Keep It Alive by danman9914 2020-10-15T22:04:36Z
very cool :> great idea and execution on the theme, really polished gameplay and graphics :) so impressive that you made this for a compo!!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Indivicivet
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | floating rock in space | compo | 302 | 3.10 | 2.92 | 2.92 | 3.87 | 3.40 | 2.97 | 1.96 | 3.05 | |||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | for egg in basket | compo | 206 | 3.59 | 3.79 | 3.66 | 3.60 | 3.55 | 3.25 | 3.25 | 2.97 | |||
| 2011 | 22 | Alone | Crazy Old Cat Lady | compo | 675 | 1.63 | 1.86 | 2.14 | 1.57 | 2.14 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 1.29 | 1.17 | 10 |
very cool :> great idea and execution on the theme, really polished gameplay and graphics :) so impressive that you made this for a compo!!
amazing
looks very cute but I can't run it on my PC. I get a gfx_backend_vulkan "could not enumerate physical devices" error, which I struggled to screenshot but kinda managed to here https://i.imgur.com/OMVcnWi.png
source link not working?
mistaken post, will come back to :)
good: interesting concept, nice graphics.
bad: controls are not immediately obvious and the movement is quite slow. not clear what the link with the theme is -- is this one of the parts you had to strip back? after a few levels (the one in the screenshot, actually) the next button broke, which I guess is a bug?
good: great concept! @cad 's "frogger inside FL studio" summary is a good one, and it fits the theme really nicely. pretty fun :) and yeah, hard ^^
bad: the movement keys don't feel very responsive/seem a bit clunky. not sure if this is because you're using the actual keypress events or something like that? also took me a few deaths to realize you can't go into the grayed out top bar :P I also didn't think to press the start button a couple of times, and wasn't sure why I wasn't moving...
@rodobodolfo ah, if you had to use a button to start the audio engine I guess that's just an annoying technical constraint ^^ I guess you could've made it big and obvious and in the middle
I think the weird feeling with the movement is it seems like when you hold a key, after the initial movement, it takes a second to kick in and start moving at full speed? (like when you hold a key and it goes wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww) not sure if that's a real effect or just the way my brain is interpreting the fact it's snapped to beats and not as responsive as I expect, though
very simple and well executed take on the theme, good scope for the compo :) I like the music and particles/lighting/etc. the platforming physics did feel a little bit odd ^^
the whole graphics and concept seem very cute! although I can't seem to actually play, because I don't see anything other than the background, messages and some explosions (which are probably my invisible player getting hit by invisible things) ^^ playing on the web HTML5 version
this looks super cool but I don't have openGL 4.5 :( is this a graphics card thing or just a driver thing?
very laggy on my pc :( any chance of a low spec build?
@mattwoelk cool, that's much better! this was very cute and fun :)
now that I've had a chance to play it properly, I suppose my main criticism is that the theme doesn't really come across very well :( still, it was a pleasant experience ^^ toot toot
it looks interesting, but I can't figure out what I'm meant to do to make any progress :( I'm stuck after you first go right and open the chest, I don't know how to use the green arrow you get
cute idea, although I don't have a lot of patience, so maybe not it's for me. it would help a lot if the movement was much faster; I spent a lot of time just waiting for stuff to rotate. I like the simple, clean graphics and gameplay clarity.
it's a little bit weird that the star and the triangle have slightly blocky points in the sidebar when they're pointy in the game.
also, should there be audio?
[race the loops.png](///raw/5f1/53/z/38a3b.png)
good: legit super fun. the camera movement and loop graphics are very smooth, and the sound effects are nice, so it feels really satisfying to play. I can see myself coming back to this!
bad: personally not a fan of the heart graphics. the start game/end game text boxes are also a bit ugly, and I think the score/speed display should be bigger. otherwise, awesome!
