Evan Minto

Signal? by voxel 2017-05-10T06:28:54Z

Excellent marriage of visual style and mechanics. You use the rewind mechanic in interesting ways, especially considering how simple it is (there's no state that sticks around when you rewind). The glitchy environment and the video effects when pausing/rewinding are great as well, really driving home the idea that you're in a VCR. My only issue is that it was sometimes hard to figure out what I was supposed to do. Maybe a more gradual introduction to the mechanics would work well here. Overall though, this is a really brilliant concept that is well worth fleshing out further. Good job!

MiniAnna Jones! by impiaaa 2017-05-17T04:39:29Z

Really nicely polished on all fronts. The levels introduce new concepts at a consistent pace so I feel like I constantly discovering new ways of solving problems without feeling lost. By the end the combination of jumping, falling, changing perspective, and digging made it so I had to really think over my options when sizing up each puzzle. The simple shader and models and the excellent, sparse background noise really make it all come together too.

This might be my favorite game of this LD! If I had any complaint it would be that rotation feels too sensitive. Great job!

Space Balls by Dejvo 2017-05-17T03:39:15Z

I unfortunately didn't finish the game, but you're onto something here. The sparse visuals convey the emptiness of subatomic space really nicely, and for some reason I feel like the sort of '80s power pop song really fits the neon TV theme. Like others, I found the game fairly relaxing, but I *do* wish there was more of a sense of progression and/or more to *do*. I ended up just mindlessly avoiding the blue arrows. It might be interesting if there's a risk/reward gamble to the atoms, like if getting close to them can help speed me up. A progress bar or other indicator would have made me less likely to give up on this. As it is I have no idea how close I was to winning.

Trees by ghust1995 2017-05-17T05:36:44Z

I really like the progression of items and automation. I quickly figured out a strategy for increasing my wood output and it was really satisfying to optimize the pipeline. Adding workers to chop trees for me was definitely a highlight, though they chop a little too slowly to be super useful.

The art could use some work (the line widths aren't consistent, the UI font doesn't have any personality), but I'm sure you already know that. More importantly, I got a lot of lag as more objects were added to the world.

Also, eventually once I got my really streamlined production process up and running, the trees stopped growing! Not sure if that's a bug or some really dark commentary on the real world...

Worlds Project by TheMonsterFromTheDeep 2017-05-16T08:04:37Z

A little confusing at first, but once I got the hang of it it was pretty interesting. The simple pixel art style is a nice contrast with the amount of options and interactions available. I'd echo the comments of others in that I wanted more of a goal. Trying out different combinations of elements is interesting for a little bit, but eventually it gets a little boring. Plus it looks like I have unlimited resources. Some sort of resource limit, ideally with ways of increasing or managing it, would give me motivation to keep coming back to do better next time.

Solar Smash by blacksheepza 2017-05-16T07:52:59Z

The idea is super cool, and I got the hang of it pretty quickly. There's a lot of nuance to it because it's all based on whether you can set off the right chain reaction. Unfortunately the controls are a little unresponsive, which made it difficult at first. Still, this is a cool, simple concept with a deceptive amount of depth to it.

Grillmeister by tomdeal 2017-05-04T04:58:12Z

Oof, this was fun and genuinely kind of difficult and stressful! It took me a bit to figure out the rules despite all of the explanations, but once I did it really opened up. There's a lot of strategy in there with the different kinds of meat and the ability to cook a lot of things in parallel. It reminds me a LOT of Overcooked.

I *did* notice that sometimes it was hard to get the order to "stick" to the plate on the right, but mostly the controls are pretty tight. Great job!

Journeys of the Blowfish by clutterArranger 2017-05-17T03:20:48Z

I like the concept, but the gravity is a bit hard to figure out, especially with the weird rotation. At any given moment I can't consistently predict what will happen when I jump, so it's hard to come up with a good strategy other than spamming jump to get through the level. The pixel art's not bad, but a lot of the sprites are different resolutions (the character isn't even pixel art at all) which makes it feel a bit disjointed.

And props for the level design, which is surprisingly intricate for how simple the game appears at first glance (I like the tree level).

Fossil Blastr by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2017-05-17T04:58:03Z

Thanks to the explanation in the post I figured this out pretty quickly, but I agree that it's a little grindy, though the concept itself isn't bad at all. The fossils are too spaced out, so I spent most of my time jamming on the Z key and getting nothing. Additionally, I *think* I killed one or two slimes in one playthrough, but then when I tried again it didn't seem to work.

But man oh man those visuals. Great job on the character design, animation (the smoke effect when you destroy a block is great!), and color design. There's tons of personality in it.

Space^3 by boats 2017-05-05T06:13:15Z

Great concept. I love the idea of moving between 2-D planes on a 3-D shape, but there are a few issues. Mainly it takes too long to transition and each plane resets whenever you switch. This makes them feel more like rooms and less like a single contiguous shape. The game is also sort of difficult, largely because it takes a few hits to kill enemies and unless I pick the first option my gun doesn't shoot nearly fast enough. I had some fun with this and played it a few times, but it could definitely use some more polish in the transitions and balance to really let the concept shine.

Momma ZILLA by Sean M 2017-05-17T03:51:34Z

This is great! Fairly simple mechanics, but there's a lot to learn in there. I like the smaller monsters you can pick up and the mix of obstacles and missiles. The art style and music is also really fun!

I *did* have some trouble, however, with some areas. The blink move is hard to get the hang of because it requires both the X key and a direction. Also, the hitbox on the main character is sort of weird, since the bullets come out of the top half of it.

All in all, though, this is a really solid effort. Good job!

Taco Giant by Kichiguy 2017-05-17T05:10:15Z

I love the delightfully silly concept you've got here, and the gameplay *should* be simple enough, but I found that I would continually bump into non-taco-desiring people, even when I wasn't touching them. It seems like the hitbox is a little too large for the giant? It also took me a little bit to figure out that it wasn't going to be possible to avoid hitting those people. I like the basic idea, and I think it could be really great with a little more polish.

The character designs are pretty cute all around. Some nice details on the giant, with the protruding gut and everything.

Armageddance by Annet 2017-05-03T06:51:35Z

Great music choice (though I think you're supposed to opt out of Audio if you didn't make it) and it really fits with that awesome bright, geometric visual style. Love the exuberant planet with the dumb smile.

It took me a little bit to understand how to play, in part because I... still don't really understand what it's about. Am I saving the planet from asteroids or not? I understand the mechanics, but it's hard to map them to some sort of concrete metaphor within the game world, if that makes sense.

That said, it's really smart to have the directions come in from specific regions and with specific colors. It helps me to kind of get into a groove and stop thinking consciously about each action. The sequences get a little repetitive after a while, but like most good rhythm games, after a while I sort of turned my brain off and acted on instinct.

Hops and Fever Dreams by Antti Haavikko 2017-05-02T07:54:37Z

I love the concept (it's funny, I made a platformer about a rabbit eating carrots for this LD too)! Using your momentum to launch yourself between different gravitational center-points is clever. I like the simple art style, and the animations are a really nice touch (love the weird nervous energy the rabbit has).

Unfortunately, the controls are a little tough to figure out. It took me a while to understand that I could time my jumps to go higher than the first level of jumping, but even when I DID figure it out I usually wasn't able to time it right. I guess it requires too much precision, but a lot of times it just felt like my input wasn't even registering. On top of that, the side-to-side hopping is way too inconsistent to allow for much accurate platforming, and it's too slow to let me quickly reset and try again when I miss a jump. Difficulty is fine as long as there's minimal friction between failing and trying again.

