Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Hawkin
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | Tiny Economy | jam | 904 | 3.13 | 2.95 | 2.86 | 2.04 | 1.80 | 3.55 | |||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | Tremblewood | jam | 105 | 4.09 | 4.19 | 3.46 | 4.40 | 4.17 | 3.73 | 2.98 | 3.91 |
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | 👥 | Parking Ltd. | jam | 245 | 3.89 | 3.93 | 3.64 | 3.98 | 3.08 | 4.04 | 3.72 | |
| 2023 | 52 | Harvest | 👥 | They Hide in the Fields | jam | 155 | 3.88 | 3.65 | 3.39 | 3.44 | 4.21 | 4.28 | 4.52 | |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | Dragua | jam | 491 | 3.60 | 3.31 | 3.18 | 3.03 | 3.70 | 3.46 | 3.80 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | The VortExperience | jam | 667 | 3.54 | 3.25 | 3.32 | 4.10 | 4.08 | 4.11 | 3.58 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 2nd Law | jam | 980 | 3.34 | 2.76 | 3.26 | 3.30 | 3.88 | 3.92 | 4.10 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Universalis | jam | 668 | 3.59 | 3.39 | 3.52 | 3.69 | 4.13 | 4.18 |
This was such a great idea! I enjoy musical games, and I think ours had a similar element (collecting layers of music). Great job fitting a sandbox and mixer in there as well. These were goals for mine, but I simply ran out of time. Yours was a pleasure to play. Lots of fun, and a nice beat to go with it. The user interface was also clean. Nice job!
I don't think other commenters said this yet, but I didn't even realize what the controls were for a good few minutes. I tried clicking and keys, and even restarted the game, thinking it was a bad load. Only when I finally "selected" the character did I get it :) This is where even a small tutorial can be helpful, though I know that's a tough thing to get to when trying to finish a game.
The core game was fun, but it felt like the theme was shoehorned in. It didn't seem to be all that critical--just more of a limitation. I know the theme isn't technically a requirement, but in this case I think the game would have been fine (even more cohesive) without the forced rewind. That's just my two-cents, though.
@johnbrynte I didn't mean to sound too harsh :) I know how you feel about running out of time!
By far the most creative interpretation of the theme so far. I really felt like I was "stuck" inside this inanimate loop. Aesthetically, it was awesome. But was it fun? I would say it was a little more on the frustrating side. But did I play it more than once? Yes :) The end is really satisfying haha. Like @caeonosphere said, if the controls were a little more predictable, I may have enjoyed scooting around as a sentient loop a little more. But I dig the overall vibe you were going for, and the music was fun for sure.
I don't have much to add that others haven't already said. I agree it was satisfying to solve the first puzzle, but as soon as I got kicked back to the first room after failing the pressure pads, I got super sad :( I would love to play more, as it seems like it could be a really fun puzzler!
Cheers!
(Edit) Okay, I just had to play some more. It's making me think of the super hard old console games where you would play for hours and hours just to make progress. In that sense, this is a very nostalgic game. You have to put in the work to make progress, so you got that going for it!
@deathstorm Don't feel bad! Sometimes it's good to balance a game to be easy for a jam so that everyone can experience all of it, but the fact that yours was such a challenge only increased my enjoyment of it over time. I probably played your entry the longest of any entry, because I was so invested and felt challenged. that's a good thing! :)
Wow! I really loved the environment and mythos you were developing for this jam title. The graffiti on the walls hinted at something hidden, and encouraged me to explore to find those hard to reach places, even before the arrow was pointing me there.
I was definitely a fan of the core mechanic. It was a lot of fun to sling things around, and I even used it to place objects that I could jump off of! In fact, I used a physics cheat to reach a higher ledge (before realizing there was a staircase around back).Untitled.png I ended up wishing I could sling myself more easily, like attach one of the end points.
For a jam game with admittedly sensitive controls, I was thankful for the forgiving hitboxes and enemy damage. That way, I wasn't so stressed about the difficulty as I was focused on having fun!
I do wish that the vertical dash was more intuitive. I figured it out way later that if I looked up and held W (and maybe jumped at the same time), then I dashed vertically.
And the music rocked, too!
(Thanks for uploading a performance fix. Ran fine for me!)
I loved artwork! The game told me I won, so I guess I won :)
Oh, and the sound effects you made were really funny.
I don't think I saw all of the level before finding the winning platform, so you might think about level design in the future so that the player has a reason to see all your beautiful artwork!
The intro was really cool. Some great story to add mythos to a short jam game. I thought it was very well written. And just at the point I was thinking, "Okay, maybe this is getting a little long," you slide in with that self-deprecating joke. Haha. That shows you are self-aware, which scores you extra points for me.
Otherwise, I think you took a well-known game and iterated on it just enough to make it interesting. "Oh, I'm supposed to hit myself? Neat." "Oh, I can only win if I eat my tail? Now it's a challenge."
Coming up with plenty of puzzles can be a challenge, but I thought what you had in there was a good enough start to wet my appetite. I loved it! Great job!
I loved the sprites! You made some very convincing planets with very few pixels. The music fit the mood very well. You gave the impacts a lot of juice! The sound and the shake sold the effect very well. The biggest challenge for me was avoiding the *wrong* moons, so that I could complete a set before filling my orbits.
This was really fun! The art style and sound effects were exceptional. It's a really clever mechanic as well, forcing you to think smart about how you fire. I also liked that charging up more decreased your ship speed. Perhaps the only thing missing was some music--that would really add to the great energy you've got going already.
I have to say, I wonder how the controls would feel if it were more like asteroid (up/down to accelerate and decelerate toward your mouse) rather than just WASD. It took some time to break my inclination toward the former. You might also make the hitboxes a bit more forgiving, as a few times I felt like I should have destroyed an enemy when I missed.
@stracker that makes sense. Maybe not inertia based per se, but I still wonder what just the directionality change (up arrow to go toward the mouse, down arrow to go back) would feel like. As you predict, it would probably make it all even more challenging :)
Missed your entry in the rating period, but I'm pleased that we arrived at similar moods :) I really like the competing objectives you have: gotta get the paths just right, but don't let the rocket hit the planets. It makes for a frenetic challenge. But the ambiance is still chill. Great job, and congrats on the results!
I really enjoyed the simple aesthetics here! A few sound effects would have made it super clean, but I know it can be hard sometimes to get to *everything* on the list.
The concept is nice and has a lot of potential. I found the levels fairly easy once I developed a pattern for clearing a path. That's not necessarily a critique, as you now have an opportunity to go either direction: this could be a hard puzzler with other obstacles (perhaps some blocks that you can't switch), or maybe just an easy-going "mood" game.
The story you added gave the game life, whereas without the story it would just be a demo. Smart move! I can even see an alternative where the objective is to make interesting patterns or loops ... something emergent where the player is encouraged to explore and create.
Thanks for submitting this! It was a real joy to play.
I won't repeat critique that others have said, but I really liked the artwork. The main character design was awesome. In fact, all the digital art for the world had a great style. Maybe next time you can scale them all appropriately when you paint them so that the environment doesn't turn out too scaled up and pixelated/blurry.
Capture.PNG
See how much more crisp the character is than the tree? If they were both drawn at the same resolution at scale, then it would all be equally crisp. I can't pretend I know enough about creating art for a game to tell you how to do that, though :)
Definitely funny! Maybe consider reducing the number of ships for the first wave, as I found it to be pretty challenging to install enough defenses with the money given, before a "ship escaped". I tried a few times and couldn't get past it!
Wow! Just wow! This gave me major nostalgia for Spore (the cell phase was always a favorite). You have a very inspired and aesthetic game here. And I love your interpretation of the theme!!
One issue I observed early on was getting eaten by a shrimp, the camera followed the shrimp that ate my previous form, but the controller was controlling an entirely different shrimp. This really made it impossible to move on, and I had to reload. Not a huge issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning :)
Awesome job! The visuals were incredible, and the rewind effect was satisfying. I have to say it was really missing a soundscape, as it felt just a little less full of life without it. But that's the struggle with jam games :)
I think you did a great job introducing mechanics and challenges slowly, which gave me the chance to learn the game before jumping into harder stuff (like replicant limits). You really tuned it all well!
If you are trying to appeal to my love of reckless (virtual) driving and all things synthwave, then you have SUCCEEDED. The near misses take me back to titles like Burnout, where you are rewarded for taking things to the edge.
Your attention to the aesthetics and sound design should be commended. I enjoyed being able to switch between radio stations (a la GTA) and vibe to the awesome tunes (excellent work, Dylan). I do wish that the "retry" was instantaneous without having to show a screen and then countdown to begin again. If you are going for higher scores, you are going to be pushing it as closely as possible, which means the potential for multiple restarts, and I would rather just zoom right back into driving. In my opinion, that would keep me a lot more engaged without interrupting my vibe B)
Otherwise, I appreciate the work that went into this. It really is a great piece. Also, kudos for the commercials ;)
That Loop 4 though XD
This was a fun arcade shooter! A very simple but satisfying mechanic. I think a next addition (or maybe a power up) would be more control over the loop, like maybe the radius or speed. But maybe you want the player to be challenged >:)
I have to say, our aesthetics turned out similar! I like minimalistic design. And the particle effects on destroying the enemy were really cool. Great job!
You all did a great job! A very complete game for a gam jam: mechanics and story, plus music! I also thought it was good that you had multiple enemy types. That forces the player to adapt their strategy, rather than just firing in one place.
Keep making games!
Okay, loved the sassy clam. Hilarious. And I loved the artwork!
Unfortunately, I couldn't really find my way around :( Despite only being able to look at the map in the starting area, I memorized what I thought the path to the X should be, but following that didn't seem to work. I tried a few times, but eventually it just felt like an endless generation of rooms with no indication that I was going in the right direction.
You might consider how you could tweak the design to help dumb players like me :)
Very thoughtful entry! It feels very complete for the time you had, and I don't think any category was really lacking. I can tell you put thought into each one. Adding different vehicles creates good replay value. The music fit the mood and wasn't too repetitive.
Damn this was JUICY! Simple, arcade-y graphics. Excellent sound design and music track. The menus had a lot of character, too!
I agree with others that this was a tough nut to crack haha. While the screen shake and "hit time" slow added a lot of satisfying juice, I almost feel like the slow down was too severe and kept me from really tracking where the puck was going to bounce next. Maybe just needs to be tuned slightly.
My brain kept getting confused when I crossed the field, and the controls inverted, but I think that's just part of the challenge XD Great implementation, one of the best so far!
So cute! The animations and artwork and the music were all very pretty and charming. Great job. I translated a few of the messages from Portuguese, but I could not type everything, so I missed some of your story :)
I hope Charlie had a great day!!
I loved the graphics! I'm really impressed at how well the pixel art looked. It was all integrated together very well for a nice scene. And the flashlight effect was really cool.
Some spooky music and sound effects would have definitely enhanced the mood, but those spirits were already pretty spooky haha. As I walked around the halls, I didn't quite figure out what was unlocking doors. Your instructions say "w to interact with seals"--what were the seals? Locked doors? Or the pages on the walls? Was I maybe supposed to find all of them to unlock all the doors and escape? I wasn't quite sure, but I'd like to try again to find out!
By the way, you should definitely look into setting up an itch.io page to distribute your future games!
This was cool! I think it's a great start. Good job with the modeling, and you even have some simple AI following in there. Next, I would think about what keeps a player engaged (introduce variety or establish progression so that the player feels like they are accomplishing something).
Also, when I was thinking about the theme, I tried to think of how the objective related to the theme. If something is "stuck in a loop", is that a mechanical limitation or is the objective to break that loop? If it's the objective, then you might want to put some sort of "carrot on a stick" before the player tires of the loop.
Just some thoughts in my head as I played through your game. Again, nice work! Keep at it!
I liked that you went for an audio concept! I haven't seen as many of those. I don't think I was able to pick up on the cues when the weapons would switch, but the idea that I had to use what I was given definitely changed my play style. My favorite was definitely the record (I felt like Captain America!).
With more time to work on the game, I would suggest focusing on "juice" like the impact from weapons firing or enemies getting hit. Those are pretty simple to add but can be very effective in giving the player a sense of impact, which is very satisfying.
Great work!
I really enjoyed this! Definitely a different kind of entry, and that stands out. Clever to complete tasks by removing them ;) It wasn't clear if I had "won" when I removed all my tasks, as there was no win screen. But all in all, this was a fun little point-and-click adventure! The sound design, and working the dog into it, was pretty cool.
Great job! I liked the character theme of a clock trying to collect its gears. Very cute!
One thing you could improve is the definition of platforms against the background. They were a little hard to distinguish, because they didn't stand out very much. You can increase the contrast, or make the colors slightly different.
I must say that I enjoyed the rewind effects! Great job there.
(Had to pull out my phone and enable installations to try this one :) I'm glad I did, because it was worth it to see what you have, but in future jams you might get more ratings if you also release a web build!)
I really liked the aesthetics of the graphics. I didn't hear any music or sounds when I did something good or bad, so that was certainly missing. Also, if you made the black rings start to change size, that would keep it dynamic and interesting. As is, after about two loops, I really don't have a reason to keep trying, as I could technically do that same loop as long as I wanted and as slowly as I wanted.
Overall, this is a neat idea, and well suited for mobile. If your goal was to learn how to release a Unity build for mobile, then I said you succeeded! You should definitely keep adding to it :) Good luck!
Same issue as kevin above. Link doesn't exist anymore! :(
Simple but effective implementation! Really smart use of the theme. The animation on the numbers in the loops was pretty satisfying. I love physics-based puzzles :)
I felt that through the narrative, you really embraced the theme. And you asked the player to embrace it along with you: stuck in a loop. It wasn't a slick mechanic, or an objective, it just was: you are in a loop. Very early on, the player must accept this. It is inescapable.
I think you really delivered on an experience here. Thank you.
@testuser Thank you for playing! It was definitely a rough calculation for the trajectory. It's on my list of things to improve with the next iteration!
@johnbrynte nice one!!
@darkmax14 you should try peppering the sun with a ton of planets >:)
@twohands that would be a three (or more) body problem, which is a lot more challenging to simulate than a simple two-body problem :) But I admit I tried it before quickly abandoning it, because the physics did not work out so well XD
@flying-dog-fish
I totally agree. Almost like watching fireworks go off when they all hit the sun.
Doing so makes me think of how systems actually form: a lot of objects that are in opposition and collide, until finally all the chaos relaxes and what remains are the compatible, stable satellites.
@arbe Thank you for the great feedback! It's a shame I didn't realize how easy the trajectory prediction fix would be during the jam, but I just needed to increase the resolution of the path (I'm using an iterative numerical solution). It really enables more precise creation, so like I said, it's a shame I didn't get it in!
Haha @coleslaughter awesome screengrab. Thanks again for playing! I'm still floored that we had such similar ideas. See you around for sure!
@duke I'm glad you were able to enjoy the aesthetics, despite the technical issues that I couldn't get fixed for the jam. I'm happy with the meditative mood it reached. If you are interested, you can check out my post-jam version that has definitely improved the orbit projection :) I'm excited to keep working on this, and I have some cool plans for the music (hoping to make that more of a creative element, as you suggest). Thanks again for the feedback!
@rodobodolfo What a great idea!
COMMUNITY UPDATE! - I am posting a blog as well, but I wanted to make sure that those of you who specifically expressed interest in features had the opportunity to see them :) Follow the link on the game page to universalis-update.
OBJECTIVE MODE I have added a taste of what objective mode will look like for Universalis. I have a lot of ideas to implement beyond this, but I would be beyond ecstatic to hear what you think so far! @testuser @abdul-zakkar @arbe @bottini @savvy-community @thebooksnail @coleslaughter @duke @rodobodolfo @trexxak @wdsrocha
SANDBOX MODE I was planning to include a sort of "sandbox" from the start, and some of your ideas have influenced the features now available! Not only can you toy with the gravity and launch settings, but you can enable planet gravity AND play with multi-star systems. In the future, I would like to add more flexibility on the placement of stars, so stay tuned! @twohands @arbe
Thank you again to everyone who played and rated my entry. Ludum Dare was a whole lot of fun, and I'm excited to be part of this community now.
Best, Hawkin
@merlinnsound Let me know how we can get in touch!
* Aesthetics - Awesome. Everything was clean and popped. Felt very polished. The sound design was great too. The sfx and particles gave really nice feedback. * Gameplay - Well implemented. I enjoyed how the paddle reacted to the changes in momentum. I also think you were forgiving with a "grace" period even when I got to the ball a little late, which I appreciated. I expect you didn't use physics for this, because it would have been a lot harder to control. Even if you did, I appreciate whatever work you put into polishing the mechanics, because it felt very smooth and predictable. * Controls - I was interested in using the arrow keys instead of the mouse. It might be a little less intuitive, but I also felt less precise using the mouse. * Music - Nice song, and it fit the aesthetics in a way, but I think I would have preferred something a little more relaxing without as much octane for this. I didn't want to feel so stressed :P * Overall - Good and effective implementation. It felt very polished. I liked the different bricks you placed in, as that added some variety to the strategy.
Nice job!
(Edit! I knew I recognized the icon from somewhere ... thanks for the Godot tutorials!)
Would love to give it a try, but the link seems to have been removed.
I really like this concept! Once I figured out the first level, it was really cool to plan out each iteration. I had trouble with the second level, because the guard patrols weren't repeated when I would rewind. So if the first character went to hack the plants to trap the guards, and I rewound time, the guards wouldn't go on the same paths.
The artwork is so charming! Fantastic job with that, I can tell you had a lot of fun. And the captain's animations are pretty cute. I almost want to miss the keys just to see it.
I appreciate the effort that went into the title page! Sometimes that's overlooked, but it checks all the boxes: sets the mood, provides a little creator info. Great stuff!
Love the character interactions, too! Loved the fourth-wall-breaking. But I think the captain needs to upgrade his crew ;) Adding some sort of in-game banner to interact with all 4 characters "to set sail" would have been helpful. Anyway, that start was a great "tutorial" before starting the hard part. Great idea!
Onto the game, the difficulty scale was really well polished. The spread of the 4 characters provided just enough challenge normally, and was decently challenging when the storms came! The little touches in those moments (animations and music uptempo) really helped sell it.
I think I would have appreciated some sort of progress bar somewhere to indicate how close I was to the end, even after you told me it was going to be 5 min. I nearly tanked on a rock the very last moment of the game, but I finally did succeed :)
This was a simple but absolutely fun game loop! From a few entries I've played, I've learned that starting with a solid loop (rather than an interesting idea) can yield a much more playable and fun result than trying to wedge that loop in later.
Smart to limit the range of the starting block, or I would have bumped up against the side ;) One trick I did end up using was leveling a pencil against the screen, to let me know when to drop the next block. I got a pretty nice trunk from that, but ended up underestimating a larger block that toppled off :)
Screenshot 2021-10-16 203957.png
Great job with the music, too! Pleasant and lovely. Enjoyed listening to it the entire time. And even though the graphics were simple, I liked the way you used the leaves to add a bit of variety and life to it.
This was unexpectedly awesome! Thanks for posting a video of it working on an actual scope. I'm pressed.
And surprisingly, the graphics were pretty easy to intuit. Loved zooming around and spiraling with the turbo. I admittedly got a bit stuck after picking up the tractor beam. Three doors and a bunch of floating blocks, but I couldn't find the way to trigger the exit. Up until that point, I like how you guided me around by placing enemies in the nice path--that was good signaling.
Really, awesome game!! #1 innovative for sure.
This was an awesome narrative game! I even pulled out my controller to get the full experience. I think you nailed the style, down to the floating/spinning props that you find.
I appreciated all the thought in the level design. The moving, living walls were a nice touch. And the way the heart slowed down .. very effective. I did feel emotionally connected to the "cave".
I do wish that after the first locked door (once you "taught" me how a locked door responded) that I didn't have to keep reading "the door won't open" -- but that's a small preference. I do think the collisions were a little clunky in some corridors.
I really wanted to see a "second act" where the cave got angry and wouldn't let me leave! This was great, thank you!
Tetris with physics! The controls are pretty classic-Tetris, so no complaints there.
The artwork on the individual blocks was so creative! Very appropriate for the month of October.
Did you make the music yourself? It was a fun theme! I do appreciate that you also included a mute option (something I didn't have time to add).
"Use your alchemy-boat to blast your way through frog town and win the potion prize!"
That is a sentence I'd never thought I'd read! Nor did I ever expect to play a zippy axolotl as a main character! This game has style to boot. The mini-game to reload was also unexpected! Definitely something new. I enjoyed the whole experience.
The movement was a lot of fun, even though I got trace bits of lag in the browser. That felt really polished. A little more enemy AI might have made the combat even a little easier. As it was, them sitting and firing did not feel compatible with me having to zoom around, face them briefly, only to face a barrage of bullets XD
Thanks for the game!
The visual design of this was magnificent. I loved every little effect! You also did a lot of clever things with the "rage building" mechanic, using it to burn obstacles but also dampening it with water spouts. This has great potential with a little bit of sound and music to back it.
Once I watched your video explained that the objective, the concept of controlling my rage (so I didn't blow up the TnT prematurely) was abundantly clear--but it wasn't obvious to me without some sort of explanation in-game!
Lol this is exactly the kind of thing I've come to expect out of you lot. Just the right mixture of awesome and "tf?" This hit a sweet spot of nostalgia. Would love to see this on a mobile version, too!
The controls definitely were a challenge to master. My only wish was for a way to intentionally flip over (or flip back). Your tip in the game page was apparently a little too hard for me :P I kept getting stuck on the table side, limiting my ability to pull off sweet tricks and flips :o
Honestly guys, hats off! The whole artistry of it all was a complete package. Putting it on a virtual console with a background packed with naughts doodles was perfect.
This was a fun take on a "tower defense" game! I liked the style, and the artwork was very cool. Great job with the assets!
I think some indication of enemy health would have helped me prepare better in some cases (for example, knowing how much more health the green guys had). Or knowing what the maximum number of servers I could lose was for each level (I only found out once the level was over, but maybe it could be an auto-lose?).
Overall very excellent entry! Thank you!
P.S. - I enjoyed the voice acting :)
I loved the voxel style! This was a perfect little game for a jam. Everything felt appropriately polished and complete. The controls were pretty nice, and I liked how the player leaned. Great job everyone! I enjoyed the cover of Blitzkrieg Bop :)
The only thing I could think to add was a story up front for why the man was out riding his bike on such a windy day where there was so much debris on the road. Maybe his Nan in the next town needed some supplies because the storm cut her power? I guess it wouldn't have been an endless runner anymore, though :P
I loved this! One of the few if only puzzle game I've actually wanted to struggle through so far in the jam! I especially liked the difference in the blocks. Everything about the puzzle was satisfying (I would have picked a different base track for the level, like a solid note, but you already mentioned that).
I agree that overall it felt really polished!
I really enjoyed the narrative of this piece--it is definitely art! I wasn't entirely sure if there was anything after the song and pharaoh art, so hopefully I didn't miss anything :)
You've definitely stretched the bounds of what can be considered for a "Game Jam" (I read your latest blog posting, and I think I caught some philosophical questions of what makes a "game"). Your entry is at least interactive, but my definition of a game might be more strict (I wrote about it in a blog of my own). Of course, we can both be right. If we accept only the strict definitions, we close ourselves to new opportunities!
Thanks for sharing this :) It was definitely unique and worthwhile!
_"The game should be quite self explanatory, but it is far from perfect, so I tried to focus on some nice pixels and pleasing sounds."_ -- How funny, that's exactly what I ended up focusing on in my game! XD
As others have said, the artwork was top notch. All the details were amazing, down to the man's bouncing eyebrows. The music fit right with it, too.
I know as well that focus in one area detracts from others. In this case, the RNG was pretty harsh! You've already mentioned other known issues, so I won't repeat. Maybe you could always make the first bomb at the first house, as an easy tutorial? Obviously, a 10 second timer to get from any house back to the stationary drop zone is quite impossible. What if he had a little bomb disposal bot that followed him?
Again, beautiful game. I'm going to follow you to see what you come up with next!
Found your game after the rating period. I thought it was cool that we got inspiration from the same phrase!
Cheers.
I really enjoyed the surreal art style, as it captured the theme of the short story you referenced. I do agree with others about the text style not really fitting in. For future builds, some audio would really help to pull me into the story that you are bringing to life!
Opening menu already has me spooked. I think you all did an amazing job crafting the mood here. Even when the puzzles got tough to solve, I was happy to try again and again because the environment was pleasant (in that creepy sort of way).
On the puzzle design, I'm going back and forth in my head about how appropriate the challenges were. You definitely encouraged the player to test out theories rather than handing them the exact script--a true, hardcore puzzle! I do wish the right-click / left-click operation was tutorialized, but I figured it out eventually :)
You really dialed in the amount of slack the player has to look away, such as with the ghost I felt like I barely had enough time to even sit through the crank animation. That felt unfair at first, but once I planned which knobs took the longest ... I got through it. In another comment you said that I "received" more time the longer I paid attention to the attraction--I didn't test that out.
The last puzzle was definitely the hardest, and to be honest I am not sure I actually figured it out. I tested out a lot of different theories (order of switches, timeout, something like binary switches). Sometimes it seemed a little non-deterministic, as I repeated the order of switches, but got different ones flipping back at different times. (**SPOILER**) What ultimately worked was flipping the switches and waiting them out. If they flipped back, I flipped them again ... and I did this until they were all on.
Overall, each level design was simple but sufficient, and the assets were well done and definitely spooky! The puzzles were a challenge, _but I actually tried until I solved them_, which I think is a testament to the quality of your final product! Most jam puzzle games I don't really want the satisfaction of solving. I think you definitely ought to be commended for a JOB WELL DONE.
This game is FANTASTIC. For a big team, I can see why it feels so polished and complete ... but still, I am super impressed. Everything about from the mechanics to the art to the menus and flow feels super polished and ready for release. You deserve SO many more ratings.
My only complaint would be that the 3rd restaurant seemed harder than the last, and that there was no final win screen when I completed all restaurants or got 3 stars on all of them! But I was still satisfied :)
This game is utterly imaginative. I took one pass through, saw 4 of the areas, and that alone would have been enough for a jam. But seeing how few of the crystal nodules I lit up, and the map you posted--I'm definitely going to have to come back and play more.
Hats off to you fellows. You made one heck of an experience! I do also like how you slowly introduce the idea of searching for "exits" or gateways by illuminating the rat like the crystal. Smart design there.