I think this is a game worth porting to mobile, if that's a thing you're interested in. would be fun to play when waiting for something, or you're on the train, etc.
cute concept, pretty and fun to toy with. reminds me a lot of floating point by tom francis
very cool! nice concept, cute graphics and music, and of course it was fun. :) I rly appreciate the gameplay clarity with red for dangerous things, the big direction arrows, etc.
personally I think it'd be better if the loop keeps going; it'd be a bit tighter with the theme, and I did want to go back and start again to make harder versions of the levels!
played quite a few rounds of this, very fun! my best score ("legit") was 5100 or so. I think everyone else has probably said all the obvious good things (fun gameplay, simple concept, obvious how the mechanics work, lovely aesthetics, nice graphics, music+sound fits well).
being able to cheese the wire cutting and get 10k scores is obviously a bit silly; it's a 1/6 guess. if you added a 4th wire (even if you only have to cut 3) it makes it 1/24, which is a reasonable amount less cheesable, and I don't think would hurt the gameplay.
more random rooms/etc would be cool but I guess hard to get something robust within a jam. I didn't start getting duplicates for my first few runs though, so not an issue as a pick up and play once thing, just makes it something that won't be as fun to come back to ^^
I think the timescale being a bit longer and there being more things to do could make it more interesting. I think having played a fair few times, I've settled into the strategy of "sit my dude on each of the things and wait for the timer to go to 0", which is less fun than frantically running around trying to do multiple things in one life (which I think in a lot of maps doesn't actually save you any lives even if you do it perfectly, and loses you a bunch if you mess it up).
good: nice idea to make it story-driven, and matches the theme. cute art. the slightly janky movement + sliding sword slash actually felt quite fun at the start.
bad: no actual gameplay/way to lose/choices etc, as far as I can tell? would be nice if e.g. different endings based on if you stop killing people, etc. I'm guessing you did all the story bits first and didn't have time though?
good: the graphics are beautiful! the audio is nice, and everything (music, sfx, animations, etc) comes together to create something where every action and event is really satisfying. it felt very well polished.
bad: I don't think I actually had any fun? not sure if it's supposed to feel more fast-paced or strategic, but I didn't feel either. the gameplay felt slow (but difficult!) and a bit monotonous. I like the "options" idea although it didn't feel very linked to the theme.
also, the game came up as a small square in the middle of a fullscreen window. not sure if there's an option I missed, but if it's not using all of the screen, I'd prefer to play it windowed.
weird game but very interesting, I like it :)
maybe I wish there was a way to go through the text quicker, but I guess if I could skip through too fast it would ruin the atmosphere a bit...
very cool! fits the theme nicely, and I like the cool futuristic graphics and music ^_^ unfortunately it's very laggy on my machine :(
fun game :) I like the theme interpretation and gameplay. imo a bit more focus on clarity would be a big deal, like bullets not hiding behind portals, and having a timer for when the portal closes. it's also pretty frustrating spawning straight into a bullet, that seemed to happen to me a lot! ^^ still, it's a cute game with nice graphics etc :>
fun game, I like the figure-8 rail shooter concept. I'd prefer if the animals contrasted the background a bit more, it felt like readability was the main struggle ^^ also the difficulty ramps up quite slowly, I think
very cute!! the art and sounds were great from the start, but lying-down LoopChan really sold it to me. this might be the first time I've really appreciated a LD game character -- make it a full blown game so you can make merch for her! ^_~
I had a lot of fun with it, the gameplay idea is super neat and fits really well with the theme. one small criticism is that the conveyor belt could feel more very conveyor-y (graphics and maybe sfx wise), because that's kind of important for the theme :P
it also took me until around level 8 or 9 until I realized that you can move the conveyor any time during the beat (not just at the start of the beat), which makes all of the segments where you only have one obstacle at a time (which is a lot of them) kinda trivial.
I found the later levels started getting kind of boring; it seems like the difficulty came just from the introduction of more movements and the fact you have to memorize longer, more complicated loops. I think by that point it loses it's musicality, and becomes more tedious than fun. it's no longer "oh hey, this is a funky time signature and the rhythm goes SHSHSSH!", it's just "okay, I know I need AB. there's an AB after a C, and there are two Cs in between the AB, so I have to count two Cs after I see an AB, then go".
I think I would've preferred a slower introduction of more different moves, and more of a consistent rhythm based on the fundamental moves. the difficulty could be ramped up in other ways, like a faster tempo, longer sequences of moves you have to match, etc. maybe even some form of time pressure, although I guess that's not the style you guys like, and it'd add more mechanical baggage to the game.
either way, this is a great entry! ^__^ solid overall, and particular props for the very cute character and having a super tight interpretation of "stuck in a loop" that actually makes for fun gameplay
good: nice framing/context educational, cute composer, satisfying when you get it right.