For I, The Moon by georgebatch 2017-05-04T04:33:22Z

I love the simplicity and atmosphere of it, especially the type work and minimal (but nicely animated) UI.

I *think* I see what you're going for in terms of the metaphor of an intervention for someone with depression, but it kind of runs in circles a lot without any real rising action to the conversation. I don't particularly feel like the characters moved from their starting positions by the end of it. I'm also not clear who's singing at the end, though I assume it's the moon.

Crumble by BinarySpark 2017-05-04T04:18:30Z

Surprisingly polished UI and general visuals for a Compo game! I was only able to play it single-player, so I can't really judge the multiplayer. The navigation got a little tedious after a while since the platforms dropping is random and doesn't really change as the game goes on. I ended up just running toward the time powerups the whole time.

Fatigue by Bekey 2017-05-02T08:13:59Z

The movement speed is definitely a little tedious, as is the lack of any feedback about how close I am to actually finishing clearing out the shed. As a result, I didn't actually finish it, though I tried it a few times.

What I'm most impressed by is the atmosphere, especially considering the sparse visuals and gameplay. I felt a genuine sense of dread and desperation playing this, wondering whether the next thing I pulled out of the shed would be the trap that I need. I think it's a combination of the dual timers (DOUBLE the stress!) and the tight spaces to maneuver in. It's a pretty claustrophobic game, especially as I fill up the area with more pieces of wood (it's wood, right?)

This just needs a bit of polish, but I think the core concept is great.

s-mol by unless games 2017-05-17T04:02:53Z

I like this a lot. It fits the theme really well but in a unique, abstract way. I appreciate how minimalist it is, especially the way I'm encouraged to learn by simply playing with the elements until I figure it out. That said, it's a bit confusing, probably because it's possible to complete levels 1-3 by dumb luck and then not have any context for how to complete level 4. Despite that, this was a really cool, relaxing game to play. Good job!

Smell World by sgadrat 2017-05-04T04:45:31Z

Wow, that's some really impressive art! I appreciate the use of a more painterly style (so many indie game artists go for a more cartoony look). The simple squash-and-stretch on the mouse as it moves is a great touch. The little splash screen after you finish a maze is super cute.

Unfortunately the mazes are very, very easy, primarily because the arrow provides constant feedback about where to go. After a couple I pretty much just operated on autopilot and it ceased to require any thinking. Is there supposed to be an end, or are they procedurally generated? I eventually got bored and stopped playing.

Deja Vu by jdmazz 2017-05-17T04:22:18Z

This is definitely pretty challenging. I feel like every time I win it's just by a hair, which is a really good sign for how the game is balanced (though sometimes I feel like the levels are actually impossible). The art's got a nice retro feel to it, and I like the little touch of the witches having a variety of colors.

It definitely gets a little repetitive, but for the first couple level I really enjoyed it.

A Small World (how original) by lilkrit 2017-05-12T07:14:05Z

Nice and simple. The world scope and list of abilities is just small enough to be manageable but a little stressful when there are a few too many enemies (good stress!). The three abilities are a nice mix, and I definitely found myself switching back and forth based on the situation. I would have liked some better indicators of when my towers are under attack so I could shift strategies, but that's something that you can get with some post-jam polish if you're so inclined.

A Small Wheel by Evan Minto 2017-05-04T04:08:22Z

@DiegoCTorguet: Hm, did you try using WASD? I didn't have time to add instructions to the game.

Micro Warriors by houseofwillis 2017-05-03T06:27:43Z

It's simple enough to quickly pick up and play, though there's not a lot of strategy to it. Once I realized my bullets moved relatively slowly and I could jam on space to fire quickly, it was trivial to shower each wave with bullets before their bullets got remotely close to me and then run away. Plus a lot of the time the enemies just come bunched up one after another, so there isn't much in the way of complex maneuvering or a difficulty curve between waves.

The bug war concept's not bad, though it would have been nice to get some more vibrant colors in there. It's a little too gray right now.

BEAT drifter by RoarOfTheEarth 2017-05-03T06:38:39Z

Oof, this is pretty tough! I really like the simple but challenging mechanics. The different notes for each color and the feedback when I get one wrong is a great way to understand how I'm doing entirely via sound. The simple bright colors help a lot there too. I played this a couple times to try to find the groove, so you definitely had me hooked!

My one big issue is that W isn't an intuitive key for switching colors. I'd expect spacebar. Having it be a directional key throws me off, since my brain wants it to move me UP, not change my color but leave me stationary. It took me a couple tries to get used to those controls.

Small World: Green Valley by ClassicFire 2017-05-12T07:05:46Z

This was pretty confusing. Once I got two coins and bought the land, I couldn't figure out what to do next (tried interacting with basically the entire UI). It's a little hard to judge based on how little of it I was able to play, sorry!

Debris Trail by chromableedstudios 2022-04-21T16:48:19Z

I’ll be honest here: I couldn’t figure out how the controls worked. Despite that I managed to go a couple seconds without dying. Some explanation in game or even on this page would help a lot!

At least it's not death... by Ajayajayaj 2018-12-14T08:35:22Z

This game is probably in need of some balancing, but even so I absolutely love what you’re going for. The sacrifices made me laugh out loud, especially when they combined for things like shifting colors and random zooming. Would love to see this fleshed out post-jam!

Hope springs eternal. by Skosnowich 2018-12-27T11:26:52Z

Never quite got the hang of the fighters, which wasn't helped by the fact that the Unity player didn't properly intercept middle clicks so I got the 2-D scroller in Firefox when I clicked.

Still, the idea of trading volleys of missiles while maneuvering your ship and your fighters is a good one. The barrages of missiles remind me a lot of old sci-fi anime where ships would shoot out these long rows of parallel missiles with long vapor trails.

Definitely would be a good idea, as others mentioned, to establish earlier that ramming is a legitimate mechanic. I wouldn't have tried it in the final level if I hadn't read the comments. Like another commenter, I tried it early on but failed so I didn't do it again.

Bunnycula by pcmaster 2018-12-14T08:24:49Z

Took me a bit to figure out that the same button that places the carrots also picks up the animals (and that bit me later when I sometimes placed carrots intending to pick up animals). But I like this! It could probably use an extra challenge or something to make it less repetitive, but the core gameplay of trying to trick the AI while keeping track of what Bunnicula is asking for works well.

Also you did a surprisingly great job on the art considering all the caveats you listed. The lighting in particular works well for the theme, and honestly the blocky models, while simple, actually have a bit of charm in how consistent they are.

Space Inhalers by boddiul 2018-12-27T11:05:52Z

I like this! The concept of sacrificing the civilians to stop the aliens, who are... also killing the civilians has a lot of potential. The movement feels really nice too, I like the feeling of inertia and the animations of the civilians milling around and falling after they're shot.

This could use some more progression, as others mentioned. I played a few times but didn’t really feel like I had much of a goal to aim for, especially since sacrificing civilians never really had any negative consequences for me and the enemies didn’t seem to level up or develop at all.

hiJack by SecretPocketCat 2018-12-14T08:12:53Z

Great concept and well executed. I agree with others who said the map is too small and the objects are too big. It gets really hard to dodge after a certain point. I also really wish there were some invincibility frames when you hijack another ship, since I kept getting damaged whenever I did it.