I had fun driving around at the beginning! From your screenshot, I expected this to be a top-down driving game, which I thought could be fun also. At least having that map accessible in the game would help with navigation (could be accomplished with a 2nd camera!)
I had a hard time getting up the first dirt road to the volcano. Maybe you intended it to be not traversable? I was also disappointed that hitting the Unstuck key also deleted my ice :(
Nice spooky environment. The floating head really got me haha. Nice touch.
I always like entering a game jam with a personal objective of what I want to achieve (or improve on). Did you have a personal goal? :smiley:
So in my opinion, the level design was a little too large (or a little complex) for the time limit, especially without any additional aids. Some ways to change that could be: * Breaking the puzzle off from the main room in 4 separate paths, that way it's easier to mentally "check off" an area (maybe you did that, and I couldn't tell because I kept losing track of which direction I started facing) * Maybe giving the player a way to mark where they've been, like a spray paint can or something. You could even limit the amount of paint, for challenge!
Anyway, those are just some ideas that came to mind. Overall, the mood was well done!
Something to think about for the future: maybe you could think of a way to integrate the timer more into the game, like it's the timer on the elevator returning to the surface, so you need to make it back. Some screen shakes when the timer ticked down and the sound played would have sold the effect!
By the way, if you sit on the main menu enough, the ambience track stops. Maybe not playing on a loop?
This was well done! I really loved everything about it -- the artwork, the music, the pacing. Even the rage mechanic hehe. Honestly, no critiques.
What a crazy, zany game XD I don't think I really understood what was going on the entire time, but heck I had a lot of fun!
I couldn't really figure out the movement, but the overall graphics and shooting was so fun that I still had a good time.
I think I would have chosen a different song to match the craziness of the whole thing, rather than something soothing, but that's just me!
This was super cute! It took me way too long to realize that I was trying to shepherd the penguins into the blue square. I guess the signal wasn't strong enough for me? I entirely forgot what the LD page told me when I loaded in :p
After that I had fun though! All the little enemies and penguins were funny.
Wow, this game is stellar! Puns aside, I'm absolutely impressed with the scope you got in. I'm worried that a lot of your technical achievement here would go unnoticed--"when you do things right, people may think you've done nothing at all." I say that because I imagine there has to be a lot of complexity to the systems behind this, but maybe you chose super simple and direct solutions. However you did it, hats off! It also seemed to me like you made a lot of smart time saving "hacks" to add variety, such as using the same ground environment with different skins. The assets in the ship were a thoughtful touch (especially the grand sitting area with chandelier).
I think I personally would have implemented a control panel that showed health and status of all systems (because that would make sense in reality), but I can understand why you wanted to challenge the player to wander the ship! It did force me to wander, which was worthwhile!!
Great entry, and thanks for all the community engagement!!
Nicely implemented! Simple, but effective. And it gets pretty unstable very quickly, which is the perfect challenge. I thought about fission in my brainstorming, but I stopped at "the chain reactions would just balloon ... where's the game?" Well congratulations, you found it! I really enjoyed this. I like to think of all the neutrinos and anti-neutrinos as kids arguing at a daycare. "Hey hey, you. Quiet down! Stop fighting ARRGH."
By the way, nice effect on the start button. Really draws attention to it! I would seriously play this on mobile.
The progression of the tutorial was the perfect pace. I appreciated the thought you put into that! The visual and sonic scape were perfect to sit back and relax to.
By the way, this has a very similar look and feel to an orbital sim I made for LD47! Clearly I'm a fan of sims, so this game was right up my alley :) It's interesting how non-deterministic the system is, but that's pendulums for you! The difficulty curve scaled pretty quickly, so I admittedly cheesed one of the levels. The physics went way out of whack with so many levers >:)
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I have no idea how you came up with this idea, but it was sick! Flinging the projectiles just right to hit the incoming block was pretty satisfying when you succeeded. The overall visual polish and synthwave backing track put me in just the right headspace to enjoy this. And being able to upgrade different skills really kept it from getting boring!
Where did the music track come from? Loved it!
This really awesome! The mood was perfect, and I was vibing to the music the whole way.
I did seem to lose attractors, even though my distance to the goal was still decreasing. Seemed like there was a "course" or "track" that I should have stayed on? Maybe there's a way to better indicate that.
Also, some sort of global arrow pointing to the finish line is something to consider. Otherwise I'm gauging my heading by the "velocity" of the distance to goal, much like watching the axis position in Minecraft XD
Otherwise, this is a fantastic sim! Right up my alley. I could sit in this all day!
This was absolutely charming. I had a lot of fun relaxing, finding animals, and talking to people. The dialogue felt very natural and human.
I agree with others that a little more tutorial on using the tools would have helped, but it was intuitive enough from other games to understand--although I did try a few times to figure out how to place ladders! And then I eventually got stuck climbing into the bottom of a floating island to rescue a sheep :( But the game seems pretty long, so I can imagine it would be hard to test all the areas! Great job :)
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By the way, I don't see Godot as often! Nice!
What a ride! That was a great narrative for a jam. I think you chose your assets and terrain generation wisely to be able to focus on the story and scripting. The dialogue system was a little basic and could have fit better with the theme, but that's easy to accept.
The twist halfway through, and the sudden FPS took me by surprise. Definitely well done!
The controls were really smooth. Was the roll also a dodge? Having the walls block the bullets would have been nice, too, but I can imagine that would have been another thing to add.
The visuals and effects were really nice. The end was definitely a challenge! Thanks for the game!
Update: just read that the charging enemies were a late addition. I definitely liked that added challenge!
I loved this! I'm going to have to come back to this when I have a better internet connection, because reloading each time to restart is not working for me at the moment.
But you managed to release a really tightly designed game for the jam! The art style and tasks were perfect together (even if my dumb butt thought I was supposed to be clicking the symbols, not the buttons hah).
Adding some sounds and music would have made it 100%. Please make an update!!
@nanobuilder Awesome! This being your first solo, I'm not sure if you caught the fever for it, but if you want to Collab with sfx/music on a future project let me know! I'm always looking to practice those.
This is a fun play! I loved all the environment assets. The game overall felt decently polished (didn't encounter any bugs), and was enjoyable. Hats off to the music as well. There was a lot of content here (which is good), and I like to give a lot of feedback!
The level design was nice. Fairly intuitive where to move on, and I like that I had a use for the ice attack to bridge the areas! That also forced you to acquire the new "spell" before moving on, same with the fire and vines.
The firing mechanic was pretty fun, but could have used more juice. Hitting the characters wasn't too satisfying. And you might have done something as simple as reducing their size on every hit, as an indication of their "health". Also, most of the game I was focusing on what I was shooting at or what was near my player--it was hard to keep an eye on the health jar! So without any effect on the player when I got hurt, I only realized I was low by chance.
The punishment for gaining too much power is an interesting concept. I think I would have liked something else to use the "bursts" for ... like the fire could have been an attack. That might have been more interesting imho than "you slow down" or "reset the level", but still fit your original idea? Otherwise, I feel like I'm just firing off spells to avoid the punishment, rather than using that "burst" strategically. Still, I think you had a concept and executed it well!
It did take me a while to figure out the crystal pylons--were they hurting me, or helping me? I eventually realized I could destroy them ... but was that the objective? Or was it the boss? overall objective could have been a little better communicated. The game ended once I killed the boss, but since I couldn't freeze a path to it, I felt like I didn't get a chance to really interact with it. The ending felt a little rushed overall, with just the sudden "you win" text. But hey, it's a jam game! It's gotta be rushed haha.
Overall, this was a really solid play. Kudos to the entire team!! Like I said, I like to give a lot of feedback (good and constructive), so I hope it's helpful. Thanks for the game!
This is quite the acid bath haha. The zoom-in on horse death was so funny. And all the sound effects just added to the craziness. And the music going from sunday-morning cartoon to techno house, I just don't know what XD
Thanks for the fun little game.
Buena idea! Sweet and short. I just barely beat the last level in time! It was definitely a challenge to start over from the beginning, rather than from that level.
I liked that the characters had different personalities and functions. That really added some dimension to the puzzle solving. My only complaint is that I wanted to move faster!
I loved the idea and the design! I'm always excited when someone uses Love.
The puzzle design was definitely unique. I do wish there was a slower progression of levels and a few more, but that's only because I was having so much fun!
One thing: the tutorial said X and A to rotate, but that did not seem to work. Instead, A/D worked like left and right. I figured it out, though :)
Final casualties: 108. But I blame you guys for forcing a first-time pilot to take off with a minimum of 100 passengers on his first flight :P
But in all honesty, great submission. You implemented a lot of smart artistry and layering to make the whole environment feel very active and vibrant.
@destroyertech so sorry about that :( The thing is, it loads on my Firefox, so I can't imagine what the issue is. I did see someone else have the same issue, though, so clearly something can go wrong. I assume you tried refreshing the entire page?
@destroyertech I just uploaded a windows build, so feel free to give that a try if your Web version did not work!
@tubadude99 I totally get it! It would have definitely been more satisfying if the interactions and consequences made sense, rather than my claiming it as a "butterfly effect". The overall "puzzle" design was definitely a challenge that I wish I could have spent more time on, rather than the artwork and coding.
@big-play-ben Thank you for the kind words! I really enjoy the mood-creation process, which is why I probably lean more heavily into that than other aspects :)
@dante2001 Thanks for the kind words! I definitely wish I had more time to add more complex links to the elements, or add people in the house. Trust me, I had a whole grand story in mind when I started XD
And no, much like in life, we can't completely eliminate entropy :P
@tomasaquistapace Thank you for playing! I appreciate your comments.
In case you're interested, the theme was central to the design of the game (unintended consequences create "unstable" situations), but I agree that it was buried a little deeply. It would have come through more strongly if I had the time to add more items to interact with.
@sheepolution Thanks for the kind words! I can't claim the rough style was as much intent as it was lack of experience (my first time really getting heavy into pixel art). Or maybe it was just reflecting the kinds of games I had in my mind (older adventure games). Either way, I'm glad you think it worked!
I'm curious on your opinion: would highlighting the objects been a bad thing for the experience? It may have made the content more obvious, but also taken away from the "discovery". (There was a way to get full entropy, but never no entropy ;) )
Thanks again for playing!
@zhenda-hu I agree on the objective, that is definitely an area I need to improve upon. Thank you for the kind critique!
@playerdeer Thank you, I definitely wanted to do more but I appreciate your kind words.
@figueroass27 @youk I'm glad you noticed the music changes! That was really important to me to achieve.
@coleslaughter Thank you for the play! The rabbit will be avenged.
@lerg Thank you!
@essarrgee I'm glad you could enjoy it. There was just the one ending -- I never thought about giving the player multiple routes to the end screen, but to be honest I had to cut scope and was worried about giving the player _any_ end screen that made sense.
@willoxs I agree with your insights and really appreciate your honest feedback. I agree that the impacts alone could be enough, but with the limited content I was worried about leaving it too open without any kind of resolution like an end screen. If I had more items added, I definitely could have implemented a bigger narrative that would have encouraged the player to explore.
Definitely ambitious for a game jam, and I agree it came out a bit short. Thanks again for the review!
@dock-frankenstein Thank you so much for some technical contribution! You know it's funny, I knew about the bugs you mentioned with the Pause (see my Trello board below haha), but I also knew I couldn't worry about fixing them for the jam.
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I don't know if many people realized there was a pause menu since I didn't call it out, and you might be the only person to have found these. When the pause event is triggered, I do a number of things, including setting the time scale and muting audio. Typically I register the player to the OnGamePause event in order to disable any input, but I definitely forgot that piece here -- hence the bug! Clearly there was something not quite working right in this instance.
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The audio resume was definitely a new idea that I didn't spend much time thinking about, once it seemed to work. Without testing, I think you are probably right that there would be at least a tiny delay if I try to start at the same sample -- maybe I need to advance one? But it would hardly be noticeable, at least I think.
I've played with track layering in-game before (see my LD47 entry if you are curious). In that case, I did what you suggested: started them all at the same time and adjusted the mute when I needed to. That's probably the smartest way to do it for sure!
I've actually started a utility [cache](https://gitlab.com/hawkinberry/unity-utility/) of my own, including an Audio Manager that I drag with me from project to project (rather than re-developing it each time). I like the bits you have in yours, especially the coroutines to change the volume! Thanks for offering it :)
Again, thank you for the input!!
Edit: Oh and by the way, I saw your blog post on qASIC earlier on in the jam!!! I didn't check it out this time, but I want to for next time. You're doing good work!
The title screen and music instantly impressed. Good design and polish there with the animations!
I had high hopes for the focus on game feel, but after I got stuck in the first deep hole with no (obvious) way to get out .. I just reloaded. I'd echo comments from others like Alexofp and Peace of Cake. I struggled to get very far before the rocks started falling, and then I was toast :( I've never really focused on controls in a jam, so I have to imagine that it is really tough to polish.
I'd be really excited to play another version, because the over style was very tight! The camera movement especially had good thought put into it.
This was really polished! Love a good egg hatchin' game. This would be really fun on mobile! I better stop playing before I can't stop :P
I liked the idea! Searching for randomly hidden objects would make it feel fresh on new plays.
The movement mechanic (how to slide the screen, or move objects) wasn't immediately intuitive, but after I figured it out it was fine.
I think what was the least fun for me was waiting at the end for the environment to switch back. Including an indication (like a timer bar) on when the environment would switch might have helped the player feel a little more in control?
Great job! I think you used the free and available assets well :)
The title page art was really great! It instantly got me excited to play. The music on the title page was fine, but once in the game it repeated too quickly and the Geiger noise was a little rough on the ears.
It took me a few plays to understand what I was trying to collect and trying to avoid. Once I saw the decay chain, I got excited for the game to progress more. It disappeared pretty quickly though, and I didn't get a chance to study it until after I was RA.
This was a pretty cool entry! Thanks!
The game definitely had charm and jokes. I liked the manual concept. The fact that the tutorial was more than a wall of text but fit inside your theme made it enjoyable.
Beyond that, I'm sorry but I really couldn't figure it out. For example, I had the pattern red (blink), green (blink), and blue (off). According to the manual, that should have been a, a, d - right? But when I set the lever to a, the set it to neutral, and then to a again ... I lost :(
I really wanted to play this more because it looked really fun, but I couldn't figure it out from the instructions.
Update: I read your new instructions to follow the order of the lights in the manual (shouldn't be different than the game imo), but even then it would seem to reset the pattern after the first lever, and I wasn't sure whether I had to continue or start over. I'm really sorry I couldn't figure it out :(
What a cool arcade style! It also made me think-what if pinball??
From reading other comments, I learned that we would trade score for completing the level in time. I guess this didn't come through to me so easily, as I missed the point of hitting the electronics (even if it was fun). It would make sense if they gave you more charge (life), but then I wouldn't run out of time!
It's a nice idea, and I had fun playing it! The graphics and audio were definitely in the right style for arcade. Thanks!
Your revelation about grand plans is very similar to mine! Funny how much we think we can get done in 3 days, until all the little things start to pile up. Anyway.
Great job for your first jam! "A finished product" is generally the sign of success, even if you have to change what "finished" means ;)
My biggest feedback is that the movement/aiming mechanic wasn't so easy for me. I would have preferred left/right to aim and up arrow to move forward. I feel like that would have been a little easier to control.
Some interesting choices on the tools that you used! Definitely ambitious jumping into a gam jam while also learning the tools.
By the way, I uploaded a Windows build of my game if you'd like to try again. Sorry Firefox didn't work!
@destroyertech lol Linux too! I can't win XD it's all good, I appreciate it.
The style of the game is really unique and inviting. I had a blast playing it.
For "speed run" kind of games, I would prefer not to have to press "continue" every time. But that's just me!
I agree that you used the theme really well to add challenge.
Hahah I love the intro. Took me by surprise.
Why don't these people just get out of my way?? This was so much fun. Hat's off!
I actually took it slow on my second run, and managed only $7.16 of damage :) Gotta admit, though, it's a whole lot more fun to just careen around and smash people haha.
This was super silly lol. The sensitivity setting is off the charts somehow, because max was unplayable and even 2 was a little too much. I was able to play on the lowest and that felt okay. I would suggest polishing the movement mechanic a little more, as it wasn't my to my taste. But it was smart to include a settings menu!
I eventually tried to shoot the aliens in the air like skeet shooting, but I never could get one haha. That would have been fun.
@underdog Don't be sorry! This is all about experimenting and learning :) Few people include a settings menu at all!
And I forgot to mention that the explosions were really satisfying >:)
This was a fantastic concept!! I think you implemented the crucial parts really well. A lot of games (mine included) might have potential but haven't nailed a solid, fun mechanic. Even without flashier art, sounds, or music, your game is solid fun.
One thing I would have added is a death counter. Something like that is relatively easy, but it gives the player a stronger sense of how they are doing (or a reason to play again!).
By the way, I have seen a few entries use less standard archiving formats (.7z, .rar) -- my recommendation would be to use something more standard to the OS to ensure that more people have the capability to play your game without installing additional software (like 7-zip or WinRar).
Looking forward to seeing more from you!
I really enjoyed the look of the main character. It was so cute! I probably would have chosen a different song, but some music is usually better than no music ;)
I have similar comments to other posters about feedback. One example is some visual progression to know you are soothing them more and more, and if you move away or slow down the progress goes back up. The collision on the head of the dragon felt a little unforgiving, too, as the spirits bounced away a lot. But that did just make them more unstable!
You should be proud! Thanks for the game!
Thank you for spending the time on the tutorial before the game, as it helped immerse me right away. Tutorials with lots of info sometimes are better when they are delivered progressively as I interact with objects, but that's definitely more work.
You also did a great job with the visuals and level design. Some music or sound effects would have definitely perfected it.
The implementation of the theme wasn't for me, as losing control of the character made it less fun (rather than just a challenge). For example, when there were a lot of enemies and I wanted to be precise, it quickly became impossible.
Nonetheless, I think you packed quite a lot into a 3-day game, and I'm impressed! Great job!
This was pretty good! The main character animation was adorable haha. I will say that all the randomly flying objects was a HARD challenge to avoid XD
I think you've got the basics down, now you can think about the messaging! For example: I didn't realize I could double-jump until there was a jump that I couldn't possibly make (i.e., you shouldn't rely on my knowledge of other games). This could be explained in the game page, but in-game explanations are usually preferred!
Getting into the player's head and knowing what they do or don't know is definitely the tough part about game design. Keep creating! Go Bruins!
This little game has a good foreboding feel to it, impressing emotion on me. I think you crafted the mood really well.
Not sure if there were certain outcomes to try for. I did go through it a few times, seeing if I could pick up a pattern or get shapes to match. I never really did, but I could have tried a little longer. If it was a puzzle, a little quicker reward indicating I was on the right path would have been enough motivation.
Lots of settings, too! That's pretty great for a jam game. I appreciated that.
Procedural generation in a jam? And a compo, no less! Nice! It does create some interest situations, like this unreachable island. But my water stream seemed to reach across!
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I do wish that things happened a little quicker. It took a good while before the burn % went up, and driving around before that, I didn't get a strong sense that I was doing any good. You know?
I think it was a really good concept for the game, and all that polishing is hard for a compo! I think it's really neat that you included an accessibility mode :)
The art was simple but very effective. I like that the UI was to the side, not an overlay -- nostalgic. I'll have to try that next time!
I really liked that the replays moved more slowly. That's a good idea! Generally, the movement was a little quick for me to be good at platforming. I'd rather it be a little less touchy. You know? I appreciated that the tutorial was built into the level progression, though, and that made the whole experience very nice.
Great job!
I love a "choose your own adventure"! I really started to appreciate your style, musically and artistically. It was definitely unique. Keep leaning into that, and you'll keep making experiences like nobody else! Creating all that music sounds like it was a lot of fun! I'm jealous.
In the game, I started to lose track of how one decision lead to my next choices. It almost started to feel random, even though they matched to the time of day (not sure if that was intentional). I also didn't understand what the skulls meant at first. I guess I got them from partying too hard B) Or maybe that's the thing: no matter the choices you make, the end is inevitable. So live life!
Great experience, thank you!
This was a really unique entry! I enjoyed the aspect of planning and creating my pillow-fort labyrinth muahaha. My only complaints were that * It was sometimes hard to tell which orientation I was placing, and I could not delete tiles once placed :( This ended my run a few times because of a bad click. * I wish the hitboxes on the tiles were a _little_ bit larger, because clicking on the very corners did not highlight the tile!
Otherwise, I had a lot of fun running around. I don't think the slower mining was really explained, so I wasn't sure what to do about it. As others said, you could run around in a loop, but the slower mining gave diminishing returns, so I don't think this was a bad thing :)
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The music was fresh, and I enjoyed it at the title screen, but it did get a little heavy over time. Maybe a variation of the track with fewer clangs and beeps that just sort of blankets the background enough (haha, pun!).
Loved it once I got the hang of it! The increasing rhythm really is a clever mechanic. I can see easily getting good enough to far surpass this score, as the real limit with a linearly increasing rhythm would just be how quickly you can press the right button.
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The aesthetics and visual effects are some of the best I've seen in the jam so far!
The artwork is excellent! The aesthetic of the monsters, together with the bloodied gameboard, create a very eerie experience. I don't tend to enjoy deck building games, but I enjoyed your entire nonetheless :)
You could have used a more appropriate font than the default one, in my opinion. Something just as easy to read, but still stylized. Or maybe just for the buttons and card titles. There's plenty of free fonts out there, and they aren't that hard at all to add in. See what you think!
Thanks for the game :)
This was so funny! A great idea. I loved the music and how you timed it with the alarm. Funny dialogue, too, with the body parts! My only suggestion would be to skip the dialogue when a level repeats.
This had so much personality haha. Despite the mechanic being a little limited (only being able to fire sideways), it did fit the theme (the rocks were going to break through eventually), it was a tight little game and I had fun! The artwork was exceptionally good, and the music and SFX fit well.
Watching your playthrough helped some, but I understood it well enough from one or two plays myself. The "butterfingers" limitation didn't really make sense to me. Maybe it added a bit of challenge? I noticed in your video, too, you may have added upward firing as well?
Anyway, I appreciate the detail you put into this! By most measures a technical achievement!
This was a very pleasant game! Great job to the whole team for making it! All of the models and animations were very excellent. And the progression system was very well done!
My only complaint is that the tool filling was not press and hold like watering was. It was not very fun to press "E" over and over again :)
Also, excellent job on the introduction! Too funny! I love a good voice over :)
What an emotional intro. :'( I felt that
I have to say that I think you nailed the theme, and I loved the way that your mechanism to reach the objective was so entwined with your downfall. That made each choice feel so much more impactful. But damn the controls were brutal for me. I'm going to have to practice a lot!
This was a very beautiful idea! I loved the musical elements and restoring life to the grey landscape. I agree with others that the game did not explain how to switch between powers. It's sometimes easy to forget what a new player will not know :) You and your sister obviously have great minds, and your skills will continue to grow. Thanks for the game!
(Glad you added the clarification on what you reused from LD45!)
The atmosphere and overall mood on this was SUPERB. Everything integrated really well together. The amount of artwork, rooms and character cards is really impressive. I got lost in this for a while! I loved how the controls were integrated into the UI -- that felt very immersive. Using music (and danger level) to indicate the proximity of the monster was really smart. I do wish that as I moved back through rooms, the movement controls displayed immediately, but that was just a personal pacing preference.
I really appreciate all the effort that went into making this. Great job team!
I really enjoyed this! It was so pretty, giving me real BOTW vibes. I wish I could have relaxed more walking through the grasses.
The music was great too!
Space dog fighting? Aw yisss. Visually, the game was fantastic! It wasn't until my first ship got destroyed that I realized I would play as the other ships.
It's hard to offer any critique as I read about your challenges in the "dev log". The game ran fine for me! Beyond the things you talked about, I think two things would have been nice: 1. I think the ability to switch at will would have been a lot of fun! 2. Maybe the controls would have felt a little smoother on a game controller
Thanks for the game!
Love that the tutorial is a slide presentation. This game was just charming haha! It had me chuckling the whole way through. Great art style, funny minigames. I don't know if I broke something at the end, but the buttons (like the end screen and settings menu) stopped showing text!
Okay I did not expect that. Great setup! The music was intent, and I enjoyed the art style.
For the intensity, I wished that I could somehow see her chasing me. I even stopped for a good 30 seconds and nothing happened.
A couple things that I noticed: * The first time I started, I didn't understand that it was side scrolling controls, so as I was trying to change the camera, I moved left and somehow pushed her off the map XD * Later on, pressing the left Alt key seemed to do something really weird to the graphics (soda straw ripping effect) and then put the dialogue back at the beginning of the run. Some kind of reset key??
Thanks for the game! :)
This was pretty cute! Once I learned the mechanics of the different chips and things to interact with, I got into it. The art was superb, especially the underwater effect on the tiles. I'm curious what parts the two of you worked on!
The sound design could have added more, like different sounds when you are underwater. I personally don't think the sound effects matched the style of the game as well as they could, but that could just be my preference :)
It wasn't clear to me what my left click did. It seemed to allow Goose and Moose to pass through objects? But sometimes it seemed to redirect the ice cream cone? I wasn't sure what I really had control over, and that should be pretty clear in a game.
Otherwise, the artwork and the story were very imaginative and well done!
I'm not sure what happened, but on my first load, the yellow box and line didn't appear! I just had the "click to gather" graphic, but my clicks didn't seem to have any effect (on the candles or monsters).
After the first loss and reload, that problem fixed itself and I got to play properly. I like the mechanic a lot! You've mentioned balancing more, and I think that's a good idea. Some kind of indication of my final score would have been nice, too!
The audio might have been supposed to sound like a flickering flame? It didn't really work well for me, but I like the idea.
This was a fun concept! I liked the idea of getting the trajectories just right to end up where they needed to be. Sound effects would have really sold the rocket boosts or the comm blips, but sometimes you just don't have time.
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If this was intentional, that is really funny haha.
I noticed some rockets separated/crashed right after launch. Was that intentional, or did I mess up? :( I also think a nice challenge could have been launching and pinging multiple rockets at once, as most of the time I was wishing for more things to do--either win hard or fail hard!! haha
Thanks for the game! It was fun!
This was a very emotive experience. I imagine that you even put personal experience into it. Once I accepted what the game was, I was able to immerse myself and absorb the story. Thank you for this!
A very cerebral entry, and very much innovative! I love it. And hats off to clockmaker for an amazing soundtrack to this. Fit everything together beautifully.
