Jaco van Hemert

The Strongest Army Is Already Dead by ullent 2025-10-11T20:36:00Z ♥ 5

Really cool concept here. I always enjoy games where you can use enemies against each other, and this has a cool ramp where you're using your weaker guys against stronger guys to get stronger guys for your army. I see you've mentioned that you didn't have a lot of time for balancing, so I don't need to talk about it being a bit too easy (in that I didn't feel like my decisions really affected how well I did).

Like someone else mentioned, the differences between different enemies didn't feel very significant, with some notable exceptions being the healer, the bear, and the lightning guy. Other than those three, they felt like they perform the same function; I'd have liked to see some more specific utility or team synergy so it feels like you're making meaningful decisions when you decide who to take and who to drop, rather than just having straight upgrades like hog>wolf. E.g. maybe wolves work better in packs and buff each other, so you could make a wolf-only build that can actually hold up.

But I think the biggest obstacle for me was information. Firstly, I didn't really understand what was going on (granted, I didn't look at the page description, which covers some important stuff). I could figure out how to collect new guys, but I didn't clock that when they die, they are summoned back only when you click them (or you have auto on). (To that point, I can't think of any reason not to always summon them back, so probably the default should at least be auto on?)

Then there's the blue bar that I still don't know what it means. I beat the last battle, and I had 600/2000, but I don't know what that means. Is it my health? Or is there some kind of cost to collecting, or to summoning (which would explain the option to turn off auto summon)?

But overall, I really like the concept and the implementation was fun enough that I played to the end. Nice job on this!

Fallen Leaves by Sceef 2025-10-10T22:15:39Z ♥ 2

Very cute! The graphics, sound, and story felt cohesive and was enjoyable. The gameplay loop is simple, but has a nice zen vibe to it. My leaves tended to group up in tight lines on the edges, which felt like it worked against the feeling I'd want from leaf blowing -- maybe having them collide with each other (or give them bigger colliders if they already do) could help make them feel a bit less compressible, and more pile-y?

Also, I'd have liked to have seen some alternative level obstacles, like a wind that comes every now and again, or kids that run through piles and scatter them, etc. to give some variety.

But anyway, nice job on this!

Veggies Clash by Yorsh 2025-10-10T21:59:06Z ♥ 1

This was really cool. I had a good time collecting the different cards and figuring out who I could beat in a duel. I don't really have much critique, other than it is maybe a bit too easy to get cards by just picking them up. I.e. maybe only certain cards should be available for pick-up, and the better ones you have to win by beating other kids? Basically there were a few I picked up and then I never had to duel some of the kids, and I would have liked to have had a mechanical incentive to fight them, I guess.

Oh, and another nitpick: Once I got some duplicates, it was maybe a bit too riskless to duel people, since you can just pick some card you never use as collateral. Maybe duels could feel more tense if you had to choose one of your team? Or more even more difficulty, let them pick a random one from your team (and vice versa for the player).

Anyway, nice game; great job with this!

Memories Collector by east147 2025-10-09T21:28:26Z ♥ 1

Cute game; the vibe was great, with nice music and art.

I would have liked to have had some red herrings -- i.e. things you could search that didn't contain a doll, so you felt more like you're using the hints to figure out where they are than just doing all the available actions. But jam time constraints, etc. etc.

Deck Collector by optimatica 2025-10-09T21:14:22Z ♥ 1

I really, really want to like this game. I think the concept is very good, and the polish is great as well. However, I just can't seem to manage to survive for terribly long -- either because I don't really understand the mechanics (more on that below) or because it's too random. E.g. I got an opponent with two swords that obliterated me in no time. I still want there to be a lot of randomness, but maybe there needs to be some ways to control the randomness a little? E.g. draw 3 cards, discard 2 kinds of things.

As many others have mentioned, it took quite a bit of time to understand how this game works at all. Some amount of explanation of what the icons mean and how battles play out (even just on the game page) would have helped a ton to get me onboarded. I still don't understand what the number that counts down from 4 and then goes into the minus does, or how I do damage or gain mana when I have no cards. I think those two might be connected? I.e. positive numbers add mana and negative adds attack? Or something like that? Would have loved an explanation.

While I had trouble getting anywhere, it feels like this game has lots of potential for something great; amazing job!

body, birds, drop by tercs 2025-10-09T20:39:34Z ♥ 1

At first it felt like the player falls way too fast to catch anything, but once you get into the rhythm, it's actually a lot easier than it looks. In fact, once you figure it out initially, it becomes probably too easy, because there's no scaling of difficulty over time. (Presumably due to jam time constraints, etc.) I ended up with 85 coins and almost an entire screen height's worth of health when I stopped playing.

I also didn't realise I was taking damage when I landed on the girders -- maybe having some more visual feedback that I'm taking damage would be useful here. E.g. after my first contact with one of the other things (that I could never identify because they're moving by so fast!) it was immediately apparent that it was bad to hit it. But the girders don't have that.

I liked the fact that the player is collecting different birds, though maybe having some kind of visual indication of how many out of the possible ones you've collected, so you know when you've gotten them all / how far you are? The collection screen presumably records this, but I couldn't really figure out how it works (and anyway, I would have liked it on the actual play screen as well, in compact).

Cool game!