I also wasn't clear about what the bonus does (it seems like it's just keeping score?) so I was hijacking willy-nilly.

Signal by HitchH1k3r 2019-05-10T07:34:17Z

I'm very impressed by the amount of content in this and the level of audiovisual polish (great music!)

I got pretty far before I had to put it down. Loved the Metroidvania backtracking to discover new areas, but sometimes it was hard to tell different areas apart since a lot of rooms look almost exactly the same. And I agree with the comment about taking damage from off-screen enemies. The same goes for walking into a room and face-first into an enemy whose walk cycle has them right up against the entrance at the moment I walk in. That was definitely a bit frustrating.

Is it a drag? by harark 2019-05-01T06:25:13Z

Took me two or three tries to figure out how to actually do anything, but once I did I ended up getting pretty into this.

The big issue is that there aren't clear perceived affordances on anything. I had no way of knowing that I could pick up the cards, and even when I did there was no indication of where I was supposed to drop them. Something as simple as circling the drop area or graying everything else out would have been enough to indicate what I was supposed to do.

I like the two-step choices you have to make: first to unlock the cards, then to change the probabilities. I found myself stopping to strategize about the optimal cards to use at each step. That said, once I figured out the patterns it became a bit too easy to play the game on autopilot.

And I appreciate the philosophical bent to this. Using time and support to unlock trauma is a nice touch, and it was interesting to try the game starting with a lot of cards vs. a little to see the difference in difficulty. Walking a mile in another person's shoes, you know?

Daybreak Inn by Joror 2019-05-11T22:28:14Z

I really like this! I haven't played a game where you give quests to RPG adventurers from the safety of your tavern before. There's a nice mix of competing tasks throughout: placing adventurers in seats, picking out quests for them, making sure they're healed up and leveling up enough.

I was very impressed with the art style and music, but also the level of detail that went into the characters and quests. The world feels surprisingly alive for a jam game. Great job.

PigsyBanksy by Joel Davis 2019-05-03T06:24:09Z

Really really like the way different aspects of the game all pull from the same mechanics: more coins means more weight but shooting more reduces your number of coins.

The pig is really cute too, and I like the animations when it moves forward and back. Great job!

If I have any criticism it's that the floatiness is a little too hard to control for me to play this for long periods. It feels like even if I got pretty good at it I'd still be ramming into things by accident all the time.

Fehu by graebor 2019-05-10T06:28:44Z

Excellent work! Beautiful visual style (the smoke/particle effects and fisheye effect really helped sell it!) and great music and audio cues.

The puzzles were relatively easy but still kind of clever and fun to work through, especially in the later sections when I had to combine the "overworld" navigation and the puzzle navigation.

I had a lot of fun with this. Great job!

Ripple by bentglasstube 2019-05-09T05:26:35Z

Love the concept, art, and music. The puzzles where you have to switch back and forth to toggle things were great and I wish the game were more centered around that.

The ability to sacrifice myself for a powerup was interesting but since you said the levels are solvable without it I didn't really find that to be an interesting strategy (levels were either too hard without the powerup or way too easy with it).

I also originally assumed that to beat a level I needed to get both characters to their respective doors, but apparently not. I'd encourage you to try a version with that as the constraint, I could see it making for some neat puzzles.

Basic platformer mechanics-wise, the jump feels a bit too quick and hard to control at times, and I would love some slightly more forgiving collision detection and maybe a late-jumping frame or two. A lot of times it felt like I needed to do a running jump and take off in the one frame where the player is on the edge of the platform. Finally, there is a segment where you drop down a pit but some pits kill you and others have floors. This was pretty confusing since I had no way of telling the two apart.

Life Stock Exchange by kefir 2019-05-10T23:41:23Z

Oh god this is so stressful, no wonder I don't work on Wall Street.

Great job. The intro/outro bits are pretty funny and the actual stock trading mechanic is nicely polished (lots of great little details line the lines showing min/max values and the horizontal line across the graph).

I also appreciate the (intentional? unintentional?) critique of both finance and for-profit medicine in here. Literally trading your life on the stock market is not all that different from how this stuff works in real life 😬

I second the point about the percentages not affecting buy. That made it impossible for me to accumulate money entirely through small sales, which I was originally planning on doing.

MONEYMONEYMONEY by joewan 2019-05-10T06:44:33Z

Oh no I didn't come here to do math!

This is super simple but it's pretty solid. Feels like it would work well as an educational game for kids.

However, it's worth pointing out that there's a bit of a cultural disconnect here for anyone not used to Euros. I'm from the US and had to look up the denominations on Wikipedia to figure out whether the red or the blue circles were for cents. Some clearer labeling could have fixed that.

The Demons Deal by Bluwind360 2019-05-10T05:31:35Z

As others have said, this is really solid for just two weeks of Unity practice! You probably figured this already, but there's not much challenge in the game right now — the creatures don't do damage or try to run away for example. It would also be nice to have the hitbox for the vacuum be clearer since I couldn't always figure out if it was working.

Mint Sprint by kaiclavier 2019-05-06T07:16:17Z

Great puzzle design, definitely had me scratching my head for a lot of them but I eventually got to the end. I agree with others who said that level 3 has a big difficulty spike. It feels like it belongs closer to the end. The reset and undo functionality was super useful, but I did box conveyor belts into corners way too often which made me feel like maybe there should be a a more graceful way to fix that (pulling rather than pushing would break the puzzle design I imagine but still...). Sometimes I did push things I didn't mean to push, partially because the blocks are locked to the grid but the character isn't, so sometimes I thought I was going to push one thing when I ended up pushing something else.

Anyway, the character design is really cute and nicely drawn and honestly that's what sold me on it initially!

Deadline by Evan Minto 2019-04-30T16:12:05Z

@snufkinshat Oh it's a Pico-8 game so you need to press arrow keys or Z or X while focused on the player window. Sorry, we should have made that clearer!

15 Minutes to Live by F1Krazy 2019-05-10T23:12:31Z

The trading quest-style mechanic was a fun way of touring the game world and I really appreciate that you managed to include a bunch of little side characters and stories alongside the main one. It gives the game a surprising amount of life (har) for how simple it is otherwise. This was a really solid, entertaining little game, great job!

I agree with others who say the music is a bit repetitive. Different music for different locations would have mixed things up nicely.

Soul Tycoon by OrangeJuicePanda 2019-05-10T06:06:39Z

I finished at Day 26 with 16,744,831 extra souls after maxing out all the properties. Phew, that was addictive!

You definitely nailed that feeling of accumulation you get from clicker and tycoon games. I had hoped there would be more strategy to it, but it seemed like the building types all just got me more souls rather than having any special effects.

Also props on the art. The game has got a fair amount of personality and mood to it. Music would have really helped in that regard.

One shot by Synedraacus 2019-05-09T06:24:05Z

I don't see enough narrative games in LD, good job! I like the idea of having a bomb you can detonate at any time and calculating whether you want to do it now or wait it out. It has a nice tension to it.

I like the writing but parts feel a little rushed (there are typos and some sentences are awkwardly phrased, etc.). That makes sense in a jam game, I imagine you would do another pass on it for a post-jam version.

I was having a little bit of trouble understanding the bomber's political philosophy. The intro kind of paints them as an anti-capitalist, but then it seems like maybe it's just nihilism, since they seem to be angry at "the man" in general and don't have any idea of what society looks like after the bombs go off. I wanted to learn more about that but maybe the lack of coherent ideology was the point.

