jess from online

Trashpunk by Pomo 2022-10-04T16:00:29Z ♥ 1

excitingly frantic and i love the humorous cyberpunk satire. it's such a goofy way to control the bots too, which is delightful. it's SO hard on the leaderboard eligible mode, i couldn't get past 2.5 yen lol. it does feel very difficult to get the correct direction from the spin kicks, controls-wise. i definitely found myself laughing as i played!

What's the rules? by Pusheeneiro 2022-10-04T14:23:19Z ♥ 2

cute small minigames, them being so short was not only good use of theme but made things feel a bit more frantic in a way that made success satisfying and made you want to stick with it!

Wanderhythm by zhelding 2022-10-04T14:19:19Z ♥ 2

this is really charming. i'm *incredibly* impressed by how well each section of music flows into the next without feeling disjointed at all—great use of theme—and all the diverse styles it works in. the backgrounds are very pretty and help sell the thematic change. distilling a rhythm game into up/down makes it easy to follow single instrumental thru-lines through all the changes. very simple, but very really well put together and fun to play!

SPACEMAN by arya-s 2022-10-04T03:24:03Z ♥ 1

the vibe of this is incredible. the minimalist audio works so well and i care more about my little space man because he is cute. VERY challenging, everything is slipperier than expected, but that also simultaneously hooks you--i played for longer than i expected.

Don't Shoot Yourself by Bo Dangles 2022-10-04T03:19:19Z ♥ 1

maybe the cleverest game i have played so far. great use of theme and its so interesting the strategy that develops. really great concept and very good execution.

Rough Day by PicusBGames 2022-10-04T03:10:13Z ♥ 1

really impressive visuals for a jam! did definitely capture the vibe of an, as you call it, running man.

Darkwater Dispatch by Gryph0n 2022-10-04T03:05:45Z ♥ 1

absolutely a vibe. the theming and visuals are so strong. the radar based gameplay was very clever. pretty much my only complaint was that i wished it was harder? but it was a great experience. also the quit game button doesn't work and feature not a bug imo, love that.

Life Passes You By by Cosmonautical 2022-10-04T03:03:24Z ♥ 2

very beautiful. at times frustrating, but that sort of drives home the theme, right? playing it back at the end was a great touch. i found myself really caring and frustrated by my inability that's like, the whole thing. 5 stars on mood and innovation and theme, easily.

SHOTGUN DISCO QUEEN by cannibalgirl 2022-10-04T02:57:47Z ♥ 1

I CANT BELIEVE HOW GOOD THIS IS. as someone watching over my shoulder said: the vibes are immaculate. the art direction is fantastic, love the cover, love the art. the music is incredible, the idea of "hotline miami but it becomes a stealth game every ten seconds" is great and its ALSO a rhythm game with the shots (and the fact that they slow movement is so hard and jarring in a good way) i can't compliment this enough. fav game so far.

Decrypt by Gabriel Chan 2022-10-04T02:39:19Z ♥ 2

absolutely beautiful visually. satisfying gameplay except that the controls for swapping letters are very either finnicky or unclear, i was consistently knowing where i wanted the letters and unable to drop them there. in general could do with some tutorial text. still blown away by the aesthetic & feel and really escalates the basic word game.

insolation by hologramvin 2022-04-05T16:50:49Z ♥ 1

i love it. it’s written so much like a poem and that combined with the format of a pico8/bitsy style game is so interesting. the possibility offered by the simple backgrounds contextualizing the text and all of the really evocative text-effects makes for a really interesting and unique poetic form not available in traditional mediums and i think this story can only exist in that context.

it’s really haunting and the music is fantastic, and i love it being in first person talking to the sun. this is a really excellent, beautiful, and haunting little game!

Ghost Moth (demo) by Rhiannon Daly 2022-04-05T16:31:33Z ♥ 2

Wow, that was absolutely beautiful. Haunting, and beautiful. The writing is superb. Any fan of Annihilation/the Area X trilogy should especially check this out. Or anyone who wants an excellent first-person critique of the gig economy.

The rotating text to deliver multiple narratives in one line & linear format is really interesting and compelling as a mechanic, as are the forced text entries. I'm looking forward to seeing the game even more finished mechanically, and I think music will also make it even better in a very impactful way.

If there's one line to sell you on this game: "You think that Gregor Samsa had it easy because at least he got to stay home from work."

