Firesong Bard

Tomorrow or When the world is not bigger than a house by Versatile Box 2017-05-16T23:36:05Z

I really enjoy story-driven games. As part of the minority in this group, the shower was actually the first puzzle I figured out. The coffee drove me a little crazy, (Sugar? I already gave you sugar! What's wrong with you!?), but I finally managed the 'good' ending on the fifth day.

I'm not sure if you intend to return to this project (story-driven games tend to see less polish because a majority of people will only play it once), but I would have liked to see a little more internal monologue variation from day to day, outside of each task.

Horizon Leonard: Galactic Scavenger by MattWoelk 2017-05-16T22:55:36Z

Controls feel as though they would have been intuitive on a controller (good suggestion!) but I was pleased to see keyboard support so I could get a feel for the game. I really enjoyed the atmospheric music: calming and not repetitive. I struggled to maneuver through the system though. With the large distance between objects, you end up moving deceptively fast, and there is little forgiveness when missing a collectibles (I would echo the suggestion to increase the size of the collider there).

I also somehow got stuck inside a planet in my attempts to turn around for a missed collectible, and was unable to escape.

Great mood and feel. Visuals and music were both pleasant and relaxing. I'd love to see this after another pass with attention to game-feel!

Jim Doesn't Care About Space by Finn Truman 2017-05-18T03:14:57Z

I was able to get the game to run, with a little trial and error (still taming my anti-virus software to not eat LD games).

The music had a neat aesthetic to it, and the sound effects gave me a good laugh. I thought the humor was relatively charming.

The controls were something I struggled with. My jump height seemed inconsistent, the gravity would flip back and forth between planets that were close together, and it was a little rough getting a feel for how jumps would react moving from place to place.

I never did find that last coin... but at least Jim doesn't care.

Gacu by p01ymorph 2017-05-16T23:13:38Z

I was excited to see someone took the Katamari approach to the theme (I'll admit, I fought hard with our team to use that concept, and lost). The art has a lovely consistent style. I found myself completely engrossed in the game for my short run.

I've got a lot to say about the feel of your controls for this one:

- The acceleration after impact is perfect. I have enough time to look at what I hit, plan my next move, and get back into the flow before I'm at full speed again, but it happens quickly enough that I'm not grumbling about my inability to go anywhere. - The top pace is just at the edge of my comfort level, but I enjoyed that. The speed is something that sets it apart from a true Katamari game, and maneuvering takes quite a bit of precision... - Honorable mention for the left/right adjustment, which also felt good to use. I wasn't shooting all over the place when trying to make minute adjustments, and I didn't curse a slow speed when I did need to quickly dodge a large obstacle. I think your choice of a narrow play field helped a lot here. - Your hit boxes are problematic. I would suggest shrinking the hitboxes of the trash you need to collect. The player is large enough that missing a piece of trash doesn't feel terrible, but slamming into the same car two or three times as you try to get around it is a bit frustrating. With how tight all the other controls are, this was really noticeable.

As a final note, I spent a good long time laughing at the 'music' that plays at the end. Thanks for the smile!

Escape The Room by Isllael 2017-05-18T02:58:28Z

The platforming is quite difficult in this game, but it has an interesting feel. I was probably on my third or fourth death before I figured out what the green squares were doing to my character. I wasn't able to get across the bottom of the screen. You may wish to make Death a little more forgiving by shrinking the player's hit box.

Sticky Keys by thevaber 2017-05-01T21:39:49Z

I had a fun time struggling with a horrible broken keyboard. I tend to type very, very quickly and reaching my usual zen typist state was delightfully disturbed by the constant bug squishing sounds. Overall sound effects were fantastic and enjoyable.

I played a few rounds quickly, and a few rounds slow and meticulously, and I don't see anywhere that speed was given a bonus. If you felt the need to return to work on the game, I think the addition of a speed bonus would be fun.

