think I feel you on the Unity delays. I am still using 2020.3 for a main project, and I feel like it is much faster on reloads than 2021. I haven't tried any 2022 versions yet, but I'm not surprised to hear that it isn't a major improvement.
Solid take on the theme. I enjoyed the arcade driving action. I delivered about $200 of pizza and wings before I started feeling like there wasn't anything to keep me going. Was there a countdown or goal that I was trying to hit? The perspective shift on the car was an interesting visual mechanic. Nice work on the varied crashing sounds too.
Thanks for putting the radar arrow in. I really don't like wandering around maps not knowing where to go. I went with the motorcyle and got 8 packets delivered before ghosts took me from positive 60 seconds to negative 60 in about a second. That felt a little punishing, but perhaps I'd reached the end of the intended game loop.
The croc dialogue seemed pretty straightforward. What drove the decision to go with ChatGPT-generated scripts instead of just doodling them out yourself?
Nice work with the audio, and clean 1-bit graphics. Radar arrow was a really nice quality-of-life thing; I wouldn't have stuck around playing for very long if it was just an exploration type thing. I managed to get 33 boxes. Some of them seemed very close to my current spot, and others were quite the jaunt. Were they procedurally placed each time?
Many 5-stars ranks from me. This was amazing, and one of the few games where I want to play a few more times just to see all the possible mad-lib outcomes. I was just as happy to mess up a game. Great take on the theme, and just top-notch execution in every department. I don't know where you go from here - perhaps a couple more minigames and encounters?
Who knew robbing beer wagons would be so dangerous? I didn't too well. beer.png
I liked that I could drink beer to heal myself, or use it to increase my score - that makes for an interesting tension. After a few wagons, I feel like the game loop had shown itself completely, ultimately culminating in just a horde of soldiers that I couldn't defeat. Perhaps one way to extend the game would be to have different types of wagons, beers, or enemies that somehow make levels/waves feel unique or different from each other? Were there any planned features that you weren't able to get to due to time constraints?
Great work with the art, and working with 3D instead of fighting it. I have seen too many 48-hour entries where the camera takes away from the game, either by not showing important parts of the map, or by adding additional complications without adding any interesting mechanics (ie, just hard to control).
Slow and steady is the secret, it seems. I wish I could stop or slow myself when ascending. Most of my deaths were due to climbing too fast and smacking the top. Pretty straightforward take on the theme. Well-executed, with no technical issues.
Complete game, so kudos for that, especially with the new kiddo (congrats, by the way. I couldn't seem to complete the stork level. It appeared that some cards didn't have matches. Perhaps my memory is faulty, however.
Platform deliverer was a solid take on the theme. You covered all the classic platform bits in just 48 hours - nice work. I felt like the level design could have used a little more variety. The camera kept me from seeing the best route, and I occasionally fell down into pits that just slowed me down. That was probably part of the design, but it rewarded memorizing a level, which isn't something I think most LD reviewers are going to do.
I thought the egg was cute, and I really like the visual of the egg going flat.
5* for mood.
Request future typing input games be less tiresome to type in. I probably failed about 30-40% of time, and the 1/l was really frustrating. Was that part of the idea?
Definitely a novel idea. I've not see any LD entries similar to this one. I don't know that I really saw the theme tie-in, though.
Took me a while to figure out what do. I eventually found the planet on the far side of the galaxy. However, once getting there, I guess I died after hitting a rock. I tried again and managed to get a little farther before getting hit by a falling rock.
I'd like a little more hand-holding, or at least some direction that there isn't much direction. Some games can pull off the relaxing exploration vibe, but I can't tell what direction you were going for.
I thought the background art of the space scene was really evocative, and one of the songs clicked nicely with it. I thought that was the highlight of the experience. Unfortunately, I never saw if there was anything else to check out.
Sounds like an important delivery, but I wasn't able to make it. Hopefully everyone survived.
One risk with games like this is that I almost never know where to go. The instruction of "across town" doesn't really help me that much, and I find the fixed camera angle makes it difficult to see what directions might be promising. Consider using some kind of lighting or signage for a diagetic/in-world direction for player to go, unless exploration is key part of the gameplay.
Tricky to keep everything still on the platter. Moving slow, things fall off. Moving fast, things still fall off, just more spectacularly. Pretty easy to get what to do, but after delivering a few orders, I don't see how things were going to progress, other than just needing to get to more distant orders. Were there other features on your list that didn't make the cut due to time constraints?
