Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → JoeShanahan
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 60 | Old Tech | 🤖 | Vitruvian Machine | jam | ||||||||||
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Robo Island | jam | 142 | 3.98 | 3.84 | 3.57 | 3.32 | 3.65 | 2.88 | 3.46 | |||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | Library Fighter II Turbo | jam | 245 | 3.88 | 3.83 | 3.90 | 3.94 | 3.71 | 4.03 | 3.82 | ||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | HydroRobia | jam | 270 | 3.83 | 3.59 | 3.52 | 4.20 | 4.11 | 3.28 | 3.55 | ||
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | Parcel Run | jam | 88 | 4.10 | 4.08 | 3.73 | 3.87 | 4.25 | 4.15 | 4.04 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | Toy Tactics | jam | 562 | 3.66 | 3.72 | 3.58 | 3.15 | 3.66 | 3.55 | 3.49 | ||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | In Too Deep | jam | 987 | 3.48 | 3.05 | 2.71 | 3.76 | 4.05 | 2.19 | 2.95 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | 👥 | Driven Round the Loop | jam | 173 | 4.02 | 3.97 | 3.99 | 4.34 | 3.89 | 3.69 | 3.61 | 3.69 | |
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | The Dragonsitter | jam | 614 | 3.75 | 3.70 | 3.53 | 4.05 | 3.81 | 3.07 | 3.59 | ||
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | Village Simulation Game | jam | 431 | 3.57 | 3.60 | 2.90 | 3.62 | 3.49 | 2.81 | 3.42 |
JoeShanahan leaves an average of 18.5 feedback comments each event.
I didn't fully understand the way the keys collected, so the first time I played, it felt like a painfully slow clicker game. Realizing that you could use any button, and it worked even without focus, then I went back, played a bit more, and safjhedsfjfjsksdfhsdjkfhdsjkfhdsjkfhdsjkhfdjksdfhsjkfhksjhfdjskhfdsjkfhsdjkfshdfjkdshkjsdhfdjksfsdhohhh okay this is pretty goosjkdfhsjkdfhdjskhfjdkshfjsdhfjksdhfjkdshjkds
Completed it, very satisfying! It's fairly simple, but it's a great jam entry because it ramps up in both difficulty and excitement, and then ends before it gets boring.
One quick thing for future jams (in case you weren't aware): On your Unity Canvas, set the scaling mode to "Scale with Screen Size" and then the match mode to 1 (Height). Right now it seems to be exactly fit for 1080p, and anything smaller cuts off parts of the UI.
"Mood" is one of those ratings that for many games its unclear what it even means. Not here. 5/5. Great job! 😄
Okay so there are so many incredible subtle jokes here, but the very obvious train one made me laugh out loud. I also love that the fail condition is optional if you can just outrun it. 5/5. No notes.
I had to rebind the controls because I kept pressing space to jump instead of up, but once I did, managed to complete the game after a few attempts. Thanks for putting that in! Amazing jam entry.
Unfortunately I am not able to play, it crashes as soon as I hit play... Screenshot 2026-04-26 141244.png
This is a super original idea, it's a bit too much memorization for my ADHD brain. Needing to remember the numbers, and the order of those numbers, its less fun than the shape matching bit. I think it'd be cool to start off easier, maybe only one or two patterns, and phase 1 is just viewing the shapes (no slider), and phase 2 is trying to match those shapes by memory (slider for each shape). That way, you're remembering the shapes, rather than remembering the decimal numbers, which personally I think works better for such a unique central game mechanic.
my first playthrough I thought I was controlling the aliens, but couldn't work out the controls. My second playthrough, after I realised I was the cars - I did MUCH worse 😂
Me controlling the cars just made it easier for the aliens than random chance.
So much about this to love - the graphics, the music, the writing, and the UX is really good too. The game loop is a great start too, but needs a bit more depth. It'd be good to have decisions over which areas to respond to, maybe some take longer but have bigger consequences if not dealt with. Right now it seemed like I just always send the team member with the right colour to the spot with the smallest timer. But all that said, this is still a super polished entry, very impressed by it.
Neat idea! I'm not sure if YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND AN EXIT IN YOUR PROGRAM was the end of the game or not, but I pressed Ok and nothing happened after that.
Well I can't say I really understood how to solve these other than just guessing and bruteforcing, but I got through 30 levels that way and had a good time. Really nice sound effects and visuals!
This was fun! I would've loved a chance to push a bit further and have EVEN MORE turrets, just complete power fantasy of 10 turrets all turning on one group of goblins, but what is here is a really good length for a jam game. It's a good time, and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Really well polished game! I got stuck very quickly, I wonder if there could be a few more easier levels to let people feel smart before they hit a wall? Also I skipped all the levels to try to get back to the start, but it seems like there was no way to go back, so I had to start again in a fresh browser 😆
Finally a game that captures that moment where Ryan Gosling is having fun tapping on the glass while on the other side is getting increasingly frustrated with him not understanding the instructions 🚀
Super cute game, with a pretty original premise as well! The completionist in me really wanted to be able to get a perfect score, but I guess that's more a me problem than anything else 😂
I appreciate with this game that there are no gotcha's - like it's not trying to trick you into thinking something might not be sick, or not be a mutant, it's just up to you to pay enough attention. I did at first send away the horse because I thought it looked sick, but I guess that's just how it looks 😂
I also really love how you managed to build these animals in a modular way where you can fit giraffe legs on a turtle and it still animated properly. The turtle did appear to be making the noise it makes when it's getting a little too friendly with a shoe, which made me laugh.
On the final two levels, even though I didn't make any mistakes, the level ended before I got the full score. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not?
I love the aesthetic of this, and the whole vibe is really nice and chill. Unfortunately, I think the way procedural generation has been used here has only contributed negatively, making an endless world where you can walk for five minutes and everything around looks exactly as it did when you started. Procedural generation is at its best when it can provide variety, but here it's just infinite amounts of sameness. That doesn't make an enjoyable experience to walk around in, and I couldn't tell while following the breadcrumbs if I was following them forwards or backwards, so had to give up eventually.
I think this art style and even the gameplay, would work a lot better with a handcrafted world. Even if there was just a single level, it would be better than having multiple that felt like they had no-one hand crafting it to be an interesting experience.
Took me a while to work out why things brooding kept appearing, and also wasn't clear that I was supposed to date one person until the heart was full rather completing one date with every person. Although this was mostly due to a glitch where I tried to click on a person for a second date and the whole game stopped working 😞
Once I got the hang of it though, I managed to work out a few strategies to be successful, making sure I saved my Discard for the right time, and sometimes tactically used negative cards to make sure the hand I was discarding contained as many of my negative deck as possible.
The biggest thing I think this game needed was some music, just something inoffensive that might play in a cafe, because the silence didn't really fit with the rest of the vibe of the game. But that's mostly just polish, so otherwise you did a great job with this!
A lot of polish here, and also just generally a really well designed game that doesn't feel like anything is missing. I was fairly sure I was going to lose by a single point because I was down to my last two cards, then somehow managed to end up one point up - what a rush 😄
This was fun! I got 100% on level 2, and I wasn't quite sure I deserved it, so then I spent a while trying to work out if I could exploit the scoring system, but it didn't work 😂
The artwork is really nice, and the game feel is very good, I think the only addition I'd really like is a button to start the game, because I didn't realise I was playing the second the game loaded. Great job with this one!
> Will you be able to reach the Demon lord ?
Well I made two attempts and didn't manage to reach them, so I guess the answer is no 😂
Really nice art style, and the mix of fast moving easy words and slower moving complex words makes for some nice balance. I think the demon lord was talking, but I have absolutely no way of knowing because I was fully concentrating on the words I needed to type.
This game is really sweet - the combination of the hand drawn animals, the emotive yet subtle background music, and just generally chill vibe - it makes a really nice experience. The character jump feels a bit too heavy for me, they accelerate *really* fast downwards, but other than that I had a really nice time with this one 😄
Really fun little puzzle platformer, I'm so used to these being 2D that I was struggling to work out if this counted 😂
Impressive amount of content, and not too many mechanics either, so you get to explore the different ways they can hinder/help you. I do wish it were possible to respawn the dog if you fell off, instead of needing to re-place all the platforms - especially if I already knew they were in the right place, but that's a minor gripe, I enjoyed this one a lot!
I haven't played a huge number of hidden object games, but the ones I have tended to hide objects in places they didn't belong, but blended in so you had to look carefully to find them. All of the objects in this game looked like they belonged, so it didn't feel much like "hidden object" so much as it did "click on all the objects and hope that some are interactable". I spent a while clicking on a mirror because I knew I needed one, only to find out I should've been clicking on a *different* mirror.
Outside of that though, this was a cute game which clearly had a lot of love put into it - which has a ton of personality to it 😄
Love the art style, and the personality that you added to the dialogue is nice too. I second the thing about air movement, some games don't let you do it and that adds to the game feel, but here it just felt a bit clunky. Being able to reposition things would probably break some of the puzzles, but being able to undo would be appreciated - for when I accidentally place something I didn't mean to and now have to start over. Neat little puzzle platformer here, great job! 😄
It seems like this is somewhat adjacent to Overcooked, but with putting together demons? I really like the idea conceptually. I found the actual experience of playing the game more frustrating than fun, unfortunately. Especially once there were multiple screens, and I had to run around just trying to remember where everything was, rather than focus on prioritising my orders. The timers on the orders were too fast for me to properly plan ahead, I basically had to just pick the simplest one at all times.
The single button for everything makes things pretty simple, but it's quite difficult to reliably get things to go where you want, so not was only I spending a lot of time just trying to find things, I was also spending time trying to pick things up and struggling.
I don't want to be just negative though, because the game has a really great art style, this 2.5D almost paper-crafted in places, and it's super high quality everywhere. There's a whole load of polish on the UI as well, I think this game scores high on a bunch of the voting categories. I just wish I found it fun rather than frustrating.