Tiny Museum by Keith Wang 2025-10-08T12:39:17Z ♥ 1

Cute game! I liked the overall tone and atmosphere, and the gameplay loop is pretty solid. Some thoughts: - When you get towards the end, there was a bit too much going on in the foreground, making it kind of hard to see where you are. Maybe having different sized/shaped leaves for different values would have been good to help reduce clutter? - As someone else mentioned above, the despawning leaves meant that I basically just ignored the top shelves, because it's implausible to collect there (which I see accidental, so nothing for me to add here). - I'd have liked to have seen some more variety in the things that can be purchased. E.g. a vacuum or something to automate some of the leaves, or something that increases the likelihood (or gates) the higher-end dung beetle merchants. - Also, maybe having different customers like different displays? E.g. the ladybugs like one kind of thing, while the dragonflies like something else. I.e. I would have liked there to have been some reason to put thought into what goes where.

Space Cleaner by Cahard 2025-10-07T08:13:03Z ♥ 2

The controls felt a bit strange, but actually worked pretty well. I enjoyed the meditative collecting of trash, and the meta progression was good. Some thoughts:

- I would have liked to have some kind of ending? I got to a point where I'd upgraded everything to its max, and there was nothing more to do. It seemed like the trash respawned? - The description says "There is no friction in the vacuum of space", but there's a lot of friction if you stop the thruster. With the limited fuel, I'd have liked to have been able to take advantage of the vacuum by drifting, but I couldn't, since it just stops after a little bit when I reduce the thruster to zero.

Anyway, nice game!

Stamp Divers by harujam 2025-10-07T07:50:03Z ♥ 1

Actually quite a novel concept, and pretty enjoyable gameplay. Some nitpicks: - I would have liked to have something during the picking up phase that shows which stamps I'm looking for. Sometimes I forgot. - Sometimes it felt like the required stamps were just not there, but maybe I just didn't search properly? It would have been nice to know how many envelopes are still present in the level. - I enjoyed the concept of finding stuff with the audio/visual cues, rather than through sight. Feels like there's even more interesting things that can be done with that. E.g. perhaps different cues for different envelope types or something, etc.

Shrine by blacksheepza 2024-10-11T17:27:03Z ♥ 1

Aesthetically, this game is stunning. You've created an incredible atmosphere and mood, and the soundscape definitely gave me a sense of gravity and looming power.

As a caveat, I'm not really a big fan of idle / clicker games, so that'll colour my opinions. The gameplay wasn't very *fun*, per se. The mood really helped to make it feel worth it, but I ultimately just built a bunch of candles (so many, in fact, that I got an index out of range error) and then clicked a million times. I didn't even realise that the followers going out to go get extra essence was my doing, until I read it in the comments here. I.e. perhaps that would have helped a bit to make it seem more interactive.

I agree with tuism above that I would have liked to have seen an expansion of the map or some greater visual change for each level of the shrine (beyond just the shrine sprite) to build up this sense of expectation. And other than that, more things to do would have been nice.

Incredible mood and art, for sure, which does a lot to make up for the issues I had with the gameplay. It was an overall very positive experience!

Tiny Tails by francoisvn 2024-10-10T22:24:10Z ♥ 1

First off, the visuals and sound in this are great and really sell the scenario. I also liked the story elements and how the many vs one aspect came out in both gameplay and narrative.

As for the mechanics, while they're interesting, I definitely got frustrated. As others have mentioned, not knowing what guy is coming next messed up my ability to strategise. At some point in Chapter IV, I started placing guys with the sole intention of getting the next archer in the right spot, but then I'd sometimes just get another pikeman, and the only spot that would have given me the right placement for the next archer is taken and I'm entirely screwed.

To that point, up to the last chapter, it felt like all the units were kind of useful, but that was mostly because I didn't entirely understand how the archers worked. With the difficulty spike in that last chapter, I finally figured out that I could do blocks (not just lines) to massively increase their damage. Which was great, except that it essentially made me disappointed and/or annoyed every time I got a pikeman or bard. They just felt like a waste of time and a way to mess up my placement of the archers, who were the only ones capable of doing real damage.

I think my problems with the pikemen are that they're capped at 6 damage, have very strict placement requirements (compared to archers who can just shoot from anywhere), and two of them have to just sit around and do nothing until all three are in place. The bard's ability, while useful, can be emulated (and improved) by just placing more archers, since it lets everyone shoot once again with greater damage.

I finally, after many attempts, managed to beat the last chapter, but the only way I managed was by placing all my archers in one block, and using the bards and pikemen purely as ways to set up the next archer (except where I could actually get a benefit as well), which is presumably not the intended way to play.

Overall, an aesthetically nice game that played pretty well before the difficulty spike, where the luck factor got turned up a lot, and made it hard to feel like I was in control.

Sewer Tales by Matthieu Riboulot 2024-10-08T08:09:06Z ♥ 2

Had a lot of fun with this. Great graphics and sound, and the concept is good. I wasn't entirely sure what I was supposed to do (i.e. what the end goal was), so I just sort of wandered around aimlessly. While I really liked the different kinds of rats, it would have been nice to know what it is they do (e.g. I assume the big rat does more damage, but what does the lab rat do?).

Also, sometimes there were like 2 or 3 cats in an area, which was basically just a death sentence. Even one cat is basically guaranteed to half my rat population (or worse). I essentially just ran whenever I could if I saw one, but sometimes the rats would still suicide themselves against the cat for no reason. I would have liked if I could pull them away from combat more easily.

Anyway, this is a great game, and I hope it does really well!

Nano - Nautica by nopogo 2024-10-07T20:51:04Z ♥ 3

This feels like it has a very cool core, and I really wanted to like it, but the difficulty and tediousness of the controls just didn't mesh well with me (mind you, I can imagine that some people would enjoy it a lot more than me). My biggest complaint was that you have to look away from the window and the compass in order to move around, which made it really hard to go where I needed to.

