labcatgames

Phoenix Delay by aeveis 2024-04-29T19:41:43Z

Really solid submission. Very few weakpoints to mention, mostly all great! Adorable, exciting, funny; well done! Would have been really nice to have additional content, perhaps you could use proc gen to build levels as the game is being played and achieve an infinite runner. For a game jam though it's a great prototype and execution was near perfect.

The speed lines were clutch, I was glad you were able to convey proper acceleration and the way your pheonix moves further towards the right side links the speed to difficulty, amping up the tension exponentially. Simple, yet powerful mechanic. The flapping / diving control scheme was a bit unwieldy, but fun to try and wrestle so I get that you don't want it too easy. It's just a bit too floaty and delayed to feel like I'm really in control.

Music was awesome, absolutely nailed it, sfx were great and also, I liked the dialogue; very cute text frames and portraits. Visually the only thing I would consider is staying consistent with the art style for the foreground and background. Seeing the chunky pixel art in front of the higher res horizon is just a little discordant. Great work overall!

Best Friends! by TongueEnvy 2024-04-17T19:45:02Z

Just finished throwing the ball around! The engine plays really smooth, you've definitely set the mood with the white picket fences and track homes. Throwing the ball is pretty satisfying thanks to the great physics.

I could probably have spent some more time with the pupper with a few upgrades. Things that would keep me around include: currently dog gets ball based only on x axis, so throwing it up high in the air usually just results in it snapping to the dog immediately (could just use collisions with dog), stronger dog animations that help me connect with it as an entity (walk, sit, jump), environmental objects that might get knocked over or even used as a ball.

It's an elegant, compelling idea that could honestly be a great experience with a bit more dev, nicely done for a weekend's work!!

P.S. 700 megs for a jam is a bit high, LD servers are slow lol

Bog Revitalizer by Capt Nemo 2024-04-17T19:48:57Z

Smooth controls, cute graphics, I enjoyed exploring the bog! The mechanics are a bit opaque, I got some summoning going but wasn't sure on it's impact on things. Grabbing and hopping (and killing) the gero-geros is a fun premise, but I needed more information. There's good bones here but more QoL is needed :P

The Summoner's Apprentice by Vodzik 2024-04-28T18:31:01Z

It was fun to control the character, the setting was great, the room was cozy and cute and I love voxels. Successfully crafting something was satisfying, I liked that but it was too frustrating failing over and over. Considering how much detail there is and the great mood, it would be good to give players more guidance so that they stay and enjoy your hard work longer. The guy giving out pointers needs to be a bit more specific, at least for a few recipes. Like others, I was able to make some vampire stuff and maybe some kind of meat I don't remember but I couldn't combine them in anyway with either the cauldron or mortar, and I couldn't figure out how to make any other ingredients so that was that. Still, it was excellent work and a fun design; just got hampered by an immediate, overly difficult task.

de-monday by alpdogan 2024-04-17T19:57:12Z

This was so good! The premise was really clever, and you nailed the feeling of the daily grind and not having enough time to do the things you want. Very concise, elegant execution and the various mechanics were cool to explore. Aesthetically, it was one of the best I've seen; unified, great color choices, and cute models. Congratulations on a job well done!

Forward Crystals by shaneshanekavanagh 2024-04-17T18:04:53Z

Played with my partner, we liked the concept. There is certainly interesting strategy to explore here! Visually it was well unified and had good atmosphere. The summoning theme felt a little thin, but I do like that it's not so on the nose. I'm kind of over pentagrams and rituals lol. Congrats on producing an interesting game!

I saw you mention working on a CPU enemy, and I would second that as the main priority.

