fmdkdd

ChargeBot by Atikyne 2017-08-04T20:56:48Z

There's hardly a better fit for the theme. I had my doubt about the puzzle mechanism at first, since the first levels are really just "go there, then here". Unless you take a mistep, you cannot lose.

Level 11 is the first one that starts to be interesting, and level 12 is the first level I really liked, because it actually made me thing twice before moving.

Presentation (graphics/sound/UI) is really solid; I just wish you had gotten the time to make more levels. I would have loved to see what you would have came up with!

Supernode by Dustyroom 2017-08-02T20:09:36Z

There's a definite Mini Metro vibe here, not only the minimalist visuals, but in the ever increasing demand that you need to meet. It has the same pitfall too, in that I sometimes feel a bit helpless when I draw bad outlets and lose, and then I wonder if I could have done things differently that would have saved the situation. But since the draws are random, I can never know!

Regardless, great use of the theme, and very good presentation.

VoltRush by Reiv 2017-08-05T19:03:44Z

Sweet graphics there (the main character is adorable), and the game plays quite well. I found myself nodding to the music trying to climb the tower. Good job!

A suggestion: I would color the checkpoints differently, to not confuse them with a power up in a hurry. I found a couple of issues: you can get stuck in mid-air by jumping into a platform that is moving away; jumping again unstucks you. Near the top of the tower, there are three lightning bolts: the middle one kills you and you start at the last checkpoint. Lastly, the sound effects are a bit too loud compared to the music, and the music plays on top of the existing music when you restart (I was playing the HTML version, so you might already know of these).

In any case, thank you for a very nice entry.

Despot 3900 by alxm 2017-08-04T19:27:30Z

I really liked the art style, the UI and the medieval despot setting. Quite fresh and a very good fit for the theme. (Also, the fact that it's a 440Kb binary and made from scratch, but alas, there's no rating for that!)

However, I found myself executing a simple loop of taxing the peasants -> imprison peasants, with the odd Rest to stave off death for a while. I was surprised the game let me do this without any bad consequences; I was expecting the events to fail at some point, making at least this strategy a bit risky. Maybe some diminishing returns on the chance of success of repeated actions would have kept things interesting a little longer. I'm sure that more choices / more elements would make this game shine.

It still is a very impressive entry. Looking forward for more!

PowrConnectr by JOrbits 2017-08-04T19:58:17Z

Yeah for puzzle games! I liked it. You kept the puzzles fresh by adding twist to the rules, and I'm sure you can stretch that further. With additional polish it could make a good game.

As @remzo stated, the level progression seems strange, as we got to play with pairs of colored tiles that are locked together before the "tutorial" level with 2 green tiles that serve to introduce this new twist.

I understand that the draining red cores may have been put there to better fit the theme, but I'm not entirely sold on them. I like that they make you think twice before rotating tiles around them, but I don't like that they make you restart the whole level. Maybe a middle ground would be better for larger levels. But then again, it's only a minor annoyance.

It seems that we can also get stuck on a level without any way to restart, or fail: I got stuck by powering a level core instead of a colored core, and had no more batteries to connect to. Reloading the page could be a solution if progress was saved, but it doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Still a very solid entry, congratulations on your work!

Discipline and Punish by shiitman 2017-08-04T20:39:52Z

Interesting twist on the theme. I love it when developers build a game as a pretext to talk about something else entirely. You wanted to have fun? To be entertained? Here, have some philosophy.

I like the overall aesthetic. The delivery of quotes from the deadpan Foucault watching you makes for a compelling effect; as if every time I tried to interact with the game or take a decision, he was coming up with a new koan apt for the situation. Too bad he quickly revealed his limited set of canned sentences.

The sliders, and the power/population numbers, seemed totally arbitrary and didn't make much sense to me. But I may have missed the point.

Baguette Hour by Xenation 2017-08-02T17:57:50Z

Visuals are nice and coherent. The gameplay needs to be fleshed out more. I like that the character was responding fast enough, and the idea of satiation is interesting, but the combat was lacking feedback.

I would have loved to hear some accordion music to fit the French cliché ;)

Temple of Illumination by Johngun 2017-08-02T18:25:18Z

The level tiles graphics are well done and the lighting effects are nice; I like that lighting also serve as an indication for the portal direction.