Physics-based games are fun, and sometimes a littler easier to reach that fun. However, I struggle with ways to extend the gameplay in novel ways.
Oh, I liked the artwork overall, and you did a good job with the drone audio and particle effects. Really helped to sell the atmosphere.
Great riff on the age-old riddle of how to deliver the fox/mouse/grain intact across the riddle in a canoe, but with extra animals to figure out. I enjoyed observing the new animals and how they interact with the others to figure out what pairs well with others. Play with the audio on - you'll need the cues to figure out some of the levels.
Look at that gang! All on the right side of the river too.crossing.PNG
I kept the city alive for at least 3 minutes. I gave up after a while because the bars were full and draining very slowly. The core game loop is simple, which is good, but also can be limiting if the skill ceiling is reached too quickly. Were there any additional features that you had planned to include but weren't able to due to time? I really don't like typewriter effects because I often read faster than the type appears. My little pet peeve, I guess. I didn't realize I could skip with [space] until I started trying different things.
The radar feature was nice, although I don't quite understand why it was smack in the middle of the screen. It didn't block anything, but I didn't realize initially what it was trying to tell me.
"Bombing" rings with packets brings new meaning to airmail. I enjoyed this little game. Succeeded in just under 6 minutes. Like others, I enjoyed just tooling around. Definitely more on the arcade-side of flight sims - I just power-yawed around without any ill effects, and was able to pull out some incredible dives without losing my wings.
This felt like a game that would have taken me a lot longer than 48 hours to make. Nice work.
Angry birds but with pets. And you aren't trying to hurt things. And the parents don't have a choice about what kid they get, or how many! I had fun launching kiddos, and the sound effects really sold it.
The dots made the first two levels very easy, but then they disappeared and I couldn't nail anything. So maybe I still needed a little bit of dot help? Perhaps a gradual fade out where as levels progress the dot-guide starts to show less and less. Nice entry!
I appreciate the planning and work that probably went into the backend of this. I've never had more fun making and delivering t-shirts. This was a little bit of work trying to figure everything out, but the tutorial talked about the concepts well. The gameplay fun kind of dried up after a few iterations of it. Probably well outside of 48 hour scope, but being able to add more to the factor to take on larger, more lucrative orders would be a cool stretch feature.
I made $367 before things ended. Nice finished entry!
This was a really nice submission. I feel like this is what an airplane luggage loader must do on a daily basis. The challenge was easily understandable, but that doesn't make it easier. I felt like a chump trying to hold a breadloaf (?) against a mountain of basketballs waiting for the truck to leave. The endless onslaught of more lamps, vases, and tvs was a good, funny kind of "oh well" moment for me. This would have done really well on LD50's "Delay the inevitable" theme too!
That moment when I first hurled the priceless Ming vase into the van and then heard the smash was too good.
Reached the king in 76 days. I was waiting for some kind of twist - like the special thing to deliver was actually a terrible curse. Art for the map was nice, as was the monster portraits. I tried to be thoughtful with the different speeds and deadlines, but it never seemed to be an issue. Also, were the characters' reputation, charisma and defense supposed to do something? Was that for a stretch feature?
This had a repeatable core gameplay loop - nice work! I died the first time but succeeded on the second attempt. The combat felt very random to me. If there was something other than random outcomes, it wasn't communicated to me. The music was nice at first, but I would have appreciated a way to dial it down in game. I get that can be a stretch goal in just 48 hours, however.
Did you have any node types other than combat and stores planned?
Clever take on the theme. I played about half the levels. Very polished entry with a complete core gameplay loop!
-Music and artwork was spot on. I wish this game had come out in a LD closer to Christmas. This got me into that frame of mind, but then I looked outside and its springtime.
- Nice working getting the sound preference buttons in there. I love that kind of polish, even though it takes time. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to do anything in the Itch version I just played.
- I jumped to the last level to see if I could hack it. I encountered what I think was a bug? What did I miss here? I was able to pass it when I jumped to the second-to-last level, and then advanced to the last level. Maybe that solved it somehow?
Why does the cat try to hurt me when I'm bringing it snacks? I don't have a cat, so maybe I just can't understand.