Mr. Bees Wild Adventure: Buzz Off by WiredOverload 2019-05-09T05:33:23Z

Whoa man the wasps are a little too fast, I felt like I couldn't catch them and shoot them fast enough! Also would be great to have some indications of how many bees I have left and how much longer left until the finish line.

It's also relatively samey all the way through, so different kinds of platforms or enemies would help add some strategy and more interesting choices for the player to make.

I love the idea of spending your own life to shoot bullets (we considered doing that for our own game at one point as a matter of fact)!

Spirit Seekers by DoubleBlackStudios 2019-05-10T04:54:08Z

I really wanted to like this since the visual style is awesome (especially the light effect that only lets you see things near you) and the concept seems really fun, but like others have said the platforming mechanics feel kind of broken. I kept getting stuck to walls or finding myself unable to jump when I expected to be able to.

HWEY Heist by Hunter Towe 2019-05-03T05:36:48Z

The platformer level design is pretty fun — I liked getting a powered up jump and backtracking to find new areas I could navigate to.

But the jumping and shooting mechanics could use a lot of polish. As someone already mentioned, the jump needs some acceleration. Right now it appears to move at a constant speed without any gravity which feels unnatural and hard to control. The shooting also feels a bit clunky, partially because it seems to interfere with the jumping sometimes (I can't figure out exactly what's wrong, but jumping up and down and shooting the whole time seemed more difficult than it should have been).

Also, I imagine the walking through the walls bit was intentional, but it feels a little like a bug. If there are going to be extensive "secret tunnel" sections like that, I think there should be some kind of indicator for when you can actually walk through a wall/floor.

MassTransfer by IvanPavlov 2019-05-10T05:23:27Z

Cool idea that I’d be interested in seeing fleshed out with more art and music and such. Took me a little while to figure out how it all worked, largely because the controls and camera are really finicky. Because I have to command the units in real time, the camera caused quite an issue as I'd always end up scrolled away from my units.

Choose your life by Valeriya_Zh 2019-05-11T22:08:31Z

I like the concept and the interface a lot (the arrow keys and the roving grid make things super easy to navigate). Unfortunately I couldn't really figure out how to get a good ending, partially because it was difficult to figure out what each choice actually does.

For A Bike by hwaet 2019-05-09T05:49:38Z

Neat idea but it definitely feels pretty one-note right now. I really wish I could stack the upgrades and that I knew how many more souls I needed, as others mentioned. And yeah, the spawn rate is too low, I found myself milling around a lot.

Blood Bot by RedZ0ner 2019-05-10T06:13:46Z

This is pretty fun! I like the balance between the two types of enemies, ranged and melee. And the trade-off between bullets, health, and the fact that enemies drop more blood makes for some good split-second strategizing.

Something I want to call out is that despite the art style and color scheme in general being kind of rudimentary, there are some very cool little animations on the enemy attacks. Nice work. As an animator myself I always appreciate that kind of polish.

cut'n'align by neguse 2019-05-06T07:28:16Z

Well done, I had a lot of fun with this. You obviously take a lot of inspiration from existing falling block games, but the twist is just unique enough to feel fresh. I found myself cutting the first block from the bottom most of the time, but I definitely figured out some cool strategies that only worked if I cut larger chunks to set up combos.

The music really helps make the experience too, as does the nice shake effect when the level gets really full.

Welcome by agurcan 2019-05-01T06:35:24Z

This is a fun premise but I've gotta be honest, the platforming needs a lot of fine-tuning. The jump is the most important part and it's way too floaty in this game. It feels like you're accelerating into the jump when it should be basically instantaneous or close to it. I constantly died because the character wouldn't start jumping fast enough or would float down to the ground while I was trying to start up another jump.

Still, the risk/reward dynamic of deciding whether to go back for coins when they're about to be swallowed by the spikes is great and I'd be interested in a more ambitious and polished version of this premise.

​Shoot And Kill by Cactu5 2019-05-10T06:36:27Z

The core shooting mechanics are fast and fun but the trading health for upgrades thing didn't work for me — the guns appear to all be identical. It also would have been nice to have a more steady increase in the number of enemies rather than them all swarming at once, and some way of bounding the player so they don't run off-screen.

Oh, the Connection! by Igor KinGamer 2020-05-06T04:49:31Z

Pretty hard to think through movement on the hexagonal grid, but the concept is pretty clever. It felt good whenever I figured a puzzle out. I agree with others that the controls aren't intuitive. Also, a rewind feature would be a lifesaver, especially when you lose the connection. Something like what Baba Is You has, where any action that causes you to lose control of the character means you "die" and need to either restart or rewind to the last move you made.

Keep Hope Alive by joe40001 2020-05-05T00:20:10Z

I can't say this was very fun to play, but I’m not sure how much of that was on purpose. The strong gravity, quick exhaustion rate, and slow acceleration on the player makes it seemingly impossible to stay airborne for more than about five seconds at a time, so every time I tried I basically spent the entire game at Rock Bottom. I was able to jump up a level every now and then, but couldn't figure out how to stay there.

Even when I tried with the easiest settings on (that's what I assumed the start screen was controlling), a single wrong move would shoot me all the way to the bottom and then I could never get enough energy to escape. I appreciate what that communicates about the spiral of depression, but I'm not sure if you were specifically going for that.

Destructive Flyer by exilegl 2020-05-05T00:32:08Z

Neat concept. I liked trying to figure out where to put the towers to best hit the enemies, which is pretty standard for tower defense.

I wasn't super into the pushing enemies mechanic, mainly because it felt like I had to do too much precision maneuvering with what felt like a fairly imprecise input. It was easy to hit enemies, but very difficult to swing around them and hit them in the right direction. More often than not I just pushed them into the slime. I wonder if the mechanic would work better with directional inputs rather than the mouse.

I couldn't really tell where the bullets were and ended up just ignoring the patterns rather than learning the different tower patterns.

I really liked the music and the way the sound effects worked alongside it!

Turkey's Plant Emporium by Turkey 2020-05-07T05:50:56Z

The How to Play screen is very intimidating with the walls of text. Likewise, the game took me a while to figure out, but once I did it was relatively fun. As with any resource management game it's got an interesting balance of when to sell resources vs. when to reinvest them. I'd love to see more conflict to overcome, since right now it seems like I'm just making a nice garden without anything to really strategize around.

Keep IT Alive by waylon531 2020-05-08T02:07:49Z

Great concept! Kind of like a mundane IT version of Papers Please. The emails were fun to read, especially the scams. I’d love to see this expanded into something with more ongoing storylines and consequences.

Shadows of Drakthur by igizzy 2020-05-06T05:07:28Z

Had a good time with this one. It was fun watching my firepower increase as I gained more credits. It could definitely benefit from more variety in enemy and upgrade types.

I did have an issue where the UI in the bottom right obscured part of the play area, so I couldn't always see what side enemies were coming from.

Adrift by cdunham 2020-05-07T07:06:51Z

Great concept, though games like this one that are based on controlling inertia with limited friction can be really finicky. I definitely enjoyed solving the little puzzles for each level. By the end, however, it started to feel a bit too hard. The fuel disappears almost immediately, and because you're working against your own momentum a lot of the traps you set up in the level (boost gates that shoot you straight into a mine, for example) are extremely difficult to avoid. Despite some frustration later on, I had a lot of fun with this. Good job!