I liked that you force the player to get through the first round before explaining some of the mechanics. A sort of delayed tutorial that grants many "a-ha" revelations. The dynamic script was surprisingly aware and cohesive at times (in the case that you lost multiple pieces in one round). I will say that the king getting "stranded" might have been better highlighted, as I wasn't able to see for sure which route got cut off.
Three really smart mechanics that I liked a whole lot: * You also implemented such impact by having a regicide result in the next armies progress. It's a nice "replay" feature while also showing you your own skill progression. * And that their progress starts one level behind (so you don't have to replay a whole lot). Smart again! I will say that my second round of playing went a whole lot better! * "Capturing" other pieces to build your army. Loved that!
I do wish I got a final look at my progress before the option to replay or quit (for a screenshot) :) Now, I want to know who these "birdies" are and how they know so much about the corruption. Suspicious!!
Such a great idea from the theme! Definitely something new. I wish I had someone else to play with, but playing as both characters gave me enough of an idea. I'm sure it would be a blast being more competitive with two players. The only thing it was missing was some fun racing music!
I simply did not have the mental dexterity for what is a deceptively complex flight simulator XD But oh did I have a lot of fun. I finally did manage to hit three pools, but it took a lot of practicing to get the launch trajectory just right, fluttering the rockets.
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Fantastically silly little sim!!
I am going back and forth in my mind whether the music should have been playing all the time (maybe it would get old?) or just when you launch (I never heard more than 5 seconds of it haha).
I knew from the screenshots alone I was going to enjoy this. I loved the vibrancy and accuracy of all the historical characters, and the dialogue options were just hilarious.
You know I have to give "hats off" for the voice acting. The intro was inspiring, and even the variety of "hmms" and "hahhs" were full of character! Loved it!
I'd be really interested to know what system you implemented for handling all the script progression. Mine was nested scriptable objects (Script containing Lines with text/audio) processed by a Monobehavior.
Congrats on 3rd place!!! That's fantastic.
I don't know how you managed to fit so much content into this! The art assets are wonderful. I really love the style of it all. The platforming and combat mechanics were decently polished. The grappling mechanic was the most fun, which is why I wish I could keep it for longer! By that point in the game, it got to be a struggle to keep pace with the health loss.
I would play a full title like this. Fits very nicely into the hollow knight "genre"!
That was a blast! Why do all these doors keep locking?? XD All of the minigames were great. Good ideas! I loved the hand-drawn tutorials on all the pieces, as if the character knows they forget how to work all these esoteric devices haha.
I will say the collisions might need tweaking, as I kept getting stuck in odd places (doorways especially).
This was a lot of fun driving and drifting around a tiny planet! I laughed at "oh no! the climate sceptics are here!". It seemed that sometimes my car would try to steer me in a direction on its own? Was that intentional?
Also, I think it was the "weapons" that the sceptics brought, but it was bright and pink like the boost, and I didn't think it was a bad thing to avoid. Maybe think about how you could make it more obviously something to avoid?
This was an entirely unique and enjoyable experience. Seriously! Thank you for putting this together. The character interactions in Sid Meier fashion was just good nostalgia. I was having such a good time building the continent, I was sad to see it end! My only regret is that I did not have a screenshot of my masterpiece to share with you before the end of the game.
My two recommendations would be to strike some sort of balance such that the end of the world was more inevitable (I was able to keep everyone pretty much happy), and to somehow use the UI to show more information about the state of the gods (the colors were good enough, but what about a happiness bar?).
But again, I have to applaud the creativity you added to this with all the costumes, characters, and writing. Superb!
This was a fun one! The sheep throwing mechanic was very clean. It didn't take much skill (making the shot seemed automatic), but that was preferred once DLay started attacking! I think the final battle could have lasted a little longer, because it was fun once he started showing all his attacks!
The models also looked very good, and I think you put good effort into the sound design! Overall excellent entry!
I like the idea, and the environment artwork is really creative. It feels very clean and well designed Great use of the colors everywhere. Congrats on submitting a finished game even after changing direction mid-Sunday!!
I would have liked to see more progression (such as, starting with only one or two openings, or being able to re-power shields at certain milestones). But for a prototype, this is a solid entry! Awesome job to you and your daughter.
I definitely played this more than anything so far, mostly just frustration-fueled drive to make it to the sun. I dug the aesthetics and the guitar track was chill.
My main challenges were * No "player" model, so it was sometimes hard to tell where I was touching the ground * The controls felt a little too "slippery" for a precision jumping game. I had to apply a lot of reverse-pressure to counteract the spin * Sometimes the collisions felt a little unfair (for example, you clip the edge of a platform and ricochet into the center of the tube)
Otherwise, I spent a good 40 minutes at it. That should speak for itself :)
Why did I feel like Neo in the Matrix, battling a horde of Agent Smiths? Lol. Also, was I murdering them and taking their pocket change, or was I prestidigitation-ing them into money? Hmmm.
This was a pretty fun concept. I would have liked to see some more variety or clarity in how the upgrades impacted the enemies or my strategies. But overall, moving around, dodging agents, and shooting magic was fun!
First off -- I love the start menu / credits / tutorial navigation. So clean, especially with the soothing elevator music. I think I'll just sit there a bit and enjoy it.
The ragdoll animations were just hysterical, as were the sound choices. I'm not sure how I feel about the beeping to indicate altitude, because it clashed with the soothing music, but I can't say for sure that it was the wrong choice. Overall the game was fun, but I do wish it were a little faster paced!
@toastertot now that's a score!! I think I've only gotten close to that once or twice. It really makes me wish I had put in time to add a leaderboard for this one. Nice job!
(And yes, Portal was 100% the inspiration here haha)
@feilkin great suggestion, thank you!
@adamcyounis your feedback means so much! I was much happier with my scope management this time around, but I definitely put more time into additional voice lines over progression. I'm glad it was able to balance out
@remco I'm glad it did it for you! That particular line was born out of the 4 hours of brainstorming and always falling back to "yeah, that's just unstable though"
I did try to think about ways to force the player to not just stand in one place (maybe boring), which is why I added a bit of randomness to the spawner. I definitely had more ideas that I knew I wouldn't get to in time. Thank you for the feedback!
@willoxs I'm going to say that was intentional (it wasn't) haha! The game kind of wrote itself, I feel, and I was just hanging on. I'm honestly surprised it all came together. Thank you!
@stilettomenace You're not the first person to think of the vortex growing! I can see how that would make it more intense. But for me personally, shrinking was more in line with the theme and an easier "end" to define. What do you think?
@fireslash thank you! I wanted to have the vortex even sucking the goo in like a vacuum, but that just didn't make it
Thanks @jitspoe it was fun hanging out on stream! Waaheee!
@quack-doctor Kind words, thank you! Yes, polish and play testing are always the holy grail. I'd love to do better next time!
@porcus-pie I absolutely agree with you on all counts there. I'm going to take your suggestion and experiment with a shorter charge to see how that changes the play. I also imagined putting more story beats in to alter the play style, but we know how that goes :) Thank you! Great feedback!
@alan-t Good eye! The character animation was from another artist that I reskinned, while the background I drew myself (I'm still improving my pixel art, clearly). Because I didn't do the animation myself, I abstained from the graphics category :)
@vixenmink Oh you don't know how much you read my mind haha. Here's that "stretch goal" part of my planning board for this jam. It wouldn't have been too hard at all, but you can tell I leaned into some other aspects a lot more :)
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@justcamh thank you for the link! It was a blast hanging out
@joe-cowman absolutely! Great feedback, thank you for playing my game!
@lazzor Thank you! So my thin attempt at writing the portal into the story as "interdimensional" (like, not even from the pixel art world) didn't fool you, eh? Haha
@proxy-games thank you for playing and the feedback! I'm glad you had fun with it. You know, "Caroline" must have been lodged in my subconscious, because I didn't remember that detail until after the fact (watching some Cave Johnson after submitting).
@binaryprinciple Those are some nice suggestions! Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@noiyy Those are some excellent ideas, thank you! The story definitely has more potential, I think
@bullex The way I made the system, there is definitely an upper limit. Seems like it is around 130 seconds!
@ardorugus Yes, it turned out pretty short, didn't it? :) I focused a lot on the voice and story rather than extending the gameplay.
Thanks @vonfuzzius ! You might be the first one to point it out. The music sort of sat in the background, and I didn't spend too much time on it, but it had the sound I was looking for :)
@vixenmink Check it out! Your idea in action :D
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So simple but downright fun and addicting. Nice job!!
This was too hilarious. Pinball but with floppy arms and a precious device? Falling potted plants and people?? Too funny. I appreciated the full attention to detail you put in, as you even got to airplans and space and asteroids. I got to the end, so maybe it was a bit too easy? But that's 100% fine for a game jam so that I could appreciate everything you added :) Great job!
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The art was fantastic! So thoughtful. The creature was so spooky looking, I almost wonder if there was some way you could have revealed more of it as the game progressed (like at first, you only hear it and see a shadowy blur). Seeing it right away perhaps missed an opportunity!
My only gameplay suggestion (not sure if someone has already mentioned it--so much feedback already!) is to make the clickboxes on the objects a little more generous (larger).
This game was incredibly well crafted. You have a very strong team and clearly work well together.
The artwork was the highlight (the parallax background especially), but you can't ignore the overall game design either. The power rules were a really smart idea to force some sort of strategy.
Hats off to the music as well. I can tell a lot of work and skill went into that, and it matched the environment excellently.
(Quick bug note: when I opened the options menu from the start menu, all the sliders started at zero :o)
That was a downright HOOT. I loved all the details you put in there, even all the interactions not on the list. The place was so full of life (haha, barely) and fun things. The asset design and the sound design just completed the picture. It really felt so complete!
It took me a bit to find where to remove my clothes, but I got to it at the very last second just before keeling over and dying in front of those unfortunate souls. The game didn't count it as a win, but I still had fun :D
I wasn't sure about the camera settings or the aberrations around the edge. Was this designed for VR??
Great polish and solid idea! The sound design and art blended really well into a nostalgic feel. The polish is definitely where you earn the most points! Not easy to achieve in a jam.
This was masterful! Sleek design, buttery smooth controls (definitely use a controller), poppy sounds and music. I loved the different types of enemies, too. This was a wonderful kind of bullet hell. I would definitely come back to play this again and again. My high score could use a lot of improvement
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Holy cow what a game! The character models and animations, the real strings, the cat song!!!
I've got nothing but good things to say about this. You all did an incredible job. The hit timer was definitely generous, which I appreciate for a jam game--gave me opportunity to experience all the fantastic music.
My only request is MORE. I'd like longer songs to play. Maybe some Guitar Hero classics? Hah!
Like matt-rice said, a little feedback would have helped the game a lot! It was hard to tell how my units were attacking, or how I was supposed to use them best.
But I think you had a great start! I loved the style and I was really excited to build up my army against the waves of enemies.
I was so unprepared for what this was. I thought, "Oh, kind of like the dinosaur browser game. Sure, it's fun." Then things started happening, and it became a meta experience. Such a smart implementation. I wonder if I found "the ending" or if there was more :)
Great entry. It has got to be one of the "must plays" of LD50!
I think this was a solid idea (potion making and experimenting) that just needed some refining. Like others have said, the sheer amount of combinations was daunting. I won't repeat all that though :)
The exploration mechanic was neat, but I'm not sure it actually added to the experience. Just to brainstorm, what if the game were the view of the alchemy table itself? All the different ingredients are already available (much easier to see "the combinations"), and you spend the game mixing and testing potions in front of you (no need to ever mix more than one at a time). That puts the focus on the core of the game (potion mixing) instead of resource hunting.
That may turn into an entirely different game, and not the one you envisioned. For example, if everything I needed was at the table, why wouldn't I just keep making the same thing over and over again? Where would the challenge be? So my idea isn't perfect either :) Just shows that a lot of games could be presented differently!
By the way, I was IMPRESSED by how many different ingredients and potion bottles you were able to come up with. That was cool!!
Incredible job team! I really enjoyed this. Nothing more to add that hasn't already been said, but just to reiterate: I'm really impressed by everyone's efforts here!
Wonderful job with the graphics!! Everything felt very visually polished. I wasn't awesome at the controls (being able to remap roll farther away from strike may have helped, or maybe I was hankering for a Hollow Knight controller experience), and the movement felt a little slippy for platforming ... but that didn't matter too much when fighting the boss. All its attacks were hilarious! Hairballs! Very inspired.
First off, standing ovation for the effort. I thought the borderlands-esque graphical style was excellent.
After some experimenting with the mechanics, it seems like kills with the gun give health, and kills with the sword give ammo? In my opinion, the gameplay feels a little rigid that way. For example, if I wanted to be a gunslinging deadshot or if I wanted to master the art of the sword, I instead had to use both weapons.
But great work as a team, even if it sounds like you had some integration issues that limited some aspects of your game :)
This was an ambitious game! I think the whole asset environment and level design was very well done. The defense system being an arcade game is a hilarious touch.
I think the weakest part was the difficulty curve. It kind of felt like four different games (coffee, reactor, defense, volcano) all going bad at once, and it was really hard from the start to even begin managing them. Maybe if you added them in one by one, that would allow the player to learn each of them over time? You all obviously put a lot of work into this, and I think this was my only real critique.
Also, on the pause menu, the mouse cursor should reappear so I can find the slider more easily haha. And the sensitivity setting should persist between reloads! Did you put it in PlayerPrefs?
@travis-bittel @chaseob Thanks for sharing that insight! I understand it better now. I feel like these events are always a "choose 2 out of 3" sort of problem :D
I think you did a solid job implementing the systems! Everything worked, and I understood the game loop pretty quickly. The tough aspect of this theme is that the typical interpretation is "last as long as you can, eventually game over" (my game included!), which might feel like a loss. I don't have a recommendation on what you might have done differently. I think you did well! Keep at it!
This was a lot of fun!! The graphics and the sfx and the music did really well together. The mechanic was pretty smooth, even if the "wall jump" off the balloons takes some work to master! It's a smart idea, rather than the knight just bouncing off the top of the balloons to get height.
Very well done!
That was funny. I think it just meets the definition of a "game", since I think clicking made the T-Rex destroy the meteors. Remember that games should be interactive, or else they are just stories :)
Nice puzzle game! With some more hours, some sound effects and music, it could have been nicely polished.
I understand being unmotivated by a theme. This was definitely my team's least favorite, so we were upset when it was announced. We started off by deciding what we _didn't_ want to do, and that helped us find an acceptable idea.
Keep playing and rating other games, and you'll find some really neat interpretations of the theme! Thanks for sticking with it and uploading a submission, and good luck next time!
@shores brilliant artwork, as always! You manage to fit so much personality into your pixel art. Love it!
@makkeraad the music was fantastic! It got so manic when I got two strikes, it really added to the stress of doing the job right. Really smart!
Overall, standing ovation to the team (including @sheepolution) for such a well polished and well implemented game for a jam. I'm impressed you were able to write so many different emails in just a weekend! Superb. I'd play it over and over again if it didn't make me super stressed XD
Love the concept! Reminded me of arcadey types, like Pro Skater. I had a great time playing!
Also, like has been pointed out, I found the physics hiccups sometimes funny (I finished the rest of the level like this!) Untitled.png
Hats off for a very polished compo entry! I really loved the style, and I'm a big fan of stealth games. I agree with others that the hiding mechanic wasn't the easiest to understand. It seemed like hiding when the lights were on had no real effect, or at least they tended to find me more often than not. It'd be nicer to know when to expect I've done a good enough job, otherwise I get pretty discouraged.
Great job on all the artwork and pacing, though!
This was a surprise! Definitely a fun one, I could keep playing and playing, trying to min-max my ships. I liked so many aspects of it ... multiple ships, automated racing, the peaceful scavenging and build screen. The fact that this was just one person -- incredible!
It was a little frustrating when teamshots depleted my shields ... but oh well, part of the challenge ;)
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@boxedmeatrevolution in that case I take back my rating!
Jk jk, great job to everyone!
What a nutty game! Loved the creativity. I had a little trouble with the controls, because I think I expected left-click to drag/select and right-click to move (like some RTS).
Also, I found that I had to micromanage my forces more to attack skeletons, even when they were right nearby. I would have found it more fun to watch all my little minions just go crazy and chase down the skellies!
Solid tower defense game! The art style was simple but well executed--it focused me on the gameplay rather than a bunch of extra effects.
The card-based mechanic was a little overwhelming at first. The game starts, and I've not yet understood what all the cards do, so it took me a while on the first level to build up a defense. But once I did, I had a lot of fun with the different types.
The 10-second hand refresh, combined with the slow energy gain, was an interesting design element. It forced me to strategize to save up energy for when the big cards came around, as I couldn't rely on gaining enough energy within the hand that I saw it first.
Another instant classic from the team. This one has so much laid back charm, a refreshing change of pace from your speed run challenge last LD (for me anyway, lol).
The randomization was a fantastic choice -- I never got to tune in, so I don't know if this was particularly challenging. I could have done with a bit more variety of poses, but I started freestyling by the end of it. Some of my favorites!
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Loved the art and attention to detail as always, especially the opportunity to review all my photos at the end! Great work dudes!
(Edit: no camera timer indicator??)
The level design in this was madness! The length felt just about right for a game jam. The switch mechanic was a little daunting at first, but once I figured it out, it was really clever! Having to anchor yourself before running back to a switch was smart. The way you had the level change, just like dreams, was immersive.
The overall atmoshphere (brutalist architecture and music) was fantastic. And as I ran toward the light, I felt like I wouldn't make it ... but did at the last moment. I don't know how much you timed the space between objects, but it felt just rightly balanced.
Nice job!
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@infinitycore yes! I did that on my first playthrough... Forced me to reload and look around more, which is how I finally discovered the switch mechanic.
This was a great concept! I liked how you implemented a choose-your-own-adventure story, and I could tell there was a system behind what was being generated (like the attacks and the HP). That gave me a sense of agency over how the story ended.
I experimented a few times on different play throughs, and I liked that after building enough empathy, another option appeared.
Very great! I could see this being expanded with even more stories and pathways.
This was a nice instance of the "replay clones of yourself" puzzler! Not an overall unique idea, but I liked the way that you designed it! The liked the art style you went for.
My only complaint is that the camera movement was a little sensitive at first, but once I got used to it, there was no issue!
Nice, hidden settings XD I know how things can get tucked away during the frenzy. By the way, your character model looks awesome!!
Holy cow, the number of assets! The whole character and level voxel design was awesome. For a three person team, this game feels really complete!
This didn't run too well on my laptop, so I'll have to give it another go back at my desktop. I kept getting drop powerups, but nothing for my spookmaster past the first time. Between that and the frame lag I was getting, I wasn't too effective in weaning the hordes ...
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But heck, I had a lot of fun! I'll let you know how my next playthrough goes :)
Such a soothing game, despite being stressful! Now I know how air traffic controllers must feel :D Great work everyone on a solid entry! My personal favorite was the art and music style. The design was a good idea, making ships of different sizes affecting the gameplay. it was a challenge! I don't know how some people scored so high. Looots of planning and practice. I got 68!
Whether you felt it was complete or not, I had a blast!! The effects were really really satisfying, down to the smallest details like impact heat and cracks on the enemies. I also appreciated that I could destroy incoming missiles.
I'm curious what you envisioned to be the "final product"!
First off, I really like the idea! It reminded me of retro titles, especially as challenging as it was! I really wanted to take it further.
I think the puzzle mechanic could have been more finely tuned. For example, the enemies didn't always end up in the same point in their path during the observation and planning phases, making it mostly a roll of the die on how to time your movement.
I think it could have been neat to add more options to player movement, such as doubling back on yourself (or waiting). In the end, I didn't feel like I had enough tools to really be successful, at least without making a lot of short moves.
Like I said, I really like the vibe you had!
Given the description, "Tetris but the screen rotates", I wasn't expecting so much. BUT this had some unexpected constraints and strategy to it. The inverted colors and swapping blocks for negative space made this _really_ interesting to play. I do agree with others that I wished I could have also rotated blocks, but I'd say that's more of a nit than a complaint (especially for a compo!).
Great job! I'm always pleased with Pico-8 titles :D
Edit: I enjoyed the powerups too! Those very super satisfying.
This felt like an irreverent (but loving) parody of classic adventure titles. Even if that wasn't quite the intent, it was refreshing! Once I understood what was going on, I just chuckled all the way through. Fantastic entry <3
(I agree what has been said about attacking the dragon, what with only being able to fire in the direction of motion, but I STUCK WITH IT and did eventually best the foe. Great ending!)
Such a great implementation! Perfectly complex, and with the charming artwork, I enjoyed every moment of it. Great work on the swinging cables and electric effects!
Very nice idea! I would have liked to be better at it. I don't think the 10 second timer was the right choice for this kind of game, at least in the beginning. I needed more practice to be that quick at math XD Especially when the input constantly changing. Maybe if the enemy got to move every 10 seconds, but my input changed the same until I "submitted" it, I would feel similarly motivated, but more in control.
But controlling the player with mathematical operations is a really novel idea! I like it!
Incredible job! You never cease to amaze with your game designs. The design itself is always well thought-out and polished. On top of that, the visual presentation is super effective. Hats off to experimenting with different technology (QR codes)! That was very unique.
Great job on the music as well! It had a long enough loop that it never got tiring. And I liked the pitch effect in Hell.
Incredibly clever use of rhythm and time! This was a nice challenge, and a pleasure to play. I appreciate the details like variation in rhythms and enemies, padding the level to give the player a warning about new enemies, and the post processing effects.
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Good submission! I agree with others that the difficulty in the beginning is pretty high, but it evens out and becomes very rewarding. Enjoyed the music!
Solid entry, especially for a solo compo! The feedback on firing was really satisfying (although I would have liked some destruction effect on the drones), and the movement following the cursor felt really weighty/inertial. That was all very excellent!
Some additional challenge could have been added by perhaps limiting ammunition, or hiding the cursor during firing mode (to prevent the player from perfectly hitting distant shots).
The choice to auto-switch modes every 10 seconds was maybe not the way the game would have been designed otherwise (for example, the player might choose when to switch) -- that said, themes like this force us to implement different ideas, so I think that's worthwhile! Great job!
Beautiful artwork!! It would fit perfectly in any sort of graphic narrative.
My first playthrough (on Easy) was not very easy haha! Ten seconds was definitely not enough to read about the sordid case involving cryptocurrency ... but fortunately, you provided an option to play at a 30 second pace. I definitely appreciated that.
The UI was a little bare bones. I think you could have applied some of the awesome artwork to it!
Awesome arcade concept! I can easily envision friends side-by-side having a blast at this. The animation of the characters switching was definitely a nice touch.
Unfortunately, I don't have any one else at home to try it with me. That's the limitation with making a 2-player game :) Even so, I had fun giving it a try! Some sound effects would have amped it up even more!
One complaint with this theme is that a 10 second timer is sort of arbitrary. It does make us make design choices we might not have made otherwise, which is definitely cool, but I also wonder how we could have implemented it better into the story. For example, in your cart, is there a reason why "10 seconds"? Like maybe the gun overheats, or something about the level forces the switch (like maybe enemies spawn on one side or another)?
The music was mindblowing! Rock on!! Artwork was spectacular, as usual. Overall a superbly polished title.
This was a fun concept! I was impressed by the coding of the caretaker, which kept track of multiple "requests" (like when I would click on multiple toys in order).
For the music, it sounded good, but I don't think it fit the style or the environment of the game. You're a ghost guarding sleeping kinds, not dancing at a club haha!
Good job to the whole team! This was a technical success!
This was awesome! Very satisfying to play. Loved the music and art style.
My only feedback is on the randomness of the upgrades. At first, I thought I had my selection of the 3 every 10 seconds, which made me think strategy. But as it is, I'm really at the mercy of RNG.
I did like that some of the "upgrades" helped the enemies ... what if somehow the player got to choose upgrades, but eventually, they had to take the enemy upgrades as well. So the more they buffed themselves, the more they eventually buffed the enemy. Just a poorly formed idea :)
All in all, this was a great implementation for a weekend! Great job!
LOVED the concept you were going for. I usually prefer "teach as you go" tutorials, but I was willing to sit down and study the tutorial because I could tell you put a lot of work into this design.
First off, the UI was very intuitive and responsive.
This theme was definitely a challenge, in that a 10-secomd timer doesn't fit all game types, especially when it forces quick play. That said, I feel like you integrated that into the story (seasons passing) very well! In that aspect, you reward the player for practicing and getting good, which encourages me to play more than once (I did!)
Like others have noted, replay is broken. This is a common issue with certain variables or states not being reset when a scene loads (for example, not initializing fields in start calls). Easily passable for a game jam, though.
Closing note: Godot, nice! Hats off to the team, great entry!
I'm definitely on board with the art style! Very spooky. I totally understand the limitations you hit, but would love to see an update! I'll drop a follow!
(It looked like you had a 4-way character animation, but didn't get to implement anything but front-facing in the demo. That's a shame!)
This was a lot of fun! The second time I played, I knocked that overlord out of the world! I felt like all of the card types were unique enough, and I built a really strong strategy. Good use of art. The overall UI design was really clean and clear. Nice job!
Next, you could add multiple stages with different enemies leading up to the shadow overlord. That would give the player a chance to learn the game while fighting "up the ranks".
So much going on!! I loved the whole vibe you had going. The level design left something to be desired (maybe a little large for 10 seconds), but the character designs were great. I had a heck of a lot of fun, even if I didn't end up fully figuring out all of the mechanics. I really loved the dodge spin attack :D
As fast-paced as the gameplay was, I didn't feel like I had a good chance to learn exactly how vial collection worked. It seemed like I might have needed to be nearby the kill to collect it? Also, a little grace period once leaving the forge/shop would be nice, as I sometimes died right when spawning back in. Even still, I kept replaying again and again cause it was just so much fun.
Here's a thought: you obviously meant to make the carnage the highlight. In order to heal, the player needed to purchase it with blood vials. But when the player needs the heals the most (at least early on in the game), they are more likely to play conservatively in order to not die ... which means less blood! Instead, what if you rewarded the player's aggression by healing automatically when blood is drawn? It's obviously a different design (and there are many equally fine ones), but thinking about what behavior you'd like to get out of your players is a big next step!
It was a neat idea! I found that clicking LMB and RMB in binary sequences was a bit of an unnecessary challenge on top of everything else! The movement scheme (rotating, move forward or back) was challenging enough to dodge incoming fire XD
The combination of the level resetting every 10 seconds AND when I lost all health made the level switching doubly hard to track. For that reason, the theme seemed a little forced.