ONMYOBUSTER by happyhour 2024-04-17T16:37:51Z

Pretty fun stuff! I did enjoy learning the mechanics, and smooth controls. Everything was tight, but the single movement pattern for the enemy did wear on me. There's also the sort of all or nothing play-style that emerges when you are fighting a bunch of red enemies. If the pack touches you at all it's an instakill. Could be nice to have some invulnerable frames when you take a hit, or another way to reduce the importance of swooping around at a somewhat plodding pace. I know it's pretty tired but some sort of dodge roll could really make moving more interesting.

I love the clean pixel art and the de-saturated color scheme is really nice. Congrats on completing the jam!!

Library Fighter II Turbo by JoeShanahan 2024-04-17T19:01:57Z

Loved it, good writing, great humor. Cute enough in a sort Pepe kind of way. Overall it played pretty smooth and it was satisfying to take down all three enemies. I liked the variety of units too, impressive for a jam!

Words of Power by nsadie 2024-04-16T22:47:26Z

Extremely impressed by the depth of content considering you have such thorough word recognition, including definitions! Were you able to import some dictionary data? Great clean art, and nice color choices, satisfying game play, a great build!

Celestial Panda by LucaVazz 2024-04-19T06:29:45Z

I quite enjoyed exploring and scooping up adorable little voxel items, but I am a sucker for voxels. I was hoping to play some games that used them! So I love what you did for the models and environment, skybox, everything set a grand mood. Reminded me a bit of Katamari Damacy meets Minecraft meets Mario :stuck_out_tongue: The auto-aim selection makes everything quite easy to interact with and I love that you've included a sprint.

The premise was unique; great work on the overall concept, there was a fair bit of dialogue which was well written too. The main drawback was the opacity of the task, I wasn't able to get any islands to summon even after a few days of trying. I think considering all the work that went into the assets and vibe, it would have been good to have some smaller, bite sized tasks that train the player and then increase complexity from there.

Celestial Panda by LucaVazz 2024-04-19T15:16:45Z

Definitely had rock and moss, connected the constellation two different ways without any luck. There seemed to be some core aspect to the puzzle I am not grasping.

Inner Workings by T C 2024-04-28T20:04:53Z

This was a fun playthrough. I really liked the pixel art. Great environment and a decent walking animation are hard to pull off in a weekend! The blatant Diablo interface was at least familiar and easy to understand, I liked how it centered the abilities no matter how many there were. It was lovely to look at but the music was repetitive and didn't seem to quite fit the vibe. Maybe something more rhythmic to fit the clock theme.

Gameplay wise, I was into it; there was a good balance of spamming abilities and being more strategic, but I do sort of wish the mana capacity was higher so that you didn't need to weave in so many mana orbs mid fight; I'd prefer to drop a few after a battle and then be ready to unload several spells in a row. I noted that the orbs can spawn out of bounds, but since their spammable it's not a huge deal.

To be honest, there where quite a few little details (like your ground tiles) that reminded me of my breakout game KITE (on steam) the top down perspective is a favorite :hearts: [kite_play_UI_3.png](///raw/8b5/f5/z/64de1.png)

Poltergeist for Hire by JudJudson 2024-04-17T17:50:04Z

This was lovely! Unique take, clever writing, fun to throw things! Had a bit of a struggle getting things stuck behind the mixing bowl but after my first failed attempt I had a smooth run. Even with the low poly minimal look, you managed to make me feel like I was quite the mischievous ghost. You sort of imagine what it would look like to a live soul watching things get strewn around the house, like in a proper 80's horror flick.

I think the FOV could be reduced a bit, I felt very far away from things I was grabbing, otherwise everything felt tight and satisfying.

Nightlife Necromancer by spiralhalo 2024-04-27T17:48:23Z

That was a unique experience. I quite liked the UI (although how am I to know what parts have been updated after the jam? I really wish people wouldn't update their games after the jam, how is that ok?) and I appreciated the settings for screen size and volume, gave it a nice polished feel. The skel sprites were adorable and I loved the audio, it really stood out.