Affordable Pet Care by domrein 2020-05-06T04:38:28Z

This kind of reminds me of the old arcade game Tapper!

The memory aspect is kind of difficult since so many pets have the exact same sprite and sometimes two pets have the exact same name, but the concept and art is solid.

MMO Healer Simulator 2020 by EmiCB 2020-05-07T06:31:30Z

Very clever. Visual effects for damage taken and healing/damage inflicted on other characters would make it a lot clearer. Would also be great if the other party members had different effects on the outcome, so that you would have a good reason to prioritize healing one over the other in the moment.

Helicopter M.O.M. by Evan Minto 2020-04-23T16:41:06Z

@pretzol Thanks for the feedback! I’ve been busy the past few days but definitely planning on carving out a bunch of time to play other people's games.

Helicopter M.O.M. by Evan Minto 2020-05-07T16:18:22Z

@invixel IIRC the “win screen” is just the title screen, but good point!

@unfinished Not sure what you mean about randomness. It’s not procedurally generated — all the enemies were placed by me. Or do you mean that there are just too many enemies near the end and it got too chaotic?

Helicopter M.O.M. by Evan Minto 2020-05-08T23:45:50Z

@omiya-games Oh hey Taro, it’s been a while! Thanks for the feedback. I didn't leave myself enough time to tweak the jump physics or add checkpoints, but both of those would definitely have helped a lot.

Flame Guardian by KungKras 2020-05-07T06:47:43Z

Some nice visual touches in here (cool particle effect when you light a brazier) and the music is really good.

I do like the concept behind the gameplay here: maneuvering your character and the torch around obstacles while avoiding water and completing tasks before the fire goes out. Unfortunately the controls are pretty frustrating right now. The character slips around on the platforms too much, making it hard to land precisely. He also seems to frequently drop the torch when I don't expect him to, and throwing it usually ends up just dropping it instead.

Keep IT Alive! by flynn 2020-05-08T00:35:43Z

Holy cow, that art and music is wonderful. Super cute, lots of unique personality, great colors.

The way that the game breaks down as the characters die is incredibly clever. I was marveling at each successive failure as they died.

Unfortunately the shooting was hard to control. It felt like sometimes I'd be up against the wall and the bullets would collide with the wall because I was facing the wrong direction. Seems like my character should always be facing in the direction that I’m shooting!

Blinded by the Dawn by WiredOverload 2020-05-06T05:29:05Z

I couldn't really figure out how to use the spawned mosslings, since they didn't work very well as shields against those homing-missle beetles. It seemed like the only strategy worth doing was to run straight ahead as a group as much as possible. I agree that a selected indicator on the current moss would be very helpful; I struggled with that. I like the music a lot!

Work from home - rat battle! by knason 2020-05-06T04:57:05Z

Simple whack-a-mole concept, but fun for a round or two. The simple visuals work pretty well and I figured everything out almost immediately.

CAT 5 by Jared York 2020-05-06T05:20:16Z

To be entirely honest, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. Looked everywhere for a CAT.COM file, tried deleting as many of the cat pictures as I could (but they just kept reappearing). Love the visual style and general vibe, just can’t figure it out.

It Hungers by arkinrev 2020-05-07T23:55:40Z

I like the concept and the controls are smooth enough. Definitely too many enemies though, and I never really figured out how to effectively use my shield.

With a few tweaks to enemy spawn rates and something to make the shield more tactically useful (possibly making enemy bullets slower and making the shield stop enemies from moving past it), this would be pretty great!

Virtual Meeting Simulator by Joe Bustamante 2020-05-05T02:05:10Z

Pretty fun! I wasn’t expecting a typing game in there, but it works well as a way of breaking up the fast pace of running around. I had to really control myself so I didn’t get hyped up and mistype.

It did take me a little while to figure out how to activate each station and how the typing mini-game worked, however.

Gizmick! by Zliebowitz 2020-05-05T02:25:18Z

Fantastic music and visual style! You did a lot with just grayscale. I love the Moon-in-Majora’s-Mask-esque boss designs.

I agree with a lot of commenters here that the difficulty is out of whack. The first boss seemed pretty unbeatable to me until I realized I could just stand in one place and spam the sword. The second one felt the most like a real puzzle I had to solve, though it didn't take very long to figure it out. The third one died almost instantly when I ran up to it and spammed my sword (didn't even need to dash).

Also, dash seemed pretty much useless to me because the creature follows after you and doesn't get any invulnerability, but I assume I was just using it wrong.

Keep it Lit! by mharring 2020-05-06T03:51:42Z

I had a similar idea during my early brainstorming! This is very well executed and fun. I enjoyed experimenting with each item and venturing out to explore the nearby area, with the risk of getting too cold pulling me back. I did immediately wish I could light a branch on fire and use it as a torch, like a smaller, shorter-lived version of the fire. That might make for even more interesting strategy.

The rate at which it got colder at the end felt a bit unfair, but if the rate was progressively speeding up over time I would have been more able to prepare for it.

Proto by DanielRMorgan 2020-05-08T02:17:51Z

Great work for a first Ludum Dare! Unfortunately the platforming is too floaty in the air and slippery on the ground, and the platforms and characters are too big. I kept bumping into the wrong platform and falling all the way back down. The conservation of inertia doesn't help matters; when I got hit by an asteroid I would maintain my inertia and be unable to correct in time to land on one of the platforms below, which felt frustrating.

Error code: 107222 by emil0227 2020-05-05T01:01:40Z

Great work! It’s got personality and a nice little story about consciousness and humanity delivered in a short package. Loved the ending too! Definitely impressed with the anime-style artwork. The translation could use some work as you said, but the story came through just fine.

Worth mentioning that I also got confused when entering my name and couldn't figure out how to delete letters. I just named myself "player" and moved on.

ALYVE by jspacek 2020-05-07T06:21:23Z

I also had trouble understanding the controls at first (I know the Pico-8 X/C thing, just couldn't figure out which button was the one for placing a turret vs. canceling, etc). Once I figured them out this was pretty great. Love the simple but really vibrant pixel art. Great world-building in such a small project too! And a fantastic twist.

I'll also note what someone mentioned: when I died I kept my turrets from the last run, which made subsequent runs much easier. Seems like a bug but I’m not sure.

Shiver by Oxters 2020-05-05T01:19:48Z

Great music and I like the visual style (the prisoners are super abstracted but still animated, which is cool).

Like other folks, I couldn't keep the prisoners alive for more than a few seconds in the first mode and was able to easily stay alive the whole time in the second one. Because of the lack of clarifying animations and the fact that the game instantly resets when you get a game over, I couldn't figure out WHY I kept losing. It seemed like there were still prisoners left alive each time.

That said, this is a cool concept and I think with some tweaks it could work. I'd love to have more ways of influencing prisoner behavior rather that just the whistle.

Outbreak Control by HammerCar 2020-05-06T04:19:23Z

Super addictive and yes, topical. I got into a great rhythm of outbreaks and then moments of calm, and had fun experimenting with different strategies (vaccining the entrances, etc.). One thing I’d note: the color contrast could use some work, as I had trouble distinguishing the yellow, green, and white dots.

Saving Zenith by Gricefin 2020-05-05T00:42:38Z

I went to an asteroid but I couldn't move around well enough to actually do anything. The character seems to move without any friction or something, so if I go forward I just slide forever. And I can’t reach the top of hills because I keep sliding back down before I get to the top. Am I missing something or is this a bug?