The atmosphere and visuals are great, and I enjoyed the complexity of the control scheme (e.g. the fill front and back stuff for pitching up and down). I just got a frustrated one too many times at struggling to find where I needed to go.

Ant of War by OnlinE_Play 2024-10-07T20:32:48Z ♥ 1

I got quite stuck trying to beat this. The anteater seems to basically grind the game to a halt, since the only good strategy seems to be to wait for it to fill up on enemy ants and then try to rush past. (Or am I missing a mechanic?) Since ants are so expensive, losing two ants basically nullify your chances at winning -- there's not nearly enough leaf drops to fund multiple ants.

Also, you can easily softlock yourself by losing your last ant with less than 10 food left, which can lead to you having to sit around and wait for the enemy ants to send enough ants to get past the anteater.

Antventure by konstantin u33rn4m3d666d 2024-10-07T20:21:36Z ♥ 4

I liked the idea of having to sift through various items for things that are useful for the particular purpose you're after. Though the inclusion of ice as a food, but banana peel not, seemed a bit strange. I also would have liked some more content / a longer experience.

Lice To Meet You by ruben01 2024-10-07T20:07:51Z ♥ 1

Quite fun to play, but the jumping indicator is both a bit hard to read and seems to sometimes just straight up lie. I had quite a few instances where I massively under- or over-shot my jump because the indicator seemed to show something other than what happened.

I'd have liked to see some more goals (e.g. getting into a certain area via people patrolling around or whatever) over just the distance maxing.

Botany Blast! by joniv 2024-10-07T19:47:28Z ♥ 1

This concept feels pretty novel -- combining a bit of shooting with cosy gardening. It feels like it would benefit from having a bit more things to aim for (though I don't fault you for that, being that it's a compo game); e.g. other plant types or whatever, so it seems worth going through the maintenance of shooting off the bugs.

Perhaps the bug shooting would be more fun if there were fewer bugs but they run around so you have to try a bit to hit them?

Olives with legs by tete 2024-10-07T19:24:18Z ♥ 1

Cute game! The mechanics were well implemented, as were the movements of the olives. I liked the push/pull mechanics as ways to herd them where you wanted.

There's quite a bit of jank in how the olives run around (e.g. getting stuck in little corners). In level 8, the fact that you can't hold objects over the pits made it a bit hard to manage the olive pushing. Also due to the fact that you can't hold the repellent on the other side of olives at the edge of the map very effectively, which can sort of jam them into a corner very effectively.

Also, level 2 is either really hard or I missed one of the mechanics, because it took me forever to manage to catch three of the little suckers in the cup.

Anyway, I had fun playing this. Nice job!

Pan-galaxy!!! Deadly Beasts Obstacle Course Grand Prix by Lunch 2024-10-07T19:06:40Z ♥ 4

I'm not entirely sure what the goal of the game is, and it took me quite a while to figure out how to make the race start at all. I think I'm betting on a racer and then sabotaging the others, but I seem to just get money randomly anyway, or when I pick up a banana peel, so I'm not sure what the point is?

Feels like it could be interesting if the controls were a bit more obvious and easy to use, and if the betting worked the way I'd have expected it.

Anyway, an interesting entry, if a bit hampered by control issues.

Tiny Submarine Doctor by ElMikosch 2024-10-07T18:56:19Z ♥ 1

You really managed to produce the labyrinthine feeling of blood vessels, though I wish the controls were more forgiving/refined. I had a lot of trouble moving around and kept getting ganked by viruses from behind. I also had an issue where my camera kept drifting to the right, which made aiming a bit more annoying than is ideal.

Also, having a little picture of what a virus looks like tucked into a corner might have been useful? E.g. a "wanted poster" style thing so you know what you're looking for.

Ant Samurai. Polergus by tsukigan 2024-10-07T18:42:13Z ♥ 1

This was such a fun game. I really liked the dash animation (and the enemy getting hit animations), and it just felt nice to play. Sometimes it felt like the hitboxes were a bit off (i.e. it looked like I dashed through an enemy (i.e. just a bit off centre), but then the slash misses.

The upgrading was interesting, though ultimately the more attack seemed too strong to not pick. Maybe if the dash cooldown penalty was bigger?

Anyway, great game! I made it to the end on normal difficulty, with one death.

Edit: Oh, also, I liked the ominous tone of the story, though I'm still not sure what the ending means?

Flea Patrol by Sviborg 2024-10-07T18:19:37Z ♥ 2

The visual of the fleas jumping out of time with each other in a chaotic scramble looks so good. Like some others have mentioned, it's really hard to feel like I had any real control over where they were going. But maybe that's fine, given the infinite supply.

Perhaps having some kind of indicator as to which fleas are frontrunners (i.e. ones that will begin the jump) would have been helpful in feeling in control? And/or a way to stop and start the flow of fleas so that you don't end up with a bunch of them bundling into corners at the bottom of a jump puzzle? (Though that might reduce the effect of the fleas visual.)

Anyway, cute art and great visual/animation, and some interesting level design for the mechanics!

Blobbies by tuism 2024-10-07T17:58:56Z ♥ 1

The non-grid based match 4 certainly plays interesting. It became a sort of mad click and pull situation, and got pretty frantic by the end. I think I got to about 15k score before I eventually lost. I kept wishing I could pull groups of blobs together, but perhaps that would run counter to the core mechanics.