I found the gameplay to be a bit stale and was glad it ended on the 5th day, so you did at least nail the session time. I didn't understand why the 2nd preference had to be so obfuscated and barely visible; why not just have them side by side? I do wish that deploying your skels was done differently. I don't like having to first click a spot next to a customer and then click the skel of choice. There's no lasting visual to make you certain what spot you clicked on (or that you did click it properly) and I found it more natural to click on a skel first and then click your spot of choice. As cute as the art was, there's some scaling problems and artifacts on the skel sprites, and I really don't like how the maid looks paper thin as her x_scale flips from one side to the other.

All in all, it was a great time and a unique premise that I loved. It would be good on mobile with it's tap controls and casual vibe.

The Unlikely Messenger by T90. 2024-04-19T06:37:48Z

Showed up to cringe at what looked like another RPG maker fan service game. Found it to be about on par with my expectations. I'm a sucker for a sci-fi twin-stick after all, and even though I was a bit horrified to see all the different mixels, scaled pixel art, and obvious contrast between the AI and hand pixeled work, I was mostly just let down by the stale gameplay.

Busty AI models to not make up for game design.

The Unlikely Messenger by T90. 2024-04-19T15:12:50Z

@nicekot Seems like you would know a bit about bad faith, since you decided not to opt out of graphics and audio categories. The fact that you've avoided the topic even though it's been brought up by several people just shows that you know better. Do the right thing....

The Unlikely Messenger by T90. 2024-04-19T18:56:42Z

You didn't opt out of graphics and audio, even with them being AI generated. That's all you needed to do and then you would probably be getting props for how you utilized the tools. The only reason you would not have opted out is if you genuinely believe your AI generated assets are equivalent to hand made work, which isn't a position many devs are going to share.

Sky Dudes by osh.studio 2024-04-29T18:49:16Z

This one really got me. I also made a sort of simulation puzzle game, so it's no wonder I'm into Sky Dudes! I love the relaxing build-up phase and how it steadily ramps up to more intricate gameplay. The pixel art is so adorable, and I'm guessing you know it puts out major Populous vibes, which is a huge win :] The way you scale everything as your island grows is impressively clean.

The little dude animations are surprisingly full of character and a treat to watch. Visually my only feedback is to redraw the UI elements at a little higher resolution so they don't look so different and use a font that fits the pixel art vibe. I would also prefer to see a bar for the wind instead of a number. The controls were ok but I feel like you could probably just have a click to move system and scrap the spacebar all together - then it would play perfectly on mobile too.

The performance did suffer once I was up around 20 dudes, but for a game jam it's quite playable. I'm sure there's plenty of efficiency you could squeeze out with some refactoring. This was one of my favorites; awesome job, unique idea, great execution, love to see it!

Aldoria's King by Locke8 2024-04-16T20:53:37Z

I like set-and-forget battlers, so I played through a couple rounds. Unfortunately it was very buggy, wasn't visually compelling and was low on satisfaction. Plopping down your various units was the best part, but watching them trundle across the screen and then just push up against enemies didn't deliver. The best graphical elements were the cards, other than that it felt discordant.

But it's still awesome you got playable product out in just a few days, so congratulations!

Fiesta De Las Quimeras! by Jean-Francois 2024-04-17T17:34:14Z

As people have said, props on the art and bringing that authentic Mexican vibe to the jam! The overall concept was a nice combination of easy to understand mechanics and didn't require too much getting used to. I loved the way the offerings and summoned creatures wonder around the 3D floor, and can be manipulated; it really nails the feeling of herding cats without being too cumbersome.

The materials bar was my only point of frustration, as the hit boxes for the items are infuriating and when you click it seems to clear everything, so mistakes are extremely punishing. Suggestion would be to make each hit box just be the entire slot. Congrats on a sick game!