The character responds well to control. I found that not being able to cling to the same wall after you begin to fall a bit unfair. But not as unfair as spikes hitting you when your to the side of the block that holds them! Spikeys Up was where I gave up.

The "running out of power" mechanism was a good idea, but I never felt challenged by it, even in "Don't collect them all at once". Also, it may just be me, but I never let go of the Run button the whole time.

For the levels I played, the level design was fresh enough to keep me interested. And most importantly, the music was fantastic.

Good job overall!

Torch Boy by FloBar 2017-08-02T18:39:41Z

Really liked the tradeoff mechanism of charging versus shooting, creating a sense of urgency that fits the theme quite well. The slow down is a nice touch (and allowed me to get to grab the key).

Graphics are minimal, but coherent and very readable. My only complaint is that it's way too short!

Bright Plateau by fmdkdd 2017-08-05T17:26:48Z

Thanks for all the great feedback! We were quite satisfied with the state of the game when the deadline came, and all this warm feedback makes it all the more worthwhile.

@didactylos Though we did *not* use Unity, I guess your suggestion for the shadows would still work with THREE.js, though having them in low resolution was intended, as was the Z-fighting.

@sanguine Aw, sorry to hear about the crash! We fixed a memory leak today that might have caused it. In any case, level progress has been saved in your browser since the start, so reloading the page would have allowed you to keep playing.

There Will Come Soft Rains by kamekai 2018-12-23T10:34:00Z

When I discovered this LD's theme, I thought of making a climate change game where you had to save people from the rising seas (Choplifter-like). We decided against it because we weren't sure the gameplay would be that good, but I would have liked to have made a game raising awareness. I'm glad you went through with this idea.

I liked the geographical context when choosing the region to play with, and that some propositions had external sources. It anchors the game in reality and gives the player something to take away.

Gameplay-wise, I would have liked to have some visibility on the outcome of your choices. If I'm the head of the government, then surely I have *some* information on that. You don't have to give the player all the information; decisions could have a visible "expected outcome" and a hidden "actual outcome". The actual outcome may have a random component, or be affected by previous decisions and/or the current budget/stability etc.

ETA: Estimated Time Of Arrival by mechanicallife 2018-12-08T13:33:24Z

Even though the inspirations are obvious, this is still a good mix of interesting mechanisms. I would really like to play a more polished version of this; had quite bit of fun with this version though. Good job!

A minor bug: you can shoot through doors if you stand close enough.

A.I. Careers Advisory Service: Your Path To Success by garygreen 2018-12-08T15:58:06Z

Nice idea! The writing is good, and the simple mechanism reminded me of the Reigns games. Unfortunately, as a player you only have a couple of decisions to make at each rung of the ladder, and these decisions have few impact on gameplay.

With more alternatives and meaningful choices I think it could be very good.

QUELTRIS by fmdkdd 2018-12-18T12:27:40Z

Thanks for everyone for the warm feedback! We are impressed with some of the high scores you have managed... we should have put up a leaderboard!

@1257th-or-nothing Changing the shapes and colors was part of the original idea. Changing the shapes was maybe too confusing, but rotating them might work to spice it up!

@mosaic Aww, sorry to hear that. Maybe in some browsers you have to click at least once on the game for it to get input? If you have reproducing steps, please do open an issue on Github!

@samh The rate at which the timer empties rises with your score, but in practice it is not noticeable and maybe not stressful enough. You are right that discrete levels may be better!

@tornoz We do have a rotation animation, but it's very short. If you have low FPS, you may not even see it. There are a couple things we could have done to make it clearer: 1) let you rotate in the "tutorial" screen to see its effect, and 2) start with a lower animation speed, and speed it up alongside the rest of the game.

Bokeh by arron-fowler 2018-12-18T12:00:51Z

Very interesting concept! Forcing the player to shoot in rhythm is a good way to prevent bullet spam. The fact that you have to choose between switching stances or shooting with the current stance introduces a nice tension. Alas, I did not have a player 2 at hand to test how it plays out in a match, but the next time I do, I'll be interested to discover how balanced the stances are.

I think this as the potential to being shown at an art+game show. The music and bokeh aesthetic is a really good mix. You could do a cooperative variation as well, where the two players shoot enemies rather than each other.