I did enjoy the different powerups (Q, E, R), and had fun blasting opponents away (when I managed to check the sequence).
@trexxak omg yes remapping controls is always a pipe dream for me, but there are only so many hours.. in the past I've always included a pause screen (which isn't too hard now with a utility I've written for myself), but it still takes time AND isn't really necessary.
That said, there's someone on here that has advertised their utility library for jams. If you use Unity, I believe it is on the asset store.
Definitely a unique entry! And the art style was super cute.
I'm not sure I understood the mechanic completely. If I slowed down to get more people through a gap, it didn't seem like I had enough time to speed back up to make it back in tempo. But maybe I was just bad at it :)
Also, I replayed the first level at the beginning, but after that I was always unlocking two levels ahead (for example, after the 2nd playthrough of level 1, it unlocked level 3!).
Wow! Addictively challenging. Clever use of ASCII characters for assets. Loved the light effects on the background. Everything was very visually engaging!
I appreciated how quickly the resets occurred on death, as it kept me "in the zone"--although, I think you could have added a brief pause to the reset. Sometimes, I started the reset still moving in the same direction as last time, and it cost me a fresh start. Just something to consider!
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Very addictive! So simple yet absolutely pleasing. The two-color aesthetic was brilliant. And the music was quite thematic and well-timed to the theme. Well done overall!
Hey! Good job working together as a team to make this game. Despite all the issues you know about, I can say that I had a good time playing.
For some reason, the default resolution in HTML was huge ... maybe that's an itch.io setting? Once I hit the "fullscreen" button, it looked fine though.
The only thing I'll add is that for your player controller, I moved faster when holding two inputs (diagonally) than when holding one (vertically or horizontally). That makes movement feel more jumpy. You can change that by normalizing the movement vector!
The graphics were very smooth! You had a clear style, and it worked.
I wished the enemies had a little slower introduction into the arena, as they abruptly appeared and started firing. That was hard to anticipate, and felt a little too punishing.
As with other entries, the use of the theme as a "stage reset" didn't feel very strong to me, as it's not connected to the player's action. It's not really a reward or a punishment. I'm not one to say "you have to implement the theme!!", but toward the beginning of the game, most of the 10 seconds was empty space waiting for the clock to run out. For that reason, maybe a different way to implement the theme would have better maintained momentum.
That said, the game you built around the theme was fun to play!
This was so polished! I really appreciated the opening tutorial. It taught all the mechanics in a very interactive format. And I must say, all the effects and textures were excellent.
The movement felt a little floaty at times, but maybe I needed to improve my jump so that I didn't overshoot the target (and have to wait for gravity). It was smart to give the player limited dash -- did you decide this because the player can actually reset their jump off of walls? It felt a little like cheating to me, but I needed the help, lol.
Your transition screens are a real gut punch XD
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@greenpixel no doubt! Also, I have to say I appreciated the music and how you built the intensity at the end of the timer!
@willoxs Thanks for coming by to play! You aren't first to comment on the choice of right shift ... Some thoughts on that. To us, we wanted to try avoiding the mouse and spreading the action across the keyboard. Also, because your targets aren't moving, we didn't feel like being able to attack in a different direction than you were moving was important. We do want to try controller support in an update, so we're excited to see how that feels!
I'm glad to hear your other suggestions! It's really important to me how people interpret things differently, so we can try to think more creatively next time.
I did create all the artwork (except the explosion -- last minute) myself at the same resolution, so I'm glad you found it, as well as the style and premise, enjoyable.
Peace!
@boxedmeatrevolution thanks for playing! The items like the bomb and spinning blades were to help keep the vines away (for example, you could place the blades down to keep trimming a spot of vines at an opening).
Sorry you had trouble with the controls. We'd love to hear what didn't work well for you so that we could try to improve them!
@gardenovena Thank you for the kind words! I'm biased, since I did the artwork and music :) I chose a complex time signature (which actually inspired the premise), and it ended up being hard to work in ... so I didn't have as much time to build the score that I wanted. Alas!
I like the idea of dropping sparks instead of a duplicate weapon. We'd need to tune down the number of chests so that it didn't become too easy, perhaps. But we're getting so many good ideas of things to try!
Thanks again!
@sheepolution great comment!! Thank you for coming by to play. We are glad we thought to give the player a mini-cam view of the flame, but you are right: it gets hard to tell at the lower flames. We've already had a few ideas on ways to give the player a more exact indication, so thank you!
@epicgamefan @davidsheadgames This ended up being comical for us (in an egg-on-face kind of way). None of us has 'sticky keys' enabled, so this wasn't an issue that even occurred to us. But obviously, it's a problem that many people have faced! We are considering uploading a minor fix with an alternate key, so nobody else hits this annoying bit -- any suggestions?
Note: We settled on keyboard-only, and we were trying to find the right keys to engage both hands, rather than making it a left-hand only game. We also preferred the idea of keeping the mouse out of the controls, because the environment didn't seem to really need it.
@masterofcheese Thanks for commenting! You've actually hit upon one of our major design pivots (I'll post a link when I make a blog post about it). In short, the vines _used_ to be the big threat. They spread _a lot_ faster, and if they reached your home, you lost. There seemed to be something missing in the gameplay, though, which is when we added the sparks to feed the flame. We felt like that added a lot of fun, but it also made the vines more of a nuisance than the main threat. We like your idea to add enemies, too!
@dileriuml Thank you! All the artwork (except for the last-hour mine explosion) was done by me and the team!
@nikolaj @urjarm @eyedromeda Thanks for playing! I'm glad you all seemed to get what we were going for. Obviously, we had to achieve some sort of balance between the "fun" mechanic and the challenge. The vines definitely did end up being more of a barrier than their original villainous role, which we were happy with all things considered. But we do have big ideas for updates! Stay tuned :)
@fedora thank you for the play! You highlighted so many of the things we were proud of, but also some limitations we hit.
For example, the mines and spinning blades were more for defense, before we decided to modify the objective for the jam (see our [dev log](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/dragua/follow-the-fun-dragua-dev-log-2)).
For the theme, we wanted to implement the timer into the world rather than making it a "game timer". The vines grow every 10 seconds, and if you notice, the music has a repeating drum beat at the same time.
Glad you liked it! Thanks for the excellent feedback.
Thanks @coleslaughter !! We definitely enjoyed the emergent risk/reward panic of having to go out further and hoping for a scroll to teleport back. Admittedly, the control scheme wasn't the best.
Interestingly, we didn't know what the final game was going to be from the start. A lot of the items were tuned to an old objective that we eventually swapped for the fire/spark objective. Fortunately, the portal scroll was already in the game and turned out to be the perfect item for that chore.
Haha, "Kangaroo Court"! That's such a great pun!
The artwork, character/voice design, and overall story elements were a thrill! Great work integrating all of this together into a spectacular courtroom drama-esque game. The 10 second was definitely a challenge to digest all the information, and maybe not something you would have chosen outside this theme ... but that certainly makes this theme interesting. We're forced to play in ways we might not otherwise (gut decisions only).
My only other feedback is that I had a tough time sometimes getting the gavel hit right .. lost a second here and there.
This was cool! The art style was awesome, like a mix between a grungy Spore and a hellish Star Fox. Switching between 2D and 3D was pretty fresh.
I do feel like the 10 second level switch felt a little arbitrary, rather than being a result of the player. That was definitely one challenge of this theme!
Edit: there was an odd pause sometimes when I hit space sometimes, especially at the beginning. I thought it was the pause button first! Maybe something to optimize?
This was a lot of fun, and a pretty innovative idea. Superimposing a new track was a new take on a classic racer. The controls felt good -- I'm not sure if drifting was an intentional aspect, but it sure felt like I could!
My only observation is that it _seemed_ like opponents got some sort of boost when the track changed, like they suddenly appeared further ahead of me. Whether that was due to my racing or the way you tracked position across the tracks, I'm not sure.
Pretty groovy concept! I had a great time! The artwork all integrated nicely, and the instrument tones definitely gave me underground vibes.
My code: 108,111,406,;202,110,103,;103,401,;111,413,513,;113,407,401,;101,407,110,;101,108,;102,504,;
That was totes adorable! I'm amazed at how much art and content you were able to develop, and with all of it feeling so unique! I loved the style. I was chuckling the whole way through :D
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Loved the fever-dream concept (hunger-induced mania, perhaps) and the overall style. Loved it!
The gameplay wasn't too intuitive at first (Was the soda my food? Was I supposed to eat the popcorn things? Were they enemies? Both??), but I eventually got it and had tons of fun! Especially being a compo, you've got to be proud of this.
(I had the opposite problem with the mouse as some others have mentioned: deceleration felt slower than I expected, so movement was "slippery".)
Your _own engine??_ Wow, super impressive!
Some notes on my experience: visually, very intriguing! The music errored out after a little while, and stopped altogether. As far as game design, since it was more of a tech demo, I would have given the player much more cannonballs (and even cannons) to just go wild. As it was, I used the first 3, then balls spawned, what, every 10 seconds (ah I guess I get it). A lot of waiting around watching my hull get pummeled, but overall not very much skill required!
Also, requiring people to download a beta browser isn't the best tactic to get ratings :(
Definitely had the spooky vibe!! Great sound design, especially in the introduction.
The cracked mirrors ended up being a little more goofy than spooky, maybe down to them bugging through walls. For example, the first one spawned in the door that I opened, so it was less of a surprise and more of a "is this supposed to be here? Is it a glitch?" Maybe scripting their introduction would give more of a spooky effect, such as the player walking toward one, and it starts moving unexpectedly.
The lamps seemed to move only when I didn't have the light on them, and that was definitely a good effect.
All in all, I think the design was smart. Hunting for the light switch to make all the spooks disappear was very motivating! Great job!
You've got the basics down! Keep it up!
This was a nice challenge! The art was simple but it was a nice fit for your game, like something out of a children's book! Very cute story.
I was going to be proud of my score, but then I saw elsyia's ... and ... I'll just say, your hitboxes for the buttons could have been a little bigger :)
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Beautiful submission! The artwork and effects really sold it. I also really loved the bullet-hell + freeze time gameplay. Being able to place bullets (rather than just shoot indiscriminately) was a lot of fun.
Like some others have said, starting the introduction wasn't the most obvious. I tried moving around and clicking the screen before noticing the button in the bottom right. Maybe making the dialogue a little more centered, or allowing click anywhere to proceed? Just a suggestion. Like I said, this was a whole lot of fun and I would have kept playing!
The cat artwork was definitely cute, and the gameplay had a good design. You clearly defined the rules, and designed good puzzles to make the player think about the solution. Also, including a "reset" button was very smart!
I did encounter two issues with the colliders. One, after I fell down a hole, I was able to run along the bottom of the world (out of the camera) hehe. A second issue, I was able to fall between the tilemap colliders. You may have had an issue with padding (see the spacing between the tiles)?
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By the way, the embedded version wouldn't load, and I wasn't sure if your download was the original submission or the update. In the future, you should make it clearer which version you would like rated (within the guidelines!) :)
The asset design was very nice! I especially liked the background village. The game was a new take on the "use past versions of yourself" puzzle. I did however find myself mostly waiting for the 10 second timer to finish, so it mostly felt like a limitation rather than a challenge.
Nice job on the music and sounds!
Great submission! I appreciated the message, especially in these times. Thank you for sharing! I don't have anything to add that other people have not already said, so I'll just say thank you for this!
(Note: when the rockets fell from the sky, that was a very powerful feeling!)
This was a really solid game idea! It felt like something I would find on Windows back in the 2000s. The only feedback I'd add is that the enemies (people) could move through hiding places, and even squash me while I was hiding! That didn't feel fair ;)
I won't add anything about the player controller, since you are already aware :)
Adding sound effects (a form of feedback) is another thing you can add to increase player fun! Little things like a jump/land sound effect, or a whomp when the player gets hit, ground the players actions.
Thanks for the submission! Keep at it!
Neat idea, combining exploration and cards that change the rules. The goal (3 barrels) was easy enough that the rules never really had a big impact. Maybe if I had to explore longer.
I suggest you think about the choice of assets more. For example, your character model had a sword and shield, but there was no way to actually use them. In that case, I would have removed them from the model. Also, stylistically, knights and monsters + space and rockets didn't make too much sense to me. Using free assets is fine, but the game feels much more complete if they all sort of "match"!
Great work, and keep going!
Nice job! The artwork was very very cute. I agree that some element of 'fun' was missing. I can't say what for sure, but it wasn't very satisfying to play. Maybe the sword fights were a little slow, and the corridors a little narrow for the gun. Maybe also the lack of music? Hard to say.
As far as the controls, maybe you intended controller? Certain objects said to interact with 'A', but it ended up being Space on keyboard. Also, not a big fan of the "controls changing" idea, as I'd rather just wait it out than try and invert my mind :) I've never looked into the Top Down Engine .. how was it to use? Maybe our team could have saved some time using that instead of coding our own.
Those were just some design nits, but overall, you achieved your goal! So good job!
This was a really great concept! With a little bit more tuning (haha, pun?) I think it could be really well implemented. When I was able to get all the knobs and slides set right within 10 seconds, it was a really good feeling. But like others have said, the difficulty wasn't well balanced in the beginning. My suggestion would be to start slower, incorporate the tutorial into the game (maybe Angela could walk you through one setup), and then play a night with fewer knobs and sliders.
(I'm not sure why others have commented there was no music ... there was, if you got the knobs set! Maybe they didn't realize they were failing, even though there was a record scratch. I dunno what to tell you @ryusui @phoenixofforce @raphaeltan)
I'm so impressed by all the artwork, though! And the UI was pretty slick, sliding between the table and the record box. I will say, the pixelated font was hard to read. Were you adding a Pixel Perfect camera component? Or maybe some other piece was off.
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You did a good job! The game felt very complete, and it ran nicely. The combination of elements was a little silly (a knight with a ray gun shooting blobs?), but you do you! :D I enjoyed playing anyway, the art was nicely drawn, and it was a good challenge. Thanks for the game!
@maaack I haven't seen many of the embedded versions do well ... I'm avoiding them, so I can be sure I'm rating the best version of the game :)
I always know I'm going to enjoy a Pico title. They are just so byte-sized and charming!
You've got a really great mechanic here. It's simple enough to understand quickly, but complicated enough to ensure repeated gameplay. Really satisfying CRUNCH sound too!
Things that I really enjoyed: * The visual style is very unique! And the vignette was a good way to indicate whether I was hiding. * The story is clever, and I think the gameplay was very different than things I have played before. Having limited time to search for a specific item was a good challenge! * I appreciated that you allowed me to stockpile ingredients in the hut, otherwise it would have been too frustrating.
Things that I think you could improve: * Getting seen seems a bit too sensitive, as I could barely step out of the shadows without losing. * It seemed like the villagers only came close enough to one or two shadows, which meant that I spent a lot of time getting back and forth to the hut. * I'm not sure why the only place you mention the possession mechanic is in a reply to a comment, since it seems to be a critical feature. Since being seen is so easy, I don't think the player thinks to approach any human, so the dialogue to "possess" would never appear.
I think that if you maybe relaxed the vision of the villagers, made a few more points to possess people, and explained the mechanic, the game would start out a lot more smoothly! Thanks for sharing this!
WHAT a genius opening menu! I always look forward to what you all put out, because it is always wonderful and innovative, from the artwork to the music to the gameplay. I liked how the pattern from hitting the keys matched the music, too. That was inspired. The writing was especially humorous, and the different endings (KNOCK OUT) were also an unexpected treat. Fantastic work as always!
What a masterpiece!! This was just a joy to experience, everything from the visual style to the simple but responsive gameplay and the catchy tune. It took me some experimentation in the first level to understand the light and dashing mechanic, but then I was flying through the rest of them. So much fun.
I like that you even included support for people to insert their own level files! I'm sure it was part of how you generated your levels, but it's nice that you exposed it.
I just can't say enough good things about this. Nice job! By the way, I somehow got the game to crash in the first level when I walked up to the house? Maybe unrelated?
Kudos for rolling your own engine. That is not easy!!
Vertical colliders would have been a good thing to add, but I know not everything can make it in, and at least it didn't break the game. I did find the platforming unforgiving, as there wasn't much leeway making this jump. For example, this felt to me like it should have landed.
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I did not seem to be able to get up to the top platform. Meanwhile, it seemed like an infinite number of children were spawning ad infinitum!
Good luck to you guys in the future! Keep at it, you obviously have coding skills! Next time you can add to it and focus on the kind of smoothness that help keep a game moving.
@tero-pulkkinen I did manage the jump in the gif eventually, just by jumping a little later. I posted the gif to show that the landing collider could be a little wider, in my opinion.
As for getting up to the top, I think I tried both blocks on the right .. hm..
A very satisfying game! The simple art style was just perfect. The variety of seeds and effects made me feel powerful. It was maddening not being able to get to a pile of coins inside a horde of enemies. I found myself wishing for more player upgrades, rather than just seed upgrades. But I think you found a nice balance for the entry. It was enjoyable to play without either being too stressful or too easy. I only wish I had a chance to admire my final garden at the end, rather than the simple win screen!
This is incredibly implemented for a jam game! I think the graphical style really sells it. Even if the mechanics are straightforward, the _systems_ you put in place are really impressive. The RTS style felt good, although I mostly felt like I was micromanaging groups. Moving back and forth between the colonies and the brain was a little tedious, so I wish there were a way to "auto return" a unit. After a bit, the gameplay felt like a bit of grind, so I feel like it needed some sort of automation or progression to accelerate it (beyond the powerups, which were helpful!).
All in all, this is one impressive entry. Really enjoyed the music, too!
Hey there! Another spooky title!
You had the right idea going in there (mood lighting, mystery, ambient noise). For me, the pacing and wandering didn't sustain the vibe for long. Managing player emotion throughout the story is a challenge (I'm not sure I know how either. Our game was very short!), but maybe making the level a little smaller with a little more detail (so that you had less to decorate) would have kept it up?
I believe I understood the metaphor of the darkness. The problem is that the only way to defeat it (that I understood) was to move slowly, which in this scale of maze, decreased the fun for me. I'm sure any recommendation would mess up your metaphor, though. Still, something to think about!
Thank you for sharing this!
The design of this game is deceptively strong, but that's just a good reminder that design has always outpaced graphics. Your strengths as a designer really show! Here's what I noticed that I thought was smart: * The varying types of souls, one being the elusive target, but the others being tools or obstacles * The use of souls to indicate where your target is (otherwise, aimlessly searching would feel frustrating)
All-in-all, it felt very balanced when played correctly. Your tutorial page included a lot of great hints!
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This is a winning entry in many categories! The artwork was so beautifully painted, and I loved how it was implemented into the game. The water and the trees moved with such life. The audio scape was also very well done--I liked how the track morphed into something haunting as night approached.
The gameplay had some well-thought-out mechanics, like cooking to restore energy (and losing some if you stayed out too late). In the end, I was able to make it through :) Can't wait to see more from you all!
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Also, this detail is usually low on people's task list, but you had such a beautiful start menu :heart: and those button animations! Such a strong introduction really adds to the overall polish.
I'm impressed with what you were able to get done! It all works decently well, and it was honestly enjoyable to play. There is something simply satisfying about progressively tilling and sowing a field.
I absolutely missed the car to the left the first time I played, so you might want to think of ways to bring that to the player's attention (either make sure it is in frame to begin with, or maybe an arrow pointing in that direction). I absolutely loved that you had a little town view for me to drive around in. I can see that growing into something with a lot of other stops and sites! Very cute.
In terms of priorities, the hat cosmetics were a neat thing to play with, but I'm not sure they added a whole lot to the game. You might have been able to use that time on something a little more integral. (This is coming from the guy that spent a good 2 hours adding player character options in LD50 as a sort of personal mission haha!)
This was fun to play! The inertial controls felt just right for an airship, even if it made combat a challenge. The objectives were immediately clear, and the concept was just the right amount of silly. What am I supposed to do with all these cats?? I need to stop and get some tuna or something ...
There seemed to be a height ceiling that didn't apply to enemies, so it might have used a little more polish, but it didn't really detract from the core gameplay. A solid entry!
What a sweet and meditative title! The artwork was beautiful and relaxing (good choice of music, too). I appreciate that there was no losing, just relaxing :)
The minigames to collect flowers for $$ was an engaging mechanic. Even reading what you've written previously about the intentional misalignment, I still felt that some puzzles were just not lining up--as in, between two ticks of the slider, it would pass on just either slide of being perfectly aligned (i.e., below, going one notch to the right, the rectangle would swing just wide on the other side. hard to capture, but maybe my mouse sensitivity is insufficient?).
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I had a great time overall! Some more minigame variety would take this much further! Here's my "cactilogue" hehe
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(If you'd like to try our game out, be warned! If you're not a fan of horror games, feel free to skip it. No hard feelings! Spreading the love!)
This was seriously fun to play. It would make a great couch co-op game!! I'll be waiting for the multiplayer release so I can challenge my friends. Solid work on all aspects. I especially enjoyed the knock-out style (though maybe that would be worth making optional for co-op).
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Only feedback is that the score tallying takes too long. I think it could be sped up a whole lot and have the same effect. If you can do the math, the results are there in front of you anyway.
Wow! This was really addicting. My mouse hand is hurting a little bit haha!
I loved how it evolved between bullet hell and automation. It was satisfying seeing my cities and defenses grow and rain hell into the sky. I could have kept playing much longer, but I think the enjoyment gains I got early on were beginning to plateau somewhat. That seems like a good opportunity to begin adding new things: stronger enemies, stronger defenses.
One way to speed up the game (not that it necessarily needing it) was reaping more money by destroying (harvesting??) ships, perhaps because "they give you precious metals or technology" or something. Conversely, wealth might have started growing out of control, so I do think you reached a good balance (despite having much time for it). The strength versus the cost of various items never felt unbalanced.
Obviously sound would have taken this to a perfect score, but you got a whole lot in for a solo dev!
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What a whacky idea!! I love the fact that this takes place in a miniature world and the towers are sprinkler heads! Very creative. It's also a new twist on a TD game, where the path is dynamic. I'm glad you made the sell amount full price, because I felt like I had to reallocate towers.
I'm looking forward to the new balancing, because I don't feel like the game is winnable right now. Every watermelon you "harvest" earns you $10, but every tower costs $100. You're lucky if a tower can kill 5 watermelon on its own, so really, you're looking at a net loss for every tower you place. Is there a strategy that you found to work?
What a charming puzzle game! The artwork and visual effects were absolutely captivating. And the sound design and music transported me to an old world. Very excellent job!
The gameplay was super fun, too, and surprising! The challenges were not that tough, which allowed me to simply sit back and enjoy the brain teasers. I even laughed at a couple of the combinations. The town must have no shortage of strong, willing men to help gather food!
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Really impressive job! I loved the animation on Greg (a whole lot of character), and the start menu was very immersive.
The concept was really fun. Hacking through enemies and buying upgrades is a solid loop! The jam submission lacks a bit of polish in some key areas. For example, there was a "There you are" dialogue box that would pop up at the start of every shift and was impossible to dismiss, blocking the view somewhat. When the souls died, I feel like having some more feedback (little explosion or sound or something) would have made it more satisfying. Also, because the enemies simply wanted to advance forward to hit me, but I had to turn and face them to swipe, trading blows felt inevitable. With some balance, I think combat could be even more strategic and satisfying!
All in all, I think you got a whole lot done for a jam! Congratulations!
UPDATE: I played the updated version, and I see some good improvement! That shop menu is now *chef's kiss*. I can see you up'ed the prices some, which probably does a good job of drawing the game out. The bat's fireball is a nice touch, as are the damage numbers. I still think the combat problem exists, even though they advance pretty slowly at first. Here's a shot of a horde following me -- I figure you are trying to balance the shop prices by giving me plenty of enemies to hit, but at this point it's hard to get my edge in!
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This was satisfying and fun to play! It was simple, but the platforming felt good and the hunting was challenging enough. I do think having Q/E as attack was a bit difficult, as they aren't easy to press while I'm also moving with A/D. This may have been a better time to use Arrow Keys + ZXC.
The wheat added a neat dynamic to an otherwhise drab level, but I wonder if you originally intended for it to have another purpose. I love the inclusion of lore rather than something generic! That always makes a game immediately more endearing, in my opinion.
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LOVED the style. We think alike ;)
The visual and level design were spot on. The fog and the rain. Effect achieved. I especially loved the meta VHS "hidden" in the barn -- haha.
So many smart decisions about the gameplay: the combine clearing the field, as you effectively carve your own arena. The multiple endings ... great replay value! The sparks indicating a hit on the combine was a smart touch.
I personally would have gone less heavy on post processing. The effect was great in the main and pause menus, but I feel like it maybe held you (the designer) back in-game.
Very short and sweet game! The artwork was really well drawn, too! Fantastic job there.
A few things I would recommend: * I liked that there was an audio feedback for picking up and depositing vegetables. I think you could have added some sort of negative sound when the player tried to pick up more vegetables than they could carry. Also, I think you should have disabled the sound when trying to deposit nothing to the den. Tying player actions to clear indicators is a very basic way to build feedback into your game! * The music was very well done, but I don't know if it fit the theme of the game. At first, I thought it was just a fun gathering game. When I saw monsters roaming the fields, I felt like the music could have matched that mood more. It should have made me feel more distressed or worried for my kits! * I felt a little silly avoiding those monster _so carefully_ the entire playthrough .. only to try again and realize there was no penalty for touching them! haha
Thanks for sharing your game!
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This is polished! The visuals and music are release-ready. I need to take a break from playing, though, because my hand is cramping!! Maybe I should try the alternate controls.
The gameplay felt really tight and polished too, reminiscent of the kind of control you need for Hollow Knight. The puzzle design with bouncing from slash felt really satisfying. I just wish I were better at it!! But I so appreciate that is saves my progress :D
The only nit was that the controls soometimes seemed unresponsive (most apparent on BRITTLE), where I wouldn't slash despite hitting Ctrl (maybe while I was holding left?), and sometimes I would keep moving one direction in the air, despite letting up on the button or pressing the anti-direction. Small nits, this was still a blast!!
It's a good start! The people running animation was pretty funny. The HARVEST model was really neat! I'd love to see more like that.
I didn't find the accelerate control very satisfying. I was in between stopping and hopping by pressing W every so often, and I would have rather been able to control my speed more smoothly.