Anyway; nice, polished game with a lot of charm!

Also, I see you can chuck the blobs out the sides of the play area, which I don't know if it was intentional.

BOI by SID37 2023-05-03T18:54:03Z ♥ 3

The moment the second cow stacked on top of the first, I was hooked. Very funny, especially when you have a bunch of geese piled on each other, swaying around wildly while I ran around. Incredible.

Some annoyances: The mouse sensitivity felt way too much, and the lasso was very hard to aim. Some adjustments would maybe help make this feel nicer?

Overall: Hilarious, and fun to play. Good work.

The Delivery of the Message by GreenwoodDrive 2023-05-03T14:58:06Z ♥ 2

I really like the atmosphere of this, though I would have liked to see more complexity. At this point, whether you get around enemies seems to be more about starting positions than actual strategy. While I was initially confused as to where I should be going, once I found the "distance to target" indicator, I thought it was a cool mechanic to add. But the indicator text should for sure be bigger and more prominent, given that it's your primary goal in the game.

There's a "Set trap" button, but it doesn't appear to do anything? Or at least, I couldn't figure out how to use it. Also, the fact that the camera moves on its own -- a bit too slowly, such that I had to wait for it to catch up quite often -- makes misclicking outside your move range a lot more likely, especially considering how small each tile is. Combined with the bug that makes a misclick just end your turn, it's a recipe for frustration.

Ravenhaul by Rongo Matane 2023-05-03T14:15:53Z ♥ 2

Great game. I put almost an hour into this. Sadly, after I got the Queen Isidora patron, I didn't get any of their contracts for some reason, so I couldn't win the game.

I liked that there was a physical component to it, with you flying around. Loved the design of the raven master and the bird merchant. It was cool to have a bit of placement tetris with the birds as well. My only criticism is that with the placement being so packed, it would sometimes get difficult to select the right bird you were looking for.

How reputation worked was a bit murky for me. You seemed to lose reputation by default if you did nothing? Or something? And I'm not sure exactly what and how much different actions do to affect reputation. Some more transparency there would have been good.

While I love the graphical and physical aspect of it, I can't help but wonder if this would be better if there was or was also a more traditional UI-based interface, so you could see all the birds and their stats at the same time when you looked at the contracts, to see who should go where with what.

Really, really good. I enjoyed it a lot! Excellent!

Reloot by orbitaldot 2023-05-03T12:23:17Z ♥ 1

Restocking a dungeon isn't an entirely unique premise, but having the player also play the hero going through is genius. It's a classic case of having the same level, but making it feel very different the second time around. Very cool.

Loved the music -- excellent -- and the art style is very Shovel Knight / SNES era, and beautifully done.

I would have liked there to be some penalty for dying as Molt; just going back to the caravan feels a bit anti-climactic, and makes dying in some cases just a minor inconvenience, and in others, an advantage. Also, the camera jumping upwards just at the top of your jump was very jarring and weird feeling. A smoother motion would have been better, I think.

There were a few times where the colliders felt a bit off, where I'd jump into a ceiling when I thought I'd gone past. Maybe a more forgiving collider for the player would feel better?

Anyway, this is great. Well done.

F. Ragile by Akromaly 2023-05-03T11:42:27Z ♥ 1

Love the art and music -- immediately puts me to mind of SNES classics.

The gameplay loop is pretty solid, sort of like a sidescrolling shooter, but with an angled and gravity-affected projectile, so that was interesting. It wasn't immediately obvious that I would get refills for my packages, so some kind of indication about that would have been nice.

My strategy for playing was essentially to dodge the red guys and shoot the yellow guys, and I got into a good rhythm. It looks like the game doesn't have an ending, per se? Just a high score sort of system? I eventually got knocked down at 10100.

Cool game, though I'd have liked to have seen some progressing complexity or difficulty, and an ending / levels.

Mother's Day: Requiem by jaydubbyasee 2023-05-03T10:58:16Z ♥ 2

A very funny concept, and a good take on the theme. The fact that the camera follows the baby made it a bit difficult to catch high babies (maybe an arrow indicator where the doctor is would have been good), but it was still a funny and fun experience. The max height and distance stats at the end was great, as it motivated me to try some different techniques by the end.

Also, great baby sprite, and having it spin just added to the wackiness.

Edit: Forgot to say that I love the title; great stuff.

Delivery Boy Express by civmaniac 2023-05-03T07:46:59Z ♥ 3

The controls felt really unintuitive for a bit (had to get by using only boost and Z/X), but after a while, I started to get a feeling for it, and it felt great. Really fun to fly around once you get used to it. Perhaps rather arrows for rolling, Z for accelerate forward, and X to flip 180? But that would have been unintuitive on the ground, so maybe not!

Music was well chosen; it gave a nice chill, adventurous vibe. I liked the cute graphics and the little snippets of dialogue.

I also really liked how there were ways to deal with enemies, but you could also just avoid them. A lot of games that have the "just avoid them" component devolve into thousands of enemies in a mob behind you all the time towards the end, but you've avoided that, so it felt worth it to avoid them.

Not much else to say. Really excellent job.

Devilery by AltTabber 2023-05-03T07:15:51Z ♥ 1

Really excellent use of music and art to set a mood of fear. I was definitely a little on edge the whole way through.

I would have liked to have had more choice in what I could do; most of the time, I could only do the one thing that the game told me to do. The only exceptions I found were in the last few seconds of the game. Having some more agency throughout would have elevated this quite a bit.