The lord of Possessions by cigsandflowers 2018-12-08T11:44:13Z

Good feel, lovely graphics and animations. Good job there!

I can easily see this as a full game, if you add variations in enemies and items that spice up the gameplay.

Stuck In Paris by CocaPasteque 2020-10-11T10:56:06Z

Original! Clearly the traffic was much more fluid than the real thing ;) I got 20+ loops by just looping in the innermost circle, where no cars seemed to ever spawn. I would have expected other cars to change lane more haphazardly and forcefully; more realistic and more challenging. The motion blur was also tad overboard, otherwise good job!

Stuck In Paris by CocaPasteque 2020-10-11T11:22:54Z

@cocapasteque Aw, man, you have to exit it? I thought the point was to be stuck in there forever, avoiding cars. I did wonder why this giant arrow was pointing backward though. So I would suggest putting a car just behind you in the innermost lane, so that the player is forced to at least move off it after one lap.

Loopy Particle Simulator by nusan 2020-10-11T16:25:09Z

Looking at the particles looping around and colliding to create even more speedy particles was great. The escalating music is a nice touch as well. Overall, a very solid toy. I do wish there were more puzzles though. Hopefully you turn this into a Zach-like full-fledged game, and I would be all over it!

wipestuck by dokthar 2020-10-08T21:10:35Z

Quite the potential there! Too bad you didn't have time to add some more interactivity, because what is already present is high quality. Keep it up!

Loophole by louis-denizet 2020-10-11T15:28:36Z

Super clean presentation. The minimalistic art style and audio work well together, and yet the polish is far from minimal. The title screen is gorgeous, and I liked the ripples and the drawing animation for placing a circle.

The mechanism is simple, but does not get old as the game is short. I'm sure you could get some variation in later levels (such as reversing directions, playing with speed and radius of the circles).

My main gripe would be the slowly-panning camera which gets in the way of placing your circles. I liked that the level is explored this way, but having to wait until the transition stops was a bit annoying. Speeding up the transition a little would solve this.

Anyway, very solid title.

Vegenant by js_ 2020-10-11T10:37:57Z

The game controls well. I liked the variety of enemies, though it would have been more interesting for them to have different behavior besides homing at you. Electric vegenant seemed a bit weak. And yeah, as others have suggested, having audio feedback would make a huge difference here. Good ideas and unique style; keep improving!

NEONWISE'89 by fmdkdd 2020-10-09T17:21:36Z

Thank you for the kind words! We didn't have time to add a level select screen, but a level skip sounds like a good idea, if only to allow you to get back to the level you were in case of a crash/browser quit.

@bicheste Sad to hear you didn't get any audio. HTML5 Audio is treacherous. Can you report your browser/OS to see if we can test that?

@kroltan I may end up writing a post-mortem about this, but the short answer is that we aimed for the 'drag wire with cargo' mechanic first, then we designed levels around that. The overall electric/80's aesthetic came about naturally with the constraints of the medium (2D canvas doesn't have a lot of nice cheap effects).

Paper Loop by Nakami 2020-10-11T15:08:43Z

Playing the traveling salesman are we? I like the concept. Though the game in its current state is a bit too easy to cheese: you can just move the blue waypoint around to change the direction of the postman, which is equivalent to having unlimited waypoints. I would suggest that at least the waypoint the postman is driving towards to cannot be moved by the player. But maybe you could also 'freeze' all the waypoints until the postman has done a full lap, so that the player actually has to think ahead. A timer would also create tension: either a global one to finish the level, or one that refreshes at each delivery.

The Power Loop by maxflav 2020-10-08T22:17:28Z

+1 for PuzzleScript. Nice idea, although I got stuck on level 6. Maybe a gentler introduction to the idea of pushing people and generators would have helped? I can see that plenty more could be done if you keep introducing twists on the mechanic.

CycleCycle by colejparker 2020-10-08T21:57:27Z

Fading out the trails combined with the restricted field of view means rounds can sometimes take a while. Since the originality lies in the sphere setting, it would have been nice to be able to zoom out a bit. Have you thought about doing the same thing on the *outside* of a sphere instead of the inside?