Closed Circle by boaromayox 2022-04-21T14:30:30Z

Great artwork and animations! But there doesn’t seem to be much to do. You just walk around punching rocks with no clear goal. Definitely would like to see more here. I also noticed some weird bugs: the player will flicker sometimes while punching rocks, and some rocks just flash forever without being broken.

Where do you go after you win by ded 2022-04-21T04:51:33Z

Oh wow, took me a little bit to figure out the real ending, but it’s a treat. Very clever. I wonder if there’s anything you could do to nudge the player toward that final twist.

As for the early game, I found it a bit frustrating because of some floaty jumping and (as someone else said) unclear hitboxes.

The art style is cool and reminds me of Nidhogg!

Bomb Fuse Madness by svntax 2022-04-21T06:48:42Z

This one didn’t work so well for me. I don’t really see the need for the shredder to turn off at all. It's challenging enough maneuvering the ropes around, and when it turns off there’s basically nothing you can do to stop an already-lit fuse. Also I agree that the shredder collider is too large and hampers movement. It might have been fine to let the player move through it to better line up ropes.

That said, it’s a really clever concept and I actually would be interested in a version with some kinks ironed out.

Last Contact by Cethin 2022-04-21T15:05:38Z

Yeah the APK doesn't work for me either. I can tap the ships but I can't get them to do anything. :(

Push, Rethink, Undo, Repeat by RAC-Games 2022-04-21T15:19:53Z

Solid puzzle design and execution! The screen shake is definitely a little much, and the movement feels a bit too... sensitive I guess? Often I would just tap the arrow key and the character would move two spaces instead of one.

Feast or Famine by ColinBellino 2022-04-21T06:57:44Z

Very cool little Binding of Isaac-like! Dashing through them to drain them took some getting used to but otherwise this is pretty straightforward and quite fun. It would be even better with more combat depth!

Lazer Bean by johnnysix 2022-04-21T17:43:12Z

Unfortunately I can't get either version to work for me. The laser doesn't fire at all until I drop it and then all the banked up shots fire off, which doesn't seem to be the intention. Despite that, I really like the art!

Brickroll by adrianafitz 2022-04-21T06:28:42Z

Wow this is really fun! I couldn’t keep track of all the special bricks and their effects, but trying to come up with strategies for my bricks on the fly was hectic and lots of fun. Really cool catchy music too. Great job!

Inferno Fox by jkniest 2022-04-21T14:58:02Z

Simple but fairly effective. Does the jump height decline over time? Early on it felt like I was consistently jumping two platforms at a time, but after a little bit I started to just barely miss the second platform up.

Something that might give the game a little more depth would be making the fire move independently from the camera, so there’s more of a push and pull as the player moves up or makes mistakes.

Drained by Evan Minto 2022-04-21T15:33:56Z

@stochastic The battery does go up, but only after completing all the games. Then you can play again with your newly restored battery.

@jitspoe Your battery goes down the entire time, but as I mention above, if you complete all the tasks you get a small boost and can jump back in and play more.

VargaVinter by Simon Rahnasto 2022-04-21T14:51:06Z

Incredibly atmospheric. Fantastic job on the art and sound especially! This feels much more polished than I’d expect from a LD game. Gameplay-wise, It does feel like the hitboxes on the pickups are a little small and finicky, which made things harder while scrambling to pick stuff up while dying.

Routine Medical Examination by Iamsodarncool 2022-04-21T06:20:55Z

The voice acting is very funny. Not sure I’m into the ligma joke but maybe that’s just me.

I got stuck on the rope level. Couldn't jump back up. I mostly enjoyed the puzzles but the physics felt a little too simulation-y and too sensitive for my taste.

Infectious - Delay the inevitable by ZoomieRoomie 2022-04-21T15:31:19Z

Great concept, but I think it would benefit from some more playtesting and adjustment. The player character moves really quickly and frequently gets stuck on the geometry because everything is squared off. The infection process also happens really fast, so I was having trouble getting into a groove.

Multiplanetary by stevepdp 2022-04-21T06:40:19Z

Yep, the biggest issue here is that the ship has a fixed distance and once a shuttle crosses it there’s nothing you can do. Making the shuttles move slower might help, but most importantly you need a way to recover from the mistake, such as being able to shoot away from Earth or being able to move further away.

Ready... Set... SLOW!! by Birdwards 2022-04-21T14:40:43Z

Really really clever use of the theme and I love the Mode 7-style Pico-8 visuals. It was a lot of fun figuring out strategies to avoid my own trails. The way you get constantly boosted around also reminds me a bit of the chaotic movement of Rocket League (in a good way, since it results in a lot of laughing at myself).

I Will Not Die. by HenanBoy 2022-04-21T04:33:38Z

Love the atmosphere and art style! This is probably because I was playing with a trackpad (I know, I know) but I found the mouse-based mechanics pretty finicky. I struggled to move and jump while clicking on moving enemies and objects.

Keep Up by KekonDev 2022-04-21T15:10:09Z

Very interesting. The mix of juggling and a rhythm game is clever and kind of addicting. I wasn’t super clear on what caused the balls to split or what the red dots were doing though.

Personally I would have also liked a larger hitbox maybe, since I often ended up clicking just a hair above where the balls were (since they’re falling).

Delaying Ludum Dare by Emily Pitcher 2022-04-21T05:47:37Z

Very funny and clever. To be honest “game about how hard it is to come up with a game idea” is a kind of tedious concept but you all pulled it off with a lot of charm.

However, the platforming is pretty frustrating! I appreciate the generous checkpoints in some sections, but a combination of factors really hurt the platforming: - It’s very slippery and movement has slow acceleration, but the platforms get really tiny at times. Makes it super hard to precisely aim for platforms in mid-air. - Some jumps have very low ceilings from platforms above them, further restricting your aerial control options.

Wizardfall by Quite Good 2022-04-21T05:07:35Z

Beautiful, beautiful artwork. Really well done. The music and general mood is also fantastic. The different gameplay modes are really interesting to try out, and offer a lot of variety to choose from. Also really liked how they can result in different endings!

If you’re looking for ideas for improvement, I think it would be neat if your dialogue choices affected the combat. Like if the wizard used different attack patterns depending on how he’s feeling or something.

Simple Harmonic Motion Game by Escapade 2022-04-21T06:02:53Z

Really neat idea, but I agree with others that the wave motion is too unpredictable to be useful, so I just ended up trying to reduce the motion and avoid it. It also took a while to figure out I had to counteract the wave to get the ball to slow down. Maybe being able to control the oscillation speed would make it more possible to use the wave motion strategically?

Mortal Compass by JakubBala 2022-04-21T04:40:59Z

Really like the atmosphere and the title screen looks fantastic. The idea of switching realities with limited information in one and limited time in the other is great and I’d love to see that expanded upon. The main thing I’d tweak here is making the ghosts slower and offering a way to counteract them. As it is you can’t escape so they’re effectively a persistent health drain.

Sweet Bedtime O' Mine by K4M1 2022-04-21T15:24:45Z

Really fun with cute art! The concept/theming is very clever and you’ve got a decent variety of enemies and progression. Particularly liked the cute cat character. Well done.

Crime City by gtogrmri 2022-04-21T14:35:04Z

Wow this is a bit too hard! The AI has good aim and insta-kills you which is rough. Would love more options for avoiding them or recovering from a hit. The pixel art looks fantastic though! Good job.