Deadlock by Geckoo1337 2018-08-27T21:45:09Z

I'm really glad I stumbled across this gem! It's incredibly polished for a compo game. Your puzzle design was also fantastic; there was clearly a lot of thought into how and when to introduce new mechanics. I got stuck at the 9th level, probably from my failure to get a hang of how the purple blockers moved.

I absolutely adored your implementation of audio. The sounds were very simplistic, but all wonderfully in theme, and very well balanced. The failure sounds were properly punishing without feeling overly grating (I failed level 6 a lot in quick succession). The soft ambiance set the mood nicely without ever competing with your gameplay feedback sounds.

Excellent job! Good scope! I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle!

Bath Time by DDRKirbyISQ 2018-09-01T03:10:55Z

My husband shared this gem with me, and I had to hunt it down to give you guys a review. I'm astonished at how much cute you managed to fit into this game. The sound was just enough to add to the cute without being noticable (which is a very difficult threshold to find).

If I had to find something to be improved: I had a little difficulty telling when the extra dirty kittens were finished being extra dirty in the end levels, when you were sure to have cats of varying stages of grunge.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to subject all my non-developer games to this cuteness overload.

Overclocked by LuckyFeathers 2018-08-27T22:42:37Z

Oh my god, I played until my fingers hurt. This was deceptively addictive. I found the design of the 'ram' section to hold pieces for later interesting. It began as a placeholder for me to store extra valuable pieces (the short nubby 2s and the line pieces) until just the right moment, like one would expect. But when I got the thrid upgrade for cooling, it became a place for me to quickly re-set my heat count with a particularly troublesome piece, or while waiting for compression to be up again.

This game was a fun Jam submission without the upgrade tree. With it, It became a wonderfully complicated puzzle.

SHELTER by OccultOne 2019-05-06T18:24:30Z

@atmospherium, thanks for the input on the sound! I think, if I had a few more hours to tinker, I would have changed the section where the voice gives you clues to where the items for the Generator are. The 'fake jumpscare' should definately have had a 'trigger only once' rule attached to it, and the hints for the jerry can and key should have detected whether you had the items already or not. They triggered too often, and at completely random intervals. Even with as small a game as it was, it was noticable that I didn't have enough different lines for that part of the game loop.

I'll have to keep it in mind next time we do a project like this. I was psyched we got to do voice acting as a main component of this jam.

This Mortal Coil by Baconinvader 2022-04-06T21:39:04Z

This was an interesting blend of turn based with an overall time limit. I started out fairly cautious, then when my time started running out I became more reckless. Overall, it's a neat concept!

Decontamination by KenForest 2022-04-06T21:10:31Z

Fantastic job with the ambiance. I adored the noise filter overlay you had going, and the fog worked really well. Goose made me laugh out loud.

What I saw of the game had really clean execution, and the radar was a great idea to help navigate in the dark foggy forest, but it wasn't quite enough to counteract the size of the map. I wasn't able to get past Day 1, having walked around for a good 20 minutes trying to find a ping on my radar I had missed, and even finding where I parked the car was difficult.

Really impressive work for a jam!

Gods of Discord by Ghatazorg 2022-04-06T21:57:48Z

I had a blast trying to get all the different (inevitable) endings! Great sense of humor, and it sounds like your VAs had a lot of fun with this too!

The Last Day With You by FrostG4 2022-04-06T21:23:07Z

Lovely take on the theme!

I liked the use of percussion in the title music to mimic the ticking of the clock. I would have loved to hear this idea maintained through the rest of the music!

Congratulations on not only your first jam, but also your first game! It's an impressive feat to end with something playable, and even more so to have a win and lose condition that function! You should all be proud!

Off the Hook by OccultOne 2018-04-25T21:45:21Z

@jamie-paz-lopes , I completely agree. The first thing we blocked out for design was a mechanic that would force you to venture out to put themselves in danger (because that's the core of the horror game). We had a neat mechanic planned where fish food would periodically drop from the top of the tank, which would give you the ability to speed bost. The net would, over time, get faster moving through the cage, and you'd need a speed bost to get away from it if it managed to get behind you.