Looper by Shortbread 2020-10-11T11:17:28Z

Very good presentation. An apparently simple idea that is well executed. I do wish retrying after death would not go through the whole level transition though. Instead of insta-death, you could also count the number of pricks the player hit and have a 'par' system to unlock further levels.

Controls can be a bit confusing, even after you realize Right always goes in the direction of the track, it's hard to readjust your brain when you switch, thus you are always on your toes after each switch. I would try to change the player circle into a form that has different front and back, so that you have an additional visual clue of the direction of your vessel.

I suspect this game would work very well with Pong-style paddles!

Mobius Station by mrhthepie 2020-10-08T21:26:57Z

Neat take on Wilmot's Warehouse. I would suggest to make the button to start deliveries a bit more obvious, but on the other hand that got me to run around the station in circles, so I guess that reinforced the theme ;)

Dice Settlers by Jimbly 2023-01-14T22:29:47Z

Excellent! The visuals were maybe a bit busy at the very start: even though the slots were you cannot spend the dice at hand are grayed out, the background graphics (like the herbs) still stand out. But once I knew what to look for, it was fine. The tutorials helped. I burned at lot of cycles at the end because my last dice did not have the required temple face. Luckily, I had enough resources saved to buy a new one so I did not get locked out. Inspiring entry, thanks :)

Flower Farmer by demogorgon 2023-01-15T12:13:14Z

This is really nice and a bit addictive. A button to sell by 10 or 100 would be very nice indeed. Also, maybe the sell price does not rise fast enough? My state of the art flowers only sell a few dollars more than the starting ones, even though they take longer to grow + all the upgrades costs. Meaning that it's easier to keep selling the starting flowers than develop very high tier ones.

It's a Platformer by acdimalev 2023-01-19T21:38:19Z

+10 for writing a GB game during a jam! Kudos to you. Simple game, but cute graphics. Would have loved some music and/or sound effects to go along.

Regarding your write-run-fix loop, couldn't you grab the source code of a GB emu (say, SameBoy), and hack it to automatically re-run a given ROM file when it changes on disk? That way you should be able to setup a complete compile+relaunch chain in one command/hotkey. You could even just reload the ROM, and keep the RAM as-is, so the game would keep its current state while reloading the code. (Or tell the emu to reload a save-state after ROM load, which is maybe safer.) Anyway, just a thought :)

It's a Platformer by acdimalev 2023-01-20T17:16:24Z

@acdimalev Oh okay, if you are going for cycle-counting and tracing small routines, I can see why you may want to write your own simulator. Nothing beats writing your own tools for your needs anyway. Thank you for sharing :)

Harvest by Cloistered 2023-01-15T11:36:55Z

This one got a good laugh out of me. Good idea, but the I wish the truck would go even faster so that I could do a barrel roll and lose all my harvest.

The Shameful Harvest by Dom De Re 2023-01-15T11:43:19Z

Amazing pixel art, and a great deal of juice in the presentation, especially the way the text is presented. Loved the banter as well. Finding out what killed you wasn't super obvious though. Maybe pause the game for a second or so and add an aninamation and/or sound effect?

Last Harvest by resevoir 2023-01-14T22:42:09Z

I'm not sure I figured out why you need roads exactly, and at first I was confused that I could build stuff but not everywhere, but it seems I just ran out of apples to build them. I guess this could have been more explicitly told by the UI. Otherwise, the game is maybe a bit short, but I liked the impending doom setting and the music.

Abduction by Juliansd 2023-01-15T11:46:48Z

Looks like we've ended up with similar ideas for this jam ;) Defending yourself with the things you gobble up was a nice touch. It got hard fast though! I think if you added just a few sound effects the game would feel even better.

F.U.D: Food Under Development by Stellar Lily 2023-01-15T10:18:25Z

Fun, rather well executed and easy to grasp. Though it seems the in-game scientists managed to produce steak trees, so surely in the future they will be able to make breakfeast trees directly ;)

Stellar Harvester by Kate Wright 2023-01-15T11:55:04Z

There's a good start of a game here. I think the controls just needs a bit of tweaking, as currently it's too easy to shoot up in space quickly, and too difficult to stay on ground. Also, since you have made multiple planets, I can't help but think that the player should be able to walk around the planets, Mario Galaxy-style, and not fall into bottom space. Would love to see that :)