CANDYMAN VS MEGACOPS by ValentinWB 2024-04-28T16:47:09Z

Awesome! You made a very slick package in a short time! I appreciate the low poly look, it's a great route to go and reminded me of a PS1 game. Loved the clean UI elements and having some volume sliders on the title screen. Simple yet fun loop was another solid decision for a game jam. Overall polish was excellent and the van controlled pretty good. Only note I can think of is that the candy hit boxes were a bit slim, considering the perspective and everything going on it could probably be more generous. The summoning theme didn't quite land for me but I kinda get it :] Overall it was a triumph though, congrats!

Vocatio by Mantsje 2024-04-16T22:34:33Z

Solid, classic game design. Great input detection considering the variance you have to work with for spell drawing. Loved the different enemy sprites, very Zombies At My Neighbors which is of course the GOAT. A very clean, solid entry, congratulations!

Gods of the Forest by Dan Allison 2024-04-19T06:21:41Z

Commendable job, super cute art and overall atmosphere was on point. Everything was unified and the color scheme was a treat. The control scheme wasn't for me though, sidescrollers are meant to played on controllers or even just the keyboard imo. It's hard for me to see why using the mouse is necessary, especially on top of hitting your DDR arrow keys and opening the spellbook. I liked the dialogue and plot but with all the controls going on too, it's a lot to absorb.

One idea worth considering is to pause the game when the spellbook comes up, let people put in their spells, target the spell, and then release when the game un-pauses. Alternatively just have the spellbook come up automatically as soon as an arrow key is pressed and then after four inputs a spell is either loaded or fizzles.

There's some really well executed game development here, especially for a jam, keep it up!

Aphantasia by Bitlytic 2024-04-27T17:19:07Z

I had a good time playing through the game. The level design as it relates to each ability was spot on, the tasks taught how to use your powers, and made experimentation quite enjoyable. Teaching mechanics without a tutorial or text is something I strive for personally, and you've absolutely nailed it! I liked the music and the overall vibes were extremely cozy and chill. Like some others I took the glider back and just flew off to the left; was a bit disappointed there weren't Metroidvania style secrets to revisit.

I do want to highlight some issues and provide some suggestions as well; the control scheme is extremely cumbersome. I cannot understand why anyone wants to make a sidescroller that isn't played with a gamepad. It's just so natural and also lends itself to couch play, which is where sidescrollers shine. Visually, it's a bit of a mess. If you want to scale pixel art, you can't do it all willy-nilly! Using the zoom fixes some of the artifacting on the main character, but then it's too far zoomed in, so pretty much just a novelty. It also becomes quite noticeable that the BG pixel size differs from the rest of the game. For a unified look, make sure every pixel is the same size no matter where it resides in your game. For instance the UI palette and notebook are relatively high res and look quite out of place.

It is an impressive feat for a game jam though! Smooth character controller and a bug-free experience is already a high bar that you've met, nice work!

INFINIWITCH by drainkid 2024-04-17T20:25:56Z

Love the past versions of yourself, it's a brilliant mechanic. Visually it's carved out a unique and catchy style that works, and the audio compliments that :]

I am a bit underwhelmed with the actual gameplay, as there's no moving enemies besides, I guess projectiles. Not immediately clear what the overall objective is. Once I broke a wall or two it started to make sense but in the end the mushroom just kept nuking me before I could do enough damage I guess? Still was a fun session, nice work!

Impatient God by dardasaba 2024-04-17T20:14:05Z

It's a cool premise, visually the map and sprites are on point, and I like the movement. Unfortunately the text is trending towards unreadable; I wouldn't have minded but it's a reading heavy game! On top of that there's time pressure which is a mechanic that works against reading dialogue. Stopping the clock while you talk with NPC's might solve that issue.

Another recommendation would be to have a simple starting level that walks you through a small fetch quest sequence, maybe even without time pressure and a god yelling at you. Let the player get used to everything and then dive into the real challenge. That would have helped me stick with the huge mega level more instead of just continuing to feel stifled.