This is a neat little arcade game, that feels like it was perfectly scoped for the few hours you had available. You picked the right things to work on so that it could still be a fun experience, while dropping anything like title or game over screens, and I think that paid off!
I do wish the restart button wasn't right next to shoot though, I did hit that by accident once!
I was really struggling to do any kind of crowd control, and then I unlocked flame breath and that carried the rest of the game. I played twice, and both times it seemed like I went from 100% health to 0% health in a single hit against one of the larger enemies? It was an abrupt way to end both runs, which otherwise felt like they were going pretty well.
But other than that, this is a really original spin on this type of game, and the only limitation on spell casting being how fast you can draw them means you can be a better spellcaster if you're a faster player, which feels fair. Great idea, great execution on that idea!
This was a really creative game, and a very polished jam entry too! Some of the mechanics took a bit of time to click with me, I thought at first maybe it was one of those games where the enemies move when you move, and only being able to turn by moving was pretty unintuitive too. I wasn't totally sure if that was intentional in order to force to player to play a different way or not, but I definitely got frustrated taking damage bumping into him when I wanted to face him to attack.
Managed to work out a strategy in the end though, even if it took me a while to be able to execute on it! The picking of the body parts was an interesting way to let the player choose their own difficulty level, although it seemed like on pretty much every level there was basically only one configuration that'd be accepted, which made it feel a bit like a false choice.
But I don't mean to be so negative, I thought this was a really strong entry, it felt very complete, and had a lot of good humour too. I think it's going to score pretty well overall! 😄
Took me a while to understand what I was supposed to be doing, but thought it was super original once I understood properly. The idea of summoning circles being like mouse traps for demons is conceptually hilarious, and haven't seen anyone else think of something like that. Needing to learn the different types of trap takes a while, but isn't too complicated.
I do think the number of traps builds up too much too fast though. You end up just in an impossible state, where you'll have overlapping traps where one requires you to zoom past it, and the other requires you to stand still, so no matter how good you are - that part of the screen is now off limits. Being able to have the difficulty ramp up a little slower would allow for longer games, where the pressure builds up in a more satisfying way, rather than hitting a wall of impossible.
Overall, really cool idea and great job executing on it!
This game was amazing. I didn't fully understand the game until my third playthrough, but after two I was so pumped to go again that I couldn't wait to get going again. The risk/reward of waiting for a chain vs getting rid of enemies as fast as possible, and the split second decisions of which hero to use for the abilities that are shared - it's really great design.
The difficulty ramps up at a good rate, the music is a bop (even if you didn't make it, still adds to the experience) and I enjoyed my time with it a lot. Fantastic job.
I think this is actually a pretty decent amount of content for a jam game, you're selling yourself short with "only 6 tiny levels", this is a lot of stuff! You've got a nice little puzzle platformer here, which has some well thought out levels.
The final level was too much for me, it seemed like it needed some pretty precise timing and I just didn't have it in me. I appreciated the skip level button though, so I could experience the whole game. I also got a bit confused on how many crates I actually had from looking at the mana bar, being a bit more explicit about "you have three crates" in some way on the UI would be nice.
Overall though, fantastic job!
Really love the pixel art on this one, and amazing job getting this finished for your first solo LDjam! I didn't read the instructions close enough at first, so missed that I had to get to the court as well, it would've been nice to have an in game notification when I had enough money to now get to the court.
I did also find starting in debt a bit confusing, and that you can only pay the court once you get to 0 dollars, did you consider making it a number like "0/1300" instead of starting off with -1300 and trying to get to 0?
"this is my very first Ludum Dare! So of course I totally overscoped" this is my 8th Ludum Dare and still I overscope 😂
What you've got here is super impressive, although it does require a huge amount of content for a very short amount of gameplay. I could see this being a really engaging game mechanic in a bigger game, where they can use the assets/environments they already have to be able to make lots of different puzzles without needing to make new assets each time.
I definitely wanted to play more once I got to the end, although I did wonder if it'd be more engaging if there wasn't always exactly one thing wrong, that you get a better score if you get all the checkboxes right. As it currently was, all I needed to do was see the one thing wrong and then not check anything else.
...to be fair with the second puzzle I didn't see that one thing until after I'd counted everything in the room, so I think you did already think about that. Either way, really cool entry, with a super original idea!
This was a funny and clever take on the theme. I have a dilemma though because when I saw dialogue, I started reading it out loud, and now I have a 7 minute video of me reading the whole game. Not sure how interesting that's going to be for you to watch back, but I guess we'll see when I put together the edit tomorrow 😂
This was incredible. Even with such a minimalist art style, there is so much juice and polish - it feels like it's already a complete game. The gameplay is super creative, and I'm pretty sure it'd be amazing if I had a wacom tablet or something, but even just mouse and keyboard was a lot of fun. This is definitely going to be top 100.
I had a lot of fun with this because while the physics make precision very difficult, the game doesn't penalise you for that, so throwing plates across the room into jars is considered a valid way of opening them. When I completed it I thought I'd accidentally pressed a button to reset the game, it came so abruptly, so it'd be good if that was made more clear. But really more than anything I just wanted more tasks to do!
I was thinking "wow, I don't even have to look at the enemies, I have so many turrets that I can just focus on collecting instead" and then I got hit and then basically the whole game was over 😂
I didn't immediately realise that summoning bugs was reducing the health, so I spawned a LOT of bugs right at the start. I also couldn't find the way to unsummon them? It seems like if each bug does as much damage as an enemy bug, then effectively you have a finite pool of health and so a finite number of enemies you can kill before you necessarily game over.
On my second attempt somehow I managed to go below 0 health just fine, and so I insulated the planet in a coat of bugs so thick that not even sunlight could get through. I think that means I won 😉
For some reason I imagined I was about to craft a squirrel with a knife, and I guess I slipped or something because that is not what I got. And the demon was not happy about it.
I like the idea of the two phases, I wanted to make a game like that myself before (feast on villagers during the night, build a fortress during the day) but ran out of time before even half was done. Implementing both of them and making them interlinked in the way they were was really engaging. I'm glad there was a time limit just because otherwise I would've spent way too long outside exploring, but then also not sure it added anything to the crafting section.
I enjoyed my playthrough, but after I lost I didn't want to do all of that again to have another attempt, so stopped there.
Really love the art style on this one, the sprite work has a lot of personality. I too cheesed the boss by standing on the ledge and summoning birds, but what's the point of being a summoner if you have to stand close to those attacking you? 😂
I didn't really see the point in using anything except the bird, the rats just seemed like less good birds. Also the camera (using cinemachine?) felt a bit off to me, maybe the lookahead a bit too aggressive? But then when I actually wanted lookahead (when falling downwards) I didn't have it. That's my only real gripe, otherwise - great job! 🎉
This was really creative, having the demons attack *everyone* (not just your enemies) feels very thematically appropriate, and taking the time to explain the game mechanics inside the game is very much appreciated. The biggest issue I had was the hitboxes, I would've liked them to be a bit more generous, but overall a solid entry!
Incredible entry, it feels super complete, the voice adds so much and is also very funny. It's often risky for a dev to do their own VO but you pulled it off perfectly. And the ending was brilliant too. I love a good incremental game. This will definitely score near the top for humour, and I think pretty high overall too - loved this one!
I liked this one a lot, was surprisingly chill despite the constant timer - but I think this is an example of an entry that really used the theme to make the game more interesting. I also really liked that at the outset you picked a match time, so you know exactly how long you're going to spend playing this game, massively appreciated!
The only thing I didn't really like was that the score was how much money you happened to have at the end of the game. I think I would've preferred if it was how much money you made overall, otherwise it seems like the best strategy is to stop playing towards the end, rather than speed up and try and make the most of the time.
One of the juciest games I've played this jam! Lots of polish, although I'm inclined to agree with the above commenter that the red box made the game less fun. The dynamic music was a great addition - also, I love the creativity of making a sequel to a previous jam with a different theme, while matching the new theme too 😄 ➿️
Managed to get a high score of 100 on my second attempt! My first try I crashed on my second landing...
I like the way that you kinda have to aim at a moon, then flip-and-burn to cancel out the velocity, it reminded me of when they do that in The Expanse, so in my head that's what was happening every time I flipped around 😄
I think like some of the other players, I saw the thumbnail and thought it would be a joke entry, but glad to see I was wrong! 😄 Not that this isn't funny, because the humour is great, but it's a well-made entry with more depth than might seem on the surface :)
Those are some aggressive tumbleweeds! It reminds me of this movie called Rubber where a homicidal car tyre chases people down and murders them 😂
I found it quite relaxing to run around the desert, never shooting anything, just trying to collect as many chests as possible.
...that was until I turned around after a minute or two of just gliding in one direction 😱 tumbleweeds.png
I'm a simple man, I see a cel shaded rollerblade game and I hit play. Incredible amount of polish here, I love the character design and the animations are amazing too. I loved *almost* everything about this entry.
The thing I didn't like is that I found it a bit too unforgiving, kept both running out of hearts way too fast or falling off because I clipped through the rail. I got quite good at the first level with the bumpers, but couldn't work out how to get to the very highest platform and so didn't get enough gems to complete any of the levels past the tutorial. If there was a mode with more hearts, I would love to give it a longer go!
...even with that aside, this is such a good game - I'll probably wake up tomorrow and feel compelled to give it another go 😄
Woah, amazingly done entry! I really loved the character designs - they were simple but conveyed a lot of personality. And the sound design was excellent, I loved the way it integrated with the credits. OH! and also major props to any team that has time to implement onboarding for their jam game.
The only thing I can think of that I would've liked is if there was some sort of display to let you know how much of the day is left. Towards the middle, I wasn't sure if the game was endless or if I had something I was working towards - but once the message told me the sun was setting I kept going until the end. Other than that, super solid entry!