-Nice presentation on the itch.io site. Very polished. -Music selection was interesting. It sounds like I'm on a boss level for a starfox-style game. Is that the intent? There is mashup going on between the cute cat and important mission to deliver it treats, and a star wars-style trench run. -Gameplay was simple, intuitive, and polished. The core gameplay loop was tight and easily understood - get as many treats as possible while dodging the obstacles. Tried and true.
I enjoyed this game - thanks for submitting it!
Got 7 chubby babies into their purple beam of safety. Dropped the other 2 :( Who knew storks had it so tough?
I was charmed by the art, both execution and choice of things. The drone rocking back and forth was spot on. The gameplay was very simply, which is good for a 48 hour jam. I would have liked a little more skill challenge, like perhaps dropping the baby at just the right point to hit the target home. Although perhaps that might have made things too grim? Maybe have the baby deploy its diaper like a parachute in the case of a miss.
Oh, this might be trivial, but I really like it when a LD game doesn't require me to go full screen. Nice work right-sizing your viewport/canvas to fit easily on my screen. It is always a bummer when I have to full screen just to play an underwhelming game. Not the case with this one.
Good entry!
Straight interpretation of the theme, but with some cool elements. I love the drone tool - That was a nice touch to help me plan out my next move. I wish I could have crouched behind some of the boxes, but at least I was able to outrun the guards. Clearly a lot of scope, and I appreciate your execution.
Oh, and I'm not sure if the floating van was normal :) Sneak.png
I love entries that respect my screen when loading up. So many immediately require me to go full screen. Thanks for playing nice with my laptop!
Notes: - I like the art, both of the title screen and the tileset. How did you settle on a palette? That is always tough for me. - 6-direction movement was difficult to grok and I had to keep thinking through very deliberately what my next button press should be (ie, from a execution POV rather than intent POV). Perhaps a rewind feature would help since the movement is so unique. I spent a few moments trying to think how I would implement hex movement on the keyboard. Maybe something like WEADZX? That forms a nice hex. - I was pleasantly surprised by the jump mechanic. That adds a lot to the puzzle aspect. However, I found that I kept jumping off the entire map if I held buttons down wrongly. It was fun and funny at first, but became a hassle.
Overall, I was please with this little game!
I think I won! Although I am not sure what kind of world this would be to live in. Gameplay was pretty intuitive, although on the simple side. Scope is pretty limited here, which is what makes it doable in 48 hours. However, I would have liked to have seen some "orthogonal" systems at play (ie, systems that compete with each other or otherwise cause interesting decisions to form). As it is, it just seems like optimal gameplay is to just save cash until you can buy the oil plants and hydro dams.
Solid riff on the "deliver a package" theme. I was able to play via Itch.
Couple notes: - No hand-holding or tutorial made it difficult to onboard - that is tough to include in just 48 hours. It wasn't obvious right away that I could fire back at enemies by pressing Q/E. However, that was a really interesting feature. - The buying/selling of goods didn't seem intuitive for me at first. I didn't mess around with the menu at all until my second play through. I found that I could cheat the market by buying goods and immediately selling them back. Perhaps it isn't supposed to be a capitalism sim! :) - No idea of where I was going. A map or compass indicator would be a big help.
Great work on: - Picking up scraps from enemy ships totally changed my attitude towards fighting them. I really like that little details. - What I imagine is a procedural map generation. My second gameplay appeared to have very different terrain. - Visuals for the water and wind was really nice and help sell the reason why the ship moved slower in some directions than others.
Very nice!
Hey, congrats on finishing one of your first 'playably-complete' games - no small accomplishment in just 48 hours.
I played in WebGL via Itch.io. I tend to shy away from downloading .exes, even for LD entries. I played the first level, and then jump-cheated to one of the space levels.
I like the general concept of this: a mail truck delivering packages to people in time with the beat. Not an obvious interpretation, I think, but it pairs well in your game.
I would have liked to have heard some kind of feedback for when I nail a beat. I never heard anything other than the normal gameplay music- hitting everything and hitting nothing sounded identical to me. There also didn't seem to be any penalty to hitting buttons too soon. You touched on the polish items yourself, but, honestly, the polish stuff can take just as long as the core gameplay loop itself. We should dedicate an entire jam just to polishing our previously submitted games...
Nice work!
Hey, your game has the same GitHub link for all the links. Please update with a playable build, if possible.