bad: the clashing notes when you get something wrong is a bit ow. I think it could fit the theme better (e.g. if it just looped and you had to play along with it until you got it right, or something)
hard for people without good pitch! it would be nice if you at least got the first note for free. would also be nice if the note position on the staff was different for different notes :)
totally froze up my computer on the loading screen :( maybe related to the losing-focus bug
nice sounds at the start though :)
good: cute sprites, very interesting concept, it seems very amusing :)
bad: it skipped the tutorial (even when I lost and clicked the tutorial button) so I barely knew what I was doing... >< also, the background is very plain, and all of the gameplay elements felt super small compared to the environment. I think these two things compounded somewhat. also, I suppose it's "loop-y", but I'm not sure about the "stuck" part... ^^
@stormcat ok, now that I've seen the tutorial I can actually play it properly, and it's fun and amusing :>
now that I know what you're supposed to do, I think some more ingame stuff would make a tutorial way less necessary. e.g. you already have a popup bar over the chopping board, you could pop up "hold C to chop" above it, etc for delivery station etc. I think also labelling all of the stations would've also be good :)
seems like it's very much designed for arrow keys + ZXC controls? for the WASD controls I think I'd prefer some keys for right hand, since I'm not using it for anything otherwise ^^
the atmospherics are amazing :)
good: nice cute art style. pretty music in the background. the minimal sound effects are also nice. you get to do nsfw turtle activities.
bad: the text has inconsistent fonts/sizes (e.g. "2 loops to break the cycle") which I found a bit jarring. not much in the way of gameplay/choices/etc, unless there's a way to get further that I didn't find :)
super fun! loved the gameplay concept, implementation, graphics, animation, sounds, etc ^^ all v good. I think for the the gameplay is broadly intuitive which is great, although some of the finer points are less clear.
only some small aggreviances:
- the way runes are drawn from your deck isn't explicitly statedis it just at random from your deck, until you get through it all, then it's shuffled again? would be good to know this when you're deciding what to buy. would also be good to have a way to remove things, I guess (unless there's an actual gameplay reason you're against this? I suppose it'd get monotonous quicker, and there'd be less need for discard and draw)
- kind of annoying there's no preview for the cost of items before dragging them to the buy thing/buying in general is a bit unintuitive? I think a basic shop interface where you can see the gold cost of everything and just click to buy it would've been easier to use. I also thought the gold coins said "80" at first...
- would be nice if you saw your final score on the death screen
- it did feel like it was beginning to get repetitive once I had mostly 5dmg, 5block cards. ofc there's still lots of room to tweak your deck to be properly balanced (e.g. more draw or more heal or more block etc) so there's still skill expression, but it's less fun if you're just optimizing for that. slowly introducing 7, 9, etc dmg cards as a rare thing would be exciting, or some other form of new mechanics.
- would be good if it was really obvious in the beat animations whether an attack was partially/completely blocked, or mis-blocked; e.g. if the shield got bigger and the attack got smaller when it was completely blocked, or something similar
still very enjoyable, and well polished for a jam game!
good: very nice graphics. unique and simple gameplay mechanics which are still interesting. I think this does a really good job capturing the theme ^^ feels very polished for a compo game
bad: requires a lot of patience, I think some bits could maybe be sped up a bit. maybe it's better if you have more patience than I do though :) some bits are also a little unintuitive. bg music is nice at first but gets repetitively quite quickly
I am stuck in the loading screen... is that where I'm meant to be stuck? :)
also, is the source accessible? I can't see it on the itch.io page
simple game but nicely done and fits the theme well. was fun for a bit but it's kinda frustrating and I think I'm too bad to beat it so I gave up :)
very fun! maybe my fav game I've played so far from this compo. I like the mix of speed and strategy, and constant introduction of new mechanics. I couldn't beat the meta-slime though, that level is hard :(
obviously loads of the graphics are a bit jank, but I suppose you know that :)
good: nice idea that fits the theme well. clean minimal graphics and implementation (easy to figure out what to do -- the final circle going green when you clear the numbers is a good touch). cute "bloop" sfx. nicely paced introduction of mechanics.
bad: the physics (esp the way you accelerate when you're in a loop) seemed a bit unintuitive. often felt like I could go for a jump slightly sooner than I could. also some parts felt slightly too much just like trial and error/required more patience than I want to have ^^ possibly related to the point about acceleration
good: interesting idea, and new to me/I've never played an excel game before. definitely captures the theme -- I had no idea what I was doing and felt very stuck in a loop. accurately captures the project management experience!