Also throwing passengers around felt great 😄 *(I may have thrown several of the red guys into the river out of frustration)*
When you need to save the world, but your only tool is bubble sort 😂
Holy moly, what an entry! I've never seen a jam game with such incredible sound design - not only is it dynamic music but the sounds themselves are so pleasant as they come together. The artwork is super pretty, and you created such an incredible mood too - I felt pretty emotional by the end.
The only negative thing I have to say is that more people need to play this! Get out there and rate some games! You have a real chance of getting a top spot if a few more people got to see this!
Amazing game feel here! Moving around feels really good, and as other have said, each upgrade feels like it really changes the way you play. Although I feel maybe the motion blur might be a *bit* much...
Can't tell you how much I smiled once music I recognised from Fallout 3 started playing 😄
I was drawn in by the thumbnail, and played all the way through to the end - I loved this game so much!
There's the obvious things to love, like the adorable artwork, the animal-crossing-eske dialogue noises, and the chill music - but it goes so much deeper than that. The attention to detail in the smaller things, like the way that the menus pop up, make the game feel so pleasant to play. Having the things you can build progress over time means the player doesn't get overwhelmed from the start with too many options, and cutting down trees takes *just* the right amount of time to feel satisfying without being tedious.
Amazing entry right here, you all did great work!
The squishy cats feel so good! I love the idea that when cats seek out the tiny spot of sunlight on the floor and sit in it, they're playing this game in their heads.
How do you outrun a farmer? You don't, you outrun the chicken next to you 😉
Really polished entry here, and a pretty original idea too - enjoyed this entry!
It took a while to get the hang of but I was enjoying it. Rolling down a hill felt great, reminded me of how good it felt to go fast in the old Sonic games. Ultimately I stopped playing because I got too frustrated, felt like I couldn't afford to make even a single mistake, or else I'd have to do the whole level again.
Perhaps shorter levels or checkpoints might've helped? Once I'd already proven I could beat part of a level over and over, I didn't want to have to keep doing it just to get to the bit that I'd got stuck on.
I think you nailed the creepy mood though, great contrast with how cute and bright the rest of the game is! 😄
At first I was annoyed when my weapon kept firing in the wrong direction, but then when I saw the missile come back around and hit something in the back? Couldn't help but smile! 😄
I put my playthrough of this on YouTube if you wanted to check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01dcU5RDzZk
It seems like you totally nailed the vibe you were going for, genuinely got freaked out on the final level when I died the first time!
On the first level when I was opening boxes, the fact that I couldn't turn around while they opened made everything so much more tense, I thought that was really well done. Although struggling to get the item out of the box once I found it didn't add quite as much, it felt more just like a bit of a rough edge because of the jam time constraints.
It wasn't clear to me whether looking away causes a timer to go up that resets when you look back, or whether it's a timer that constantly climbs up? Sometimes it seemed like I could reset it by looking back, and other times it felt like I'd used up the whole timer so the second I looked away I'd lose.
Incredibly creepy game here, great job with that 😄 👻
The artwork here is really nice, and the audio creates a really intense eerie mood!
I found avoiding/shooting obstacles fairly easy, I didn't get hit at all until I intentionally rammed into something to try out the fixing system. I think perhaps the difficulty could ramp up over time, become a bit more clear that you're getting closer to the end. I was about to quit the game because I thought it was endless when I did reach the end, so a bit more signaling that there is an end would be great.
Good job with this one 😄
It took me a while to get started, but once I realized the best strategy is to have the egg in the air as much as possible and headbutt it along, it became more fun. Unfortunately, I found myself frustrated most of the time, where it a lot of the failures felt unfair, or that I had to do too many things perfectly in a row without any checkpoints.
I don't know how many levels there are, but I stopped on level 3. I could get all the way to the end, but just not make the final jump. It felt like the only way I'd be able to do it is just play over and over again until I got lucky with the physics, and by that point I had already got past the point of being fed up.
I'd also echo some of the sentiments about turning around being a death sentence. I think it's fine to leave the turning in, and even leave it so the egg doesn't follow. That third level definitely uses that for an interesting challenge. But also, I think there needs to be a way to recover from that, because right now even if you can catch it facing the other way, you might as well drop it because you're stuck.
Overall, I liked it more than I expected I would. It felt really good to beat the second level. But I went away frustrated, which generally isn't a good thing.
The presentation values in this are amazing, the voxel art looks great, the lighting is fantastic, and the music works really well too. I clearly didn't read the instructions well enough because my first playthrough I thought I was racing the hamster 😅
Something I really appreciated was the fact that you were able to communicate various bits of information without any UI. The health was done with in-world objects, rather than an on screen bar. And even the few bits of UI you did have were world-space rather than screen overlay. I like games that can do minimal UI without losing anything, and this game does that excellently.
Really original idea here, and water physics in a jam game?! Amazing!
Once I got the hang of moving upwards, I figured I was all set, but then it only got more difficult from there 😅 I enjoyed my time with this game, but by the time I got to the end I was glad there wasn't *another* stage afterwards because that one had pushed me enough already.
Great level design, and great entry all around!
Really impressive amount of variety here, from the weapons and enemies through to the different modifiers (or I should I call them... instabilities? 😄 )
What I really liked about it (especially for a jam game) is that instead of losing health, you lose time when you get hit. It felt forgiving enough that I could afford to make mistakes, but not SO many that I don't need to put in any effort.
Oh and Funky Trap Sax is funky 🎷
Wow, one of the most unique art styles of the whole jam, really cute stuff! When I was a kid I used to love this game called "Orly Draw a Story" where you would be told a story, and every 30 seconds or so you'd be asked to draw one of the characters, so you'd have your own artwork in the story (a bit like a mad-lib but with drawings instead of words) and this reminded me a lot of the joy I got from that.
I hope your kids felt a similar joy, and this inspires them to keep on creating! 😄
I love the old TV thing you've got going on, really well implemented! The game is really polished too, I have to say the blinking though - it freaks me out 😅
I also love the sense of humor, not only does the clown fall off the rope but ALSO gets eaten by a shark! That level of detail isn't super common in GameJam games, but really adds a lot of charm.
Every single time I died was due to bombs, I just wasn't able to determine in time which items I should pick up and which I should avoid. Not sure if that's a me-problem or if it could be made a bit more clear. I had to constantly swap my eyes between the numbers on the boxes and the top of the screen, so it was too much for me to also mentally parse what the item was while it was falling.
This game has a super pretty aesthetic, from the pixel art and FX all the way through to effective use of parallax - it looks really really good! It's got a pretty dark sense of humor too, when you make a mistake and accidentally murderise a bunch of people.
I didn't find the gameplay super engaging unfortunately, it was mostly just tedious walking back and forth collecting people with a seemingly arbitrary limit on how many can follow you, only to need to then unload them 21 at at a time too. The only challenge for me was remembering not to jump off the platform and kill everyone in the capsule (I did this more than once 😅)
On my second ship full I accidentally hit a satellite and everyone died. That was kinda crushing so didn't really feel any incentive to go back and pick up the last remaining hundred people. If I could have got 100 at a time to follow me I think I would've done, but the number of trips I needed to take just put me off.
I think this game still deserves a pretty good score overall, it's such an impressive piece of work - I just wish there was a bit more to the gameplay so it didn't feel like such a chore to play.
This game is simply incredible! Huge amount of respect for what seems to be a very original puzzle mechanic, and one that has a whole bunch of depth to it in terms of things you can learn. Things like trying to avoid corners because that makes the tile impassable, or that you can go past the same basket twice to pick up the same thing you put down. Or that moment when you finally get the timing right and everything works like clockwork. Such an amazing feeling.
I've designed a few puzzle games vaguely like this before, and it's a lot of hard work, but also fun to discover all the different ways a few simple rules can lead to different patterns of thinking. I thought that experience would help me solve these puzzles quickly, but it ended up taking quite a long time to beat them all 😅
The presentation is great too, it feels pretty polished all around, but just from an abstract design standpoint alone, this game rates very highly for me.
I found myself quite confused by this game. One time I played and there were no vowels, so I couldn't do anything. And the next time it was *only* vowels so I also couldn't do anything. Also sometimes just a bunch of letters would spawn in faster than I could possibly use them and I lost.
I think this idea has a bunch of potential, but it needs to be made much clearer what the rules are, why the letters are/aren't appearing. Occasionally something would appear on screen like "black hole" but I wasn't sure if that was something I did, or was random, or if it was a button I was supposed to press? I didn't seem to see a black hole appear on screen so it confused me a great deal.
I tried to follow the tutorial and it just got stuck on the second step. I tried CAB, ABC, BAC, and none of them changed anything. I had to force close the game to get out. Maybe the tutorial will have explained more if I could've got it to work?
So overall, interesting concept, needs a bit more work though!
I really love the aesthetic of this game, it's authentically 1 bit - the artwork here has a lot of charm to it!
...I was really really bad at it 😅 I managed to get more than 10 people at one point, but every attempt after that was worse and worse. Couldn't work out a good strategy to stop the wobbling.
I think this game is going to rank pretty highly in the end results, it's one of the most distinctive looking games I've seen so far! Amazing work!
As soon as I opened the game and heard the music, I already liked it. Gave me real retro vibes, like sega megadrive - something like Ecco the Dolphin. Really contributed to the atmosphere and mood of the game!
My first playthrough I was pretty cautious, and I *almost* made it to the end, but died. I was going to give up but then I was told about becoming stronger, so went through again and won. I think that's a really smart design decision for a jam game, people are only going to have so much time to dedicate to each game, so giving them a hand if they struggle the first time makes it more likely people will complete it.
I also really love games where everything happens when the player moves, it means you can put the player in really difficult situations, but let them work out the best actions in their own time rather than being rushed by approaching enemies.