The Fall of Mezentople by vgel 2022-04-05T00:03:32Z ♥ 3

I loved this! The writing is really evocative, and while the layout is a bit rough, the colors, fonts, and gorgeous map makes it visually compelling--the visualization of aspects is so good. I loved the way that not only did you see your empire fall, but saw others grow in its place, and that eventually those empires began to have more and more agency in your event cards--I didn't really expect it to become that prominent a theme in the writing and I really liked that. The way the acts were split was also really satisfying.

I do wish, mechanically, it was easier to understand the success/failure of your actions. Game designers sometimes talk about the importance of feedback loops: how hard is it / how long does it take to understand what I did well vs. poorly and improve? I realize in a game where loss is guaranteed, that only matters so much, but I still think I would have felt more satisfied if I understood what I gained by making my choice and not the other, or what I avoided by not choosing the other one. I also wish the aspects took longer in change color after making choices--I could barely track my eyes across from the event to see it in time, and given the map was so gorgeous (and it was important to understanding consequences) I really wanted to.

Overall a really evocatively written and visually beautiful game that perfectly uses the theme, with a couple rough interface elements and some gameplay design issues that are understandable in a short jam, but if developed on could take it from something definitely good to absolutely great! Please keep playing with large scale story games like this, I'd love to play something from y'all in the future!

Click to Continue by Daniel Foutz 2022-04-04T16:19:13Z ♥ 3

It may be worth adding a specific content warning for addiction language, as this game could be challenging to go through for people with a history of addiction issues. I had to stop when it specifically referenced alcohol addiction.

Color Clock by mixon00 2022-04-04T15:16:50Z ♥ 1

Enjoyable simple game! I really like playing "fidget games" on my phone when I'm stressed, and honestly, I'd love to play this one. I switched to mobile after playing it on desktop and was sad to realize I couldn't play it with a tap. If you were to do a mobile build of this game, I'd even probably pay a few bucks for it, it's really satisfying--especially if there's adjustable difficulty level! Please ping me if you do :)

Cold and Alone by David York 2022-04-04T14:38:58Z ♥ 14

Hands down, this is incredible. I really can't compliment it enough, I got sort of obsessed. Please, *please* expand this into an even larger game after the jam, if you do then contact me and I will buy it immediately. I was so engrossed and determined to survive that I literally, as you can see below, got out a sheet of paper and drew a map to optimize my exploration. I died after about 2 weeks the first time and immediately restarted, realizing movements were so much more precious than I treated them like when I first played. It made the sense of slow death and "failure is inevitable" feel so real. The pixel art is gorgeous, the interface is great (love the hour & temperature representation), the writing is compelling, the gameplay is fun and satisfying, just, wow. I just watched the Martian a week ago, so...perfect timing :)

I assume that after you finish all the upgrades there's nothing left to find, right? On my 2nd playthrough I had all the upgrades by day 20. After running as far as I could in a couple directions, I just started sleeping the day away for new messages until I started getting the same one, at which point I think I came as close to "beating it" as I could? If you turned this into a game with an end story, I'd play it again in a heartbeat.

Only issues I noticed (besides not being sure when I'd "done everything there was to do") is that when you upgrade the rover, the info/message you get during the upgrade goes away when it ends, so I never even got to read the message for rough terrain wheels.

ld50 martian game map.jpg

Venting Machine by EmberUshi 2022-04-04T13:50:09Z ♥ 1

High score 1077m! Great, detailed pixel art, really a highlight of this. A bit difficult to understand when the "sometimes" you can hit it during mid-air is, I needed a lot of trial and error to get a sense of what the percent was for. Still, definitely had fun!

Over the Rainbow Bridge by Iguanana 2022-04-04T13:42:36Z ♥ 3

Oh, this is wonderful. I definitely cried. Love it being written from the perspective and interpretation of the pup <3 The minimalist palette and audio works really well. It's a bit difficult to tell where the interactable element for moving to the next dialogue window is and whether you'd clicked it (an onclick sound probably would help) and I had to restart once because I double clicked and missed some dialogue. It was worth restarting though: I wanted to read all of it.

Exclusion Zone by ambrits 2022-04-04T02:29:46Z ♥ 3

Definitely enjoyed this! Did a really excellent job, between the music, sfx, and stark atmosphere, of making me feel the tension and horror of radiation--which is something I love. Very "this is not a place of honor." The number one problem is communication with the user: the tutorial was unclear & also just lacking important info, and I had to figure out what most stuff did with trial and error. I wasn't even sure if I won (it just said "Game Over".) That said, the actual puzzle aspect of it was fun to try to figure out--don't try to build a small tight wall!