I think I also noticed that the laser was tied to the cursor, rather than the front of the ship. So when I looked to the side and fired, it just didn't make sense :D
Thanks for sharing this!
The graphics really are compelling! Nice job setting the environment. The transmitter effect is really cool looking. Overall, really excellent visual design. It looked great.
I felt like I wanted more of a challenge than "don't stay on the ground too long" or "collect more of the resources", but I'm not sure what that challenge might be without adding something entirely new. Having to grapple back up to the ship at the end was a nice twist, as getting back up would be tougher if you harvested too much.
Nice idea overall! Well done!
This was a fun idea! I think I would have liked a little less squirrely control, as I overshot my turns quite regularly. Sure it was challenging, but it was a bit more frustrating.
I managed to get 48% on "Hell" by trying a few strategies. Definitely tough!!! @richard-jedlicka YOU'RE ON BUD :D
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Oh, and I definitely felt "spent most of the time fighting with Unity" ... I have felt this in pretty much every Jam. But you know what? It gets easier. I think these last couple of times, I felt a lot more confidence. So stick with it!
The artwork is soooo cute. I'm not a completionist generally, but if I were, THIS would be a game to 100%. It's a very fun, explorative game with very satisfying animations and sound. The song is so peaceful :) I'm just happy I was able to get to the magical forest hehe I ended up getting about 20 titles, and it makes me how there could possibly be 11 more!!
This was a very rich idea! The fact that there were seasons, and so much changed during them, made the world feel so dynamic. The weather, the music, the lighting, the water. I appreciated the thought you put into all of it! It feels like the foundation for a much longer game, with longer seasons and more to do. I would love to see you expand on gathering, such as to prepare for the harsh winter. I hoped the fires could be used for cooking, too, but it seemed like I was able to eat whole, raw deer ;)
A few other things I noticed: * Some trees were placed at the bottom of a lake. * When I picked up the knife (while holding the bow), it didn't equip. When I tried to drop it, it fell through the floor :( * The arrows seemed to shoot a little right of the cursor. * The pixelation was a cool, nostalgic effect, but the intensity of it made the game overall a little hard to read. Like, things not too far away from me were just a single pixel (or not visible at all), so I felt like I was "squinting" the whole time.
But seriously, this was still inspiring to play! I want to see more! Congratulations to the whole team!
Hoowww does this not have more attention?! I love the atmosphere you achieved (no pun intended). This is a full-on narrative! The mystery is really intriguing, and the voice notes really do a lot to set the mood. The pacing and the environment were really well made, and everything seems well scoped for a jam.
@bloodfin and @cassreads ought to get in here! They would definitely appreciate this.
I always love the personality of this group's games. Instant fun. Nice choice on the graphics! A healthy dose of nostalgia gives it an instant boost.
I really had to play with the scythe to figure out its range, but I had a much more successful second run. I love the concept of balancing your upgrades by harvesting a plant, and then unlocking multiple areas to progress the game. Great job!
How was the 'Extra' experience?
A very nice concept! I found the art style simple but calming, like a bedtime story. I liked the balancing of trying to capture dreams by making a circle, but fending off nightmares with slices. Very interesting gameplay! Good job with the sound design, too. Landing on the platforms made a satisfying sound--but I don't know how it doesn't wake people up! haha
Some of the gaps in the platform were a little hard to see, and I fell down without expecting it. Also, it didn't seem like the nightmares hurt me? I had full stars, even when they grouped on top of me. Still, a fun thing to play!
I don't know what I expected when I clicked this, but it wasn't this! I thought it was just OK at first, but as I kept playing, I found plenty of things to appreciate.
Here are the things I think you got right: * Checkpoints. You didn't punish the player too much for running out of lives, like having them completely restart the game. * Multiple hidden areas, where I thought "I already explored this!" but kept finding new corners. There was even a point I think you spawned rats behind me! * You definitely placed enemies intelligently, to make it more of a challenge.
Here are where I think you will improve: * The sound effects needed some balancing. They got repetitive pretty quickly, and I had to turn down my sound. * The movement was faster than it maybe needed to be, but it did help me get around quicker! * The shooting wasn't too much of a challenge, since it was a straight shot to wherever my cursor was.
That said, I did manage to "die" a couple of times because I didn't check the corners well enough! Good job team!
Such a wonderful narrative! I made myself a cup of tea while playing :)
It really seems like you put a lot of work into the different branches, and even after two play throughs, I can tell there was more that I didn't unlock. That's really good! I appreciated that you gave opportunities to experiment (make tea) and learn what different combinations did. And I really like the way you used the theme! Opening the right options to "harvest" herbs felt really rewarding.
My second playthrough, I got Izabelle to join me, and I pleased both the merchant and the guard. It was really satisfying! :heart:
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One thing I wondered at the end: I scrolled back and didn't see anywhere the merchant mentioned a ring. Maybe a story branch that didn't quite line up?
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The crash sequence was really crunchy and satisfying! That was a smart way to do it! Near misses got really satisfying, like a shot of adrenaline! If you added a leaderboard to this, it would probably generate a lot of interest!
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I loved the concept! It was a good challenge to use cards economically, since you didn't get a refill until leveling up. I did regret that I always had to choose between refilling my hand and getting a new card. Maybe you can playtest auto-refilling?
I did have some issues with the resolution, since the graphics ended up looking blurry (not as crisp as your screenshot). But otherwise, the UI artwork was great! It had such a gothic vibe to it. Also, as I think others have encountered, there is a repeatable crash when clicking the Sloth card. I'm using Chrome.
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What the literal hell was this?? XD Congratulations, you successfully subverted ALL expectations. The first moment when you broke the walls was blissful.
That was all a bit of fun. The gameplay itself was a little too unfair to last long. Having to collide with money to pick it up is maybe not the right choice, since that in itself becomes a challenge pretty soon. The spawn rate is just absurd, and before long it's hard to make it anywhere. Games like Killing Floor get around this by automatically giving you the money on kill. Additionally, even if I had the money, I don't think I'd ever be able to get an upgrade without being absolutely SWARMED haha.
Or maybe I'm just terrible at your game. Anyway, it was a hilariously unexpected time :)
I think the whole idea was great -- the tooth fairy driving the tooth market? Nice!! What a great (and creepy) are design! Great job there. Would you buy candy from this creep?? Haha
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During the day, you might have just kept the shop open the whole time, maybe integrated it into the top of the screen (where there was more real estate, not blocking customers). I did try to wait and see what customers wanted before stocking, but it seemed like they made up their mind on available options as soon as they entered. Oh well :)
I think the night shift could have been more engaging if it were faster paced. Waiting for the animations in and out of the homes slowed it down. But really, with such simple controls, this would port well to mobile!
_Note: I had to install Visual C++ distributable as a prerequisite to play, but the launcher took care of it all for me!_
Really cool visualization! Sometimes it's nice to be presented a puzzle to unwrap and experiment with, without being told exactly what it is for. If you found a way to gameify this, with a solid soundscape, it would be excellent!
What a great concept, and the execution of the cutscenes was really great! I loved the setup and the story, and I thought it was a clever detail that you could not understand the people hehe.
I read your log about the game balance, so you are already aware of that. Aside from it being a challenge, it was a lot of fun! The presentation (like the UI) was very well polished, and the artwork was just fine!! Great submission! I really like that it was a story and not just game, you know?
This was a very nice story! It was a lot to read sometimes, but it was very interesting. I only found the yellow bananas and a whole trove of seeds on the last night, but oh well! Some of the UI (text and images) blocked my clicks during the battles, but that's okay. I appreciate that you made the boss battles easy, because it would have been sad to start over from the beginning. All of the characters were very interesting and fun! Great job on the artwork!!
Instantly one of my favorites! The flying controls are satisfying and not frustrating like they sometimes are. The shooting gets a little challenging, but I found that it helps to manage your speed wisely on your approach. It is really satisfying that the game automatically hugs you close to planets as you are collecting. I think that shows a good understanding of what would be fun for the player (versus trying to make tight circles). I love the character that the modernist art gives the planets, too. Overall, the visual design is simple but appealing. Unfortunately I want to take off some points because the enemies were characterless hexagons, but really the game as a whole is a treat! Great job on the audio track! It really hit the mood.
I definitely appreciate the experiment!! There are a lot of muddy questions in using artificial intelligence as an aide (or contributor), and reading about your process and experience was really interesting. I hope it serves as a model for conversations in the future!
Rating is fraught with the same complications: am I rating your ability as a game designer, or your ability to stich together disparate elements? I think you've achieved that stiching, but I'm not sure if this is the same game you would have designed from scratch. For that reason, it feels hard to dock you points for things I should attribute to the limitations of the AI ... you know what I mean? So take feedback with salt given that, that I don't necessarily know what was a _choice_ versus a _limitation_. I think that's what muddies the water with rating the result, separating the two.
To get to feedback, the flight control felt a little awkward to me, being cardinal directions. I think I would have preferred "forward to accelerate, left and right to rotate". Being what it was, orienting on targets and collecting souls was a good challenge to start (though I appreciated that souls were attracted to me). When it came to enemies that fired back, I really didn't have much success. The short range of my bolt and the fact that I had to fly head on to get a hit meant that I was generally vulnerable to their longer range attack as I came in. I don't think I got a single hit on them before dying. Maybe a soft reset rather than a hard reset would have felt less punishing?
As for the art and music, I would have given high marks for Graphics (very imaginative while also being readable). The music didn't seem to fit the style of the game, so I wouldn't have rated it very high.
And to close, I don't know where I stand on "should AI-generated content be ratable?" :)
Jonas and Yaen! Very happy to see you guys on here.
This was a very well-polished title. I enjoyed learning the first round by experimentation, which I felt the game allowed me to do without being too punishing or frustrating (the tips between years were also helpful). After the first game, my town was a bit of a horror. Poor Sora :( She's seen too much!
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I realized that the game was balanced a little on the easier side, which I think was more than appropriate for my playstyle. Sometimes the RNG seemed a little harsh, but it seemed like anything higher than 80% was a pretty safe bet. I had no trouble keeping the field of gobas full. The animations, soft artwork, and music were all very calming!
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I'm not sure why, but this game really filled me with a lot of emotion. Almost felt a happy tear at the end. The beautifully drawn art combined with such a full and touching song (do you have the source?) just completed the mood for me. You deserve #1 in my opinion.
Emotions aside, the gameplay was just so smart and involved. All the details in the mechanics turned something seemingly simple to engaging all the way through. Very well done! Thank you for a wonderful experience.
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What a beautiful and relaxing experience. The art style definitely had a lot to do with that! It was a very charming landscape to explore. I wanted to capture all my photos to share with you, but sadly I accidentally exited the game! Instead, I'll share the one I managed to save :)
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Maybe you could provide the player with a single summary of all their photos at the end?
Also, I had to Google what a "nenuphar" was in English :D
Hello fellow dreamer! I really empathize with the "overly ambitious idea" struggle. These jams are just about as much as design and scoping as they are development. It's tough!
That said, good effort, and great job getting _something_ uploaded. That's a success! This was fun to tinker with, even if the options were limited. The node graph is a good framework for that resource production genre!
By the way, I found that the scroll wheel (scrolling, not middle button clicking) on the left bar auto drags everything to the node graph!
I like the art style! This is a pretty straightforward puzzler, and I was really intrigued.
As I played through a few levels, it became pretty hard to anticipate the wheatshifter's design, though. When did it decide to hop across wheat and chase me? Was it based on how close I was, or whether they could "see" me? I really couldn't figure it out. It ended up feeling a little unfair versus a challenge to be solved, so I'd think about what you intended to happen and how to clearly message that to the player!
Also, I think the controls would have felt a lot snappier if the movement was grid based! As it is, I kept getting stuck on the corners of the wheat blocks. Congratulations on the submission, and thank you for sharing!
Such an expansive world! There was a lot to explore, and it felt like every area had its own sort of challenge. Props to the level designer(s).
The controls were a little disjointed, but they definitely had that retro vibe. I feel like it would have worked a bit better on the gamepad, dual joystick style. I tried and didn't think there was support? Combat didn't feel as satisfying as it could have. Maybe because the enemies were more or less static?
Anyway, such a large team! I'd be really interested to hear how you manage the work between everyone -- maybe a blog post?
Such a chill game! I didn't know what to think of the song at first, but after 15 minutes of playtime, it was really growing on me. I think anything more would have gotten repetitive!
I'm impressed by all the systems you generated. The game appears simple, but there's plenty going on behind the scenes, and that made this really interesting to play. I wonder if you could implement some sort of cost for moving people around (time, for instance), because as is, I could easily reallocate people to boost a resource for a split second. That felt a lot more micromanaging than I wanted to do. But it depends on what kind of gameplay you'd like to see!
I love how the map started simple and you revealed more as I progress. That was a great entry and kept me from worrying about "the endgame" from the beginning. Great design, this is an under-sung entry!
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My first runthrough. I'm sure I could shave off some time now that I now the tricks. My guess is that below 10 minutes gets you silver. What's gold??
Well done! Unreal seems like a pretty powerful engine, and the visuals and the sound design were pretty good. I liked the backstory, too!
The basic mechanics were a good design: you have to balance speed with caution. Two times I made it back to the door with 1 second left, but just missed the cut-off -- maybe a little bit of grace (an extra, secret second) would have been nice! Instead, I realized that if I made it to the _end_ of the hallway first, and then waited to harvest the last body, I had plenty of time to escape :)
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Haha this was a really novel idea! I didn't expect how much I'd enjoy this. I was even feeling a little cocky until the "without scoping or missing" challenge came up. Really fun game!
I wasn't a big fan of the song choice, as it was too "heavy" and repetitious for the length of it, if that makes sense. But I did appreciate the settings sliders!!
Very solid game mechanic! And good use of the art assets for a novel game design.
It took me a second reading of the tutorial after my first play, only because I had forgotten the detail about stacking tiles to complete the resource. I got to the point that I was getting more dirt tiles, and I saw that I was eventually going to have a tough time managing all the demands with limited board space. That's smart!
The gameplay needed something more in the end, perhaps more objectives or milestones (such as a story for what the kingdom is building), because it became a little too repetitive too fast. The music on top of that repeated a bit too often, so I think I would have preferred no music (or a mute button) instead! Overall a fun submission to play!
I think you've figured out the next captcha. Or maybe, reverse captcha ... because the later fish definitely get tough and I feel like a machine would do a better job than I did. But it was still a lot of fun to grind. The different fishes are straight lunacy, love it!
Edit: Best I could do was about 58. By the end, I swear I was clicking on the right fish but losing hearts anyway D: now I'm questioning what you meant on stream about "a fish game with paranoia" ...you wouldn't be playing tricks, would YOU?
I felt so bad XD This had all the energy of an old Flash game, and that brought back a lot memories. I can't get over the bouncy elevator music in "the chop house" omg. Reminded me of the Wii music.
The game loop was satisfying, too. You had a lot of fun details in there, like how players rotated, the disturbing body harvesting, and all the sound effects (the knife "nyeh" was a personal favorite). Just a tip, I would make sure that the voice lines are a little more intelligible, unless you were going for something stylized! I couldn't quite tell what the people said when you attacked them, maybe "Save us!" ?
Would love to play and rate, but is the itch.io version the jam version or the update?
I love the spirit of the game! It's such a charming backdrop for what is essentially a deck building game, plus there is a unique level of interaction with each card. I can see why you wanted to balance the levels. It even still felt like a big challenge to me, so I can't imagine how it was before :D I appreciated that losing a year didn't mean losing the game. I think it would be interesting to experiment how one year's results affects the start of the next year's celebration. But you'd still have to be very careful about balance!
All of the variety of cards and the theming of them made it very immersive in the story you belt. All of the little spirit characters, as well as the music, built the story even further. Very impressive!
I did feel like I was always just on the verge of spirit bankruptcy haha. Every expenditure on defense felt like it didn't tip the balance a lot (e.g., fireworks required multiple hits, and lanterns were single target), but maybe there is more strategy involved.
Also, a minor suggestion: if "upgrade" meant "add a new card to your deck" rather than "improve an existing card", I might choose another word.
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Concerning post-jam updates, I think everyone is going to have a little different interpretation of the rules. I appreciate you giving more detail! Here's the relevant section of the rules, for reference:
> Certain Bug Fixes are allowed. You can’t add new features, but if something broke or didn’t work correctly as you were finishing up, you can fix this after the deadline.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules
I tend to only fix game-breaking bugs, but I do agree that your changes fit within a fair interpretation of the above. Thanks for sharing!
@teto no problem at all! It sounds like you really put a lot of thought into the system and balance. Like you said, it's really tough to get that right in a jam. Aside from defining the system itself, defining all the ins and outs and variations, and then balancing them ... Woof.
Maybe it depends on what personally excites you in these projects: a super simple system that is polished, or a complex one that has just a taste of the potential. The former might do better in ratings, but it may not challenge that design skill.
Anyway, thanks for making such an inspiring entry!
This is totally addicting!! It's incredibly how many features you packed in here. The concept alone is wild. Track racer with farming and market forces ?? Whuuuuh??
Every little detail felt amazingly polished, down to the smallest details of the crowd and the crops. The variety of upgrades and modifiers was incredible too. Seriously, I could go on and on. Amazing job!!
For a custom engine, this played really well! The artwork was very well done, too. The world changing when you reached the green zones was also really inventive! That transformed the game from a generic platformer to something unique.
A couple of things I noticed: * I had a hard time finessing the horizontal movement when jumping. I had to press backwards midair to get the precision that I wanted. Hopefully that's not something to do with my keyboard! * The ball throw mechanic was pretty hard to learn, especially when it seemed the first use of it had to be done perfectly. I couldn't get up there! * The song just wasn't a fit at all. I think I would personally prefer no music to something that throws off the mood. It did sound like you had some sound effects in there, so I would have just let those do the work!
Instant favorite! The gameplay was so satisfying and addicting. The artwork is oddly adorable, and I think you were smart to choose an idea that relied on randomization of a few assets. You got a surprising amount of variety in outcomes! Extending the clock with every bag, especially sub-10 seconds, added a lot of frenzy to the gameplay!
I had two fairly good runs in a row, but I felt like I could get even faster -- a sign of a good game. Oddly, during the first run, I maybe clicked outside of the frame, and the entire frame tinted red for the last half of the game. Not sure how that would happen, but it made it extra challenging XD
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Great level design!! This was a lot of fun, and it looked really good too.
The mouse sensitivity was a bit high for my setup, even on my lowest setting. Sometimes I'd look around too much and lose track of where I was :) maybe some more differentiation between the rooms (even different wall color) would help?
I think I did encounter a few bugs: * If I dropped a power item inside the teleporter, and then picked it up again, the teleporter disappeared! * The scroll wheel to choose an item in my inventory seemed inverted? * If I dropped an item in my inventory after selecting it with the scroll wheel, it just started duplicating it without dropping anything! But my score did not change.
** Teleporter disappeared when I tried to pick up the battery instead? **
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** Everything in my inventory is a crystal, and nothing got dropped! **
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Very well done! The whole idea of a scarecrow zooming around and spraying pests is just funny, and it looked good too!
I have no idea how easy or hard this is to build in C3, because I'm not too familiar with it. Bullet hell types are pretty common, though, so I imagine it isn't too tough. But you added a lot of nice polish and "juice" that made this very satisfying! The bursts and screen shake were satisfying.
The gameplay itself wasn't too challenging. I could simply hold down the shoot button without penalty to release a constant stream of water. Also, I found that I didn't need to use the dash at all, especially in such a small field. In the future, you could add increasingly challenging bug types, or rounds with upgrades, or simply make the bugs stronger or faster (to scale the difficulty with the player skill).
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Also **cough cough** @kekkodude oh. oh... nvmd.
Bee-utiful! Thank you for this lovely experience :) Where so many submissions are high energy or high stress, it's nice to take a pause and remember to relax. I enjoyed flying around and finding secret spots to explore! It was like site seeing from a whole new perspective.
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By the way, I'm not sure I figured out what was causing my bee to become exhausted ("Play again?").
The artwork is so great! Being able to zoom out is nice, because I get to appreciate the lively solar system you built! Also, it gave me some orientation (without any other indicator or reminder which direction I was supposed to be headed).
Was there a very specific path you constructed to follow? For example, there is a small planet with only trees right by the start. Getting there and harvesting all the trees (5) left me with just enough fuel to get back to where I started, to purchase more fuel (which cost 5) -- so that's an endless cycle. Trying to get further out than that, I don't seem to have enough fuel to travel or harvest very many resources. And there really isn't another store nearby enough to hop to for upgrades. Or so it seems.
If I missed an obvious alternative, please let me know. I really want to explore this game more, because it's so pretty.
@herryfabien I'm sorry XD and thank you!!
@procrasteroid The difficulty balance is definitely something we tried to get right, but it's harder when you know the game so well, you know? Can I ask, were you playing in WebGL (because some features aren't available, which makes the game MUCH harder).
@procrasteroid Thank you! If Windows is an option for you, you should definitely give it a try. In WebGL, you can hear that a sound is distant based on the volume, but it won't adjust the volume (left or right). So you can tell you are _close_, but not whether it's left or right or behind or in front. Definitely an unfortunate limitation that we didn't research beforehand!
@elflashor @schmalex we definitely took a risk with a horror game! Hopefully you still had "fun" XD thank you for playing!
@shores your choice of words made me chuckle! But in a way, the dialogue between the mother and son did come out endearing. Thank you both playing!
@bowen thank you! We were really happy with the atmosphere in the end. We were definitely nervous about the idea going into it, so we're glad it paid off.
We had an idea to introduce some level randomization, so maybe that's something you'll be able to see in an update!
@lerg Thank you for the kind words! I would love to hear more feedback. We might be able to improve the controls. What did you find tough?
@justin-c it really is, sadly!! We were disappointed, but I don't think we would have changed our design even if we had known about that limitation for WebGL. Thank you for downloading!
@rincs thank you so much for suffering through it! Would you be alright with us using reactions from your stream in a compilation video?
@keip It sounds like you had fun!! Yes, we realized that there are different ways to approach the challenge based on the balance of a lot of parameters. So let's just say, great job discovering that ;)
As for the crash: were you playing in the browser? We realize that pressing Control + W closes browser tabs. I'm not aware of other issues with C and shift, though, so please let us know!!
Thank you @avian ! It was definitely an interesting experiment to balance the mechanics. We discussed how we wanted to encourage the player to play. I can understand why released games take Soo long to polish!
@tukisboolukis I'm glad we convinced you to try multiple times! To us, we were glad the mechanic allowed for exploration.
I did play test the speeds being more on par (even your being slower than their sprint), but it ended up being nearly instant loss at every sound! Balancing is interesting!! Thanks for playing :)
@mrchickenboy appropriate username? You're right there with @theghostoftommy , since you left him in the field LOL
Thanks for playing and for the kind words!
@dannyk1994 thank you for playing through! Would you happen to have the clip available to rewatch? We are wanting to build a reaction compilation!
@fnkee so glad you stuck with it and rescued Tommy in the end! The mechanic was definitely a meat challenge, we thought
@bartalomew we really appreciate you checking it out and taking time to appreciate it, even if it's not your kind of game! That means a lot!!
@lerg there's a playthrough posted above by krassenstein. If you have time, could you give it a watch and see if it plays the same way on his as on your computer? I'd like to know whether it was simply a performance issue that impacted your experience, or if there is something to improve! Thanks!
@cannibalgirl Thank you for playing! We were really happy with how it all came together too. In the end, the mechanic needed some more exploration to figure out exactly the kinds of things you described, but we were still really happy with the "alpha" version. (Also, yes, Tommy's face is CREEP haha)
@she-wrote Thank you!! We're glad it created memorable experience for you. I had considered adding a button to hide the UI (at least everything but the sound meter), but that was just in the last bit of time before submission. Alas!
@bloodfin great comment. I have noticed that we have missed a few audio ratings (around 5 people didn't rate that category), and we are suspecting it's for reasons you describe. Honestly, if that's the case, we appreciate people not rating if they know they aren't getting the full experience.
We briefly discussed accessibility options, and I think adding visual indicators either for the hearing impaired (or for the "technically impaired") players would be a great addition!
@chase-of-bass @hayricakir It may not be an enlightened form of horror, but it's definitely an effective one! I hope it was fun :D
@annie-owl @andidebob thank you so much! Your words are very kind.
@alex-garbus I suppose that's a convenience. I'm glad I could help? Or maybe, I'm sorry? 0:)
@poshdan LOL I know, right? Going to have to have a looong cornversation with that kid about "wrong place wrong time".
Crouching there is definitely viable if you're patient enough (or lucky enough with the randomized patching). We honestly were on the fence about forcing the talking at the end. I pushed for it because I wanted to increase the intensity, like you said. I'm glad you caught on!
@sephowepho Haha it was a pleasure to read your comment! You definitely made your own experience there. Sorry we couldn't scare you ;) and you are not at all alone in finding Tommy's scream in the intro hilarious. Unintended lazy VA in compressed time by "yours truly" XD
The AI can definitely be cheesed, as you found. There were limitations to its first implementation, and we also didn't want to risk ruining the balance of the speeds. These are two areas we are digging back into now to see what kind of gameplay emerges.
As for the graphics, all kudos go to @tempest-smh. He was an avid Playstation player growing up. If you search "PSX graphics" (or even just PS1), I think you'll find what you are looking for! The visuals were heavily inspired by the limitations of those early platforms.
@ava-skoog thank you for coming back to play!! That means so much. I'm sorry the performance wasn't good for you, but thank you for doing everything you could to get the full experience :)
You've made some great notes! I'm glad that Tommy being loud at the end didn't feel too unfair. We meant it to force the challenge, and it sounds like it did! We expected people to resort to running at that point.
Thank you again for playing!
@matank thank you so much for sharing your playthrough! That was so fun to watch :D I'm sorry that we stressed you out haha
You were very good at finding Tommy! You were definitely right about being careful about calling out, so that they don't hear where you are. Once you find Tommy, though, we wanted to challenge the player by having Tommy keep talking.
By the way, the house is right behind you when you start!
@sarah aw! I appreciate you jumping into it, even if only to confirm, "Yes, too spooky!"
A little too late, I got the idea for a tutorial scene where you are playing hide-and-go-seek in the field during the day time. What would you think of that @sarah? Or does it still have "cornfields are creepy. period." vibes?
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@itsboats sending thoughts and prayers for your handsome baby boy Tommy.
LOL thanks for playing!!
I love the concept! A game with a message :) Thank you for bringing these issues into your game!