I enjoyed my time playing this game, great job! 😄
The concept alone is hilarious, but then seeing grandma be launched across the screen to get to the DMV - incredible! A couple of levels I felt like I won by pure chance, but for the most part I could make a plan and then try my best to execute it, and that would get me to the goal. A solid entry all around!
This game is really pretty and atmospheric! It took me a while to understand how to push off of walls, I didn't realize at first that my mouse position mattered - but once I did it felt pretty good to push myself around in zero-g. Full marks for **mood** here, you've created something really special!
I really liked the feeling of momentum in this game, and had some fun once I figured out how to target and shoot stuff! I'm not convinced by the score constantly going down, I feel like once you get points you should keep them, and perhaps there's another way to punish players for not being active enough.
I managed to get 14,760 as a high score!
Unfortunately my PC isn't powerful enough to run this at more than 1fps 😞
(I have an Nvidia GTX 550Ti, it's about a decade old at this point)
This is a pretty elaborate game, took me a while to get the hang of it! I really like the turn based aspect, that there isn't a time pressure and I can take my time deciding what the best next move is. I'm not sure I managed to successfully stop a climate event using a net, but I think that was just me misunderstanding how you're supposed to use nets.
Overall, very unique game idea with pretty good execution too. The art style does a lot with very little, creating a consistent aesthetic that really fits the climate-apocalypse theme you were going for. Great job! 😄
I was really very bad at this game. But after practicing for a bit... I was still bad. But at least I got a non-negative score 😄
A lot of polish here, and the humor is great too! A great entry all around!
also also, the music vaguely reminded me of this one Catherine track: https://youtu.be/-QEZ-zQXOAo
Woah, I really loved this one! I would've played through to the end, but I got stuck on level 33. There were a lot of clever ideas right from the start here, and more introduced as the game went on. But I think what impressed me the most was how many levels you had, most of them trying out a unique idea that isn't replicated anywhere else.
There's a couple of levels that could benefit from some kind of background, letting you know you're moving. There's one level where no background means you DISCOVER you're falling (but it's not clear at first) and that's amazing, but there's other levels where it's hard to tell if you're moving or not, and that's not a benefit.
I played for 25 minutes straight, and only quit because I couldn't beat that level, really solid entry!
Well it definitely fit the theme of Unstable - so much so that I think I started to feel a bit seasick 😅
I struggled a bit at first to know how to get started, I'd gone through the tutorial screens but then totally forgotten as soon as I started - I think some in-game prompts (maybe on screen controls) would be really helpful instead of putting it all before you start.
Other than that, I thought this was a pretty funny game, especially the audio (which I can see why you've opted out of) but I think that's still worth points overall and for humour too. Great job!
(now excuse me while I go stare at the horizon for a bit)
Immediately fell in love with the soundtrack and the artwork before I'd even started playing. Super relaxing, really gets you in a nice chill mood.
I really like the card game aspect of it, very simple to understand - although I couldn't really anticipate how my choices would affect my mood. I did not end up emotionally stable 😅
Really interesting entry!
Super unique idea here! I have to confess I felt a sudden injection of stress as soon as the Slack window appeared 😅
I also spent far too long trying to find where the key codes were, I didn't realize it was being added to the filesystem. That kind of breaking the boundary between the game and the game files was really interesting (once I got the hang of it)
I liked that each form had its own strengths/weaknesses, at one point I felt like water was strongest, but ultimately it felt like gas was best because of the faster fire rate. I think this game could benefit from better introductions to the mechanics, even after reading the game page and playing through to the end, I wasn't quite clear on why/when I would transition back.
Something I often rely on is this idea from Binding of Isaac, putting the controls on the floor of the first level. It's simple and quick to implement, but is a great way to get people introduced to the basics!
I felt like I was getting off to a really good start, and then just like with Tetris, one mistake snowballed into another, and another... and then everything fell apart 😅
I've seen a couple of block stacking games so far this ldjam, but this one was really well executed, I didn't feel rushed so it was pretty calming to play
I loved Marble Madness as a kid, so seeing a version with a more physics take was cool! My only real complaint is I wish there was more of it! 😄
Woah, incredibly polished game here! Really nice and consistent art style, with great UI too, and it feels like an example of "one button" gameplay done right. Restarting is nice and quick so it doesn't get too frustrating dying.
My one complaint is that when the difficulty comes from not being able to see? Those levels feel like the least fun, and least satisfying to complete. It felt like pure luck if I came out the other side or not, rather than something I could master. But there were an impressive number of levels here, with good introductions for each new thing like the stairs - some good level design there!
Overall, really great entry, I liked this a lot!
I love any game that manages to replicate the feeling of swinging on the ninja-ropes in Worms Armageddon, the momentum in this felt really great! The postjam stuff was too hard for me, but overall I really liked this game!
Amazing game! The puzzle mechanics are pretty unique, and the penguins are really adorable. I think I know a game that might have inspired you, but I'll let the other jammers discover that for themselves 😉
I've played enough Stardew Valley to recognise the inspiration here! Great job on your first jam, hope there's many more to come! 🎉
When I was super young, Columns was the one game that my mum would actually play, I think the music for it is burned into my brain somewhere at this point 😅
Inverting the match-3 to be DON'T-match-3 is an interesting innovation I haven't seen before, requires different strategies for sure.
It was all going so well! (...until it wasn't 😅)
The puns alone deserve 5 stars on humour, but there's a bunch of other great jokes too, I laughed a lot 😆
Aside from that, I loved the upgrade system for the final part of the game - that each time you made a choice between upgrades - it was a brand new set of upgrades. So you couldn't just get the one you didn't pick next time. It meant that my choice of upgrades felt personalised to me, making it much more satisfying to win.
Amazing job! 😁
I reached a point where there wasn't anything below me but I couldn't go any further down, was this the end? If it was, would be nice to have some kind of in game messaging that let you know you got to the end, so it doesn't feel like a bug.
I'm a sucker for Cookie Clicker so this was my kind of game! Idle games are actually pretty difficult to do right, because it's almost pure progression design, and if you get it wrong then the game is just incredible boring to play. I think you did a great job with the progression, although I think a couple of small changes could make it a better experience.
The UI was all just a bit too big, I think you could've fit a lot more on screen and had it feel less cramped by shrinking down some of the text. Being able to see exactly what current "events" (like worker strike) were happening rather than a log message when they start would be useful too. I thought it was interesting that the buildings needed maintenance, but they broke far too often. Sometimes I'd just finish fixing one and it immediately broke 😅
Overall, you designed a solid idle game loop, great job!
Wow, this game has got a lot of detail! And a pretty unique mechanic too, I've only seen one game with stacking dolls before (Stacking, 2011) but that was more adventurey than pure puzzle. I'm a fan of the design that goes into puzzle games so this one intrigued me quite a bit.
I ended up feeling quite split, because the later levels turned into more trial and error than anything. Since I can't see the whole level at once, I would try to step on the first buttons I could see, and if they weren't correct then try again with a new set of buttons. There was no way to change my previous positions without restarting and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.
On the one hand, you have to factor it into your solutions, you can't move once you've split off. On the other, I can think of so many more puzzle opportunities if you could rejoin with a previous doll to move it. You could open up a gate, move a doll through, leave one behind on the button, and then join back with the original and lock the previous doll on the other side of the gate.
You could have smaller levels that are still more difficult than the existing large ones, and the player can undo any decision at any time by tracing their steps backwards, rather than restarting entirely. Right now the difficulty seems to come from obfuscation, you can't see everything at once so it's harder. I think the real strength in your idea is about pressing buttons in the right order, and implementing the size of the dolls into the puzzle too (need a large doll to press a big button, a small doll to fit through a small gap).
Anyway, sorry for the ramble! Just some thoughts on how your clever game idea could be extended to have a bunch of new things to think about! Thanks for putting in all the work to make this!
Woah, really incredible mood achieved here with such simple visuals. I have to confess I died probably about 30 times on the first level because I didn't know about the sprint. The tutorial for that is on level 2, so perhaps there needed to be an even more basic first level where you don't need to sprint?
I liked going back through the levels and not having any difficulty with them any more, I got the feeling that was part of the metaphor? If that's the case, I think it would've been cool to leave the gravity-sucking things in, but have them affect you much less (maybe not at all) to show that the problems are still there, but they don't affect you any more.
Great mood, and I loved the effect created by the textures and the walls - really evoked those early shooter games like DOOM. I died in the room with the waves of enemies before the timer got to zero.
Managed to beat 5000 before the timer ran out, was very satisfying to get enough money to surround all my mines with a boatload of turrets and then watch them all freak out when an enemy came near. I noticed that the world was pretty big - but I didn't build much further than the first screen worth of space because going back and forth to check what needs fixing was a hassle.
Also, great game name 😉
Sincerely, a dev on ludum-dare/48/in-too-deep-2
This was absolutely fantastic! The game made me feel very smart, although I did feel like I was exploiting it a bit because any level where I could use a 0 (or make one) then I could solve the problem using very few digits, and then multiply all the rest of the numbers by 0. For example, on one level I got to 17 by doing `17 + ((3-3) * 2245677899)` which felt like cheating 😅
The levels where I had restrictions like no subtract and no zero made me think the hardest, and they were the ones I enjoyed the most too. Really clever game idea, really funny too! Thanks for making this!
Had a lot of fun with this one! There was a good risk:reward kinda thing going on with needing to leave the ship to get resources, vs stay near to protect it. I ended up getting to level 5 before dying. It would've been nice to see some kind of indication that the player was getting hurt other than the bar going down, most the time I didn't notice - but other than that, solid entry! 😄
Love the aesthetic and the music, both of them "reminiscent" of a particular game that I've been listening to the soundtrack a lot lately 😉
The game has a great mood to it too, I just wish I could move a bit faster. Even if that meant getting through the content faster, it would've raised the percentage of the playtime that I was actively doing something, rather than waiting for the character to get somewhere while I hold down a button.