You asked in a post about the audio - I liked the tune in general, and I liked the artstyle, but I don't know that they were a perfect mesh for me. The music seems a little downbeat for what became pretty frantic clicking for me pretty quickly. Regarding the game itself, I felt like I understand the core conceit pretty quickly. I kind of enjoyed the mental load of trying to think which way I wanted a rocket to go and then parsing that into either a left or right click. Not always easy, especially under a time crunch with a rocket going in a direction other than away from me. Nice work!
Pretty easy game to get the hang of, and fun to work through a few times. I didn't appreciate that I lost when I ran off the screen, but there wasn't much of a time loss. Nice work on coming up with the different mini-games.
Unrelated, I just saw your Signals game on Itch. It looks like you have the mini-games-bundle approach nailed down!
This felt very finished to me, at least through where I stopped at level 40-ish. Like others had observed, I didn't really get to enjoy the visuals once the arrows absorbed all my attention. I like how the difficulty ramped up - it kept things from getting stale. Was there any connection between the pattern generated and the visuals shown to the player?
Neat little entry. I didn't make it too far on the three tries I had, but I get that the 'fire every 10 seconds' is part of the theme. I'm not too good at dodging undead, it seems. I laughed at the "press x to Undie" instruction.
I like what you did with this idea. I enjoyed the undersea exploration - it reminded me a bit of Ecco the Dolphin. The 10 seconds of breath coupled with the tight camera space made it a little stressful to explore the level, which hopefully what you were going for. I'd like to think that I could hold my breath a little longer than that, but I get that you were going with the theme there! Nice submission!
@faust-mi I totally got this vibe when I was playing. Unfortunately, I remember getting really frustrated with that level growing up.
I didn't have a sense of spatial awareness as I explored the maze. Were any of the 10 second sessions actually portions of the same maze? I thought this was a nice foundation for a moody RPG, especially with the thematic music and lighting. I also have some of the same feedback that it looks like other folks already listed (enemies too tough, blackout a little too long).
Really nice aesthetic. I played the jam version, and got spent a few cycles stuck, unable to heal any bugs. It looks like you addressed that in a post-jam version, however. Fixing the bugs didn't seem all that difficult, once I got to them - it seemed all I had to do was find the answer that had 'int' whenever it asked for an 'int'. Were the bugs supposed to become more complex or difficult over time?
Unique submission. I managed to beat it after only losing two times early on. I had a little trouble visualing exactly where the guard was, but I appreciate that I had the timer to theoretically use for planning my escape. I think this would have made for an interesting longer-form text adventure. As it was, once I was in the building, I just was able to explore largely empty room. There didn't seem to be quite as much challenge once inside. Nice execution of your idea!
I like the nested games - trying to beat the inner game while also trying to not lose the outer game was tough! I kept finding that I had died upon going back to the inner/space game. Perhaps I was just unlucky to get hit while I was away, or maybe I was away too long? I wish I had stayed alive a little longer between runs. Otherwise it seems like the strategy to beat my coworkers was to just play through multiple strikes. Good concept, good execution.
I struggled to understand where to send the ships at first, so perhaps a more evocative or simple dock would have helped. Eventually I saw where to send them and things got better. I like the idea of running a space station, especially with the complexity of trying to balance/appease various alien factions. Ambitious game, but I think I needed a bit more hand-holding to really appreciate the strategy. Overall though, I had fun playing!
Hey, congrats on getting a team together and finishing a jam! I appreciated the enemy artwork. Making a 3d game for 72-hour jam is pretty ambitious, so nice work on aiming high.
Interesting combination of mobility, mashing buttons, and shooting cotton balls(?). I like that I had some control over the projectiles by powering them up, but it took me a little while to figure that I was supposed to repeatedly hit the buttons to charge them up. I eventually got to a level where I seemed to be out of ammo, but I couldn't figure out how to reload. I also don't think I really understood how to use LMB/RMB to heal myself - maybe that would have reloaded my ammo?
Clever idea and mechanics. This felt like a museum or art piece. I like the idea of this tiny, ephemeral shared space with other humans. You get to make whatever connection you feel like making in the 20-30 seconds you have to communicate an idea. Very nice non-traditional jam entry!