Nonetheless, a really great atmosphere, and pretty good entry.

MagiCat by Flokami 2023-05-02T17:49:21Z ♥ 2

The art is this is so great. I love the bizarre medieval drawings, and the paper style really brings to mind the sort of theatre vibe that the curtains seem to suggest.

My initial reaction to this game was confusion; I think an easier / simpler first "level" would make this a lot easier to understand. The first (and seemingly only?) guy says so many things that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to memorise everything, and I eventually ended up just tossing random ingredients into the pot, which seemed to work? (Unless I somehow accidentally got all of them right?) I also couldn't throw in the "A" button ingredient, which was either a bug, or something I didn't understand.

The rune phase was interesting -- once I figured out how it worked. The time limit on it really reduced my ability to learn what to do with trial and error; as before, a simpler, non-time version to start with might have been good. E.g. a level where you make something for another magic practitioner? Making the runes under a time limit was quite satisfying though, so I liked how that was implemented.

Anyway, a very unique game, both in gameplay and art style. Well done!

Pack 'em UP! by Timbaleek 2023-05-02T14:57:55Z ♥ 4

A really cool combination of warehouse tasks and driving. The graphics are cute and the music gives the game a nice chill atmosphere.

The timers on the orders seem a bit rough, and sometimes they'd all be in the low 50s when I get back, so I'd have to essentially just wait around until they run out before I can continue playing (since I can't put together and collect an order in 50 seconds). Maybe they should reset every time you enter the warehouse again?

Like others have said, it would have been nice to have the timer and order numbers on the screen while you're driving so you can see what you're going to make and where you should be taking things.

I also would have liked driving that wasn't locked to just four directions; it feels like that would have freed up the movement, led to some crashing shenanigans, and made the driving parts more fun?

(Also, this is probably just me, but I would have liked to have the option to use arrow keys for movement; having all the controls one one hand feels a bit unwieldy somehow. [And inefficient! My other hand is just hanging pointlessly by my side.])

The Souls Express by antvelm 2023-05-02T13:48:59Z ♥ 4

What a beautiful game! I loved the visuals and audio; it evokes such a calm and serene mood, perfect for the thematic elements in this.

The movement felt a bit slow, such that there was an element of tedium in walking back to see who wants to be at the current station. Also, on that, it feels like there's something missing in my interactions with the passengers. Most of them either tell me exactly where they want to be, or not at all, which meant I either knew immediately or had to just randomly select stations, rather than conversation with them leading to me figuring it out.

I also would have liked to have some choice; e.g. assigning each of them a station based on what I think they like, rather than just taking them there. That would add an element of solving a problem, rather than just clicking on the thing the passenger tells you to click on.

Overall, incredible atmosphere, stunning graphics, and amazing music. Well done!

Package Delivery by Fire Steam Studio 2023-05-02T11:55:48Z ♥ 1

My favourite moment in the game was the one lady who seemed to be hiding in the bushes, waiting for her package.

My thoughts: I liked the two modes of walking and driving; it adds a bit of variety in the gameplay. Though walking felt a bit too slow for the amount of distance you had to cover. The maximum distance from the truck limit is also a good idea.

I would have liked some kind of challenge or problem to solve. It very quickly devolved into me just walking left, memorising the colours that are there and going all the way back to the truck to get the packages (and all the way back with the packages, and all the way back to the truck [see why I want faster move speed?]), and then the same for the right, drive further down, repeat. Like the others here said, it was a pretty chill atmosphere, so having a timer or something would probably ruin it, but perhaps instead of having all the packages, you get a random coloured one, and have each person able to receive multiple packages, so that you can eventually learn where the different colour destinations are and head there immediately, rather than having to just happen upon them.

Some small things: If you carry a package, it's always on your right; having it be pointing in the direction you last walked would have been convenient. Also, once you deliver a package (which is once-off per person), the arrow remains. I would have like to see some kind of visual feedback that the delivery was successful (e.g. the arrow disappears, or the recipient sprite goes from a waiting pose to holding a package, or whatever). Also, the colliders generally felt too big, especially for a three-quarters view situation like this. Putting the player's collider on only the lower half would have allowed him to overlap with obstacles, but only with his head, creating a feeling of depth and less annoying bumping into stuff that don't seem like you should be bumping into.

Longship! by japes 2023-05-02T11:23:00Z ♥ 3

This is really wacky, and perfectly fits the description of qwop-ey. The absolute disaster that my rowing synchronisation was is great, and I enjoyed the sound effects as well. Some over-the-top heroic music that swells as you get closer would have sealed the QWOP legacy.

I'm not super into the mouse-controlled sliders for the control scheme though. Having a weird uncomfortable keyboard-button set up might have been better. As it is, you'll always start off with just one oar rowing, then two, etc. One of the things that made QWOP so addicting is that moment where you press all the buttons in the right rhythm, entering a deeply focused trance as it all comes together and you make incredible progress... only to miss one press and face plant. It feels like it's hard to have that sort of experience with this (though I did get something like that one time when my two left oars seemed perfectly synced for a few seconds).

But very well done regardless; I enjoyed playing it!

Merge Barge by ashashza 2023-05-02T10:20:37Z ♥ 1

This was really fun. The combination of merging crates and preparing for smog collection was great, introducing a bit of small-scale variety in the gameplay loop. The strategy of thinking ahead with where you place your cargo became quickly apparent, and I enjoyed figuring out the puzzle. Though I made stupid mistakes a couple of times, so an undo button (just one step back) would have been cool.