"I must go now, my planet needs me"
Once I finally worked out how to split pieces by dragging them when they were half-off the screen, I realised how clever this puzzle mechanic was. As some other people have mentioned, it's very difficult to drag/place while the screen is moving, so perhaps things pausing while you're dragging could help?
At first I thought that the point of the game was to do the first level over and over (stuck in a loop) and then I realised I needed to do more than just go through the door to move on 😅
Then on the second level, I didn't want to take any chances so I lit up every single floor tile just in case I needed to do that too. For the third puzzle, I had no idea what the right answer was, I just kept trying random things until it worked.
I really like the mood of this game, the music and artwork is great too!
I started off playing this, and thought it was a bit too slow to be enjoyable, and wanted to stop. But then I saw the upgrade shop, and thought "okay just one more level" and... well I ended up spending a lot longer than I intended 😅
I think this mixes the best parts of real life arcade machines with the mechanics from Idle games. The central mechanic is *very* satisfying to take part in. Also, you constantly invest to improve your ability to earn, and that loop is addictive! I think it might need a little bit of tweaking though, as at the start it takes forever to earn upgrades, which makes it a bit more tedious.
Also, the FAILED text kinda clashes with the relaxing nature of the rest of the game. Not passing a level isn't *really* a failure, it's just your opportunity to use the shop. I think if it were reframed as - every three grabs you get to visit the shop - could keep the game exactly the same, but not make the player feel like they messed up.
Every fish caught is progress, and I think encouraging that feeling would make the game even more satisfying to play.
Oh my gosh I love this game so much! Having you change the directions *while* the character is moving? It's such a clever spin on a mechanic like this that I haven't seen before, and the way it's implemented is so intuitive too.
Plus, you've got levels that *look* easy that actually turn out to be very difficult. I think it's easy to make puzzles that are difficult because they're too convoluted, but making elegant puzzles like you have is the mark of a really strong puzzle game (in my mind)
Also it seemed like the mechanics you created have far more mileage than the levels you had time for in this jam, I think the idea could scale to a much bigger game which is *another* mark of a well designed puzzle game.
All around great jam, with fantastic artwork too! I enjoyed every minute of it, and played until I'd beaten it all. Thanks for making this 😄
You really nailed that Warioware feel! I loved that you managed to put your own spin on it by connecting the minigames to a bigger goal, with each minigame representing one of those tasks. And then spending the time to implement the challenge mode afterwards too, where every minigame still works sped up!
Had a lot of fun with this one, great job! 😄
Interesting take on the theme, although it wasn't really clear what effect my input had? I managed to get to the end twice, but I have no idea what I did to trigger the ending, whether it was something I did, or if I waitied long enough, or totally random?
I think giving the player some agency, allowing *them* to be the one that breaks out of the loop, that'd make breaking out more satisfying. I have to think many players quit thinking this was a game that never changed.
Oh my god, I felt so many feelings - you managed to achieve so much with the right mix of music, writing, and aesthetic. Truly masterful!
Thank you fur making this! 😉
I did it!
Wow, this game had me hooked. I don't know how long I played for, but I could've gone on for hours with a little more to go. Something I've never been able to get right in these kind of games is that balance of progression, giving the player just enough to do, and just enough to see over the horizon. And to always give them something to work towards. You totally nailed it.
I've seen a few released games where you program robots to automate tasks, but it always seems like it's aimed at people who enjoy programming. This simplifies the automation process into doing the exact same actions you were doing before, only while controlling the robot. It's brilliant.
I honestly have so much love for this game, and can only think of a couple of small things to be improved. One is that it wasn't clear that the shop menu was now the robot upgrade menu while modifying a robot (since the other shop items were also available). The other is that when I'd go to reprogram a robot, it wouldn't stop moving, so the first few moves would be done for me. I feel like the robot should stop entirely while accepting input.
Fantastic job here, it makes me want to go find games like this to play, I've got the itch now! 😄
Wow, super polished jam game, and fun to play too! I found one level particularly difficult, because the arrows were so close together and even though I'd press the right keys in the right order, it was too unforgiving about the timing. The game was at it's best when it felt like it was my fault for slipping up, not that the game wasn't registering my input.
So I went back to try and find that level to screenshot it, and I couldn't find it! So my guess is that the levels must be randomly generated? 😅
If that's the case, kudos on making this game in such a way that randomly generated levels felt like they were made by a person! Very solid entry here!
This game is amazing. The base mechanic is clever, and then adding generators in suddenly means breaking the loop can be bad. And then you can move the generators and people? And then you need to get inside the loop, without trapping yourself? And then there's the final level which introduces yet ANOTHER interesting mechanic?
I cannot give you enough credit for how well designed this puzzle game is, with such simple mechanics that interact in interesting ways to create new problems. Fantastic job!
Loved this game! The animations and sound effects are super charming, and the level design is great too. The tutorials manage to introduce you to features without seeming too handholdy, and it was funny to watch some of my ghosts be screwed over by my new behaviour 😂
I've done a gamejam like this before, and the way I did it was to save inputs for each frame, and then replay them back. I noticed sometimes a ghost wouldn't pick up a crate that it did before (I had that bug too) so I'm guessing you used the same approach?
Really fun game, the best of the "play with copies of yourself" game I've played this jam.
Wow! Such a high level of polish! And the interactions with the people are just hilarious, genuinely funny. It can be a risk to *try* to be funny, but I think every character you wrote was brilliant. And the artwork is super charming, the animations slick, and the music adds to every encounter too.
The dice section is the weaker part of this game in my opinion. Since it's random, it might as well not require any input from me at all, and just take me randomly from one encounter to the next. Also I kept ending up on blank squares instead. Perhaps if there was some way to control the dice? Like you get to reroll? Or pick which of the two dice you'd like to go for? Or have it replaced with a different mechanic entirely.
The conversation part of the game was so strong for me, I think it could do well even if the loop mechanic was completely different. I was hooked, needed to find out who I was going to bump into next, and if I'd get out! Managed to get the Tim Bo ending! 😄
It took me a few mins into the first playthrough to understand the rules, but once I did, I was hooked! I really loved this game mechanic, super unique - almost reminds me of board games rather than video games, but it's the kind of game that would be so tedious to play on a board, constantly counting up points 😅
I'd personally prefer a tutorial popup or two, where perhaps you're shown how to defeat the black mold, rather than being told with the rules at the start. Interactive rules, rather than static text pages. I read them several times but it didn't make sense to me, yet playing was the ultimate was to learn.
It took me maybe five minutes to realise that you had to build ON TOP OF the enemy to defeat them, and then it reduced their defence points. Once I realised that, that's when it all clicked and I saw how genius this game was.
Fantastic job, I enjoyed my time with this game a lot!
Found this game very relaxing to play, and I love the aesthetic too!
It reminds me of this concept I once heard of "hill climbing" in relation to puzzles. Players tend to want to try and get closer to the solution, so having the puzzle 90% of the way done feels like they're almost there. However, with some puzzles like a Rubiks cube, you have to get FURTHER from the solution in order to actually solve. Maybe you've got a full side completed, and you need to scramble it to get further. Step down the hill, so to speak.
I've always found those kind of puzzles frustrating, I'd much rather be able to see that I'm making progress. This game doesn't fall into that frustrating category for me, every step I take I feel like I'm getting closer to the solution, and even though some moves undo a completed ring, I know I'm constantly getting closer to the top of that hill.
And then when it finally all slots into place? Man, so satisfying! I think you did a great job with this, I enjoyed my time with it.
The first thing I did when I started playing was interact with the oven glove, and oh my god I laughed so hard I choked 😂
Major props for going stop motion for a gamejam! The art style is cool, especially extending it with sticky notes for the UI. I did get to the end!
Wow, this is the first game I've played so far where it gets five stars for mood. It's a slightly unsettling mood, that put me on edge, but I love it!
Within the first few seconds of moving and swinging my weapon (nail?) I could see the Hollow Knight inspiration, but it's managed to do something different and create its own identity. Moving about generally felt pretty smooth, and by playing over and over I really felt like I was starting to master it. I cannot tell you the stress I felt seeing the end blocked on the final level 😅
I think it's interesting that you carry over your lives across runs, but it could be improved further by communicating this properly to the player. If I'd known that losing health on run 1 would carry over, I probably would've done run 1 again, but there's no option to do that (unless you restart the game). Perhaps a door at the end that makes your health loss permanent, or a door that gives you a new ability (like the door does already).
Very solid entry, great job here! 😁
It was all going so well and then suddenly I got overwhelmed 😅
I was impressed with the fact that you got moving platforms in, so that when you jump, you inherit the velocity from the platform you were standing on - I thought that was very clever, until I came across a bug! If I jumped just before the moving platform changed direction, the player would change direction mid air too - to follow the platform!
It must be that you parent the player to the platform when they land, but you didn't unparent them while they're in the air. As a result, I missed the jump, and then it tried to warp me back to the start, but glitched and I just got stuck warping into the void...
Oh and another small thing, if I double tapped jump, it would open the settings menu. I assume the navigation on the top right button is set to "Automatic", and just needs to be swapped to "None"
Other than that, I love the artwork (I'm a big fan of that low poly style) and the music was pleasant too (if a little repetitive after a while).
Nice job! 😄
I got into this game the second the music started playing, really sets the mood, I love it! 😄
I did struggle a bit with what to do though. At first I connected the two boxes, which caused me to lose. Next I tried forming a loop back to the starting box, which caused me to lose. I guess the goal is to just survive as long as possible by doing spirals? Or snaking back and forwards?
I really liked this puzzle mechanic! Another player commented that the game logic would be the same even if the levels didn't repeat, and you warped instead. This is true, however an important difference is how it appears to a human player.
As much as I tried to isolate all the other repeated puzzles in my mind, I couldn't, and so it actually became an interesting challenge, trying to work out how many boxes there even *were* in the level. How much was a single level, and how much was just repeating?