The older computer OS setting was a flavorful touch. The clippy-style tutorial giving me types right when they were relevant was also great. The gameplay itself was a little on the unforgiving side; my tip would be to implement some kind of drop shadow anytime a player ever has to do a jump puzzle. It can be just too hard trying to judge a landing spot when looking from a non-cardinal direction if you don't have that cue. Overall, great project.
BTW, how the heck did you guys manage to coordinate efforts on a team so big? I only worked with one other person and that was tough! Kudos just for gathering so many minds into one idea for a 72-hour game jam!
I thought it was remarkable how well the AI-version matched parts of some images but then also could really mess up on other parts. This was a good demo of the capabilities of AI-generated art. I didn't realize that an AI piece could be generated so quickly.
Spooky vibe! This was a novel concept for me, and it felt like a right-sized experience for a LD jam entry. Great job evoking an entirely unique world/vibe/setting in just a few lines of code, the creepy sleepchecker, and the music. My only complaint was that I'd pop out of bed a split second too soon sometimes. Maybe at a little grace if players don't get in bed at exactly the right time. Also, thematically-speaking, how does anybody get anything done in this world?? Thanks for making this!
Great 3d puzzle platformer, which seems like big bite for a 72-hour jam. Very nice execution on that. I didn't quite grasp the connection to the theme right away, but I later realized that the watery bubbles coming up was not based on my position, but rather on the time elapsing. Really nice tutorial too, and I really, really liked the fact that I it looks like I could have just gone 'backwards' to skip the tutorial. Skipping tutorials is a nice feature.
Different than what I was expecting, so nice work there. What did you develop this in?
Game jam music often makes me want to mute the game, but not here. I'm still humming the tune. Gameplay was simple, and you did a good job using colors in multiple places to reinforce things. I didn't ever figure out which bar was the important one, although I saw later in the comments that it was the purple one. It looks like you stayed with default Unity sliders due to time constraints (I'm assuming) - that might have been something to prioritize a bit higher to complete the overall polished look you have here. Great entry!
Escape room, but with only 10seconds :). This actually reminded a little bit of an old flash game called Hapland. I found myself just clicking on everything trying to get something to happen. I noticed later that the console in the middle would give me feedback, but it wasn't always fully visible depending on where I was in the room. Good job. One note: the audio was coming through heavily distorted on my old Acer tower running Chrome on Windows 10. Probably just my machine, but wanted you to know.
WOW! This is definitely the most innovative and fun jam game I've seen so far - very nice idea and execution was on point. Like others have pointed out, the actual grading seemed a bit too lenient, but I liked to pretend that maybe Sally is more of a Jackson Pollock sort of artist, and doesn't need to worry about form all that much. I read your entry on how the grading was done, and I thought your approach was a good one to roll out in just a 72 hours. For a jam, I'm really, really impressed with this. I'd like to give it a try on mobile if the grading could be tightened up a bit for those that want that added pressure.
The scope for this seems really high for a 72-hr game - nice work. Couple observations: On the conveyor belt level, I spent a while waiting for the black lasers to turn off, before eventually figuring out how to actually beat it - a different model or graphic to make them fundamentally different than the blue/red lasers might have helped those that didn't read (like me). Also, I thought the game was broken at first on the level where red and blue things alternate being active.
Nice work on the art everywhere - great job turning that out in 72 hours. I played this for a second session a bit more, and managed to get to see the security guards. I how you used the parry mechanic to connect to the magic bolt mechanic, and you did a good job introducing the concept over time. My main critique was that it took just a little too long between reattempts on a level, especially given how often I was dying. I'd rather instantly respawn in a new level than watch the cinematic fade-in/fade-out.
Pac-man-like level design made it easy to instantly get what was going on, but then I realized how the shooting element worked. I liked the fact that your ammo count is directly tied to to your accuracy when shooting. The 2d-gameplay-with-3d-models seemed unique. From a pacing perspective, I thought that the timescale could have been increased a slight amount, but I can see how the slower pace may have been a design decision to go along with the point of the game.
While I am not a musical savant, I had a hard time hitting the beat consistenly without looking at the falling beats on the far right. Unfortunately, that meant that I sometimes ended up just running into a stone over and over again. It was really hard to split my attention successfully. I think hitting the beat is a neat concept, but there probably needs to be a little more grace given to the player, especially early on. Maybe there could be some kind of other penalty instead of forcing a game over after only a couple mistakes.