It's quite an ambitious format for a game jam though and I'm impressed with the world building you've achieved.

SquiggleMancer by ski11az 2024-04-29T20:11:43Z

Nicely executed! I enjoyed discovering new spells and all the different enemies. Lovely environment and clean graphics other than some extremely up-scaled sprites. Would have liked to have the attacks be a little more satisfying to use, possibly doing more damage or firing quicker or being larger. A dodge roll would also add a lot to the movement. All around solid prototype that you should be proud of!

Pilgrim's Path by JakJak 2024-04-16T18:58:20Z

Enjoyed my play through quite a bit! Was drawn in initially by the cute pixel art and top down perspective. Stayed because I enjoyed learning the mechanics and it is satisfying to summon your god.

Struggled to send my pilgrims out sometimes, wasn't clear when they are available to move, and clicking de-selects them. It was easy to get into a spiral of clicking a pilgrim, trying to send it out, failing because it was occupied, and then trying again and again.

Recommend a simpler level to start with, perhaps only a couple houses to take over and no summoning; let us learn how the pilgrims operate without time pressure, then reveal mechanics one level at a time.

Great work, congratulations!

Flying Buttress by Jack728 2024-04-17T17:28:07Z

Great color and pixel work, the movement is smooth, unless you are bouncing off a wall, which I found to be far too punishing. It really took away from the fun of trying to parkour around and even just learn the movement tech. Wall jumping only works at a stand still it seems like? Either way congrats on completing a smooth playing entry!

Goblimancer! by phost.dll 2024-04-17T19:33:15Z

I like the Magicka style ability combos for sure, it's pretty fun to build up muscle memory for each power! I would have liked to see a more structured mode, different enemy movement patterns, or some other progression other than just a timer (although the huge boss was a nice surprise). I didn't quite understand the 1-10 at the top of the screen but either way, it was quite fun to play and I like the action oriented speed combined with the combo system.

Possibly some of the powers could be only two inputs like the movement boost (ones that drain all your mana are already a bit brutal). Also the tutorial text and writing are the first thing we see and they aren't doing you any favors. Try to clean that up and present the information in a pleasant way. Lastly, a lot of your affect on the enemies takes place off-screen, which really impacts satisfaction. I can't really tell how much damage I'm doing or even if anyone is dying. I'm not sure what the solution is, as it's a fundamental problems of games where you kite enemies.

I appreciate that you provided links to all your assets, and you made good use of the packs; of course it would have been of course nice to see original art but congrats on executing your design in just a weekend :]

Little Armies by Aditigro 2024-04-27T17:59:17Z

Loved the RTS style gameplay, that's a heavy lift for a game jam! I'm sure it took a lot of testing and iteration, good job getting it done! The pixelart was really cute (although the mixed pixel size between terrain and sprites bugged me), and the animations, although quite simple, were very smooth and pleasing to watch. Good SFX too. The core premise was solid and it's fun to snowball your army and unlock new units. That being said, about the time it starts to get intense, the game begins to bog down severely. My guess is that each unit has a lot of checks that it's doing every step. You may want to put in a distance check for their logic or de-activate them when far enough away. The number of objects shouldn't be a problem, so they just need to be more efficiently programmed. The scroll speed also makes playing a bit of a slog and much less satisfying to explore. The UI and unit select screen takes a bit to grok, but it's adequate, and I didn't hate figuring it out on my own (but some people may dislike the confusion).

Star Stone by UngarBlapp 2024-04-17T17:40:02Z

I was into it. Summoning swarms of bats out of your mouth was extremely satisfying, I didn't quite understand why we had to be on p-blocks to do it but hey, it was still cool! The SFX were suitably eerie and the color scheme was pleasantly weird too.

The height you get from the jump was almost too generous considering you get two, a lower jump would allow players to travel less floatily if they wanted to, which would be nice. Needed another level or two, seeing how much effort went into the game systems, we want to stretch our legs with the interesting kit you've provided.