I found myself focusing on a specific part of the screen, usually the middle, and following one character. There's a moment that happens where suddenly I realise I have a *different* character in the exact right position, and that moment where I realise I have the solution is a great feeling.
Great job with this, some really nice puzzles! 😄
I loved this! The art style and general mood of the game reminded me of the Rhythm Heaven games, or perhaps WarioWare. Super adorable art, the music was great, and the game was pretty funny too!
I ended up screwing up quite a bit by the time I had to remember the recipes of restaurant 3, my memory just isn't good enough 😅
Having a world on a disc is a really cool idea! I kinda expected the world to change while I wasn't looking, since you can't turn the camera around, but it seems like it stayed the same each time I went round. I think there is real potential with the idea you've come up with, just need to go a bit further with it!
Great job with the jam! 😄
Very funny premise, I love this world you've come up with 😂
The game felt generally pretty fun to play, although I couldn't focus on avoiding obstacles and the spell wheel at the same time, so I'd just collect everything without checking what it was. At some point the difficulty spikes HARD and suddenly the screen is full of enemies.
I don't think the enemies attacking are what makes it difficult, more that I just become completely visually overwhelmed, I can't tell what's going on, and I crash into obstacles. It felt like no amount of collecting power ups could prepare me for those enemies, because just them being on screen broke my ability to see what I'm doing, and I'd die. I think I got to about 11 left as my best score.
Really creative idea!
I really liked this! I don't know if I completed it or not, but I got to a point on level 3 where there were no more green bars, and the hamster just kept going round and round.
The premise of spokes on a wheel being used for a rhythm game are really interesting, I haven't seen it before but I think it works really well! I was quite enjoying as it got a bit more difficult, needing to press twice per rotation, but it never got any more complex than that.
Personally, I would've liked harder levels to have wheels with more than four spokes. Perhaps 8, 12, or 16? And then you might need to tap Z four times in a row for certain sections. I was tapping my foot along the whole time to the music, but the irony was that my foot was moving much more than my hands 😅
Perhaps an extension of this game could have multiple colors? Where you have to press different keys for different colors? And those colors could be associated with certain instruments, so Z could be one type of drum, and X could be a different drum, so tapping along would be like playing the instruments.
Hahah, I guess I'm getting carried away with ideas now, hope you found them interesting. Great job with the game! 😄
Funny take on Schrödinger’s cat, that it's trying to kill itself just to stop being stuck in a superposition 😂
It wasn't clear that I was progressing at all? I guess the progress resets when you die (live?) but the levels mostly look the same so it's hard to tell (even after winning twice in a row) that anything is changing. I did eventually manage to win though!
The monkey shooting health is a funny idea, but functionally it works the exact same as if it was doing damage to you, the health bar is just a damage bar instead. I wonder if there is a way to make healing be negative without running into this issue...? 🤔
I love this kind of game! We almost went with a very similar idea, but it was too close to something we'd done before. I really liked the aesthetic you went for too!
I'm not sure what the solution for the last level was *supposed* to be, but I ended up doing it by accident? One of my ghosts jumped up from underneath me and propelled me to the other side. Was very satisfying!
I tried to recreate it, but the physics seemed to be a bit inconsistent? Sometimes I could stand on top of one of my ghosts and move with it, and sometimes I'd slide off. I think if this was a bit more reliable, it'd be possible to come up with some really interesting scenarios!
Great job, especially with a new engine!
I tried to ALT+TAB so I could check the description, but all it did was level me up? I guess I forgot that ALT+TAB doesn't work on Mac.
I didn't realise until I double checked all the screenshots that there was a dungeon section, I thought it was just the hub world - maybe that could be made more clear? 😅
I did get a few laughs out of this with the dialogue!
Got to the end! I really love this mechanic, and I think I would've liked it even more if I'd played it on my phone, but I used a mouse and it still worked pretty well. I enjoyed the game a lot, but I also got frustrated with a few usability issues that (hopefully) would be quite easy to fix!
The first issue was that I didn't properly understand the mechanic on the second level. I felt like I needed to draw two loops, and I didn't understand that I could only have one at a time. The tutorial level explained I had to join them up with a loop, but I feel like I really needed another tutorial explaining about the one at a time thing. Once I *did* understand though, it was this light switch moment of "Ahhhh! This is really interesting!"
Other than that, I found it difficult to see the stars. I turned my brightness up as high as it would go but struggled to differentiate them from the background. And the black holes were even more difficult to see, basically impossible on some levels. I found myself just drawing right through the middle of them because I had no idea they were there.
I really like how you have a bit of tolerance in terms of putting the path through the star, but it'd be nice to get some kind of visual indication that the path is close enough. Perhaps if the art was modified slightly to make the stars stand out a bit more, then they could change once they're "captured" by the path, so you know your path is good.
Really unique idea, with a few changes to the UX this could make a fantastic mobile game.
Really like this game! Super pretty even with the simple art style, and clever puzzle mechanic too! I find it an interesting variation on traditional arrow based puzzles where the character moves when they land ON TOP OF the arrow, here they move when they touch the side of it. As such, each tile has three potential rows/columns it can send you across instead of one, and it makes it more difficult to simply trace back from the goal. More to think about for the player!
I found it really satisfying to set up a bunch of arrows before finally releasing the character from the loop, and watching it succeed. I also liked how you had a steady progression with clear onboarding, so that you never really had to explicitly explain the mechanics, you just allowed the player to find out for themselves how it worked, without needing to be handholdy.
The only improvements I can think of is that I'd like to be able to slow down or pause the game. At times it would be a bit overwhelming visually, and just being able to take a moment to think without anything moving would've been nice. Oh, and it could be improved by having EVEN MORE of course 😉
Fantastic job!
It made me feel smart because I knew what all the technobabble actually meant 😅
Turns out that burning virtual trees IS very relaxing for me 😅
I found it a little bit difficult at first to tell exactly what effect I was having, whether the mouse position was where the wind was coming FROM or going TO. I did work it out with enough trial and error, but I think it might help if you could make that more obvious.
Also, is it possible for the fire to spread AT ALL without active wind? It seemed like even trees close together wouldn't catch unless I was using the wind. I think it'd be great if the wind was used to cross gaps, but the fire could spread by itself if the forest was dense enough.
The art style is simple but very pleasing! I especially liked the particle effects. Great job!
What if Yoshi's Island was a top down shooter? 😉
It seems a bit more like the baby is the one keeping YOU alive here, but I found the game fun anyway. It would've been nice to see how long the powerup was active for, so I could know when it was going to run out!
Cuttte! 😊
I love the art style, and the simple animations are really effective - super charming!
Congratulations on your first LD! Finishing things is a difficult skill, and doing GameJams is a good way to be able to learn skill that in a safer context. For your next entry, there's a couple of things I think you should prioritize.
First of all some progression would be great! Maybe a number of enemies per wave, and when you beat a wave things get slightly more complicated. Perhaps at first you cannot move, and after a few waves you can? Or the enemies start appearing from different locations? Something to switch up the gameplay a bit the longer people play.
For a GameJam game especially, having an end is usually a bonus, because if you don't have an end to your game, then people will just keep playing until they get bored. And then the feeling they leave with is "I'm bored" rather than something like "That was really good!". I think the best games I've played this LD have been ones where I could complete them. (...unlike my own game 😅 )
Also just as a visual thing, I think you may have used a few too many gradients! It's a matter of taste how much gradient is too much gradient for sure, but with the text having a gradient it affected readability. Ideally you don't want people to struggle when reading your text, so perhaps something a little more subtle if you did want to go for a gradient?
Hope you had fun and will return for LD47!
I really like the tether idea, and how it creates this symbiotic relationship between you and the specimen. It wasn't clear that the game had an end though? I played for a long time and had no idea how close I got to the end, or if I was even making progress. I think it'd be nice if the checkpoints told you how far you were just so you could tell that you were making some kind of progress.
The music was really cool too!
Playing on Chrome WebGL, the music has some strange glitches in it? The whole time it sounds like it's raining or something, completely drowns out the music :(
I really liked the use of pixel art to be able to make all the far off people look the same, I think this game wouldn't have worked in a higher resolution because you'd be able to see who is who from a distance. Creative use of the art style!
This game is super cute and wholesome! The music is really pleasant too, and I love the art. I'm a big fan of the game Elite Beat Agents where you do things like solve relationship problems by tapping to the beat, so I really liked this submission!
It did feel a little like there wasn't a connection between the music and the timing of the button presses though? Maybe 10% of the time it felt like they were in sync, but the rest of the time it seemed completely unrelated. If that could be fixed I'd love this even more.
Great job ^_^
Woo! This was fun! I really liked the projectiles getting stuck into the virus like arrows, felt really satisfying. And the central mechanic of sharing health provided an interesting dynamic too, trying to balance keeping yourself alive with not losing the game. Great job!
I love the pig controlling clumsily, I just wish it felt a little bit more responsive? I swear sometimes I was pressing buttons and nothing was happening. Other than that, more levels would be great, it was fun smashing things! Full marks for innovation, not seen anything else like this 😅
lol the theme of this game is very funny, a way of making the game relevant to the current time without it being super depressing. I did find that I wasn't getting enough money back from taking down people to buy any new towers though? Perhaps I was doing something wrong...?
I tried the cheap units and they were too slow, but the expensive units were too expensive, when they died I couldn't replace them.
A lot to love here! The art is great, the music is relaxing, and there's some writing that made me smile too, great job!
Having the tutorial as in-world objects that you can sell when you're done with? I think that's genius. It gives it an extra purpose on top of being a tutorial, and also doesn't force you to view the tutorial if you don't want to. I'm not sure I've ever seen a game let you sell the tutorial before and I love it.
Also, is there a low pass filter on the audio when you go inside the tank? I love little details like that, really made the game feel even more polished. All around fantastic job!