I liked the concept, but in practice, I had a hard time keeping track of what was happening. Perhaps some kind of nav marker or radar ping for when an enemy was detected, or at least where the fire was coming from. I felt like hitting the enemies was a little bit too hard for me. The heartbeat as timer ran down was a really thematic touch. The level design seemed a little haphazard as well, but it gave me the feeling that I was carefully picking my way through enemy territory. Impressive splash screen graphics for LD - was that an AI?
The 10 second battles were great. I don't know that I always had much of a strategy, but after thinking about some of the upgrades, perhaps there is more to it than just sending my guys into the fray in the default start up. The one were the knight could teleport to the back seemed like an interesting one to stir up the enemy presentation. I really liked the idea that I was being pitted against other players' configurations. However, is it taking into account their upgrades?
I instantly got the concept and it clearly has a good tie-in to the theme. The game felt very polished, and I thought that adding the upgrades was a nice unexpected touch. I couldn't really tell if there was a dominant strategy - I mostly just tried to move my hand in circles and hope that I didn't hit too many missiles.
Memory, with some interesting art and audio. I lost on the 4th level (5x5 grid, I think), and was a bit relieved to not have to keep trying to delay the inevitable loss. The art was creepy, but technically good, especially for just in an afternoon. The zoom out mechanic was thematic at first, but I think it literally went a little too far because I had a harder time clicking on specific cards. Maybe don't zoom out quite as far before returning?
I like the literal take on delaying the most inevitable thing we face. I played through a few decision trees, and I thought some of the conversation arcs were pretty humorous.
The game's objective became pretty clear as soon as the missile starting flying towards me. I really like it when games can communicate the goal so succinctly, especially in a jam where reviewers may be going through many games in one session. I think understanding what the various pickups (or traps?) do is the biggest challenge. One possible solution would be to dedicate some UI space somewhere to show some text anytime a player picks up something. For example, a banner could scroll something like "Increased speed for 10 seconds", or "Reverse controls for 10 seconds".
Extremely high production values that would rival games with a larger time budget. The voice acting was a standout from other submissions I've seen so far. The gameplay itself seems like it may need a few tweaks as the game state can easily revert right back to the initial starting condition. For example, even after 5 minutes of combat, both myself and the bishop have full health and full stamina. Perhaps max health could drop by 1 for every 10 points of damage received? Or perhaps one/both of us have some kind of third currency that is slowly built up to power some kind of battle-resolving action?
I enjoyed the premise, but I would have liked to have seen more decision-making for the player, even if it was just between where to place satellites. As it is, I feel like my placement really didn't matter, as the range was generally sufficient to hit rocks coming from any direction. I really wanted the planet to rotate, even just for the aesthetics of watching the continents drift around while I protected millions of people.
I escaped the inevitable! Took me quite a few deaths though. I kept falling for some red herrings and trying to follow some hunches that might not have been intentional. Evocative art, especially for a game jam. I thought the music fit the mood too. I thought some sound effects would have gone a long way, such as a floorboard creak while walking to another room, or a rustle as I go through the different books.
This is best RTS I've seen in LD50 so far - nice execution. I thought I had a pretty solid defense until the bigger bugs that spawn later arrived. Losing swaths of my wall was crushing and I couldn't recover in time. Good entry!
Pretty cool that you were able to work in a leaderboard. The gameplay was interesting for a few minutes, but I wasn't sure what the strategy once was the AI started guessing numbers faster, around the 30-40 second point. Nice technical execution though.
Very cool game. Top marks in the fun category! It feels like you spent a lot of time tuning the upgrades, asteroid size and speed to eke out just the right amount of eustress. It is so satisfying to blow up the last chunk of asteroid right before it hits Earth. The different weapons were cool, although I don't know exactly what each was doing.
I like the minimal handholding for an experience like this. The games weren't intuitive at first, but you designed them in a way that I was quickly able to figure out what to do. After I figured out each game, I tried really hard to beat them as fast as I can, but I still encountered the same endgame. I suppose that is the theme coming through. The graphics, especially the giant reactor core, really helped sell the environment.
To be honest, I initially thought I was just going to play a few minutes based on the simplistic gameplay. However, I ended up staying for the entire story. Excellent work hooking me into the narrative. It vaguely reminded me over Superhot, albeit with a totally different mechanic. I really liked the twist when I had to sort things that were unrelated, but it still was intuitive. Audio was spot on.