I would have liked a clearer indication of what you're placing down. A couple of times, I accidentally put down a smog collector when I thought it was a crate, because I wasn't paying attention to the line-up at the bottom. Having a transparent version of the thing you're placing on your mouse cursor rather than just a generic block would have avoided that (or at least having the one you're placing in the line-up be normal size, and the others smaller?).

Also, as a side note, there were tooltips for the initial starting stuff, but not for the bigger crates, so it wasn't immediately obvious to me how many of the crates I needed to combine (e.g. I first thought that a 2 and a 1 would combine into a 3).

I couldn't finish the third mission, because I kept getting no-win scenarios (granted, I didn't do everything perfectly). The randomization (?) screwed me over a couple of times, unfortunately.

Overall, a pretty great game. It's fun and polished. Well done!

Broomstick Blitz by nsadie 2023-05-02T09:17:40Z ♥ 1

It took a bit of time to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. Starting me off next to the story time building might have been helpful (or just some instructions in the game description or on the menu!). But once I found that building, it became clear what to do.

The movement controls are wacky as hell, but it lends a sort of charm to it. I feel like I'm always a bit out of control with the turning. Though I'll note that the slow movement felt too slow and the fast movement too fast (though the latter is really satisfying to activate; perhaps the slower starting move speed is what makes it feel that way).

As for the gameplay loop: It's pretty easy to get into a flow, though often it feels like the best strategy is to activate a mission you have no intention of completing to collect some items so that when you get a real mission, you can finish it more easily. The arrow showing where you need to go is great, though having some directional indications of the closest of each resource might have been helpful to avoid the temptation to pre-collect. That said, towards the end of the game, I started to remember the layout, so perhaps it's better to leave it to the player to memorise (though then perhaps either the resources should be more logically distributed in a more distinct series of places [e.g. crystals in the mountainy area, and red gems in a city-esque area], or the time limits should be a bit more generous to start off with).

That's about it. Nice entry!

Chain Mail by AdamCYounis 2023-05-02T08:03:24Z ♥ 6

Unsurprisingly, lovely graphics. I also enjoyed the music a lot. The writing was good, with a light-hearted tone that brought Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to mind (maybe only because I know that was part of the inspiration for this). (Particularly loved the apple mission's warning not to eat any of the apples.)

The gameplay loop is surprisingly fun for how passive it might seem. Though I'll note that towards the end of the 14 days, I was sometimes in situations where I was just waiting for time to pass, first because there were no missions my available heroes could succeed at, and later because there were no missions left! I managed to get a favourable outcome with my guys for the last mission, but I did wonder what would happen if I hadn't, since there were no more missions left.

There were some UX things that I would have liked to see. One is in the mission select screen, where it would have been nice to see which of my heroes are available for missions, so I know if I can end the day without having to go into a mission to test. And speaking of the mission screen, I don't know if I'm just blind or something, but I couldn't tell which of my heroes were available to be selected, which means I often had to just click through to see if they were available.

While my heroes leveled up, it wasn't clear how many completed missions would result in a level up; it's not necessarily necessary, but some indication of progress towards the next level might have been nice? Also, a message that says that they leveled up, maybe at the end of the mission report?

That's about it. Looks really good, and it's a nice gameplay loop.

Harvest Golem by Chinchilla 2022-10-10T09:30:11Z ♥ 1

Really, really good! I got completely sucked into this game. There's a lot of variety in the different plants that adds a sense of interest and almost tactical decisions to find the most efficient way of getting energy. Like others have mentioned, having some kind of lose condition might have been interesting, but this also feels like one of those games where it's kind of relying on a self-directed efficiency goal, and to great effect.

I unfortunately locked myself out of the final cutscene because I wanted to rack up as much energy as possible before planting the pumpkin, and only when it was too late did I realise that it needs other plants to grow. The fact that it could theoretically grow without the other plants meant that the game thought I still had stuff to do, so I just had to Alt-F4 my way out of that.

Something else that I would have liked to have seen is some kind of indicator to show that a plant is ready to be harvested. The carrots in particular look like they still have some growing to do when they're fully grown, and it's generally not always obvious when it's done growing. I know there is a tooltip that would tell me that, but apparently I'm too impatient, and then I accidentally harvest the spinach in the centre of the carrots and mess up my whole plan.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. Nice job with this!

Battle Forts by yarg 2022-10-07T22:24:38Z ♥ 0

This was a bit confusing at the start (figuring out what the upgrades do exactly), but it becomes clearer as the game progresses. I ended up not really rerolling stuff a lot, or rerolling one thing a bunch of times in a row until I got to the thing I wanted, because I had so much money that it was essentially unlimited. It was also not clear initially that each slot contains different potential upgrades; e.g. that you can't find stuff that appears in Slot 1 in Slot 3, and vice versa. Even though this became clearer towards the end, I'm still not sure if there was a certain theme attached to each, e.g. offense, defense, accessory, because some of the items in the random pools seemed unrelated to the others.

Anyway, it was interesting to try to counter what the enemy is throwing at you, and I won only barely. There was perhaps a bit too much waiting though. (Also, it felt narratively strange for your soldiers to die when they got to the enemy base to damage it).

Swamp Dojo by Manuel Magalhães 2022-10-06T19:46:34Z ♥ 1

A really nice-looking game. I also really liked the low/high attacking and defending system. I would have liked to see some more variance there to help keep things interesting for longer (even just a high/mid/low). But jam limitations etc., etc.

