jessekaz

CVC Presents: The tale of Plague Doctor Man (John Withah) by David Mason 2022-04-16T21:25:01Z ♥ 2

Seems like you've got a solid basis for something here, but for me it didn't feel quite complete enough. Wasn't really sure what the purpose was. I imagine it's just "survive as long as possible", but I didn't find any reason why I'd want to do that. Maybe if there was a score you're trying to maximize? Counter of number of days survived? Maybe the map is slowly uncovered as you explore? It feels like the game is missing some kind of reward for surviving.

It was also hard to read my current stats (M/H/F/W) because it was often overlapping with the map elements. A background rectangle behind the stats text would help a lot, or even just have the stats rendered in the corner of the screen rather than beside the player icon. It was also hard to see what numerical impact different choices had on those stats. A "+2.5 health" popup or something similar would have made a difference here. For example, when I bought food it seemed like my Water stat increased instead, but it only lasted for like half a second. Not really sure why that is or how it's possible to buy enough food and water to stay above zero.

Hurrikeyn by Josh Riley 2022-04-16T21:09:58Z ♥ 0

Very polished-feeling game. Controlling the menu by typing is awesome. Very present feeling of inevitability. Loved the clear feedback of highlighting letters when typing words correctly, and the animated falling letters is very satisfying. Also clever use of tetris mechanics to up the difficulty every time you miss a word. Could have maybe used some sound effects when typing a recognized mid-word letter or when a word is cancelled by a mistype, I feel like that would have both added a bit more juice and made it easier for players to correct for their mistakes.

Shootzilla by Bernhard 2022-04-16T20:57:08Z ♥ 1

This was a lot of fun :) Mouse sensitivity was really high for me as well, could have used a way to adjust that, but otherwise nicely done. Shooting felt very solid and the hit registration effects made a big difference in making the combat feel tactile. Also, the feeling of inevitability is definitely evoked and grows over time. Those rainbow dudes are terrifying.

Morpheus of Mars by AnneArkey 2022-04-10T23:54:42Z ♥ 1

Was a bit confusing how repairing the dome didn't always work (didn't realize at first that you need resources to repair), and how repairing comms didn't always work (maybe it was you need the dome to be repaired first?). Also wasn't clear what repairing comms did for you.

Really liked how you did the startup sequence. Very clever and gave some character to the world.

Volcano Island by MPK90 2022-04-10T23:23:49Z ♥ 1

Neat concept, and nice atmosphere with the music. Liked the exploration and the little puzzle to figure out. Some things I would have liked to see/could improve the game a lot: 1) Mouse sensitivity control. 2) The movement felt very jerky and jarring, which made it a bit frustrating to get to the top of the tower. Some ease-in or momentum/acceleration-based control could be nice. 3) Sliding off the very slight incline on the tower path didn't feel very good, especially since it was hard to tell when I was moving with the flat shading. Textures or better friction would have helped this. 4) A visual survival timer and/or and hunger bar. I didn't know I was trying to survive as long as possible until I died the first time, and I didn't know I could starve until I starved the first time. 5) Picking up items felt unpredictable, I couldn't tell very easily which way I had to face to pick up the item. Crosshairs would have helped tremendously.

Overall good job :) I enjoyed playing through this game. Kudos for making 3D assets from scratch.

Why Did I Wait by IndiePixel 2022-04-10T22:54:12Z ♥ 1

Really good sense of atmosphere. I didn't get much of a sense of anything 'inevitable', but it was fun and felt really solid and polished for a jam game.

Only piece of advice I'd give is maybe some tradeoff to make for the 'hit' button. At the moment there doesn't seem to be any reason why you wouldn't just constantly spam A the entire game. Maybe when you hit the button your momentum gets zeroed out? Or maybe a cooldown?

Eldritch Crossing by _for_science 2022-04-07T06:07:07Z ♥ 2

Very well done. Atomosphere, graphics, audio design, all on point. Getting a symbol right before it 'pops' is suuper satisfying. Fits the theme very well.

Omni Empire by arqitech 2022-04-07T05:49:16Z ♥ 1

Love the mechanic of having limited resources, so no matter how well you do, loss is inevitable. Very well done, and a very enjoyable game to play.

Only thing I found annoying is that scrolling to zoom was way too coarse, so I just stayed zoomed out the entire game and it was annoying to select things. Making the zoom much more granular would be nice.

ONCOMING by Paperdomo101 2022-04-07T05:29:55Z ♥ 2

Kinda fun, but had a hard time figuring out how to get powerups. Felt really good to move around though.

leaky robotic arm by inert_aesthetic 2022-04-07T05:10:34Z ♥ 1

Actually really enjoyed this. Was a little hard to figure out what the controls were at first (maybe could have been communicated a bit better) but once I figured them out, the control scheme actually felt really good and intuitive. Played this for quite a while considering how simple the mechanics are.

A few things that I found could have been improved:

1) The game got too easy after some time. Once you've been playing for a while the entire floor is covered in fluid and it's super easy to stay topped up. I ended up getting bored with full fuel and just waiting for a breaker to trip. I think the total amount of fuel in the game (on the ground + in your tank) increases over time. Making there actually be an invariant amount of total fuel would naturally make the game harder as it goes on (same amount of fuel that gets spread more evenly over a larger and larger area means it's harder to keep up).

2) There doesn't seem to be any urgency to flip the breakers. If you're low on fluid when a breaker goes, you can just suck up fluid until you have enough and can comfortably flip the breaker. If you lost fluid faster for each tripped breaker, I think it would bring some urgency to the game and force the player to choose between fluid intake and preventing fluid loss.

3) Having only three breakers at set locations allow you to figure out an arm configuration that allows you to hit all three by only moving two of the arm segments. If the breakers were randomly moved to different locations, the player would have to be a bit more creative and dynamic and move all of the arm segments.

Overall really well done, fit the theme perfectly (apart from the fact that it seems like you can actually survive forever if you have the patience).

Doomsday Run by Kaish 2022-04-07T04:48:48Z ♥ 2

Great job. Music is awesome, I love the clever variations on Wedding March, and it fit the pace of the gameplay perfectly. Art style gave the people a lot of character. It was very easy to understand the motivation and gameplay from the intro cutscene without needing an explanation or tutorial. Well done!

HoldShit by OldDog 2022-04-07T04:41:55Z ♥ 0

Definitely an experience. Bizarre and hilarious. Only complaint is that the character/camera turns WAY too quickly and is all-or-nothing and is near impossible to control.

3 Minutes to Die by sillyman987 2022-04-07T04:32:49Z ♥ 1

Neat little game. Had a lot of atmosphere, the player and enemies were visually simple but still had a lot of character, and the music was pretty cool. The main thing for me is that the dash didn't feel super great; I think a) because you don't seem to move any faster when dashing than when walking, and b) for some reason your momentum gets set to zero when the dash finishes, which felt jarring. Since the dash is the main mechanic it kinda limited my enjoyment of actually playing the game.