I like the premise of the game. I would have liked to have seen more ways to fake being a surgeon. Audio was catchy and pixel art was nice. Good work!
Nice job getting smart on game dev, Unity, Itch, and game jams all in one fell swoop. The game needs a little work to be round out the core game loop, but I think I can see where you were headed. Just getting a submission in makes you way ahead of many others.
I don't see any way to play on your submission page. Can you host the game somewhere?
I like what this game seems to be aiming for: some kind of tactical reverse tetris where you need to carefully plan out your resources and offensive capability in order cope with an increasing threat from above. However, what I ended up just clicking on a bunch of icons to see what they did. I think the next step for this would be some kind of in-game inspector that presents the player with data on what each block does. The little rockets seemed the most useful, as they actually keep the god tiles from pressing down too far.
This reminded me of a fun tabletop game called Guillotine. I had to keep checking the notes to see what each item's effect was. However, it generally made sense, although I found the result sometimes wasn't what I was expecting. I do like that the game prevents you from using an item that will have zero result. Unfortunately, I often ended up in situations where I didn't have anything that would save me. Alas, I was unable to further delay the inevitable. Nice core game loop!
Fairly easy game to pickup and understand. I thought I should get a little more advance notice of the teacher's next move. As it was, I just tried to hope that he wouldn't turn around because if so, there was nothing I could do to escape in time. The theme of inevitability didn't come through for me.
Interesting take on delaying the inevitable - my personal hope is that mental breakdown isn't inevitable with game dev! For the game, I could not draw a connection between what impact the different choices might have on the three currencies. A few more scenarios might also increase replayability.
I can see why this was considered experimental - very first time I've played a calligraphy game. Determining what to do was a little difficult, and I was often confused about why I failed a level. The minimalist musical notes were really rewarding to hear, consequently. I didn't notice the ink supply slowly draining at the top - I suppose that is the thematic connection? I might actually play around with this some more, but I think most people would appreciate a little more hand-holding to figure out why they are or aren't advancing.
Spot on for a retro game with the theme. Felt very complete. Nice chiptunes and NES-style graphics. Gameplay was intuitive yet challenging. Nice work!
You packed a lot in there in just 48 hours- congrats. I enjoyed the worldbuilding you did, and the game is pretty intuitive. I didn't feel like I had much player agency though. For example, I did not understand why I would select Defense instead of either Attack or Run. Audio was pleasing in a retro manner.
Man, I really wish this had some cool train sounds. Anyway, I immediately grasped the concept, so nice work keeping it simple. It is obvious how this can rapidly ramp up in difficulty. I think remapping the switch inputs to match their order on a keyboard might help. For example, the left most switch should correspond to the left most number (1).
I don't see any links to play or download this game.
Great polish on this little guy. I also only saved two people, but I did manage to make it to the rocket. The worms didn't seem to threatening as I found laying mines offensively to be pretty easy. I wish I had a little more feedback from the game upon finishing it. Instead, after the rocket sequence, it just took me right back to the start screen.
Great submission! Use of the fireballs as a dual-purpose ability (delaying the firewall and assisting in movement) was interesting. I had a tough time getting the fireballs to always go in the direction that I wanted, but it was an execution error on my part, not the game. That said, linking the jump command to automatically aim the fireballs down and left might have helped.
I kept getting lost, and I when I finally made a concerted effort to take a collected plant back to the nest, I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I think a little more hand-holding at the start would go a long way. I wasn't sure what the 'inevitable' was. Otherwise, I liked the art and unusual very close topdown perspective!
I liked the creative, yet efficient tree creation process you followed to make this. I tried going down a couple wrong turns to see what would happen, and I liked that the game was aware of those wrong decisions. I liked the inner thoughts too. I don't know that I fully understood the ending, however.
I had to go fullscreen on itch in order to see everything. Consider adjusting the dimensions there to make it fully visible by default. I figured out the gameplay pretty quickly, so nice work keeping it simple. Finding ways to increase the interesting decisions would help increase the game's legs.
Fantastic - best game I've seen so far. I think you nailed almost every aspect. This felt very put together for a 48-hour submission, and the addition of the different achievements was a nice touch.