bad: I had a negative amount of fun "playing" this "game". instructions could maybe be slightly clearer
13 attempts :)
good: fits the theme well. simple gameplay but satisfying. well balanced difficulty level -- took me a couple of tries to end the loop even once I had all the upgrades. it's cool that you added an endless mode too
bad: not very original, although I think that's not too bad since it meshes nicely with the theme. there were a lot of places where the gameplay could be a bit more intuitive/it wasn't clear what was going on: - it took me a while to realize you can move left and right too. I think it'd help if you didn't start on the far left edge - not easy to see how much health you/the bosses have; I think health bars would be much better - it's not obvious that some ships take multiple hits to kill, I thought I wasn't hitting properly at first - not that obvious how much damage a bullet will deal (the colour changes, right?) -- e.g. could make them bigger, etc
I think some small additions, like a simple background image and more sound fx (e.g. when you get a pickup), would have also been a quick way to make it a bit nicer :)
thanks for the comments :)
@fateaglegames have you beaten it?! even with a lot of arrow mashing, spam clicking, and being quite lucky with the tasks, the best I've done is a couple of eggs into the last basket (basket 12) ^^
thanks for all the comments :)
@neonalig I don't think it was much of a conscious design decision, but I quite like the fact you can't easily look at both at once, because it gives more incentive to try to memorize the sequence :) I like the game being hard, although I think it should've been a little easier. I think it's also based on a lot on how unlucky you get with certain tasks. some are very hard to memorize, very hard to play when you've memorized them, and also very hard to get just by random mashing. I think some of the directional sequences that don't have a clear pattern are particularly bad for this (although I really like ones like <<< and ^>v< / ^
@fateaglegames (and @tpsy) I think instinctively slipping into button mash mode is part of the fun :) if I had more time maybe a "sudden death" mode where you lose a life for a wrong input would appeal to some players, although I never really considered it because I think I prefer the lack of punishment.
some tasks are really good at punishing button mashing, like the <<< or specific egg clicking ones, so if I could go back and make small gameplay tweaks I'd probably remove all of the weird direction sequences (like <^< I think really 12 tasks is too many per run and I should've thought about that sooner, but oh well. if anyone ever beats this please make a bragging post! (and screenshot your tasks in the score screen if you can, I think the best chance is just getting really lucky with them :P)
for egg in basket 65.png
score to beat :)
I was helped a lot by lucky tasks + the bug ^^
@nailuj29-gaming yeah, I have heard this complaint from others too. fun fact: they are those unicode characters! but in the font I used, they're not very clear. I think by the time I added those tasks, I was already too attached to that font >< looking back, it's defo one of the things I should've fixed. I guess one easy fix would've been to just use words ("up down left right") instead
I could've also made specific graphics for them, but I didn't want to worry about complicating the task drawing code and worrying about alignment, etc... this might've actually been something that was worth doing though ^^
this is awesome! I really like anything that's music + action-y, and this is a really nice rhythm/shooter combo :D I also like how the game mechanics are generally really self-explanatory. the graphics are also very very nice -- great aesthetics but also just really crisp designs.
I was initially going to make the complaint that there's no enough incentive to create loops that are musically nice/interesting, but then I realized that the process of trying to find a powerful loop means you get to experience a lot of drum patterns that you'd never key in yourself. which is actually super super cool.
it's also quite hard! how many levels are there?
some criticisms:
- often felt a bit like the drum loop was disconnected from the music; generally I don't think my rhythms matched super well to the backing track.
- gameplay readability could be better. in a game like this where there's a lot of action and different things going on, keeping the visual noise low is important imo. of course the graphics do look very nice, and these two things make a difficult balancing act. I think I'd be happier just with a bit more contrast for the projectiles.
- in theory you don't have to use 4+1+4+4, but as far as I could tell there was no gameplay reason not to max out. there's already a decent bit of space to play around with those beat numbers, but I think I'd prefer some more flexibility. a couple of obvious ideas off the top of my head: you could have some direct flexibility, where you have a total of 16 points and can put them where you want (if ride "costs 4"), or something similar; maybe with beats after the 4th costing double (so you could sacrifice two snares for a kick, or whatever). another idea is having fewer beats gives you a faster tempo, etc. I don't know what would actually be the most interesting though ^^
- it's a direct use of "loop" but I didn't really feel "stuck" in the loop, you know? the loop was my friend :P I can't blame you for taking this concept and running with it though!
all in all though, I think this is a really cool design :) I've wanted to work on a rhythm + vertically scrolling shooter myself for a while now, and this is good inspiration+proof that it's a cool design space ^__^
I have java 8 and get this error:
Error: A JNI error has occurred, please check your installation and try again
happens with both the exe and the jar
I didn't play the whole way through, gave up after a few trees levels.