On my first play, I fell into the trap of HARVESTING EVERYTHING. I learned my lesson. The next playthrough, I found a good balance between humans and nature. A few recommendations for improving gameplay the next time around: * The tutorial before each minigame probably weren't necessary after the first Year. I think the game would have moved more fluidly without repeating them. But the rhymes were very sweet :) * The sounds were a little repetitive in some places. Consider using variations of the same sound, and playing a random one each time! Also, some sounds needed to be quieter than others (such as the music that plays when a tree is chopped).
I have no idea what I just played XD but it was surprisngly fun, even if the actions were repetivite. I guess that's a good sign that you captured something satisfying in the gameplay. The bit about adjusting the poster was not intuitve to me--I had to read some comments to know why I couldn't move away, and for some reason my first attempts to use the arrows didn't adjust the poster enough. So I didn't get that "aHa" moment.
The sounds were really cute, and the artwork just shows that style triumphs over all! Very well done :)
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What a beautiful environment and soundscape to explore. You all did a great job building the world. The sand trail was a nice detail! (one small thing I noticed: the dust particles off the player's feet didn't disappear on stone surfaces, but that's such a small detail it could have been intentional :P)
The allegory you chose added another layer of depth to the game and made it mystical. I really enjoyed that. The only thing that could use a bit more polishing is the camera smoothness sometimes. Thank you for sharing!
I'm simply in awe! This was a really great experience. It seems like you were really economical about your choices, to get so much done. The graphics style you chose really sold the experience. Seeing my reverse self "replanting" the wheat was definitely an eerie feeling. I was never brave enough to risk a collision. Who knows? When my self meets my anti-self, we might cause annihilation!
I really dug the whole scene, and the sound design (even though you aren't taking credit for it) was still appreciated. Reversing sound for the "reverse days" was so smart, even if it was subtle. Great job!!
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(P.S. - You've got quite the itch.io following! Congrats! Any tips?)
This is a great perspective! I enjoyed the feeling of being small and defenseless, and the first time the farmer showed up was really surprising. So stampy!!
I think the audio could have used more thought, though it's understandable to run out of time especially as a solo dev! I couldn't quite tell what the sound in the background was ... my stomach grumbling for all those carrots? hehe
I spent a good bit of time playing, at least 8 rounds of hacking, so you know that it was at least fun at its core!
I really liked the art and scene design. The 2.5d sprites almost felt like a toybox, which added a sense of playfulness to the whole thing. I also think that the balance of fighting and harvesting was nice, since it created a sense of urgency to the surgery task.
I do think that the progression could have used some tuning. For example, I bought all the basic tools (I thought) and every knowledge book, and still I was lacking some skill to harvest organs? Maybe I missed something really obvious, but it seems to me like you should have helped the player get to the second half of your game much sooner! What was I missing?
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A few other things needed just a bit of polishing, like the movement felt very slippery (like ice skating). So while it was fun zipping around (weeeee), it didn't quite help me fight better. Also, some warning when enemies are spawning, as they can spawn just about on top of you.
Edit: I spent a little longer, bought a few more things. THEN I actually read your tutorial, and realized I could have had a better start :) One thing I noticed by comparing my screenshot, though ... am I supposed to have the grabby tool?
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Once I used the pouch to harvest intestines, and grew some organ trees, the game got a lot more interesting. So anything you can do to get your player there faster might be better! But it depends on what your vision is, not necessarily mine :)
What a perfectly sized game! I loved that the whole style made it feel like it was painted on papyrus. Perfect for the Egyptian theme! The sounds nicely filled out the game, and I think if you added a specific sound for each station, it would really perfect it!
The fact that I could chain instructions made the flow of the game excellent. I felt like I was in pure concentration mode, trying to push myself further to keep track of many tables at once. And I felt like I could have improved more and more! Here was my best after 3 runs :)
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“if it works, it works”
Ah, yes, the familiar workflow from "I'm going to implement good design" to "//HACK //TODO //FIX ME"
I had a few issues getting the game started. On WebGL, no button seemed to start the game from the title. On Windows, it seemed locked to the top-left of my desktop, instead of being windowed or maximized. Maybe I had an issue?
For the gameplay, I really enjoyed being able to upgrade my weapon by defeating an enemy--and then that upgrade served as a "life" if I got hit too much. That said, the beginning of the game is definitely tough with the pea shooter! Since most enemies shoot head-on, same as the pea-shooter, I really had to get in there and get lucky a lot. But despite that limitation, I had fun!
I think you might skip the main menu after the first time, because having to wait for it (and press through the tutorial) every time I died (which was a lot :D) was less fun!
@alex-garbus The browser refresh probably would have done the trick. I opened your page again, and input was working. Sorry I didn't think to try that!
Windows 10 for the OS. Here's a screenshot of what I see when I launch! I will have to give it a try on my home computer (not my laptop) later.
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I'll never be meep so why even try :D
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Love how snappy the graphics and controls are. This is a really tight platformer/shooter. The ballistic physics make the shots even harder. And the sound design is really cohesive! 10/10 :carrot: !!
This is a solid challenge! I should pull out my gamepad and try it there, because I have a feeling it'd play even more easily than with ZXC (i've never been good at that combo).
The mirrored level is a doooooozy. I just couldn't get the last jump to reach the portal XD But consider me absolutely impressed, playing a solid 20 minutes to get there. The difficulty curve and speed at which you introduce new mechanics and challenges was perfectly set. On top of that, the visuals and sound design was great.
My biggest gripe (and maybe this was just a keyboard thing) was that I didn't seem to be able to double-jump _while_ holding an arrow key (left or right). Not sure if that was intentional, but that was the cause of a significant number of deaths!
@moonizz you're probably right! I'm on my laptop this week, so I'll test that out with that in mind!
This is by far the most daring entry I've seen. It's almost like an idle game, but with network play thrown in. I downloaded the single player version, FWIW, just to try it out.
First off, I love the way it just lays very simply over my desktop. In fact, I'm typing this right now with the little dude hanging out. Hey dude. Sit tight!
At first, I was a little disgruntled by the slow void refresh timer. "You mean, I collect 3 seeds, then wait 4 minutes before I can collect more? And shop items cost how much? I think I'm going to recommend to speed that up ..."
But then I realized the genius of your design: it's idle, and I can see my desktop. I can do _other things while I wait_.
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Ooops, brb. Void refresh. Okay I'm back. Anywaay, this feels like the kind of thing I would just keep up in the background so I can keep farming and getting better gear. My only regret is that it doesn't save my progress on quit :( I'll have to consider giving the online version a try -- if you have any gameplay footage, I'd love to see it.
Like I said, daring! You risk people "not getting it" and complaining about the speed.
Also @foggydude no, I will not ignore your background XD
Congrats on your second jam entry!!! I always love a good pun interpretation of the theme--fundamentalists be damned! The pixel art was lovely. I played the pirate music in the background, and it really did sell the vibe ;) Some sea faring sound effects would have been a great addition as well!
#### Some additional ideas: * Additional patterns (other than lines) would have made for good progression, and depending on how you implemented the code, it might not have been too hard. * Also, I think enforcing a penalty for misclicking could have been an added challenge. It might have been hard to implement visually (such as extra cuts on the clothing), but a UI item could have been a start, and it would have prevented me from just spam clicking XD. That said, it was hard enough to get lined up as it was haha.
Great job!
I'd say you made a satisfying game! It's simple, but the loop was addictive. I want to plant moooore.
I didn't really understand the controls well enough from the instructions, but after my first attempt and going back to read, I eventually figured it out. The font you used is a little too unreadable. I got there in the end, but it took more effort than I'd like to read important text. Otherwise, the artwork was very nice!
My first playthrough (5 min), I got $670 by experimenting with various crops.
My second playthrough, I thought "Carrots all the way! Fastest grow, 2x profit. No brainer." By the end of it, I had planted 40 seeds (which should have gotten me $1600), but I didn't keep track of the water and only harvested $760 worth of it. Not much of an improvement. @jitspoe can confirm, don't go all-in on carrots :( OR if you do, don't plant more than you can get to.
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This was really well put together! I think the gameplay could be extended somewhat, maybe just by slowing down the harvesting. That said, it's probably just the right length of a jam. My first play through, I wasn't moving so quickly, just enjoying the music and watching the trucks move around. Suddenly, it was over! (Adding some sort of timer may have given me a heads up.) The second time, I moved a lot more quickly, and I found that I won very fast! Maybe there's a balance in there, and this becomes more of a resource management game than a frenzy. But I think the latter is exactly what you wanted from the story, so good job!
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This game was just so dang fun to play. Even if there was nothing else, the combat felt super satisfying. The fact that it was tied to measurable progress and consequence gave it more _meaning_. The need to harvest wheat in order to feed the flock was a clever double-down on the theme, and it actually added variety to the gameplay. It required the player to think of a balance.
Is there a reason I wouldn't just always play the field level, if I could gain food and heretics in the same level?
The only thing I would want in addition to this is a new "level select" that is more integrated into the world, rather than implemented as a basic start menu. I'm imagining the patron in some darkened chamber, and you have two portals to choose from, one that takes you to harvest heretics, and one that takes you to harvest the field. I think that would be super neat!
The art was very intriguing! Did you make it all yourselves? Congratulations to the whole team on this submission!
Once I understood what to do, I was able to play better. But I think you could improve the clarity of what it is the player is meant to do. For example.
The gameplay is not so intuitive to start. For example, when the scene loads, I don't know exactly where my character is for the first time. It's common for them to be in the center of the camera or somehow highlighted. Also, the inventory was very small in the screen, so I didn't notice those for a while, nor did I know how to switch between them without some experimentation. But those are not a big deal.
Once in the town, I opened the market, clicked the $ button, but it wasn't immediately clear what happened from that, since there was no feedback (button, sound, etc.).
So in summary, I would add clearer UI and sounds for feedback on what the player is meant to do :)
I loved the visual style! It made me want to explore further and get lost in a wavy field of golden wheat. The upgrade system added nice variety and progression to the gameplay. I do think the art could have been a little more consistent between the wheat, the ship/player, and the scythe. Individually, they looked nice, but altogether they weren't quite cohesive.
One other idea for more player feedback: some additional indication that my backpack was full. Even though the bar was showing how much I had, my eyes were often on where I was swinging the scythe. A lot of times, I had swiped 3 or 4 more times than I needed to, wasting wheat!
Great entry, great job to the whole team!! The music was very pleasant to listen to. By the way, next time, you should look into y-sorting so that the player doesn't appear on top of the wheat!
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I thank you for the lesson in blood type compatibility! This is a very important topic (as you know). :D
This one was definitely a challenge, for a few reasons! Firstly, the search across so many variables to find a match is tough (which is a good education about the reality of organ donors ...). Secondly, the wolves were a bit rough, especially when moving south. Without being able to see ahead of you, you really just hoped you were retracing your steps enough. Definitely a challenge!
There were a few times that I was certain I had found a match, but when I got back, the size didn't match. Are you sure there isn't a bug?? I found a O- large body on my last run, narrowly avoided wolves on the way back, only to find the organs were marked as small :(
All in all, I found this title VERY interesting to play. The dialogue was also a joy to read (as you know). Thank you for this!!
I really dug what you were going for! The style was really neat, and I loved that the scythe doubled as a sort of feedback (such as when I regained my dash).
I spent far too long trying to get the parry right, until I realized I could just run right past the guy XD A little more telegraphing and mercy on the timing of that one would make it feel just right.
Sorry you couldn't finish what you wanted to! I know that's a tough feeling. Hopefully you all took some lessons in what to prioritize. Think about what did make it into the submission, what took a long time, and what maybe you could do differently for next time. You'll have a winner!
This is so packed!! I am impressed with how complete the game already feels. It just needs a little polishing on the delete mechanism (it sometimes deleted something other than I thought I was selecting), as well as some additional levels for pacing (which you've mentioned).
Otherwise, what an educational and fun factorio-like puzzle! There was definitely challenge getting all the lines routed around each other. I think it's exploitable, with the rate of output. For example, I let a bunch of resources build up into the meat generator, then I added the poop outflow later, cutting off the water inflow, and still won :)
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Btw, the poop smilies were too funny!
The cover art really attracted me! It made me wish the game was actually in a three-quarter view rather than top down, but that would have taken some 3D modeling to get done right :) Overall, I liked the simple art style you had. The progression was a little slow (as in, the item increases seemed negligible). With a smaller scope of a game, I think letting the player get more awesome even faster would not have been a bad thing.
Sailing around was a lot of fun! I think the ocean itself could have had more detail, both to be more visually interesting (waves, more landmarks like rocks and isles) and navigable ("Oh, I remember seeing that bit before .. go south). You had that idea with the darker zones, so more of that would have been great!
The biggest thing I found myself wanting was more player feedback, like time of day (even a simple countdown timer) and current weight (so that I don't have to go all the way back to port to check). Otherwise, inferring those things from my own sense of time or from what I can't pick up wasn't as fun.
Congratulations on your submission! I think you accomplished a whole lot as a single person!
You got a lot of nice details in here! The grungy art style really fit the mood. The wavy corn and the rain were very nice mood touches. Also, the scripted setup (the first guard being grinded) was a very smart way to teach the player.
The rest of the game was tough! RNG was definitely the true enemy, as sometimes the game created pretty impossible situations for me. Still, every run was fun, regardless of how the last run ended up. Best I got was 42 seconds remaining. Having a timer running during the game would have been a great addition!
Great job on the music. I had a better chance to appreciate them from the OST you posted. Very nice!! Also, our games have some similar ideas. You should check it out! :D
@kizilejderha OHH, thank you! I definitely did not see it. Obviously there are many ways to make it more noticeable, since the player's focus is heavily tuned to the middle of the screen!
What an adorable game. The artwork was the highlight, down to every little detail. All the activities were so well animated, and the factory was amazingly decorated -- I loved all the bee related posters (but I think you missed an opportunity to tell them to BEE SAFE haha).
Well done to everyone! This was a wonderful experience.
Also, I feel like the first part of the shouting sounded like, "Why you guys napping??" I'm not sure if it was, but it made perfect sense in my brain XD
This was such an unexpected experience. The music made the whole thing seem routine, like, "Just another day swatting rats." Instead, the absolute SWARM of rats deserved more of an apocalyptic soundtrack XD
In all seriousness, this ended up being a lot of fun. My hand does not appreciate me right now, but it was fun nonetheless. I had the bright idea to switch clicking fingers near the end, but it didn't seem to help me in the end all that much.
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I wasn't sure exactly what the bar at the top indicated: was it just a timer, or some indication of the crops being harvested? The composition of the scene was nice. I liked the perspective and static camera, and the flowing water and growing crops added nice movement to the otherwise simple scene.
Next time, I can't wait for upgrades like sprays and traps!! As an improvement, maybe you can add some sort of crosshairs to the ground so it's super clear what I'm going to slap? That said, I don't think I had any issues smacking the buggers.
I love this charming tale! The rhyming was very cute, as was the little munchy bear haha. Artwork was beautiful to look at!
Once up in space, I got lost for a bit without being able to find planets. It seemed like you had probably predetermined their locations, and I just happened to fly out of their field. Fortunately, I was able to wander back to it and eat the one or two final unfortunate morsels to achieve my final form :)
Great experience!
It seems like you are just starting out on your game dev journey, so you should be congratulated! It takes drive and courage to start a project and then share it, especially on a tight timeline. Here are a few things to consider for future projects.
A game should really give the player a sense of purpose. Why am I playing the game? What is my motivation? You had "crop health" on the screen, but it didn't seem to actually track anything. I let the zombies get close, but they didn't seem interested in it. If the point of the game is to play the game, that's not much of a motivation at all.
In an action oriented game, a sense of urgency will heighten the experience of the player. "Not only do I need to do this, but I _need to do it now_ or else something bad will happen." For example, it was good that zombies started to chase me if I got too close. That's good! But the zombies mostly seemed to wander on the edge of the field by default. Very rarely did they seek me out. This left me to seek _them_ out instead, which turned the game into more of a chore than a defense.
Feedback is a __major__ component of good design. How does the player know that they are doing the right thing? Or the wrong thing? How do they know if they are doing the right thing _really well_? Here are some examples: blood squirts or zombie reactions to being hit with bullets. Without that, I have to guess that I'm hitting them. When the player gets hit, you spawned some sort of symbol (at first I thought it was maybe health I could pick up). There are better ways to warn the player that they are being damaged (e.g., flashing lights, or a red vignette, or sound effects). Finally, most people are familiar with headshots being especially effective against zombies. Reward the player for being a _really_ good shot, and they will be motivated to try and get better and better. If it doesn't matter where I shoot them, I'll go for the easiest shot.
Thanks for the submission! I made sure to give it some time so I could look for specific feedback :)
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(Unfortunately, many people might find this a bit prohibitive to rate! The download is nearly half a GB, and Unreal isn't the most ubiquitous. Somebody made a blog post about it not too long ago, [worth a read for the perspective](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/harvest-from-your-success/unreal-engine-is-a-master-of-making-games-that-people-dont-want-to-play). Just something to think about if you are wanting to continue with game development!)
Nice polish! You definitely spent a lot of time on the systems and mood design, and the artwork is really interesting. Seriously, who am I? _What_ am I? haha. The monster design was sick, too!
I think this would have benefited from watching fresh people playtest. Even though you told me what the objective was (find mushrooms and build a ladder at the exit), I was confused that I seemed to be surrounded by mushrooms, yet didn't know how to pick them up. I knew I was missing something, and that was a little frustrating. Once I finally found the exit and then _the_ mushroom, it all kind of clicked.
The procedural levels are really cool, and that makes each playthrough feel fresh. I would have at least started the player by the exit, as letting the first-time player know where there objective is feels like it would add a lot of clarity at the cost of a little challenge. I'm not sure how you would solve the mushroom problem. If the little mushrooms dotting the cave are important to you, maybe add a dialogue box the first time the player approaches one? "Not these! I need much bigger mushrooms to get out of here."
I always like literal interpretations of the theme as a word :D the modeling and design of the main character was very nice!
I didn't have such a good time with the puzzles. For puzzles, I think consistency and clarity are highly important! For example, I was not sure why the teleport got me past one wall earlier, but then it wasn't allowed later. The inconsistency was a tad confusing! Also, in the first puzzle with the laser wall, I was able to jump down to the ground floor once by accident, and then I couldn't figure out how to do it again. Clear indications of what the player should do, especially early on, are a great way to bypass frustration and get people to play your game _quicker_.
I really loved your menu design, by the way! That's usually under-utilized in jams and quickly thrown together (guilty as charged), so seeing that level of polish is impressive.
SUCH a clever game. I'm really interested in what kind of pattern recognition you implemented. Success really isn't all that possible with keyboard and mouse (I couldn't break 25% on the first level, but I did manage 55% on the second! 37% on the third), but I'm sure someone could do better. The game was certainly possible with one player alone, which I appreciated.
The art style and effects and music really sold it. I think you made a thousand smart decisions on that! (Also: the options menu was a nice feature to add!!)
Well this was a ho-down of a good time! The visual aesthetic was just perfect for what you were going for. The growing corn sprites were a very nice touch. And the exploding cows were just hilarious XD
I really like the idea of fueling the harvest by mowing down corn. If you keep working on this, look into leading the player camera just a bit so that they see more of where they are going, instead of centering the vehicle on the screen!
What a story! The interactions you wrote were very engaging, and the artwork really brought it all to life! I did lose the map background at one point, but all the destinations were still available, so it didn't stop me! I couldn't figure out how to get everyone to the festival, and I absolutely failed the nun haha! But I still enjoyed the game a lot. Thank you for sharing this!
And now, I'll just enjoy the sunset with my friends at this totally awesome festival :) I'm glad they could _stick_ around!
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Nice job! This felt polished. The animations are definitely the star of the show. They are so expressive! I appreciated that the spirits would eventually stop and cower, giving me a chance to reap them
One thing I think would have been cool as an added ability was if I was able to suck them inward, like a sort of reaper tractor beam! That might have been really fun.
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@natiki how funny!! We had a similar thread of thought. I had an idea to make something inspired by phasmaphobia, but isometric and with the goal of trapping the ghosts according to their type.
One of my teammates brought up Luigi's Mansion haha. I still think it'd make for a fun game.
I think you did a great job putting this together! The artwork was very clean, and the gameplay was working as intended. As a final product, it is very complete!
**Things I appreciated:** * The tutorial and in-game help was very clear. * The fact that enemies stayed in their frames, otherwise they would just all rush me!!
**Some recommendations:** * Switching frames and landing right on top of an enemy didn't feel too far. Maybe you could pad the areas they are able to occupy? * I got stuck by colliders more than I expected, which hindered me in some escapes.
For the next iteration, I think it could use some balancing. As it is, to get 30 living aliens would take quite a long time. The number of hearts I can harvest is mostly based on my skill at avoiding hits, which didn't always work out in my favor :D sometimes, I'd barely break even. After 10 minutes of playing, I must have made at least 12 aliens, but my counter was still only 4. Maybe you could: guarantee I'd gain a heart with every kill, or add some alien progression, so that I become stronger in some respects (faster, healthier, or doing more damage). Just something to keep the needle moving forward, rather than leaving me feeling like it's 2 steps forward and 1 step back. You know?
This was a really satisfying game loop! The artwork and the sound design really polished it all up. Even the minigame was satisfying, and I think it was smart adding a "bullseye" with a reward. Really great implementation! All of the sound work especially showed a lot of attention to detail, and the music was a perfect fit for the setting.
My only suggestion would be to build up the story more, as the whole setup and idea is really novel. For example, instead of "you win when your lord reaches 13 points", write it as "Your lord needs enough blood to rise from his sleep. Give him 13 doses, and he will rise again!" yada yada.
Duude YES. This has all the right kind of energy. I was sold from the screenshots, but the moment that 80s anthem started playing, I was all in!! Great choice of music tracks -- shame they weren't written for the jam, because I would give it all the stars.
My biggest feedback would be to look for a bit of a redesign. Thrashing zombies was obviously the most fun part, but damaging the harvester was a direct consequence. So in that sense, running over zombies was more of an obstacle than a goal, it was more of a deterrent. Does that make sense? I think if you _encourage_ the part that's more fun by tying it to the reward (upgrades), you've got a winning design!
The art design was so great! Funny little demented corn creatures, haha.
It took me some time to realize I had to pick the corn husks up once they were dead. The tutorial screen said "pick up/put down" .. but not exactly _what_ (and my brain quickly forgot about it). Some indicator (at least for the first corn) would have been a dead giveaway, like the arrow floating above the cart!
Once I figured that out, it was on!
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I also found a bit of a glitchy area where the sprite didn't switch back :) Screenshot 2023-01-11 203943.png
That was fun! Great job for your first solo title, especially with a new code base!
I liked that you included an invincibility ability that consumed lives that you harvest -- that's a good balance! I never was quite able to win (harvest all the people), so maybe the game needs a little more balancing. Things like player speed versus enemy speed, damage, and health.
Banging tune! I saw a head-banging sunflower on the feed, and I knew I had to come check it out. I was not disappointed! Simple but fun game with an excellent vibe. I never got tired of the tune! \m/ (0-0) \m/
NICE job on the mood. Excellent spook factor. The jump scares with the acoustic hits definitely got me a few times! You did really well with the sound design overall, and really left room for those tense moments. I'm really impressed!
The controls were a little unexpected at first (I actually backed out of the cave the first time on accident, thinking I would move forward), but I eventually got used to them.
I wonder how it would change the gameplay if the player were able to fight back. Since the player is carrying some sort of pickaxe, it would make sense to me. But, it might make the game too little of a challenge!
Given what you built, I think you might really enjoy ours for a spooky time!
@jakejet Right on! Thank you!
You've got the bones of something here! With some iteration on the core idea (for example, what kind of game do you want it to be?), this could become something great!
For example, the vestigals weren't all that threatening, as they had predictable paths. I made it through without using my special abilities. In that same vein, shooting them wasn't really a necessity. And maybe you meant it that way, to encourage me to use the abilities. Then why have the gun? That's just an example of tuning mechanics so that the player _must_ use them, otherwise I may not play the game like you envisioned.
Thanks for the submission! Great job getting all this done!! I hope you keep working on it.
SUCH a good atmosphere. The attention to detail you have for storytelling, pacing and ambience is apparent. All of the sound design, ambient music, and floaty motions really sold the feeling that I was operating an underwater vehicle.
Even though the gameplay was mechanical and not too varied, exploring the world (as well as the pacing of the narrative) made up for it. In fact, likely because the task was meditative, I could pay more attention to the story. I'll call it a win!
I wonder how the story would have changed if I didn't find the goo-covered item until the end, _after_ hearing all the concerning events that transpired ... would that realization carry more weight?
I can't wait to see what you all come up with next time! Thanks for this!
Had to come back and check your scores -- CONGRATS!!
Clearly an insane amount of passion and creativity went into this. Every single personality was a treat to the ears, well done to all the actors! The music is also some gooood jazz. Like, seriously. Not a boring moment. I also like how it comes back in after voice lines, and reminds you that it's still there. Still cool.
The amount of feedback from shaking and whacking things is incredibly satisfying too. Down to the screen shake when you throw items around!
The only critique I have about the actual gameplay is that the physics of ingredients sometimes seems unexpected, for example, dropping an item with no velocity, but it still shoots upward. I dunno if that was intentional, but it made plating a bit comically inept at times haha!
Also, I would sometimes click out of the borderless window sometimes, and defocus the game. Not good! I want to stay inside this masterpiece!!
Super crunchy and retro! I loved the "Mad Max" vibes it gave me. The sound effects you recorded were hilarious. I imagine you put them in as placeholders, which is smart to have something rather than nothing, and never got around to replacing them. Or maybe that was the vibe you were going for! Either way, they were great.
It was a lot of fun driving around the barren landscape, punting enemies, collecting parts and gas, and then finally getting a gun and pummeling them. Something that could have helped the great gameplay was an indication of your current stats: how much fuel remaining, at least. I had to guess by the audio cues, but it made it harder to be prepared (and hunt for gas versus enemies, for example).
Thanks for a great submission!
Hey there! First of all, congratulations on a complete game! I had fun with the silliness of adding whatever I wanted to the suitcase (potted plants? sure! furniture? you bet!). The mouse sensitivity was a bit high for me, so consider adding a simple slider to scale that in the future, even on the start screen!
The suitcase blowing up confused me at first, because it seemed to be random. Then I understood that it showed signs of bursting as I added more items -- that was smart feedback! I think you could take this idea even further. By adding some sort of scoring, and rewarding more points for the kinds of objects, I would be motivated to find the "right" things to pack.