Goblona by mrks 2022-04-21T03:37:06Z

I think this has some potential but it’s pretty simplistic right now. Would have loved more strategic options like different types of units or resources to defend. I also agree that the AI was a little confusing. I was having trouble predicting how a unit would respond when commanding them, like @chriiis88 said.

Corrupted Caverns by Kaya Games 2022-04-21T05:23:07Z

The controls seem kind of broken for me? I can’t progress very far because it won’t seem to let me place any items. Right clicking an empty space doesn’t do anything and left clicking just mines the nearest block. It SEEMS like there’s some interesting depth here but unfortunately I can’t seem to access it.

Dungeon Crawl by jzucc12 2022-04-21T17:10:33Z

Took a couple playthroughs to get the hang of this because the concept is so backwards from how I’d usually play one of these games. But it’s really interesting! The idea of trading time for other benefits is clever. Reminded me a bit of Loop Hero. I’d like to see this fleshed out even more!

Live Long And Prosper by i_am_lloric 2022-04-21T04:08:11Z

Really clever! I also enjoyed the randomized events a lot. Every playthrough feels really different and you can sort of roleplay it. The vocalized SFX are also fun. Would have liked some music.

Heart Hunter by foolsroom 2022-04-21T15:41:23Z

This is really fun and polished! Love the art style, animations, and gamefeel. The concept is also a nice use of the “cursed sword” trope to pull off the theme. Great job!

More enemy types would be my main suggestion, to give the game more depth.

CardRacer by Smooth 2018-04-29T01:48:09Z

I couldn't figure out how to play at first, but based on the comments I assume it's just random card draws. Definitely agree with others that it would be great to be able to choose your cards and put together some kind of strategy. I like the use of the theme.

Breackat by Eldy 2018-04-24T08:19:41Z

Phew, that was a doozy. I got down to four blocks after a couple tries. It's fun, but very hard.

I agree that this seems a little too hard for one person. Maybe if you made the cat easier to control and the ball slower, it would be easier for one person to do both. I think you should try to make it work, because it's a really cool idea!

I like the little squash and stretch on the cat too.

Shuttle Launch by Tero Pulkkinen 2018-04-29T03:03:11Z

Hard to figure out what to do but man this is a pretty surreal game. The visuals are really rudimentary but kind of remind me of a lot of early computer graphics tech demos in terms of the weird mix of spacey futurism and classic architecture. Nice music too.

Cowboys vs Aliens by nidup 2018-04-24T07:51:13Z

There's a lot of deceptively deep strategy to this game. I like it! I had a lot of fun learning how to pick off individual enemies without triggering a shootout that would get me killed. The friendly fire is a nice mechanic too. I like how the weapons have different attributes and can be used as foils against each other. The pixel art animations are also really expressive.

Rythm is Lava by egordorichev 2018-04-24T07:33:54Z

I really really wanted to like this more than I did. The graphics and music are fantastic, and the level design and how it interacts with the two-at-once controls is really clever. Unfortunately I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on with the blocks of lava. It seemed like they were following the rhythm of the music, but I couldn't tell why my characters kept dying randomly. Was it because they had touched the lava? But why didn't they die immediately upon touching it? (When people say “the floor is lava,” it usually implies you can’t touch the floor at all.)

Because of the difficulty in figuring out the lava mechanic, plus the fact that I kept accidentally going back to old rooms I had already beaten (not sure if that was an intentional part of the design), I didn't make it past the first four or five rooms. It sounds like you put in a ton of great content later on, and I wish I could have gotten to it.

Not sure if it's against the spirit of the game to explain the lava mechanic, but could someone tell me how it works? I'm really curious now!

The Bonding of Isaac by batmanasb 2018-04-29T02:19:48Z

I also really like the pacifist "combat." Keeping track of the hitboxes on the lines of text was a little difficult since I couldn't visualize the gaps between them like you do in most shooters. But it's definitely cool that the combat manages to tell a story just through which dialogue the characters shoot at each other. The tear animation is definitely a nice touch.

Neko Drift! by BluShine 2018-04-26T06:03:14Z

A little tough to figure this one out. I guess my goal was to place towers to stop the cats, but when I did that the towers seemed to shoot out balls that got in my way as much as the cats did. I'm also not sure how intentional this is, but the driving controls are super slippery. I found the only way to control it was to very, very lightly tap the keys when I turned, or else I'd completely spin out of control. Maybe lower the sensitivity there.

The concept seems cool though!

Bad Band by Triastase 2018-04-26T06:13:03Z

The only downside of this is that there's no real challenge (the optimal strategy is immediately apparent). But as a little mixer to play around with, this is awesome! I had a lot of fun bouncing back and forth between the genres, sometimes switching an instrument on for only a note or a measure at a time. I'd love to see an expanded version with more genres/styles!

Oh right, and great music by the way!

Brickris Tetout by fluffy 2018-04-24T07:25:31Z

Love the neon graphics and the music! I kept getting a glitch where the ball over-accelerated and became completely unpredictable, but in a way that made it even more entertaining. When I WAS able to control the ball I could start to be more strategic and use the ball to help with my Tetris play, but that didn't last very long. Overall this is a super cool idea though!

Arbust's Revenge by sirikan 2018-04-24T07:18:52Z

Took me a while to figure out how to shoot, but I think that was just my not reading the instructions right. I also wasn't able to find the wizard. Once I got the hang of balancing using my cards and shooting it got kind of fun, but the discrete turns made aiming pretty tough. It would help a lot to make the turns smoother.

Final Click ZX by candlesan 2018-04-26T05:46:34Z

This is great! I got most of the powerups (except for the high-level Trophy ones). I like how you didn't just take the clicking part of clicker games, you also took the automation mechanic. Eventually I just left it running with autopilot on to rack up money, which was weirdly fun and satisfying since I felt like it was succeeding thanks to how I managed the resources. Good choices for the powerups. There's some room for player creativity in terms of which powerups to get when. The voiceovers are really funny too!

I was a little confused about how Elite Enemies helped me. Do they make more money when you kill them? The Trophy powerup seems a bit strange too. I guess it's just there to tempt completionists after the first one? Also, in the late game I started to get performance (frame rate I guess) problems. The bullets were blinking in and out of existence. Probably too many particles.

Marco Polo by microwerx 2018-04-24T07:22:42Z

The turn-based segment could use an extra mechanic or two; once I ran out of money there was seemingly nothing to do but wait for the next shooter segment. I really like the balance between the two though. Things that happened in the turn-based segment forced me to change up my strategy in the shooter. A note on the shooter, though: I feel like the character moves and shoots way too slow, so I felt like I never had good control over the situation. Maybe that's intentional, not sure.

Blind Vision by tsjost 2018-04-29T02:52:34Z

Fantastic work. I do web accessibility design/dev in my day job and I've been thinking for a while about how cool it would be to play a game that made sensory disability a part of the mechanics. The hovering mechanic is really simple here but it adds a great layer to the puzzle platforming. Especially in the last level, I had to really pay attention to figure out what the right order of events should be. My only real issue is that some of the earlier levels just sort of work out automatically without the player needing to pay too much attention (i.e. I hit a switch and an enemy I didn't know existed sets off another switch).

Also kudos for the first scene where you hover to read out the text. Very clever way of introducing the mechanic.

Edit: Oh also, an interesting thing to pursue for this would be a blind-accessible version (not sure if it already is)!