Wow, I love this so much! ❤️
The art style and the music combine together to give the most wonderful atmosphere, and the plane sounds are incredibly satisfying too. The effect of the air rushing past gives a great feeling of actually moving through the air, which is something I've found missing from some games that have flying in them. Without that it can be difficult to tell how fast you're moving, and you nailed it!
It would be great if the plane reacted a bit more to not being upright, so perhaps turned a bit when tilted sideways. For me, the game that got the feeling of aerodynamics really right was Pilotwings on the N64, and I think if your plane felt a bit more like that it'd feel even more amazing to fly around.
Had a really nice time just flying around, collecting water and listening to the music. Nice relaxing experience to wind down after three days of working too hard 😅 thanks so much for making this!
I found it impossible to pass even the first level? It seemed like the turrets didn't fire fast enough, or do enough damage. Perhaps if it took a bit longer for the farmers to steal the crops instead of it happening as soon as they touch them, it might have been a bit more forgiving.
I like the use of needing to balance the greenery with the defence, I think that has real potential as an idea. Not just being able to build the strongest towers, but having to take into account the gardening aspect too.
I loved this so much! Reminded me of this game I played when I was a kid, Orly Draw a Story. She'd be telling a story, and then every minute or so would stop for you to draw one of the important parts of the story, and then the rest of the story would play with your artwork. But this is even cooler because the end result is playable! It's mad libs video game generation. Genuinely laughed out loud several times at the crazy situations you came up with.
Not only is it impressive that you got such a solid drawing mechanic implemented, but you also made multiple different games inside this game! You must've have needed to make 2 or 3 of those per day to get it done in time. Really awesome job!
Wow, really creative game mechanic! The "bullets" don't hurt you, but they ruin the recipe for the thing you're going after, so you still need to avoid them. It's easy to avoid the colours you don't want, just by not shooting those enemies. But eventually the enemies start piling up so you HAVE to shoot it, and then suddenly the gameplay switches to needing to avoid the bullets. Great job!
This game feels really good! It's a shame there isn't all that much to do but that's the reality of the time constraint! Hopefully you learned a thing or two to be able to get further next time.
I like the camera shifting system, reminds me of old Zelda games. What I would suggest though is that if you're going to have this system of "screens" then you probably shouldn't be able to walk off at ANY point. If you have borders then it makes each screen feel more hand crafted and intentional. As it currently is, the cut off points for each screen feel arbitrary, that you're on one big screen but it's only showing you a bit at a time.
If you wanna go with the screen system, I'd suggest making each one a bit more self contained, so that each one looks distinct. Check out The Legend of Zelda and how they funnel the player through one or two specific exit points. Together the areas can feel like a full world, but each individual one should have its own thing going for it, if that makes sense?
This was really well made, I enjoyed it a bunch! The tutorial was really well done too, making sure the player had understood before moving on. The sound effects were also great, and overall the game felt very polished.
One problem I had was working out if I was moving horizontally. When moving up and down I was okay, but because the background is kinda samey - I couldn't tell if I was actually moving side to side. Maybe some variation in the background could give reference to the player moving?
Cool idea, I almost feel like the zombies should be appearing in time with the music, something like a Rhythm heaven game.
Didn't think the camera jumping around when you moved worked that well, it just made things disorientating. Also I found it basically impossible to tell which zombies were which, and so couldn't tell how many times to hit. I think the sprites need to be REALLY different in order for people to be able to tell as they're approaching. Maybe single hit zombies aren't on motorbikes, and the three hit zombies are HUGE?
I wasn't able to connect more that one gear to a gear, and wasn't able to connect a belt to a gear that was connected to another gear. Was this by design? It felt like I should've been able to do that.
It would also be nice to see how fast gears are spinning maybe when hovering over? A preview of the speed any newly connected gears would be would also be nice so that you don't have to build it, connect it, see if it's the right speed, delete it, repeat.
This is a really cool idea, and the music and presentation is great. It just feels like it won't let me to the things I need to do to solve the level. Oh and it hard-crashed before I could beat level 2.
Obviously bad guy: "Please help me destroy the world" My dumb ass: "OKAY"
I really liked this game! There's so much world building you put together in such a small amount of time. Not only is the world that is there big, but there so much MORE world implied as well. The music was great, and the art was great too. And the ending was clever (although I would've missed it if it wasn't for the comments).
Agree on the too much backtracking, and agree on maybe adding shortcuts after the first time. I did even more backtracking because after getting the first two items I went back to the cave. But with that in mind, this is still one of my favourite games of the jam. Fantastic job!
I really like the premise, of a tank who can't shoot but wants to still join in, it's super cute. Fits with the cute art style too! I have to agree with some of the other comments, those bullets are too fast compared to the tank. The tank really needs to be faster, or maybe have a boost button to be able to get out of the way last second.
I managed to find a tactic that worked, which was get behind the bullet to give me some time, and then go find the tank and just sit inside the other tank until the bullet caught up. Seemed like cheating, but otherwise I was dying within seconds of spawning. Sometimes I would die in less than half a second after spawning too, which wasn't great, maybe having an initial few seconds before the first bullets are shot could help?
Really cool idea, just needs a bit of balancing.
It would've been nice to have upgrades to the clicks too, so that each click could be worth more money, as after you get a minion or above there's no point in clicking on the button any more. Cookie Clicker has a mechanic where you can earn a percentage of your total cookies-per-second (or in your case dollars per tick) by clicking. This means that clicking is still worthwhile even later on in the game, especially with multipliers active.
I liked that you had something to aim for, but there wasn't really enough variety with the unlocks to make it feel worth waiting all the way through. This kind of game is really difficult to balance so it hooks people, I've never been able to work out quite how Cookie Clicker does it.
This is great! I got 382 before stopping. Really relaxing, and I love the art style too.
One thing I think would be a great addition is some kind of jumping off point, something to aim for. In Stardew Valley you have the two year thing, where after 2 years you're given a rating. You can keep playing after that as long as you want, but for people looking for a goal they have that to aim for. Perhaps trying to reach as much notoriety as possible before a certain date? And then players could have a reason to go back and try again with a different strategy.
If you have no jumping off point, the reason every player will stop playing is because they got bored, often it can be better to finish before reaching that point. But I think that some people WILL want to carry on past that point, so it should be an optional jumping off point rather than forced.
Great job with this! Really strong entry!
Thank you for the meme option, much fun was had.
I really like the effect of coloring in the world! It would be even better if more of the world got colored in though, the backgrounds are a bit simple right now. I really struggled with some platforms at around the 80% mark, there didn't seem to be enough friction so even if I landed properly I just slid off the edge as if it was ice. I liked the character, always used to love the Sonic games when growing up!
Wow, super impressive with the 72 hour limit. There's a lot of places where you've been really smart to make less work go further, but even with that it's crazy good. Also I love the writing, the vegan and the tree got me good. It would've been nice to have some info abou the enemy health? At one point, I got a big skeleton to hit a little skeleton, and I wasn't sure if it was doing damage or not because it was hard to tell.
Fantastic job!
I got to round 6 before losing. I didn't understand what the criteria was for the towers disappearing was? It seemed like the round would end and then just a random selection of towers would disappear. Because of the disappearing towers, it didn't feel worth investing in the expensive towers, I'd get just as good results from just using LOTS of the cheapest tower.
The ground pattern also made it a little difficult to quickly work out which row an enemy was on. If you had a simpler pattern, or alternate colors for the rows (like Plants vs Zombies or something) then you could at a glance easily tell which row an enemy was on. Spending even a second trying to work it out might make the difference between getting a tower down in time or not.
Looks really great, from the models and lighting through to the animations. There's just not all that much going on in terms of gameplay. You walk up to the enemies and attack, even the abilities don't change how you play, just the damage values a bit. With how great it looks, this could be really awesome if you could work out a way to make the gameplay fun.
Even just variation on attacks like slow-heavy attacks and fast-light attacks gives the player a bit of flexibility with how they handle the situation. If the solution to every level is always just walk up to enemies and spam the one attack button, it makes it feel more like a chore than a game.
You've got the presentation down, a bigger focus on the game design for next time might go a long way.
I think I'm missing something, I wasn't able to absorb anything?
It's really difficult to work out if you're moving, or how far away things are. I think you need A LOT more objects in the scene (debris or rocks or whatever) so that you've got reference for which direction you're moving. I saw something in the distance, and I couldn't work out if it was getting closer or not because it was so far away. When I finally got to it I just went straight through it.
If you're able to explain what my first steps should be, I'd like to give this another go.
Wow, this was really great! The music and the soft transitions give it a really great mood. The puzzles were enjoyable, and the solutions often quite funny too. I love the "nimnimnim" noise that some of the people make.
The game is sometimes a little hard to control, being able to "become something" sometimes took a couple of attempts, but that's only a small thing. Also, not sure if it was a choice or not, but I would prefer things like turning the light on/off or barking to happen only once every spacebar press, instead of every single frame. Would just be the difference between Input.GetKey and Input.GetKeyDown.
Overall, I liked this one a lot! Fantastic job.
Really creative use of the theme, but I couldn't get past the guard threatening to punch me. I wish there was a way to get more clues if you wanted them, because otherwise it just feels like brute-forcing the solution by guessing random letters.
This is really cool! It reminds me a bit of De Blob, with the painting the world. I love the atmosphere created by the music and text in the world. If you had time to slowly layer the music up as you got further instead of just cutting in, it could feel even better.
By using fancy shaders, you could have the paint effect spread out over time. I don't know exactly how to do it, but I remember seeing someone do a cool tutorial that had a shader effect spread out from a point.
https://twitter.com/minionsart/status/1005590210476900352
Also, for a 3D platformer you could benefit from having the shadow of the player directly under the player. Check out Mario Odyssey, where other characters will have shadows at an angle, but Mario has a shadow that is always directly below him.
I kept missing jumps because my shadow was in front of me, so I couldn't line things up. You'd want to do some kind of double light setup, one for most the scene and another for just the players shadow.