I'll also note that the "frog-sense" was a bit confusing initially. Maybe having up and down arrows rather than sideways arrows that are high or low would have been more intuitive to parse quickly in your head?

Escape from Minefields by Ggross 2022-10-06T19:38:42Z ♥ 1

A very stressful version of minesweeper. I'm unfortunately not good enough at minesweeper to beat the game, but the time limit really does add a whole other dimension to the base concept. I liked the pickups you could find along the way, though I'd have liked some way to heal the sapper.

The inability to get further ahead of the enemy airstrikes were a bit disappointing, as no amount of good progress could buy me a whole lot of time; I was always stuck at a maximum. There were several instances where I just stood on the border of the screen and waited for the time to pass, which basically just delayed the core gameplay.

Scramemory by pragmascript 2022-10-05T10:28:44Z ♥ 1

Other than the initial confusion, given the lack of description or instruction, both in the game and on the game page, this was a surprisingly fun game. (Though I would have liked to have known what the goal of the game was before starting to play; just a simple "Memorise!" message at the start of the first ten seconds would have helped tremendously.)

The time limit to both the memory and submit phases really adds a lot of pressure and difficulty, but I think that's fine. There's definitely a sense that this is possible, I'm just not doing it well enough, which I think is a good medium for a game like this one.

Area 51 by Bdiaztobarra 2022-10-05T10:16:23Z ♥ 3

The time limit added some good pressure to the gameplay, though the limitation that you can only activate the consoles when there's three or fewer seconds left meant that I often just stood at a terminal waiting for time to go lower. I liked the ticking sound for the timer going out; it really added to the tension and provided a good reminder.

I would have liked to see some kind of indication of how many terminals I've hacked, since I couldn't always remember; similarly, having some kind of indication on a given terminal to show whether or not it has been hacked.

There were some niggles with colliders for some of the walls, but the level design was fairly interesting and varied.

Iridesert by homeworld 2022-10-04T18:14:17Z ♥ 3

A very impressive game. The core gameplay loop is solid; all this needs is more content to keep it interesting for longer. The time limit per hand of cards really pushes up the tension, creating an urgency that's interestingly juxtaposed against the city builder element.

I would have liked to see some more obvious feedback for tiles being upgraded different kinds of synergy situations. Most of those look pretty similar, so it's not necessarily obvious that something has happened, or if it is, it's not necessarily obvious what did. Ergo, having some kind of icon indicating what the building is, even if just for a moment after its upgraded, might have been helpful?

Anyway, good job with this. I liked it a lot.

Fred & Pete by GeneralFlunder 2022-10-04T17:36:43Z ♥ 2

The idea of constantly switching between combat and puzzles is quite an interesting concept, kind of like chess boxing. Having some kind of indication of how much time has passed would have been useful, I think. That would help with sort of preparing for the switch back to combat particularly.

With more time and some polish, I think you could have done some really interesting things by having multiple things in the puzzle room affect the combat in the other room and vice versa.

Making Connections by PostFrog 2022-10-04T11:59:40Z ♥ 7

A surprisingly fun game. I eventually got stuck wandering around trying to find the chameleon, and then when I talked to the lion again and got a bit further, the game crashed.

I liked the social aspect of trying to figure things out by talking. Though to that point, the walking around seems like an unnecessary component that essentially just delays getting to the interesting parts (assuming there's no larger element to it later on). I.e. maybe a UI where you can just choose who you want to talk to, or choose your journal might have been better?

A few bugs and controls niggles, but overall a nice game. I enjoyed it.

Oroboros by Black Potion 2022-10-04T11:16:19Z ♥ 1

The narrative elements of the game was quite cool, and the idea of a flare of heat in a cycle is an interesting conceptual idea. I would have liked to see the story introduced a bit more slowly, rather than in the (unskippable) cutscene at the start. Though the images helped a bit.

Some things I would have liked to see: - A dedicated attack button. It was a bit cumbersome to have to switch away from my attack in order to eat an apple; having one button for attacking and another for items might have been a way to solve that? - As others have noted, a more lenient pick-up radius. - Some indication of how to survive the heatwaves. I thought I could hide in the shadows of the little buildings, since some NPCs were doing that, but that didn't seem to work. (The flare in the sky was very cool though.) - Some indication of what I'm trying to achieve. I sort of just aimlessly wandered around. Having a goal, however vague, might have been helpful in orienting myself. (E.g. go to the town)

KAIROS, Battle for Seconds by Paul Giovannini 2022-10-04T10:56:34Z ♥ 4

I loved this. Having the different seconds activate different effects is interesting on its own, but combining that with the buff/debuff choice is really, really clever. I loved the music, the clock ticking sound, the GUI around the character to show the second you're on, the narrative elements, and the artistic feel of the graphics. Controls were also really nice and natural-feeling.

Some minor points: - While there were different enemies, I'm not sure I noticed any distinctness to them. It might have been that I was too busy concentrating on staying out of their way, but if not, some variety there in behaviour might be a good idea. - The dash felt a bit off. I'm not entirely sure why I think that. But there was a sense of not really knowing where I'm going to end up, I guess? Which is potentially an illusion given by the disappear/reappear nature of it. And I think there was a delay on it which made it a bit unwieldy?

That's essentially it. A great game; you guys did an incredible job.

The Curse of the Four Towers by Mateu 2022-10-03T22:18:13Z ♥ 2

I liked the different enemy types that came with every different iteration of the world (they each felt very distinct, so good job on those), and having the four towers as sort of bigger goals made the pacing a bit more interesting than regular wave-based twin-stick shooters.