We chose to go Polish First, gameplay second for this jam, and I still stand by that choice. But I do hope we get to revisit this project and add the fish food mechanic to flesh out the complexity of gameplay.

Toodee and Topdee by dietzribi 2018-04-24T11:18:35Z

This was an awesome take on the jam theme. I think you really nailed puzzel design. I was particularly impressed with the visual effects of switching between top down and side scroller. Really very executed!

Flappy Typing by Frodewin 2018-04-25T21:14:28Z

There's a lot I could get into, but I'm going to highlight the game play Because holy crap I just sunk half an hour into this game and would have kept playing if I didn't have things I had to get done. I'm a big fan of typing games (a really werid thing to be into, I know), and I adore the way this game forces you to re-think how to play. It doesn't care about accuracy or speed, the gameplay is focused completely on rhythm. Combinging typing game with flappy bird totally transformed the two. Major props on Theme here. Thank you for posting a play in browser link. I might have overlooked this gem if I had to get an emulator downloaded and running. Great job!

Type'n Run by souzanod 2018-04-26T00:53:42Z

I really enjoyed the concept, and I like the choice to use the command queue (though I agree, a hazard that would make 'jump' a dangerous choice is needed)

I adore typing games, and this has a lot of potential, but I had a few frustrations. - **There is no way to cancel a queued action.** If I type attack, and really needed to jump, I have no way to correct my error. I have to wait for the action to fail, and try again. This works alright if you missed an attack opportunity but... - **Defend is a death sentence.** The Defend action, if missed, never goes away. I ran through three boulders and lost all my health because I missed the bullet to defend against. There was no way to cancel the action, and it was a frustrating way to fail my longest run.

Overall, I really did enjoy the concept. I almost wish it sped up over time challenging you to type faster to make the levels harder.

Haiti Kitty by Beebo Studios 2018-04-26T01:03:45Z

I laughed out loud the first time I played through this. I was grateful for my dual monitor setup; I was able to put your instructions on one screen and play on the other. Instructions are *always* the last minute panic in jam games! I loved the weird art style (why does my fish have legs?!?) and it had a hectic touch of WarioWare to it between the three mini games.

I would have liked to see a little more feedback with the baseball level for whether I was doing a good job or not (I never quite managed five stars!)

-------- Noisy - Ninja -------- by ThePhennix 2018-04-25T21:40:11Z

I love the concept of a music rhythm stealth game. I think that one came up in our brainstorming sesison, but we couldn't figure out how to make it work. Great concept, guys! I think the thing that hurts your game the most is the way you've layed out cues to the player. At first, I had trouble getting the hang of the r, g, b, space layout, but I turned my keyboard sideways (like a guitar XD) and it was quite comfortable.

If you decide to do any refining of this game, I'd suggest taking a look at the screen layout, and maybe some additional audio cues: The player needs some sort of indication that a laser grid is coming up. You *could* add a cross bar on the rhythm section, but that would mean the player would never look back and forth between the two areas (and it looks like you *wanted* that interraction). Another thing you could do is add an audio cue, make sure that 'jump' is timed with the music, and there is something that plays when you should hit space. A player might take a small penalty if they hear the cue and jump late, they can decide to watch the upper screen to anticipate, or they could learn the rhythm on repeated playthroughs.

Great job finishing your first game jam! You should count that as a big success! Most first time teams don't pull off a working game.

Typewriter Dungeon by Jaime Paz Lopes 2018-04-25T20:49:56Z

I really enjoyed the concept you had. The choice of words to type made me laugh, but it didn't always make sense with the ammount of backtracking needed (to get lost, or find the key, or whatnot). I think the way letters typed was detected made it a weak typing game. Because it detects a key stroke for every instance of the letter, there are a few places where you can comlete multiple words simultaneously. If you choose to go back to refine the concept, that's where I'd suggest starting.

Typer World Cup by YuukiMakoto 2018-04-24T13:00:39Z

Great sound response for the typing. You nailed the 'feel' of the stadium. I was sad to miss all of the animations while I stared at the typing side of the screen to add my words. On that note: Awesome word selection for typing.