(Also, I cheesed the gates by making the floor green and then jumping round the outside of them)
Enjoyed this one, great job!
Wow! This has been my favourite game I played so far, and in only 12 hours too! Fantastic music, smart levels, and cute pixel art too! There's so much polish too, this feels absolutely great to play. Had a lot of fun.
I love idle games, and this has the beginnings of something really cool! It does need a bit more work to make it really fun though, there's a few things that came to mind when I was playing.
First off, it's SUPER intimidating to have everything available at once. Cookie clicker has the thing where buildings aren't available until the first time you have enough resources to buy it. Not only would this make it easier to get started, because the options are more obvious, but it adds a hook to the game, in that you want to know what else you can unlock. As it currently stands, there are no surprises.
Something this game has over something like Cookie Clicker is that you have the arrangement aspect, you've got to work out how to fit everything. This could be really awesome if you had a grid system, and different shaped buildings too. Then it could become almost tetris-like in trying to efficiently lay out buildings. I'm a big fan of Anno 2070, and there's something super satisfying in that game about managing to slot all these obscurely shaped buildings into neat and efficient patterns.
It'd also be cool to have some kind of upgrade system for the buildings, so you can then make the choice over whether it's more efficient to build new buildings, or upgrade the existing ones.
The final thing could be awesome is some kind of completion state. I saw a city builder today where the goal was to build a rocket and escape. That was great, especially for a GameJam game, because it gives people a jumping off point. If you don't have that, people just play until they get bored. And if they can see the goal is just a few minutes away, they might be more likely to play those extra few minutes.
Hope this was helpful! ^_^
Didn't have anyone else to play with, so just played as one character. I really like the idea of creating your loadout from scratch each match, so you can have a different experience each time.
With the farming phase, it took me maybe three attempts to even work out what to do. I'd suggest putting the controls, and maybe an objective on screen to let the player know what to do at any one time. For example, when you start you could have a prompt FIND SCRAP and then once you've picked up a piece TAKE TO FACTORY. Once you get to a factory you could have a button prompt to let the player know they're going to add it to their character. I'd already forgotten the keys by the time I got to the factory, had to alt-tab back to this page to find out.
Also I wasn't clear what any of the parts other than the gun did? And I couldn't seem to attach two guns even though the instructions say I can. If it was clearer what the parts did before I installed them, then it'd make me feel more in control of my gameplay experience.
Another thing to think about would be having a single screen rather that split screen, and just zoom out as the players move apart. It might make the map easier to understand as a player (or it might suck, never know until it's tried I guess). The fighting stage could also take place on the same map, since the farming map has a lot more going on in terms of places to cover and hide than the fighting map.
Some really cool ideas in this game already, just needs a bit of tweaking to make it really great!
This game is so cute! It has a really high level of polish, the puzzles are well designed, the mechanics introduced in an intuitive way, and super satisfying to complete! Managed to get all the way to the end, and I can see already how much potential these game mechanics could have for a full game.
YEAHHHH! I beat it!
Took me a while to understand the mechanics. I didn't realise you had to sacrifice a building to power the other buildings, but once I understood that it made sense how to play. I like the keyboard control stuff, but it's awkward to play. This could work really well on a touchscreen, and you could have different shaped layouts that aren't tied to a keyboard. Different shapes would require different techniques for powering awkwardly located structures.
Great job!
Wow, those police officers are not messing about! The mood and humor of this game is great, and the art is fantastic too. It wasn't super fun but I get the feeling that "fun" isn't really the intended experience of this. Hiding behind the dumpsters from a police office while the garbage truck slowly lifted each one was intense.
LD60 — Old Tech (11)
NewHouse™ by Frogravity 2026-10-24T21:27:18Z ♥ 1
I put my playthrough of your game on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/DueOig8db0E
Probably like a lot of people, I spent a lot of time on the first house, didn't really know what to expect. Very clever with the implied storytelling, and you created a really specific vibe with the music and the way everything degrades. Nice job! 😄
One Meowment, Please by Neshtyak 2026-10-24T21:24:35Z ♥ 0
I put my playthrough of your game on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/DueOig8db0E
There's so many good things about this game. The art is really good, the writing and the sound effects are funny, the music, and it fits the theme really well. Unfortunately it requires me to do something I'm really really bad at which is stare at a bunch of things that are in front of me and find something.
I spend forever in the supermarket standing scanning the shelves up and down and up and down, over and over, I must've checked every shelf five times now and I haven't found it but it must be here I can't see it, where is it, oh there it is right in front of me! That is a hugely frustrating experience, and unfortunately the longer I played the game the more I felt that experience. I can see in the video recording I move the mouse past the name I'm looking for multiple times and keep going. It's just not going in to my brain.
It's a shame because that one aspect made me not enjoy an otherwise really well executed jam entry. I think people who have a functioning attention span and working memory might enjoy this more.
PS. you need to rate more games! you're on 2.75 right now, you're never going to hit enough to get a ranking unless you rate some more! And that'd be a real shame given how much work went into this
Old Man Playing Old Game by NTMalichi 2026-10-24T21:19:42Z ♥ 0
I put my playthrough of your game on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/DueOig8db0E
I guess there are people out there that enjoy rage games? They enjoy the frustration? I did not, unfortunately...
Punch Corp by Jiri Hysek 2026-10-24T21:16:42Z ♥ 2
I put my playthrough of your game on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/DueOig8db0E
This jam entry is really well made, so much attention to detail and polish. Unfortunately, it's of the type of game where you have to program instructions into something, and I just find those kinds of games really tedious. I spent a bit of time trying to work out the repeating function thing but it was too much for me, so didn't finish. Still very impressive game, I just didn't enjoy my time with it.
Machinerra by NoNumbersGames 2026-10-24T21:15:01Z ♥ 0
I put my playthrough of your game on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/DueOig8db0E
...oh man, I'm somewhat conflicted about this one. I used to really love GameJams and getting as much work done as possible in just a few days, and now with genAI that doesn't feel meaningful any more. I bought one month of Claude to see how I felt using it for a jam, and the end result is totally fine, but I don't know what it really achieved. What do I judge it on? The quality of the idea? The programmer art I drew with my mouse?
So quite early on I clocked that your game has many more systems than a normal gamejam would, and is probably AI coded. The problem for me is that the central game mechanic of walking around and hitting things isn't particularly deep or fun. There's all this kind of...meta game, the progression, missions, upgrades, but it's all these extra things on what feels like a pretty thin actual core gameplay. Maybe it gets better after the first three missions? But when I'm judging a gamejam, I don't want to have to play that far before it starts getting interesting.
For me, gamejams are about experimenting, trying out new ideas, keeping it small and ideally executing well. Keeping in mind that people want to play your game for at most 5-10 minutes to rate it. I don't know what this entry proves. That Claude can make a broad game really quickly? Sure, but I'm not going to rate it for that.
It sounds like you already know the scope was too big, and that you're going to try smaller next time. I think that's a great idea, and if you don't find it depressing to work with Claude like I do, then I think you could achieve some really cool things by aiming small but refined, rather than broad and shallow. People will downvote you for using AI, but I feel like the battle to stop LLMs taking over coding is probably already lost, so that'll fade with time.
I really don't know how to rate this, and I'm not sure if any of my ramblings are useful to you in any way. But I guess all I promised is that I would play your game and record it, so here it is 😆
Out Of Frame by Malte Hedenstrom 2026-10-23T16:50:42Z ♥ 4
You submitted this when I asked for games to play on video, unfortunately it runs incredibly slowly on my laptop 😞
I really loved the character art though! And the central mechanic seems really creative, I just couldn't get very far. I like that you had your heart set on the "Elephant in the Room" theme, I wasn't super thrilled with the theme either 😆
Neolithica by nathmate 2026-10-20T20:34:35Z ♥ 1
I played your game and put it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/zqpO8QUX4lo
Nice simple game, I struggled with finding enough animals in my first attempt, but got the hang of it by the third time. I figured the ending was once you start dreaming of figs, but I can see a screenshot from someone else where they got further than me. I think it could help to let the player know that they will progress if they get to the end of the day, otherwise it's not clear when they're supposed to stop playing, and they might stop playing early.
S U P P R E S S O R by KataStudios 2026-10-20T20:32:49Z ♥ 1
I played your game and put it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/zqpO8QUX4lo
I'm afraid I struggled with this game, largely because my computer wasn't able to run it properly. The frame rate was below 20, and the lighting was a bit all over the place. I walked around for 5-10 mins and nothing really happened, so I wondered if something broke or maybe I went the wrong way? I saw in the video you put in your description that it's possible to come across robots, but I didn't find any.
I think if you're going to have 30 mins playtime, it needs to get to something happening much faster, otherwise I think people will lose interest.
Krong by bigwhiteshogun 2026-10-20T20:30:26Z ♥ 3
I played your game and put it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/zqpO8QUX4lo
I don't know if you were directly influenced by the Sonic games or not, but I got (specifically) Sonic Advance vibes from this, with the way the level has multiple routes, a lot of verticality, and obviously the spin dash and the rails too. Also I wasn't sure how I did it but I think I did a mid air trick once.
Art was great, felt great to play, really good entry all around!
Ghost Train by Koolruz 2026-10-20T20:28:07Z ♥ 2
I played your game and put it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/zqpO8QUX4lo
I really liked this one! At first I was taking my time to try and pick the right path, but then I realized if I played it more like Pacman and just try to be a bit more reactive, I made more progress. Love the art too, great job all around!
Steam Locomotive by LastyW 2026-10-20T20:28:04Z ♥ 1
I played your game and put it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/zqpO8QUX4lo
I got the sense that this is a game about keeping different plates spinning, and each "plate" has a different requirement to keep you on your toes. The current implementation felt like there was a bit too much friction though, especially with needing to walk inside and outside the train. I found the game too unforgiving personally.