good: - nice graphics; the art style is simple but very polished and creates a great atmosphere - mechanics are well tuned and have good feel (the lights and engine sounds really help)
cons: - I think it's very hard to make this concept work and not be frustrating! it was one of my early ideas, tbh I imagine a fair number of other people's too, and a big reason I didn't go for it was that I didn't think I could make it fun. regardless I think this was a really good effort and better than anything I would've done - no music :shrug:
I was a bit confused how it worked -- I saw you could move boxes to inside other boxes, but the first time I moved a box it was to the "delete box" slot, which told me "empty boxes only", so I thought you can only nest empty boxes, which of course is useless... I hadn't realized it was specifically for that slot. maybe a text label would help.
I got to 80 then my brain hurt so I stopped :D
good: - cool concept, simple to understand (once you actually see what's going on) but incredibly difficult to play - fits the theme very well
bad: - hurt my brain (this was probably what you were going for tbh) - too many letters/numbers to remember. the ideal would be to have lots of visually distinctive things (letter + shape + icon combo kinda thing), but I guess that takes time to do in a jam. maybe if everything was two characters rather than 3 that'd help? (and that wouldn't take added time)
good: - interesting mechanics, seems like there's a fair bit of gameplay complexity for a short game - it's cool that you made the card design modular/file based! not sure if you'll do any followup here though :)
bad: - the icons for different parts of the turn aren't 100% intuitive, the first play or two is a bit confusing. I think having text (+ icon) would be much clearer; maybe also colour coding? - graphics are a bit minimal/plain; maybe just more of a background etc could help
I got stuck on "put your hands up", skill issue!
good: - very interesting and unique gameplay - great graphics and music; especially clear style for the art and it's all really polished, especially for a game jam
bad: - possible to get stuck on ladders you've hoisted up - physics/controls feel a bit janky/unintuitive (but I guess that's part of learning the game, and sort of fun, so maybe this isn't a real criticism)
>The images of planets, monsters, are not mine
does this not break the rules for the compo? (of course it's fine for the "Jam" category)
best score: 8420 (not great I think) :D
good: - nice concept and a fun double-meaning take on the theme! - the slow as you spin is a nice touch and helps make the difficulty feel fair
bad: - gameplay mechanics are a bit unclear without explanation; in particular how damage works, and direct hits for more space recharges - the time pause between finishing the game and being able to restart felt long enough that it broke my focus. since you're pressing space a lot I understand the delay so you don't restart by accident, but maybe you could allow r for restart?
good: - funny, unique concept - good replayability by having a bunch of paintings, and it'd be fun to play with friends
bad: - sound; lack of bgm but also feels a bit unsatisfying not having any painting sound as you swipe around - graphics aren't individually terrible, but the art style isn't particularly consistent (even ignoring the original paintings and pixel paintings, because matching both of those simultaneously would be hard!)
1201 on my first play because I was way too aggressive on a tiny box...
good: - simple, fun concept - good delivery on the theme - nice polish with menu, consistent art style, sfx
bad: - maybe a bit too simple? I don't have any suggestions for what to do with the core gameplay mechanic to add more interest though. :/ I guess it being a score attack makes it replayable, it probably gets harder after the point where I died like a n00b - no bgm
wow! I've been going through games and leaving a mix of +ve/-ve feedback and rating. but I need to come back to this one and play it more!
good: - nice level graphics - quite tricky but doable, nice difficulty balance
bad: - controls are a bit awkward (up+down for dropping through platforms is odd, and I naturally rebound to WASD because at the start it didn't tell me there would be something on the 1 key ;__;) - the unique mechanic felt a bit under-utilized and sometimes cheesable (e.g. by using the respawns and going before the turrets fire on one level)
thanks for the comments everyone ^__^ I'm really glad the theme seems to hit since I struggled a lot figuring out how I'd try to deliver on it! :)
ludumdare54_creator_score_to_beat.png
creator's score to beat, by the way (43)
@ellaris wow, awesome score! I revisited and got 50 but have no idea how you got to 78 :)) the "enemies mine the walls slowly" idea is a really cool one, I hadn't thought of that at all.