Shoot-E-Pet by blearn 2018-04-29T02:40:31Z

Definitely an interesting idea. I'd love to see it with more pet mechanics, such as having multiple pets or manage or have to buy ammo/items for each type of "attack." Also needs a bit more visual polish. The text stats in the top left are very basic, and sometimes there were visual glitches when shooting certain weapons.

Type2Flap by Cedric Fey 2018-04-26T07:38:26Z

I agree that dashing and spitting didn't seem too useful but MAN this is a really fun idea. I'm absolutely terrible at it, but the mismatch in my brain between "playing Flappy Bird" and "typing" make it really funny even when I lose. This is such a perfect use of the theme. One of my only big issues outside of the some of the moves seeming a bit superfluous is that sometimes it seems like the game generates impossible obstacles. But maybe I'm just bad at it.

Great visuals too! Good job on this.

Catching Crazy by Burgee 2018-04-24T03:23:48Z

I like this a lot! The switching back and forth has a nice rhythm to it and you did a good job making the rhythm game parts get harder and harder as it goes (especially when you start throwing all the distractions in). Good music too! I'd love to see a version that take advantage of the unreliable protagonist concept more.

Friendship Fighter by Evan Minto 2018-04-24T08:45:35Z

@resivium Yeah I really wanted to (the original concept had you fighting three opponents), but I only had so much time in the Compo! 😭 Thanks for the feedback.

Battle of the (Mostly) Brains by widdershinscrustacean 2018-04-27T15:08:00Z

Hah, this is a pretty fun concept. Didn't understand the free typing part, but I guess that was the point. Great job on the writing. Definitely kept me guessing. Reminds me in a good way of some of the stuff in Undertale.

King Circle by Artur Hawkwing 2018-04-26T07:25:04Z

Kind of tough to get the hang of. The platformer especially, since apparently you can't jump while running. Having to stop before I jump was a bit of a pain.

You're also not really using the screen real estate very effectively. There's a huge gap in the top of the platformer screen. Since I didn't notice anything happening concurrently between the two games, maybe just switch them in fullscreen rather than doing splitscreen.

I like the concept of switching back and forth between the games and having powerups for one be in the other one, but it's hard to tell what's affecting what in-game. I think this needs some more polish for that concept to really shine.

Run and Plant! by Hellblade 2018-04-26T06:34:40Z

Cool idea, and sort of fun to play. It's a little weird that you can only buy seeds after you die, and the level design feels like it's randomized (sometimes there were gaps I couldn't jump over or coins that were impossible to get). I really like the idea of making the level easier as a mechanic though.

Type-Zero by Hopeen 2018-04-27T14:52:23Z

I got 03:41:76! Cool idea, and pretty challenging. After a while I got the hang of the timing and the right way to slow down before turns. I did notice that the ramp and the sidebar things didn't do anything. Was that just because you ran out of time?

Happy Quiz by SophieM 2018-04-24T08:01:13Z

The second genre is usually not something I'm really into but this is very well executed. Love the questions and the very creative ways you mix them up as it goes. Also some very... effective... design choices... later on. Don't want to spoil it for anybody 😉

Typographythm by Radnyx 2018-04-29T03:12:30Z

Ahhh I love this. Probably my favorite Compo game. You really combined the typing and rhythm genres perfectly, and I like the variety of speeds and modes. I was really impressed with the level of audiovisual variety and cohesion you pulled off too. The glitchy style is really consistent and I love the hands enemy.

If I had to give some constructive criticism, it was sometimes hard to tell which mode I was in (typing on beat or really fast). I only realized later that the metronome starts spinning when you're in the latter.

Point-defense Hell by PolyHatSteve 2018-04-26T07:02:50Z

Love this idea, especially since I'm not great at bullet hell games so the ability to pre-plan a strategy makes it a little easier in some ways. I like the balance between the turret types. I played around with a couple different strategies. I think one issue is that as cool as the slowing mechanic is, it makes the bullets harder to predict since their speed keeps changing. Kind of removes the pattern-recognition part of bullet hell games, which AFIAK is what makes it possible for people to make sense of that many bullets.

Anyway I definitely had fun with it. I'd play a polished and expanded version of this for sure. Good job!

Card Walk by Dovena 2018-04-24T03:32:27Z

I'm also running into the bug with the first level. The second one is the more playable of the two, but it's still pretty challenging. I think it's because of the high acceleration on the dog and the inability to progress once I hit a steep wall (I can't seem to jump high enough to get over it). I do like that you managed to animate the dog though (I didn't have time to animate my character when I did a platformer for a previous jam). I also wonder whether you could do more with the idea of a card game. Maybe the combination of selected cards or their order could be significant, like in a real card game?

Anyway, this is a great start as your first game, especially as a solo dev. Would love to see more from you!

Eilza by Cosdots_HM 2018-04-26T08:00:15Z

Great concept, great art and music, all around really good job on this. The kind of whimsical tone of the art/music juxtaposes really well with how dark the game is, and the animations are a fantastic touch (Eliza hiding under her books or covering her ears is heartbreaking). This game evoked a genuine emotional response from me, which is honestly not very common in jam games. In terms of constructive criticism, I agree with others that the patterns get kind of easy to predict, but I think the game makes its point very well despite that.

Rhythm and Cruise by DigNZ 2018-04-26T07:44:12Z

Phew, that was fun! I like games that force you to split your attention like that. The rhythm between the two halves gives some good opportunities to balance the two (i.e. I just left the boat running for a bit and paid attention to the rhythm, then checked back every now and then to make sure it didn't crash).

I agree with @candlesan that it would be nice if the music and the rhythm game matched more, since that would make it easier to get in a groove and play a bit more by instinct.

Visuals are great! Simple but very clear what's going on.

Block Destroyer by ShinyTurtle 2018-04-29T02:01:50Z

Great concept, though the execution could use some work. You should figure out a way to make the player choices for when and where to shoot more meaningful. I couldn't tell if the different block colors meant anything, for example. Maybe you can add different block types for the player to aim for? And for QOL stuff: One is to allow players to hold down the shoot button. I had to tap it rapidly, which got old fast. You also might want to allow strafing. Only allowing turning made it difficult to change directions while shooting.

Frogs vs. Cats by cincodenada 2018-04-24T07:36:08Z

Great concept, controlling a text adventure by platforming and going into doors. I’d definitely appreciate the cats being actual hazards. Also I couldn’t really figure out where to go to finish the level, but I might have just not been paying close enough attention.

Shoodoku by BonyBits 2018-04-27T15:14:05Z

Fantastic idea, but unfortunately I'm no good at sudoku! Adding the shooting mechanic makes it almost impossible for me to keep track of the numbers. But this seems like a ton of fun for people who are better at sudoku. There'a lot of interesting challenge to balancing the need to kill the enemies with the need to control the numbers. I agree with other commenters that it could use some music/sound effects.

The Adventures of Cake Man by MidnightRose 2018-04-24T08:11:49Z

Core concept's not bad, but it doesn't seem like it has much room for players to explore. There's a right combination of ingredients that the player needs to figure out based on their knowledge of real cakes, and then they need to platform to get the ingredients. Would be nice to give players a separate challenge to figure out what the ingredients are! And I agree with others that it's a bit buggy. I got stuck to the sides of platforms a lot, and one time the character basically slid off the left hand side of the screen so I couldn't see him anymore.

The music's pretty good, as others have said.