This game felt very complete for a 48-hour production. I like the variety of pick-ups available, though I thought some had dubious utility, such as the dash to the border. I wish I could drop those if picked up. One minor request would be to have some kind of indicator which tiles are about to become flooded on the next turn. That might help with tactical decision making.
I'll echo the comments above: great graphics, nice meta-polish with the menus and language selection. This is a pretty different take on inevitability from what I've seen so far, which is going to help it stand out in peoples' mind. I think this is part of the experience you are going for, but it is uncomfortable being in a situation where there is no way to win. I saw two end conditions, neither of which felt "good".
Edit: My problem with the tutorial was entirely me - I wasn't perceiving the prices on the background as the actual shop. I thought the dummy on top was the shopkeeper.
Gamejolt WebGL page doesn't show anything even after giving it 2 minutes to load.
Cute platformer with an interesting twist in that you turn into a slime when close to dying. I liked the checkpoint-lives hybrid system. Art was amazing for a 48-hour jam, especially with how tight the gameplay was. Very nice entry. There were a couple physics issues that made me die a couple times in what seemed like a trivial situation, but there is never enough time to QA everything.
I thought this packed a lot of world-building in a tiny package. In just a few minutes, I was a little cold farmer trying to keep my giant grubworm happy. The platforming required more precise control that I enjoyed, and I spent a lot of time just trying to nail the landings on the 1-tile wide steps that I had to go up every single time. I think having an easier way to go up would help the player.
This was a pretty novel entry, and definitely capture the theme. Looking back, I think this is one of those rare games that doesn't need a tutorial. You quickly will learn what to do, and that becomes part of the experience. I didn't feel like I had much player agency, but maybe that was the goal. I did my best to clear trees, but it soon devolved into me just hold the button and waving the mouse around the screen.
Interesting balance between surviving this night versus preparing for future nights. I took me a moment to realize where I was supposed to get the souls, as I kept trying to walk into the buildings. I eventually figured out that I was supposed to click on them to break in. I like the different abilities, but I didn't like that the mana ('old souls') didn't replenish between nights. It felt too expensive to use abilities since I would have to re-earn all those expended souls the next night.
Nice submission Zackavelli! Balancing pollution was an interesting riff on the TD genre. I was torn between increasing defensive firepower and filtering pollution. It was a little hard to know what the optimal move would be without hovering over everything to check the cost efficiency of each option. I like the car models that you worked up, and the sound effects show some time investment as well. -Defrag
Double check that your Itch.io page is public. I've seen the 404 before due to someone keeping it as a draft. Edit: The link is working now!
Nice job getting the core game loop down in just 48 hours. I found the skill floor to be above my abilities, unfortunately. I was able to reliably get the first "optional" clock, but the second "optional" one was too much. The third clock (the first "mandatory" one) over the valley was too difficult, and I gave up after that. Also, I never understood how to use the sword - a quick in-game tutorial would go a long way. I really like "words floating in the background" for sidescrollers like this.
I tried three times, and the reactor detonated each time. I only made it to the 3rd robot going on break. I thought I had a good system, but it seems like the different reactors burn at different rates. Anyway, nice work making loss feel inevitable. I've never had more fun hauling fuel to reactors!
LD59 — Signal (2)
Ludum Dare 59 - Cell The Signal by baknik 2026-04-20T02:05:49Z ♥ 1
I had a similar idea. Your presentation is much nicer than where I was able to get to! My biggest feedback was that it is difficult to visualize what populations are contained within a tower's range due to the isometric perspective coupled with apparent height. I couldn't tell if the source of the "signal" was coming from the 2D screen position of where the tower's antennas were on the screen, or somehow if it was being "orthogonalized" within the fictional world. Not sure if that make sense - the gist of what I'm trying to say is that I couldn't tell which tower location would be best suited to capturing a building.
My uncompleted version of a cell network sim is here: https://jclayton128.itch.io/signal
Heist Boss by Tony Li 2026-04-20T01:52:51Z ♥ 1
Oceans 5! Great job pulling this together in a weekend. I enjoyed trying to figure out the timing of the different roles. It took me a couple tries to figure out what they would each be used for. For a jam, I think the decision to keep them on preconstructed routes was smart - I wasn't sure if I was going to need to direct their pathing as well as give them the 'start' command.
Screenshot 2026-04-19 205046.png