I would have liked to see some variation in my weapons, perhaps as upgrades after destroying towers, or just pick-ups? I also had some trouble with aiming, as if the bullet didn't always go exactly to where I was pointing, but that could just be me being bad at aiming.

Nice job!

Dome Romantik by Rongo Matane 2021-04-29T15:44:05Z ♥ 1

I positively love this game. It's obviously a bit limited in what you can do given the time limit, but the bits that you can do, the mood and atmosphere, it's all amazing. Bravo! I also really liked the idea of unlocking basic functionality like inventory bits at a time, and the timed attacks add a real nice element to everything.

Freg, Fregg, and Freggy: The Last Band by Honest Dan 2021-04-29T14:29:55Z ♥ 2

Really cool. I loved the artwork and the jazzy atmosphere, and a neat card mechanic with the different freggs getting cards in different ways! Some things I missed: - A way to get rid of cards (e.g. when I was wanting to be on cliff tiles for the one quest, I got forest and meadows cards that were essentially useless). In general, I wasn't really using the environment cards very much. - Some form of control; to me it felt a bit too random at times. I.e. if you come up against a boss and just get a bunch of forest or healing march cards, you essentially have no control over whether or not you die. I managed to scrape by by the skin of Freggy's teeth in the final fight, but would have liked to have some tactical input. - Some way to see how long things last and whether they are active. The stun one had an effect icon, but e.g. the reflecting of damage one didn't, as far as I could tell.

Anyway, overall, very very cool. Enjoyed it a lot.

self reflection by torcado 2021-04-29T09:20:43Z ♥ 1

Really fun. I'll mention though that it took me quite a while to figure out that I needed to reflect my gaze back into myself, and that my actions in previous levels affected the new ones. However, I did eventually figure it out, so maybe it's fine.

The Mine to Sentience by spyturtle 2021-04-28T18:31:37Z ♥ 1

I really like the idea of the game and the shopping bits, but I just couldn't get used to the controls (I just slide all over the place), and it got particularly problematic because you take fall damage from anything higher than fifteen centimeters. That said, cute game, and it was enjoyable otherwise.

Veiled Depth by zchangvx 2021-04-28T18:13:30Z ♥ 4

The atmosphere and mood of this game is great! Loved the exploration. I'll mention that the harpoon gun seemed kind of pointless; the ammo used up valuable inventory space, and the blowtorch did the job fine. Also, some kind of indication in the shop that something has been purchased would have been useful. Still not sure if I managed to buy the oxygen upgrade or not.

Nuclear blaze by deepnight 2021-04-28T16:56:09Z ♥ 2

Incredible! It's so satisfying to extinguish the flames. Loved the feeling of getting overwhelmed when the flames spread faster than you can extinguish them, and then the feeling of relief when you slowly claw back ground and manage to get things under control. Loved the backdraft slow-motion effect as well. The only drawback is the lack of audio. But overall, amazing work. Really well done!

EARTHWYRM by HolyBlackCat 2021-04-28T16:18:28Z ♥ 1

Very cool. Felt like the old days playing Lemmings and the like.

Memare by jogo 2021-04-28T15:20:00Z ♥ 1

Not bad. I liked the underwater mood, and the harpoon gun was nice and snappy.

A Sinking Feeling by rpgfaker 2021-04-28T15:10:54Z ♥ 0

Very cool concept, though I only read the instructions on this page after a few confused tries to figure out what I'm supposed to do. Two other things: It took me a while to figure out that the sub's collider was smaller than the graphic, so I couldn't figure out how to dodge the mines. Also, the radar's aiming might be a tad too slow; if it's pointing down and a torpedo comes from above, there appears to be no way to get to it in time. Also, as the above commenter mentioned, being able to have a crew member do something while not active would have been cool. Overall, nice job; I enjoyed it.

Between the Lines by GibTreaty 2021-04-28T14:53:05Z ♥ 2

I enjoyed the game. There were one or two points where I couldn't figure out what I needed to click on (e.g. the one book in Woodstock's manor), but I managed to figure everything out eventually. The "H" function gave me an error in the investigator's house, so I avoided using it throughout. Anyway, cool game. As everyone has already mentioned, some music would have been nice, but so be it!

Magic Frontier by Firebelley 2021-04-28T14:20:41Z ♥ 2

Really cool; fun to play, nice music, lovely graphics, and interesting gameplay. I loved the mix of puzzle and strategy. Well done!

The plot chickens by JPiolho 2021-04-27T14:06:41Z ♥ 3

Cool game, and really charming graphics and music. It would have been great if I could walk a little faster though. For anyone getting stuck on the "something sweet" bit, there's a hint in what the churro guy says.

Neptune's Whispers by JortvD 2021-04-27T12:06:20Z ♥ 1

A nice idea and ambience, but aiming the weapons seemed practically impossible (unless I was doing something wrong?). Also a bit quiet maybe? I did like the exploration and upgrading though.

Deepest Sword by Strega 2021-04-27T11:35:37Z ♥ 0

What an incredibly fun game! There was one section where the game froze when I tried to reset, but then I started again (because it's so good!) and made it to the end. Very nice; well done!

Descendants by AndideBob 2021-04-26T21:25:50Z ♥ 2

Amazing atmosphere; the lighting, the size of the dwarves, the art, it all feeds into the whole feel. I couldn't manage to get past a certain point, but the game is cool enough that I'm going to try again later.