But anyway, for a jam game, this had the right mix of game and silly for it to be pretty fun! :D
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This is addictively tricky! It's like a "missing tile" puzzle, but fast paced! I definitely need a lot of practice to get that quick, so I appreciate the "timeless" mode. A great pico title as always.
The pacing and the teaching was very good. I really loved the simple style and particle effects. I'm super curious about the procedural music too, as it was surprisingly pleasant and very calming.
I guess I didn't have a very good outlook on life. I think that might have been due to the number of negative versus positive experiences? Overall, I really enjoyed that this game did not have win/lose stakes. It was all about the experience. Thank you for sharing that.
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I like that the "upgrades" also had a downside. That is a neat twist on a familiar system.
I played with the gamepad, and I did feel like I had better control; however, I think the shooting direction should not have been tied to the movement input. This means that you really have to be walking toward the enemies to shoot them, and since they are also moving toward you, you end up shooting once or twice and then running away to gain distance. Eventually, I feel like I'm just kiting enemies around! The controls could be improved with the mouse pointer or with the right joystick.
Great job for a solo dev!
This was strangely addictive! I really enjoyed pushing things around, and the physics were satisfying. Sometimes the car seemed to accelerate more than I meant it to (for example, after only pushing reverse for a moment), but it's hard to be sure.
The fact that platforms regained integrity after I cleared objects was very forgiving. I think that is smart for a jam!
I'm sure you ran out of time, but some sound effects would have added a lot of juice to the interactions!
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This is super impressive, especially for being done from scratch in C! Hard-core!! Mad props!
Independent of the technical achievement, this game is fun! This is a really compelling twist on classic Asteroids. The limited space from the walls and the different asteroid types really add a lot of variety. I think it changes the gameplay a little bit, as I wasn't as motivated to move around as I would be in the original game, but I did have to make sure to keep moving ahead so I didn't get swallowed up by the creeping edge of the screen :D It was nonobvious how much integrity my ship had, as it seemed like I could sustain a few bumps without dying. That was generous, but I would also appreciate knowing how much risk I could take!
Really, this is a lot of fun!! The auto-save feature was especially generous. Eventually (Level 10), the amount of non-white and non-red asteroids really got to be a progress barrier. This might require tuning some individual parameters, but I can definitely see there being a necessary cap to the chance for each type. I also wonder how the game would be with procedural noise, so that every play would be the same. That might require more work to ensure non-winnable situations, though, unlike "true" random, which can be resolved with a reload.
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LOL this was really unexpected. I love the style of the modeling. So unique. And the idea of shoving thoughts into the ears and shoving out other thoughts is really interesting. Some of those thought bubbles were hilarious. Others were sweet. Very good job!
At first, I didn't realize what to do with the "Start" bubble. You could add an in-game tutorial to introduce the player to the concept. But the "ah-ha" moment was also cool.
It seemed like I was able to stuff all the thoughts into the head with about half the time left, so I ended up sitting there with nothing to do until the next round, except for this ... lol
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This is an innovative kind of tower defense. Others have already mentioned the "death spiral" where letting enemies through will deplete your memory, which reduces your defenses further. Perhaps if you had two resources, one for firepower and the other for integrity.
I think if you spent some more time balancing the numbers and waves, this would be very fun. Currently, it seemed like every turret "cost" about 1000 TiB to operate. Because every enemy will not drop memory, it takes time to build up enough to even operate more than one turret.
It's a pretty cool idea to allow the player to switch turrets. I'm not sure if you intended the player to do that during a wave, though. As it plays currently, it is a bit hard to progress!
This was a pleasure to play! It was really interesting seeing a different implementation of the same initial idea as our team had, and our products turned out pretty different.
You all did so many things well. The whole art style was very charming and peaceful, the music was a perfect complement, and I liked the whole fantasy aspect. The car controls felt very smooth too. I really appreciated the auto-pathing system for the computer drivers, too. That was really interesting to see them find their way out of a tight spot!
It wasn't immediately clear where I should deliver cars, but it seemed like the most reliable activation point was up on the sidewalk. And if I put the car in front of the line, then the customer was able to get out easily. I had my best day after really getting that system down!
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We embraced a lot more of the chaos in our version, because we just had too much fun crashing cars. The result was much more frenetic gameplay, versus the calming and methodical game you've gifted us :D
I can only imagine the technical machinations behind the screen to get this sort of massive shared state up to date. Well done! And the world that the Rudds created simply through art really gave some soul to technical foundation. I want to know more about these factions!! Maybe time for some faction fan fiction?
At first, I yearned for some form of automation, sending out a personal bot army to cover the landscape. Then I realized that _I_ was part of that bot army ... I approached a meditative state as I painted the board blue and roamed in search of new spawn zones to recapture for the falcons. It would be interesting to see how the game could expand with some type of risk.
Definitely a cool experience, and surprisingly not-weird!! Let's go BLUE!
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The game loop was really satisfying, trying to cobble items onto your plate, and then switching to a clicker. I tried real hard and finally got a positive savings :) I call that a win!
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We brainstormed an idea about building an unstable tower on a tiny platform, but I never imagined it could be about filling your plate at a buffet! That's hilariously creative. Also, you've hit the theme two ways: limited space on your plate, and limited space in your stomach (well, actually, it seemed to be _unlimited_!)
I found the physics to be a little too bouncy, but that was certainly part of the challenge.
Also, hats off to the UI design. That was *chef's kiss*.
You never fail to impress with your game design! This one looks simple, but the increasingly specific requests really made this challenging! It was fun to finally get to the end and decide what I could get rid of -- wow, maybe that's a life lesson :D
That was great fun! No spoilers in my screenshot :)
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What an awesome, grungy jam game! It totally gave me Killing Floor 2 vibes, and I love the Gunslinger. The whole environment and mood was really well done, and the interludes added a lot to it. Really well done!
If I had to give one point of feedback, it would be that the enemies didn't always stand apart from the background well enough. Maybe you intended this to be part of the challenge (woods creatures blending into the woods).
The final score didn't stay long enough for me to grab a screen shot :)
_Note, I played version 1.01_
I enjoyed the puzzles! You all made a great pace of teaching new mechanics. The puzzles were challenging enough, but not too frustrating. It would have been interesting to count the number of hops (as a sort of score). The models were very cute, like children's toys!
A few suggestions: I would prefer toggle space to change perspective, as holding the button wasn't comfortable. Also, I would suggest making losing an automatic restart, and leaving the menu button in the pause menu.
I got to the last level, but it stumped me! Great job! Screenshot 2023-10-04 220537.png
I always look forward to trying Vaguely Damp's entry. For real, always something unexpected and captivating! This time is no different, and it's obvious that so much creativity went into this.
I loved how much I hated working at Hamazon. The feedback you worked into the systems, all the sounds and other indicators, was really appreciated. That's something that's hard to spend a lot of time on. And as the room filled with boxes and the floor disappeared, I really felt the application of the theme.
I played for a good bit until I hit the bug where you can't pick up more boxes after you die holding one. I did play version 1.01.
Incredible as always! The art and the music and the whole vibe just worked well together. Well done! The fact that you give the user free form input, with only a few constraints to keep it on track, is wild! I love how alive the system feels, even if it might be pretty simple. (Edit: I read now about the language model running on a server .. that's awesome!!)
I had a heck of a time, and I don't think I did too poorly! Speed run?
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Except I couldn't help but tease gramma XD oopsie
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Fun experiment! I definitely dig the surprising, self aware puzzles (like Stanley Parable). Very courageous trying a new engine!
I loved this! The concept was explained well throughout the progression, and it made for some neat puzzle design. Figuring out how to get past the line of rocks in the final area took some thinking, but it was really rewarding. Excellent storytelling as always!
I really like the idea behind your game. Avoiding monsters you cannot see by using sound was a fun challenge. I would suggest two improvements.
1) Make the monsters audible from farther away This would increase the speed of the gameplay. Walking step by step, especially when you have to search the entire room for the key, is not as fun as it could be.
2) Indicate where the key is. Avoiding monsters in the dark is already a good challenge. If the key was always visible, the player would know where to go, just not how to get there. That would prevent them from having to search every square, which is not very fun.
Wow, what a great little experience! It was a good length, and the music was fantastic! It took me a couple of tries, and even though I saw the "blip" (hint), I had to watch your playthrough to understand how to get to it. Thanks :)
It was a really great puzzle, too, and a neat story that went with it. After I escaped the room, I walked off the platform, and as I slowly fell to the earth below, not knowing whether life or silence awaited me, the piano soothed all fears. haha :D
On my first playthrough, I was able to get the large cube to appear. On the second time, I never did ... so I'm not sure if I missed some specific combination (after receiving the omni size code), or if there's some glitch maybe?
Anyway, thanks for an awesome entry!
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This game looks like a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, I seem to get stuck pretty quickly and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've got one shelf on the ground, but I can't drag anything on top of it. The bottom-left crate has another shelf in it, but I can't even drag it out of the crate. If there is a reason that I can't stack things on the shelf, or can't drag the new shelf out, then it could be better explained.
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If you can give me some suggestions of what I'm missing, I'd love to come back and try again!
@madbarron maybe it wasn't obvious, but the first shelf unit is already on the floor (top right). The second shelf unit is in the box, and I am unable to drag it out of the box (as in, when I click it, it just doesn't move).
Using parallax as a way to traverse the level is such a brilliant mechanic. The art is effective as always, and you use a simple palette well.
Well done!
This was so polished! The UI had so much pizazz and clearly communicated everything. I especially appreciated the emphasis you were able to put on certain parts of dialogue, like wiggling the important words. And the tutorial speaker was too funny! It got pretty hard when I had to consider heatsinks ... fortunately, your site remembers the state, so I can return to try more later!
All this in a compo entry, I can see how sounds were the last thing. Still impressive!
Also, great pun in the title!
Great work! This was a challenge and I had to keep trying. I am a big fan of the Prince of Persia games. The difficulty of these games was always a big part, trying and trying again until you make it to the end. You definitely nailed that! Unfortunately, I could not make it past the third button. Most times I died because of a poorly timed jump :(
One thing I recommend for a game jam is making it easier for people to see all the content you added. For example, if you added some checkpoints (spawn the player at the last button they pressed), it would be easier for me to make it to the end. Again, I know that the challenge is part of the game, so you could even add a "hard mode" for players that want that experience. But personally, I'm sad that I ran out of time to see your whole game :D
One thing I noticed is that the run speed seems to be dependent on the camera angle. He runs a lot slower when the camera is pointed downward. Maybe you need to use just the 2D vector of the camera's look?
Edit: by the way, if you downloaded the assets (and did not make them yourself), you should opt out of the Graphics category. Let me know if I got it wrong, if you made them yourself, and I'll rate you!
What a fantastic entry! You've elevated the platformer with style and charm. I enjoyed the little details, such as a cat's fixation with boxes and knocking things off of high places! And the shifting lights were a novel challenge. Well done!
I appreciated not being limited to 9 lives XD And the last level was definitely a tough one, but very rewarding! And what a beautiful credits theme song :)
@robin-schmitz Taking the cars to the delivery spot straight away is not unallowed! But we did randomize the return order, so like @themixedmaster found, it can work against you! By the way, amazing score dude!
@haste06 hey that's a great suggestion. We spent a little time on balancing the levels, but we didn't play with the arrival time too much. We'll try out some variations, especially in the first level!
@don-fouts very kind words, thank you so much!
@skoprimon that's an odd one! There is a link between the tutorial and the level activation, so I can look at that. We also have colliders bounding the player, but I think you might have just hit the ones off screen. I'll take a look at that also haha! Thank you so much for all the feedback. I'm glad you feel like we hit the right balance of quirkiness.
Happy parking!!
@willoxs thank you for stopping by! I appreciate all the great feedback!
We were definitely okay with the "cheese" strategy for the jam, as there was enough risk/reward involved if you filled up the workable space too much.
The level progression was a Sunday addition, and I think our dev got the difficulty curve right. I agree that there isn't much variation beyond that. We imagined being able to improve your lot somehow, and our dev even had a prototype for a car elevator!
Great notes on the UI. The claim tickets were an item that I ran out of time to update the prototype graphics on! I'm glad you're noticing the little details that would help improve the game. Cheers!
@dock-frankenstein I think I understand what you are saying! When the line of people gets long, the ones at the back are already losing patience (the timers), and you will get $0 tips from everyone. Yes, I can understand how it would be impossible to catch up.
Thank you for the feedback! We will think of how we can improve that without making the game too easy.
@jerem-watts Repeat after me: you (and Ernie) are enough!! You are valued!
@amarokczukay I'm glad you had fun!!
That's an odd issue with the sound. I may have seen other players have similar issues.
Edit: WOW! Thank you for pointing this out, seriously. It turned out to be a silly issue where the settings menu was navigating when the player was hitting input keys. So just by moving around, you could end up changing the volume. We'll get a fix uploaded for that!!
@destroyertech thank you for considering audio! I had about an hour at the end to try music, which I usually have much more time for. I could have grabbed something online, but I didn't want to opt out. Not sure what the right decision was at this point.
As far as strategy goes, my teammate and I realized at some point that we were playing the game differently. I was waiting for patrons, being a bit more careful, and finding it hard. He was flinging cars around, and a lot sooner, and found it easy. I figured better a bit easy than a bit hard!
For the post jam update, I'm going to try prohibiting early delivery and see how that changes gameplay. Thank you for the suggestions!!
@didiiii hopefully that learning experience was enjoyable and not frustrating. If you have any suggestions on how we could have done better, please let us know! Thank you for playing!
@igor-kingamer thank you for the kind words! We definitely enjoyed the chaos.
Funnily enough, there is some randomness to the return order. I've observed it sometimes, but we didn't spend much time tuning the value, so I think you end up being right most of the time. I definitely want to experiment with different values, and also prohibiting early delivery, because I think that would increase the challenge!
@the3rdhunter you so get it dude!! thanks for playing :D
@nan-kang thank you for playing! There actually is some randomness to the return order, but I think not enough to notice. I'm adjusting that in an update!
@jelch @lincolnsalles @tao-yuanyue @hagamosvideojuegos @digital-bacon thank you all so much for the kind words!
@strega so glad you had fun! We really decided to embrace the chaos to keep the energy high!
@nullval LOL be kind to Ernie! He's trying his best :D
This really gave me classic N64 vibes! Well done. I enjoyed the aesthetic. The level design was also well thought out. Making the dodos not only an enemy to avoid but a tool needed to get the eggs was smart design!
Like others have said, the camera goofiness prevented me from enjoying the gameplay as much as I could. I'd love to play an update!
I appreciate that you focused on polish and feedback -- it really shows! The game is very visually pleasing. As you said, the core of the game is fairly simple, but it was still fun. With more time, you could have added even more risk (some variation to the bramble or nasty bugs that come out). I say that with some self-awareness, because for LD51 our team made a similar core game and could not add anything that came out of the vines XD
Well done! I enjoyed playing this a lot! Screenshot 2023-10-10 070508.png
WOW. I seriously could have kept going forever.
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This was so snappy and the systems were really smooth. I did eventually feel a bit overpowered, blasting magic missiles and obliterating the field without doing much movement. I didn't care, though, because I was having so much fun. This even had elements of chess sometimes, trying to figure out how to get the enemy close enough to hit. You did a really great job making a genuinely fun game!
Great mood! I appreciated the effort you put into making the task interesting. The variety in packaging, and that some of them were marked with the destination. The corporate voice overs were funny and effective at setting the mood.
At one point I found a box with two destinations (one in a note on the back), and that was very intriguing. Unfortunately, I ended up losing it among the mess on the floor!
I'd love to see this go further! :D
On a personal note: using AI for art is a smart way to get your game going fast, and with unique assets, but I'm not sure how I feel about rating the graphics of the game in that case!
Lovely story! Once I accepted that it was a tale I was being told and not something that I could determine the outcome of, I was able to sit back and receive it. You also applied music very well to reinforce emotions.
There were some screens that were white (no images or text) that I just clicked through. Did you mean for those to be an interlude between sections? Maybe some indication (like "Proceed" or "Continue") would have made that clearer to me, or maybe that would have spoiled the formlessness :)
Thank you for sharing something unexpected!
This was super adorable. All the little dancing and noises were just too funny. I noticed that the audio only really seemed to play when I was near the center, and so the music would cut out as I moved around. I really liked the idea of guiding them around the map using the light. I would recommend another way to rotate the camera (maybe Q and E?), because rotating the camera with right click and drag also changed where I was directing them.
I think the auto-pathing of the people would need to be polished a bit more to avoid making this feel unfair. Because any single person hitting the water is an instant-lose, but I don't have perfect control over how they get to the light, I have to be extra careful to not get anywhere near edges. Something to consider?
I was able to collect just about all of the fruit (except the ones that flung off the map!), and I watched the ramp build upwards into the sky. It was pretty clear what I needed to do: avoid the flood by climbing my people upwards. Unfortunately, one of the pieces just points off the map, rather than continuing the spiral. Was that intentional?
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I love the atmosphere of this! There were a lot of systems in place (cold, hunger, and resources) that made this game very engaging. There were even icy areas that made cold go down quicker. I think the level design you accomplished was very smart! It was definitely a challenge, especially given the limited sticks and the scarcity of flint to make rope. I made it a good way through all the available tunnels that didn't require rope, but I only found one flint. Then I die of cold in a particularly long stretch of ice.
I can think of a few simple tweaks that you can consider. * It felt punishing to have to pick food from a bush before harvesting the sticks, especially when my food wasn't very low, and sticks were such a precious resource. Maybe allowing the player to stash food (berries and mushrooms) to consume as they need it? * to I suggest a little more light without a torch, otherwise it's virtually impossible and just leads to a long, slow death :) * Make flint a little more common, at least to allow the players to progress further. After all, it's a game jam, and you worked so hard to make much more content than I was able to see!
LOL thank you for sharing this silly thing. It was just a fun time all around. Did I imagine things, or did I put a _pinecone_ in the freezer?? All of the unexpected items, and the stretchy arm, were just silly fun. Thank you!
Some explanation of the controls, even on the LD page below the game, would help! I figured it out through experimentation, which was a little fun too, but it couldn't hurt :D
Wonderful! The little plop of the furniture was so satisfying. One thing I like about this theme is the creativity with limited space. I think you really did a great job creating a challenging puzzle that was fun and not frustrating. The 3D assets were so pleasing too! Everything felt very polished and consistent. Well done!
Super funny, I don't know how on earth you came up with all the ideas. The first minigame caught me by surprise, and even took me a minute to realize what it even was haha! After the bluescreen, I'm not sure if there was an alternate path that I could have taken to "win", or if that is the intended ending. Still a lot of fun! Just missing some nice OS sounds :P
This was fun! The art was absolutely aadorable, and there was a good variety of items. I have no idea what a tortoise with a helicopter was doing on a tiny island, but who am I to question it? :)
I thought the controls played well, too. The acceleration felt just right for a little helicopter. Sometimes items would be at the edge of the screen (where I couldn't fly), but sometimes I could swing the hook there to get them :D
Great fun!
This is serious fun!! It's fairly simple, but pretty satisfying. And I liked how you tied the area size to penalties for getting hit or missing. That really puts a lot of agency in the player's hands. And you made it challenging enough that standing still to maximize your accuracy wasn't really an option.
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Overall, really well done! One thing you could add next is a way to push the void back some, as a reward!
And for a _compo_ game, this feels really well polished!
Disclaimer: hyperactive context switching games aren't usually my thing. That said, this had a lot of charm! I loved the minimal art style, and the color palette was really effective. The music was an excellent pairing, too. And I got a good chuckle out of the "do nothing" stage! All in all, this was well made!
This was pretty engaging! The artwork was really appealing! Everything was colorful and silly, and that added a lot to the experience. I expected the items to "auto fit" into the box, but allowing me to drag it anywhere gave me a lot of control (and probably made the game more interesting -- but I won't know for sure without trying the other way). Some sound effects, especially for user interactions (picking up and placing an item) would have really completed the experience.
One suggestion for improvement: I expected to be able to replace items on the conveyor belt after picking them up, especially where the first item going off the screen causes a loss. This means that I learned that a pillow could not fit in the box I currently had, and the only way to not lose would have been to send a pretty empty box. I suggest you give the players more opportunity, at least by allowing them to miss more items (maybe 3?), or by allowing them to keep putting items back on the conveyor belt at any point.
This was funny! I enjoyed the character voices that you recorded.
Others have mentioned the difficulty curve. You might consider a wave system so that the player has time to relax (mentally or physically).
I quickly realized the best strategy was to quickly spam the mouse button. There was really no need to move at all. If that's not the gameplay you intended, you can shape the player strategy in other ways, such as requiring the player to collect shells (so that they have limited ammunition and must walk around).
To me, game design is about understanding the motivation and the mechanics and controls you provide, and making sure all those are in agreement, so that you curate the exact kind of experience you want. As long as you are happy with the experience you made, then you should be proud!
I got this far before my arm just tired out XD Thanks for the game!
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@balimaarthebassfish omg yes the "dev advantage" is real. That's one of the biggest hurdles in releasing something that other people will find playable. If you have time and people, playtesting during the jam is super valuable!
I hope you do keep working on it!!
A very good entry! This was fun to play, and it had a lot of interesting mechanics: the different types of obstacles, two types of moving barriers (the enemy and the closing wall), and a score objective. My only critique is that after I collected the attainable bits within the area, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Maybe you could continue to spawn them at a faster rate? I should be rewarded for making it to the end :)
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This was surprisingly fun! It didn't look like much to start, but I want to point out a few design points that I think were really smart.
The cost of the upgrades seemed like a lot to start, but you started increasing the value of the barrels, which makes you feel like you can get there sooner.
The two types of weapon allowed for variation in strategy, and I always felt like I was finding ways to improve.
I think the time on the ship might be a little long, but I'm not too sure. At first, I thought that you could decrease the time and then increase the rate of everything else (enemy spawns and attacking). That would make it higher intensity for shorter periods of time. It would be something to try!
But then, it started getting a bit harder, so maybe higher intensity would be too hard :P Really, I could play this game a long time!! The art style was really cool, too.
Playing with render distance and object permanence is such a cool puzzle concept. Hats off to you for that. Despite not having more levels, the tutorials were enough to whet my appetite. I would love to see you do more with this.
The retro style was a great decision, too. So much nostalgia! I appreciated the subtle details like sound effects when the block bumped objects.
Was there a point to the stationary blocks that I missed? Or were they a mechanic that you didn't get to yet?
Cute! I enjoyed that the environment seemed to have some underlying rules, like moss spreading to dirt and bugs "naturally" dying. That would be an interesting ecosystem to expand on! It is pretty unique for a jam game :)
Now that you have a mechanic (moving around and eating bugs, while avoiding getting eaten yourself), there should be an overall objective. "Eat as much as you can" isn't really a clear objective, because it only lasts as long as the player's interest. Instead, maybe building a nest or getting to the bottom of the terrarium. Just a few quick ideas on an "objective"!
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This has a lot of potential! I really liked the distant perspective on a big city. The art style, even though it was simple, was very effective, and the bowing animations were so cute!
The objective and mechanics had a bit of a learning curve, but I was able to figure it out through trial and error. My main critique is that the UI popups (showing tasks) sometimes blocked the arrows, making it hard to select the final destination.
I think if the UI showed my current number of fails and the limit, with some obvious indicator when I failed something (color and sound), then losing would be less surprising!
First off, I really like the style you were going for! The grayscale sprites and old adventure style maps was nostalgic, and the music fit the mood nicely. I do think the "cell select" sound was a little out of place. Also, it wasn't clear what effect selecting a cell on the ground had.
My biggest critique: the AI needs improvement. The randomness (e.g., moving backwards, or side to side) makes for a verrry slow action phase. Not very action-y.
Chicken!! Chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken!
I don't know where this came from, or why. But I am thankful. The art was just lovely, as was the sound design. That running animation gets me every time.
I enjoyed figuring out the drawing mechanic and how to best use it. As you said, the collisions sometimes don't work as expected. It seemed to happen most with a piece of fried chicken or when I was landing on the edge of a bucket -- basically at the transition between platforms.
Randomly generated levels is ambitious!! It does add a lot of replayability ("What sort of level will I get this time??"). At the same time, a single generation (like a single seed) that you deploy would help me practice and optimize and try to get further and further every time. Something to think about!
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In summary: chicken.
This was definitely addictive! The grid movement felt snappy and satisfying. It only felt restrictive later when the board got full, but that's part of the challenge! I liked that the enemies upgraded as I did. I feel like I could really get better strategy to keep lines of escape open. Eventually I got cornered and then there was no way out.
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Great work on the models! The level of detail was right for the perspective. I would like a better way to visually distinguish my troops from the enemies, like glows or tokens. That is probably my only real critique. The coloration of the models was often too similar, and it got hard to pick my way through my troops.
Also, you could experiment with attracting gems from one space away--see what that does to the balance. As is, it feels like the right amount of challenge!
You definitely have your workflow streamlined as a team to be able to put out this kind of polish in a jam! Well done!
All of the visuals were very smooth and satisfying. The audio was engaging, although I felt something was missing. I felt a little disassociated, and I think that was because the player character had no audio. It felt like everything was happening around me, but not to me. Does that make sense?
Otherwise, this was a really satisfying gameplay! I would experiment with faster player move speed (or powerups), which might increase the pace of the game even more.
Thank you @shaved-viking! I appreciate the note about the sound. I realized late that the levels were lower for most systems. Hopefully you were able to boost your system levels to hear it alright!
@poutine-studio thank you for the comments! The team will be happy to read them, especially about the art!
I agree the sounds might become a bit much when you have a big army. Perhaps I could implement a filter to limit maximum requests at once.
@themixedmaster @shaved-viking
We actually just pushed a minor fix for the audio levels, since many people were saying they could not hear it at all. I'm sure some people didn't even realize there was audio to hear. Thank you for mentioning it!
@spliddo, @rendow Glad you enjoyed the game! You mentioned some good ideas for summon control, like a traditional RTS. That was some scope that we knew would be hard to fit in, and we kind of liked the idea of a zombie horde not always doing what you wanted. We found some strategy in getting close to your target and summoning them. But the system could definitely use more tuning and development to be even better!
I was similar to @NBumgardner and others: summoning a huge army and letting them rip through town felt fun in a different way than micromanaging.
Our lead dev @tempest-smh can talk more about the AI implementation. It comes down to available targets within a distance. We actually weren't sure why they were running back to retarget the barracks when they were at the castle. It's something to look into!