I was aware of wall clipping/spawner coverage during development, but thought the "let the spawner get covered and farm out strategy" wasn't that strong since you end up with a huge group of them at once. but maybe I was just bad during playtesting! I also struggled a bit to tweak the pathfinding and collisions since it's my first time doing something like this in godot ^^
the enemy pathfinding seems "incorrect" even with a nominally correct navmesh, so I think there's some extra care needed (probably moving it away from the boundaries, but I didn't have that much time to tweak it since I only actually figured out how the navigation server works quite late in the jam)
this isn't a game, it's an experience
maybe it _helps_ that the audio is desynced (but that might be a bug)
good: - cutscenes/acting - "limited space in your heart" is an interesting thematic delivery
bad: - the gameplay is not that exciting (although each puzzle isn't awful) - my name is not David
would like to try your game but ran into var _function:FuncRef could not find FuncRef in current scope in DelayEvent.gd I'm guessing this is just because I've tried cloning your repo and I'm using a different godot version? I'll check it out once you sort out your builds! xx
install instructions (easy for me to do this because I know python, but for anyone who doesn't): install python (e.g. 3.9) python -m pip install pygame python -m pip install particlepy python main.py
good: - fun enough that I played a few times trying to improve my score - the music added to the tension!
bad: - hitboxes are a bit janky - unclear why the hitbox is so far from the visible sprite? - no install/gameplay instructions (I think you can update this after the end of the compo, so I suggest you do so!); space is boost btw
my best score over 5 or so attempts: 2407
good: - very unique and interesting mechanics/control scheme! there are definitely things to practice here - lots of systems/gameplay (upgrades, slimes, scarecrows) implemented
bad: - sound/music isn't _bad_ but doesn't really seem to affect the atmosphere of the game at all; it's not relaxed, tense, energetic, or highly thematic? pushing the music in one direction would've been great, and some bird/sheep noises would've gone a long way - doesn't evoke the theme imo
I played until I'd filled all of my cards and hence can calculate my score:
deadlinez_screenshot1.png deadlinez_screenshot2.png
I'm gaining 68 per turn, so need another 41 turns after day 74 (60 work days left in final quest). so final score = day 115 :)
good: - really nice game concept; (reasonably) simple rules and mechanics but that requires some thought about risk taking and strategy. I haven't played Mystic Vale but this game makes me want to -- seems like you've distilled the "positional card upgrade" idea well. - pretty good completeness/polish; in particular it's really impressive that you've got quite nice pixel art (cursor shadow!!), animations for everything, music & sfx, and (partial) in-game explanations for things.
bad: - the game becomes horribly clunky once you're "safe" and chipping at the longer missions. getting through the 5000 in 100 was 99% just button pressing and waiting. I think a quick post-jam bandaid for this would just be massively ramping up the animation speed between days 10 and 20 or so (like, 10x faster please ^^). a "how many stars you gained this turn" indicator would be really good for mid to late game. an "auto-play cards" button might also be nice; to make it early-game friendly, it could be "auto-play cards until 3 busts". also, a bust counter would be great, esp if it included the greens in the max count; e.g. 2/5 if you have 2 busts but one ":)". - the strategy also has a pretty big discontinuity. it seems like early-game you're somewhat desperate for stars and very cautious about busts (both in terms of deckbuilding and in choosing whether to continue dealing cards or not), since that's how you lose earlygame, while also wanting to hit a few upgrades to be sustainable and gain enough stars in the later levels. but once you're past that: busts, smiles and upgrades all become irrelevant and you're purely looking for rows that add 3 stars. maybe you could take inspiration from e.g. Slay the Spire here, and on later levels occasionally add in new cards to your deck with several busts, that would encourage you to pick up more ":)", and reduce the solitaire aspect of "play all your cards" by making sequences that involve busting possible again.
at first, I didn't really see how it related to the theme, but that became clear later in the game where it's all about making sure every slot is a star. so, if you wanted to be thematic, you could keep that in mind for any lategame tweaks (but if you're doing post-jam stuff, who cares about the theme? ^^)
anyway, great work!
how do I play this? do I need a certain version of godot installed?
what's wrong with this solution to an early level? :S endisnear_screenshot.png
good: - very pretty hand drawn aesthetic - seems like there are interesting gameplay concepts with the convert/sleep/destroy rock-paper-scissors mechanics, I didn't get very far but I can imagine quite tricky puzzles from these simple ideas
bad: - the hand drawn nature, especially for the upper boundaries of the "home" zones, makes the gameplay quite hard to read (can't tell if you're out of the zone or your solution failed otherwise somehow) - no hotkey for check (or if there is, tell us please ^^)