@spliddo, @franciscorp, @cody-holt, @avaclava, @ditam, @sodoj, @Tetracold
Thank you for playing and giving feedback! You all mentioned the level of difficulty, which was the subject of many discussions during the jam for our team. A bit too hard, and some people won't make it to the final challenge. A bit too easy, some people might feel bored.
We had a good system for balancing, and it even supports multiple levels of difficulty, but we found out it still actually takes a bit of time to tune everything! I think if we had been able to provide a button to turn on a "hard" mode, that would have been awesome!
We'd love to put one in for the post-jam update so that you can really test your stuff!
@spliddo, @Sicosiber, @shaved-viking, @Avaclava, @orbitaldot, @Tetracold
Thank you all for your feedback about the art style! The team is loving those comments. The vision from the get-go was for a retro RTS, and that drove the audio and visual style. There was a redesign on the scene textures once the 2D sprites were dropped in, to make sure it all felt cohesive enough. And for audio, I applied an amount of bit crunch where it was effective.
@NBumgardner noticed a lot of details on the start menu, which I always enjoy making to setup the mood of the game. The 3D assets in the back were actually the same as the level, but I'll need to take another look. It's possible that I wasn't applying the same pixel shader, or because the camera was much closer, everything was crisper and clashed more.
@papaver thank you for sticking with it and figuring it out! We could always improve our feedback and tutorial :)
@itsboats thanks dude! We experimented with letting the player pass through mobs, but there was some reason we didn't like that either. I agree that a timer would have been a good idea! Listing the resources as a score doesn't actually mean much after all, since I could just sit there and farm the town for a long time >:) and I don't know HOW the guy did it with 6. Our game must be broken XD
@neontropics thank you for the comment! I think you're right: summoning the masses is pretty much an assured win. We were okay with that, because it felt fun being powerful.
Most of the strategy I have found is accommodate for the lack of control of the mobs. For example, if I want them to attack a particular building, I'll spawn them near that building.
With our stretch goals to increase the capabilities of the town build system, we imagined the need for more strategy to emerge!
@zinkler I really like your suggestion! It doubles down on the "summon" theme, even. Hah!
One design decision we made was to make the player mobile and the summoning portals appear nearby. This forces the player to move (possibly into danger). Calling your mobs back toward you (another type of "summon") might reinforce that risk/reward!
I had a feeling I'd be seeing some "Sumo Ning" jokes! The art was so cute for this! I'm sorry I couldn't do more, Ning :_:
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I think I would have preferred a little more deceleration on the normal movement, as it was almost too snappy. But the rolling movement was really fun, and once I got the hang of the control, I was zipping around the lab!
One suggestion: allow the player to use either shift key, not just left.
Very cute artwork!
The premise was straightforward, and I liked that. It was smart that different items had different weights, which added a bit of challenge.
Sometimes the cat's decision making wasn't very clear (isn't that just like a cat? XD), which made it hard to complete the challenge. I got the cat to here, but it wouldn't move forward anymore (and it wasn't clear why). If there was a reason, then think of ways to teach the player what they did wrong ("player feedback"). If it's a bug, oh well! :D
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I love all the different creatures that you drew! They are so cute and add a lot of personality to the game. On the surface, the mechanic was pretty simple. But below this, it is almost like a recipe game. Next time, I would experiment with more UI like drag and drop to move and sacrifice. Those controls would probably be a bit more intuitive.
Very cool idea overall! I think the "summon" theme was a stretch here, but I don't mind that at all. The only thing that would help pass the time waiting and optimizing is some music and sounds!
This was very unexpected!! But you nailed the mood. It started off as very innocent, and quickly became "...what?" I appreciated that the loop was short. It felt like the perfect length for a jam entry, and it encouraged me to cycle through several times to experiment with different answers.
I liked how after the first exploration into the "dark" paths, the music changed. Subtle, but effective.
One thing I would recommend is serializing the player's progress so that they can start with my current achievements whenever I reload the app!
This was definitely unexpected! I appreciated the voice over in the tutorial. Very nice.
Some minor suggestions to enhance the feedback loop: some sound indication with the player gets hit (rather than just getting knocked back). Have the goblins make noise, so you know they are creeping up behind you!
Also, an idea for an additional mechanic: I couldn't tell, but it didn't seem like holding the summoning button longer had any effect. Maybe that makes a stronger canoe? That way there is a risk/reward for summoning longer in one spot.
By the way, did you make all the assets yourself?
This was some kind of fever dream!! I loved the unique experience. The art design was very unique and compelling. You definitely nailed the mood you were going for.
In the races, I would recommend some indication of which horse(s) I bet on, because I think the feeling of "cheering them on" would be fun.
I think the text design could overall be improved. The organization of information wasn't the clearest (you can use frames to separate blocks of related info), and the justification and kerning of characters made it hard to read.
Also, the betting interface could be iterated on. I don't think I found a way to remove bets once placed (for example, if I accidently clicked one too many times. Or four too many times. Don't judge me!!)
This feels so polished! All of the transitions, between the title and restart, make restarting from death almost enjoyable :P
The combination of pattern drawer overlaid with a bullet hell is pretty effective. I find it challenging, in a good way (that challenges many parts of my brain and hands at once). The only thing that felt unfair (and seemed to block me from getting beyond Lvl 2 or 3) was the grey guys that moved faster than I did. Once they started spawning, it was pretty much game over unless I had really optimized my start.
You could experiment with other difficulty curves that allow the player to build up more upgrades before turning on the "big guns".
Really fun game though!
Solid concept! I liked the variety of summons and their uses in a platformer. I liked that it was not a typical "use summons to bash other monsters". The art was very clear and communicative, too. I would love to see more levels and some sound and music! Good start!
That was a tight sequence! It felt well designed, in that there was enough searching to make it interesting without being frustrating. I liked that the mirror became something different every time I approached it.
The art was clear and simple!
The biggest critique is the lack of sound. Even some sound effects for clicking (the player input) would add a lot of good feedback.
Hm, I never did figure out how to get to the door at the top of the stairs ...
Also, sad that you didn't rate any games!
I see what you mean about the balance! Aside from that, my main suggestion would be to focus more on feedback: how do I understand what effect my decision had?
Obviously there are some mechanics going on behind the screen, but there isn't much to tell me if my decisions were right or wrong! It didn't seem like anything I did made a stable system, so I couldn't really learn from there. When the game starts and money is already ticking down, it's a little stressful.
If you slow down the system and allow the player time to learn, that itself can be a good tutorial. Maybe slowly introduce the other types of allocations (recruitment and AOW) once I understand how to make a stable system. And if you can somehow communicate what impact each piece of the puzzle is having on money, magic, and loyalty (explain the calculations), that could go a ways toward demystifying the mechanics you worked so hard on!
The art and the music were fun, though! I liked the instrument voices for the cultists :)
I really like this idea!! It has a lot of potential. There was a bit of emergent strategy at times, either because there was really only one path the 'hero' could take or because there were too many. Sometimes there were a few options for the 'hero' and I had to plan ahead a bit.
I did like that the monsters had some behaviors, such as moving to new rooms. That made the dungeon start to feel dynamic. I would lean into that more! If you keep working on this, I would recommend to look for ways to increase the strategy even more. Maybe in addition to monsters, you could add "trap" cards that either slow the hero down or block his way, so that you can force a path.
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If the 'hero' jumping to another room once they blocked themselves in (due to the "no backtracking" rule) was not a deliberate choice to avoid soft-locking, then it was a fortunate oversight :D
When I was in school years ago, there was a popular Flash game called Fishy. You started as a small fish, eating fisher smaller than you and growing until you were the largest fish. I loved that game. One of the satisfying things was when you grew the largest, and just immediately ate everything you touched. It was satisfying, but it was also a very quick ending.
I love how you've extended this idea with evolution. Using generational evolution to increase the challenge is brilliant.
Here are some ideas you might consider: * It wasn't clear if the character got any stronger by consuming other creatures (like, more stamina). That would be another dimension to experiment with. * What if the other fish could also eat me (taking an idea from another favorite: Spore)
I really like what you are starting with! I personally don't think the theme needs to have so strong a presence in the final result, as long as it has good inspiration.
I actually liked the pace of the game. I had time to think about what I was doing, and I didn't feel rushed.
The radio comms babble was hilarious lol.
I eventually figured out what the UI was trying to communicate after some experimentation. The relationship between "production" and "cost" and all that. It took me until about the very end of the second playthrough to realize that the red progress bars were actually timers counting down to my deadline to achieve the request ... but by that time, there was no hope for me to produce 999 souls in the compound :P
What an unexpected and touching story. That was beautiful :)
The pixel-drawn art style was very well done. Everything felt consistent and integrated.
The gameplay was also very smooth. I found myself wanting some sort of dash or dodge, but it really wasn't required for this version. It reminded me of Hollow Knight in some ways. Every enemy provided a unique challenge that forced me to build my skills. I think you were also kind with restarting the current level after death :)
The scene transitions were smooth, as were all the camera movements. Someone really put effort into the pacing and narrative!
The final battle was epic. To be honest, it felt a little oddly scaled. There were so many enemies that I first tried to fight my way through them, but then I realized I could mostly tank their attacks and just focus on the big guy without really dying. Maybe that was your intent. Maybe there was some symbolism in that.
In any case, thank you for sharing this!
Despite the troubles you confessed to in your dev log, the polish and the gameplay are great! The pieces really were interesting and unique, so the strategy was satisfying. I'm surprised you also got in some nice progression with upgrades as well.
While I'm not sure the rock mood is what I would have chosen myself, I was def jamming. So I can't fault you there! The controls felt polished, as well as explainable, and I appreciated the funny bios for the pieces. Telegraphing the enemy moves was nice of you, too!
Well done!
What have I done? D:
You scoped this so well! It felt complete, even if it was short and simple--perfect for a game jam. It was especially effective because of the slow realization of what I was doing to the environment and the inhabitants D: very nicely done! The tree felling felt slow for a moment, but I got distracted by all the cries for help on the console. It felt like you were aware of the pacing of the story beats :)
There were so many small details to appreciate, too, like the exterior camera inside the ship showing Jacques.
I love the banner art style! This was so silly and zany.
My feedback for some things that were a little unclear: * Somehow telegraph when the squirrels attack, because it was hard for me to judge how closely I would be hit. * The intro said that I needed to scale the tree and find the nuts, but even after exploration I could not find my target. If the nuts were somewhere, maybe revealing it to the player somehow would clarify the objective. The challenge would be simply getting there, not also finding it.
@eerongal ooh see, to me they looked like sonic rings. I did not make the association that they were the nuts 😅
I appreciated that you provided the boss fight on the main menu, so I got to also experience that!
These are unique mechanics! I like that a lot. It was definitely a fresh take on a platform/puzzler. Also, the intro was full of mood \*chef's kiss\*
One improvement I might suggest is to implement a simple reflection logic for when the followers bounce against a wall. They seemed to immediately bounce back at me, even though I would expect them to bounce onward (like a billiards ball).
By the way, it was possible to get the followers stuck by jumping and then throwing them close to the ceiling haha. asdfadsf.png
This was a treat! It is evidence that graphics don't need to be expensive to be effective. Simple and clean is just as good, and everything you included communicated something. I liked that the palette was B&W except for the pink hearts.
The game design was really effective, too. I liked that I had two things to click at: resolving disputes, and upgrading the city. It was cool to see it all grow. Well done :D
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I really LOVE this! There is so much to play around with, and I will flag it to come back to once my beefier PC is set up. But the graphics alone really sell the feelin that these are tiny creastures.
There are so many great systems you've implemented -- automation, breeding. This is really an impressive submission. 5/5!
(Maybe) bug report? I dropped one of the first berries in another bowl, and then tried to pick it up -- the game crashed. But maybe there was something else happening during the night that caused the issue. The game is not very performant on my laptop XD
@tenshi42 you should be really proud of this! It was genuinely fun, I couldn't help but smile. I think the idea of using bugs to overcome obstacles is really neat. You already had different types of bugs with clear uses, and I can see there being many more.
Like others have said, there was an issue with starting the bridge too close and triggering their fall. Maybe wait until the player stops holding the button, or add more of a delay before they fall.
Obviously, there were some issues with state persistence also (restarting the level, but no more bugs, but the total counts still going up). Think about what data should be global (persistent) and what should be local (transient). Add some methods that handle resetting necessary data when a level loads. With a bit more formal practice, your implementations will be less buggy :) Keep going!
@tenshi42 I know the feeling 😹 I had a rushed hack fix in the last 5 minutes for almost the same thing.
This felt pretty polished! Also, I like that you got mobile support in there :D
The written tutorial was helpful in explaining how the resting and aggro mechanics worked. It still took a little bit of feeling out, so I wonder how else you could communicate those zones in the game.
I also found myself wanting some other form of progression, whether it was a different kind of enemy or a different kind of ability. A second dimension like that helps keep the game interesting!
Nice job!
You _nailed_ it. Three-dimensional TABS with stinging insects. Love it! And it ran surprisingly well on my laptop. Respect for using Godot!
I liked the progression of levels to teach which units were effective against other types. That made the following levels feel so much more tactical.
Bumble Gang is OP!
Thank you for sharing such a lovely experience. It is always nice to have a change of pacing, slow down, and just enjoy something meditative.
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And @aleux it was supposed to be RELAXing and COSY XD
I really loved the character and ingenuity of this three-way control puzzle! The voice acting was very endearing and comical, and the pixel animations were really well done. Very expressive!
I must admit that, even after reading that Stor could throw, I didn't remember in game. Both Kort and Lagom and visual indicators of their ability (crouching and punching), but Stor didn't appear to do anything when I pressed F. So I was very confused until I went back and read the game page again. I think Stor should attempt to grab any time the player presses "F", even if there is nothing there :)
Otherwise, this was a very fun puzzle! Well done!
I should also report that I managed to squash Kort into the ground by Lagom punching the block onto him. This locked him in the floor XD
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This was hella fun! The intro definitely had me laughing. I did not expect that.
The gameplay was frantic and fun. All the different patients added good variation to the game.
The left-/right-click was a little hard to keep track of at first, since it was pretty arbitrary. I think I would have rather had another way to select that was a more obvious, but it eventually stuck with me anyway.
Another improvement might be to put more of the stats on the player character (like syringes), so that my eye had to travel less to keep track of inventory versus dangers. The amount of resources dropping was pretty forgiving, though, so I really never ran out of stuff :D I think you found the right level of challenge for a jam, especially implementing a leader board!
@bashem totally! It's so easy to get caught up in all the small details of our own submission, or what we hoped to achieve. But it's nice to just detach from our own work and appreciate the work that other people created this time :)
You have an effective game design! Losing light while exploring, and wanting to search for oil but not run into critters, were all different axes of competing challenges. It was very satisfying to play!
I really liked the retro style of the title menu. I would love to see a version of the game art that follows the same retro pixel style!
There is SO much to love about this game. Even though you call it a tech demo, I feel like it contains the perfect scope and scale for a jam entry.
First off, the artwork is so charming and well implemented. The patchwork stitching of the characters, and the little toy theater, make this feel like some child's cruel stage for a game. And the music is very whimsical and adds a nice touch.
The stats of the attacks were a lot to take in, but it just required some study and experimentation. I loved the mechanic of immediate reward for attacking a limb: it gets disabled one turn. Likewise, losing the associated attacks (or permanently when a limb was detached) made for great strategy.
The only thing I didn't understand well was missing attacks. It seemed like the chance was pretty high (maybe 20% of my attacks hit?), but it wasn't clear how much I effect my decisions had. I noticed some attacks had accuracy modifiers, but what is my baseline? It seemed a little low, to be honest. If you made hits more likely to hit, the fight might be over more quickly, but I would find that more satisfying.
Anyway, I am blown away. Instant favorite, and I would love to see more!
This was solid puzzle design! I'm always too nervous to try making a puzzle game for a jam, because I'm not confident I will be able to come up with enough challenging levels. Great job! I liked that it was more than just a block-pushing puzzle. The increase in size (and strength) required me to make more calculations. Very good job!! Look at this cute lil chunky mouse XD
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This is FANTASTIC. Not only did the music and the art create the perfect mood, the game play was also well designed. I felt like all the tasks I had to manage were well balanced and just challenging enough.
Seriously, that song is so catchy. And I think my favorite ~~gnome~~ was the paragliding, bare-bootied one XD
Very nice graphics and animations! The strategy was pretty deep, as others have pointed out. It does seem to require a lot of experimentation, which I think is fine.
I wish some things were better explained with in-game feedback. Not all of the defenses seemed to fire each round, even when they were powered. The reason for that wasn't clear, and I felt like that hindered my experimentation.
Otherwise, all of the different types of tiles were neat and fun to play with to try build a solid defense. It was definitely a unique take on the tower defense style, which I like!
@matt-swieboda that is a great suggestion, thank you! I like the idea that they become an obstacle that the player can't control, rather than one that they can choose to put somewhere out of the way.
Thank you for playing!
There's so much incredible feedback! Thank you for playing and writing something :)
@bananplyte @eerongal This one is super effective! I'm usually the "game loop" guy, and since I was Solo this event, I just did not get to it. I agree that it would help feel the game, even though it is small, feel complete.
@dnich013 That's cool, I'll definitely check it out! I was really interested in making a casual clicker this time, after a few entries in a row that were more action based.
@ccollider @deantwotwo I really appreciate your observations. "Feedback" is on my list of goals every time, but it always must come too late. I made sure to add some sounds and visual indicators of cause and effect, but I think what was missing was the "so what?" Sure, you know that something happened...but what did you do to make it happen? Lol
Also, the camera can be moved with arrow keys, but I agree that it is NOT expected. I think it would be better to have the mouse move the camera at the edge of the screen.
@bloodfin thank you! I tell myself every time that I will make the objective clearer, but I need to start with an objective that isn't tied to too much content generation that I can't make it to XD
Also, glad to see you back after Deep Harvest. I'm excited to check out your entry!
@larrymartinjr you are right! You may use the arrow keys to move the camera, but I agree that was not expected or communicated in-game.
Thank you for playing :)
@multiplexor @tenshi42 Thank you for playing! I agree that the "objective" wasn't really there. Laying tiles and increasing resources isn't really enough of a reason to play. I really needed to give some sort of measure of how "well" you did.
I have ideas on more things to add, now that I have a start. Thank you for the feedback!
@astoeth thank you for the kind words! The bug you noticed is simply because I built the "deck" without accounting for the tiles laid at the start. I'm actually working on an improvement for that now :)
@h1soka thank you for playing! I know the UI can cover some of the tiles (which is why you can move the camera with arrow keys). Can you describe the issue you had with fullscreens mode?
@lunaria-rava you are very right! I will say that the gameplay came together during the last day, as I had to abandon the original vision and use what I had. That did not leave much time to actually play through and experience for myself what you described. I can see from the comments that the objective is really missing!
Thank you for playing:)
@willoxs lol spot on. Thanks for the look! You are absolutely right of course about the challenge (or lack). I had hoped there would be more constraint with having to create large areas versus laying networks of roads, but that part never came. Instead, when I pivoted, I should have looked for a new way to add challenges. Till next time!
@james-wilson @bashem thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the mood, for what it was :D
@haayaargh thank you for so much attention to detail!
Yes, the card count is something I recently fixed post-jam (it did not account for the starting tiles).
I also have plans to make the UI collapsible so that you can fully admire your creations :)
I also liked the aspect that one could just relax and create. As you rightly observed, there should have been something to achieve by collecting resources (the collection alone was not enough of a motivation to play). This was a really valuable insight for me!
@sockenpuppe thank you so much for giving it a try and sharing such nice feedback! I'm happily working on more updates to see where the idea can go next.
And if you think you enjoy the style, I definitely recommend you check out *Dorf Romantik*, which inspired my thinking. It's an example of one direction my simple mechanic _could_ take!
This game had so much polish! I'm amazed that you had so much UI and effects on everything. I'd love to hear about your workflow!
The gameplay was a lot of fun, and it was a good challenge (the second level really was tough training). I would have appreciated a reminder of the last trajectory I used, but I suppose that would have made it a lot easier :D Also, the tiny people looked more like candy that I wanted to eat haha.
Fantastic job!! This deserves highest marks.
(You should know that the particle effects, like the confetti and the explosions, briefly froze my game on WebGL the first time they played. Maybe there is something you can preload or cache to reduce that effect?)
48 hours and solo dev? This is impressive!
I think the design was really solid. The loop was short enough to not get tiring, and building my team was satisfying, especially because of the variety of units you were able to add. I truly enjoyed playing this to the end, and I felt encouraged to think of strategy for which units I wanted to commit to.
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I understood what you were trying to achieve with the auto-moving and auto-shooting (basically, preventing the player from sitting and camping the campfire). That part was probably the least fun out of everything. Maybe there is an alternative solution that solves the same problem, such as encouraging the player to leave the fire for some reason (other than strictly removing their control).
The shop system was really slick and overall intuitive. The things that were not immediately clear to me were 1) what "upgrading" a team meant, and also 2) how I was able to "level up" the units. Eventually I understood what each meant through experimentation. I might suggest more meaningful names, like "New slot" (instead of upgrade) and "Bonus" (instead of level). Those still might not be better, but you get the idea hopefully.
This was really satisfying to play through! The final night was definitely tough :D
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It all felt complete! I think you planned the scope well, which gave you time to focus on player experience. The title screen was very well done and an awesome introduction to the mood. The lighting and the sounds helped maintain the mood throughout the game.
My only feedback is small. The start of the game could use just a touch more of help, like some text that explains what left and right click do. Without any other guidance, my first instinct is to left-click, which already uses a bullet. If you have time for others to playtest, it is really valuable to see how someone new interacts with your game (their assumptions and experiments). But this is really small feedback, because it was easy enough to reload the game once I learned the controls :)
@goddoesplaydice oh, I have the same problem. But fortunately I think a tutorial is not really critical, especially when there is a game page :D
I remember seeing your sketches in progress! Very cool! The two-tone palette and the style were very effective. I could feel her sadness in the environment and the anguish in her expression. The audio was also very good at making me feel unsettled.
The story paths were also nicely done! The added bit of having to click away the depressors was a nice touch to symbolize the added effort to do "what we know we need to".
I must admit that I wasn't able to find the third ending!
This was a lot of fun! There was clearly a lot of technical achievement with the combat mechanics. It's the sort of thing that doesn't really take centerstage, because the player is mostly focused on managing troops, but I wanted to point out that I noticed and appreciated it!
I also really liked the "prestige" mechanic for goblins that survived, and it gave me yet another thing to focus on during the battle (how to preserve and best leverage them). My first playthrough, I made it to Round 5 before getting wiped out :(
Combining the micro-managing of an RTS with a battle simulator is unique! It is definitely more fast paced than a traditional RTS. I had trouble keeping track of my units, because of how much they bobbled around and how quickly combat moved. For me, that evoked more reactionary gameplay than preparation. On the second playthrough, the challenge really came down to keeping track of units. I think you could try a few things to make them more visible, like larger health bars or somehow cleaning up the battlefield so that the living ones stand out more.
You have a solid start here! I really liked the organization of the main screen, with navigation to different scenes like shop and battle. It was cute that I could name my slime :D
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The main improvements I would recommend are: 1) Some more feedback in the battle: what is attack versus skill? How effective am I? Having to compare the two numbers and the changes is not as effective as something as simple as damage numbers rising up from the slime. 2) Fewer shop items: the food all seemed to do similar things. Why three different colors and three different sizes? I would simplify that, especially for a game jam. I don't think having more options was really necessary for my experience :)
Just some friendly suggestions! I enjoyed what you built. Thank you!
The 3D photo scans were a great innovation! It made a perfect backdrop to explore this short tale.
All the characters and voices were cute. And I liked that you used different ambient sounds when moving from area to area.
My only feedback is that I didn't expect Escape to end the whole game :( But the good news is that I got to speed run the beginning ;)
The artwork for this is inspired. I mean, that octopus with 8 guns? Brilliant!
Working from scratch, this is impressive! I feel like it's a great start, and with a little bit of polish, this would be even smoother! I definitely don't feel like it is missing any core content, but here are some examples of small improvements: * A health bar would be a lot easier to keep track of than a number. At least, make the text larger so my eyes don't have to move so far :D * Being able to shoot radially rather than just in eight directions would make the gameplay a lot more flexible. * Balancing is always tough. One example is that the rabbits seemed to fire much too quickly. It just became a bit of a chore to sneak in a shot.
I eventually realized that bullets blocked bullets. You could implement a filter to ignore like-objects, but also I appreciated having a way to block the bunny shots XD
I liked the art style! The animations on the weights were fun :D The controls were smooth, and the UI was clear. The music was a good choice, because it fit the cartoon vibes.
I think the attack phase could have had more feedback. To show that the equipment is blocking the enemies, maybe the enemies could bounce back and fly away. And it would be nice to have feedback that the equipment is being damaged and will disappear. Also, knowing how many hits the sleeping guy can take before losing.
These were all surprises the first time playing, and in my opinion some small feedback could help the experience :)
Honestly, I could have kept playing for a long time. With some music, something calming or even upbeat, I would have no problem staring at my growing colonies for an hour!
I really liked how this all progressed. At first, the challenge seemed simple enough, but it scaled nicely. I pulled myself out of a jam around card 42, and I saw that I really had to start planning my placements. The graphics were simple to understand and well color-coded. Really, I have no complaints. Well done!
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- from a fellow hex-tiler :D
This looks magnificently silly. Unfortunately, it is not optimized for my laptop (which I used to create my entry). I was getting about 1 FPS XD It is Unreal, after all :blush:
Hopefully I have my desktop PC up and running again in a week, and I can try it properly :D
For a first entry, I'd call this a success! Dying by a single hit was a strong choice, but I think it worked well: every missed shot was therefore punishing, but not unrecoverable. It really increased the intensity. I think you also used simple effects well for maximal impact: the blood spurts and the gun shots. All very satisfying. I would even suggest a bit of screen shake on the shot or impact (just one -- see which feels better).
I am okay with post processing effects, like the VHS effect, but less is more (in my opinion).
Like others said, I don't feel like you used the theme much, but that is just one category. Everyone is going to see that matter differently.
Really, this was fun to play! You won't get many points for innovation, but that shouldn't be your focus for your first games. Make what you know, and do it well! You can add even more polish like a custom cursor for aiming. Find some free music on sites like opengameart.org, and it will add even more juice. And most importantly, keep developing!