By Royal Decree by Zhirui 2024-04-27T17:34:41Z

Overall this was a treat. The premise was solid, and the dialogue was excellent (and hilarious!). After a couple days of crafting I wasn't sure how long I'd last, but seeing your items start to populate the King's hall really kept me going. Decking him out with all the fancy gear was satisfying and funny. The blueprint system was honestly genius game design. Walked that line of giving hints while also letting players discover for themselves.

From the critical side, there's a few things worth mentioning. That font... Why?? It's so unreadable and distracts from the great dialogue, surely there's a themed font that isn't excruciating to look at. Also keep your pixel size in mind, that font is much higher resolution than anything else and clashes with the cute art. On the topic of pixel size, your artist really showed up with the character sprites and backgrounds (the perspective choice is one of my favorites!), but then all that work got scaled to hell. Pixel art does not like to be scaled! Stick to 2x, 3x, 4x only when scaling pixel art, or just leave it all 1:1 and let your viewport scale everything to fit the window. Lastly, as amazing as the blueprints were, their style was completely different from anything else in game. Get that art unified!

Regardless it's quite an impressive little experience y'all put together in a weekend, thanks for the fun!

Vamper by FlamingRat 2024-04-16T20:36:37Z

2000's 1.5D vibes drew me in. I stuck it out for a couple rounds, made it through 17 turns on my best attempt.

First, I like the music and the vibe. The sfx are adequate, the stone texture is good. The general tactical turned based format is totally my jam.

Those are the reasons I stuck it out for a couple rounds. Unfortunately the drawbacks stopped me there.

Biggest fundamental problem is that the more enemies you face, the longer you have to wait for their turns to complete. It's just utterly boring to watch the enemy unit move around. Not so bad if you are culling them at a decent rate but when the game is actually getting interesting and you face a horde, you have to slog through all their turns.

Other issues include the fact that visually it just didn't pan out. Maybe if the characters were cuter, or the terrain was more interesting I could give it retro props, but it's all just programmer art and has no reason for being in a 3D environment, so it doesn't land in that uncanny but fun Playstation/DS era were cute sprites inhabited odd 3d worlds.

The auto camera is extremely vexing as, and honestly hurts my eyes to watch zoom in and pan on every single enemy that must spend it's infernal turn shuffling around.

My big takeaway here is to stick to 2D unless there's a strong reason or talent pushing you in that direction. A lot more game play, testing, and QoL could have been accomplished on a simpler 2D system.

That all being said, congratulations on getting a game done in 3 days!!!! It is still a call for celebration, my hope is that you are able to receive my honest feedback gracefully, but it's always tough to hear negative reactions, so please excuse my bluntness.

Eyes On-Myoji by Cloverplus1697 2024-04-27T23:35:06Z

Played a few rounds, was very distracted by the fact that Myoji appears to be AI generated even though you claim all assets were created by your team during the jam. Since Myoji is AI generated, it's likely you used it elsewhere too. You need to admit upfront when utilizing AI assets, and the fact that you don't makes me suspicious that you also used AI to generate the audio. You should have opted out of any categories that you used AI in.

As far as the game goes, it didn't hit for me, the gameplay was tedious and uncompelling. Colliding with the balls was enjoyable but the other mechanics, like when the balls just randomly roam and get in the way, weren't fun.

Your reviews are full of comments specifically praising the art. How many of those people realize it's AI generated do you think? Failing to disclose is dishonest and diminishes the effort people put into real art.

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T19:03:39Z

@flogram Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the basics and aesthetic. I had hoped that each level teaches you about the differences in bug types one at at a time. Mainly it comes down to what crop they prefer, after they eat it, they will drop eggs when they die. This way you can maintain your swarm numbers. You're not the first to get stuck on stage 6; I really appreciate your feedback!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:10:43Z

@online-play Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the graphics and music. Would love to hear your balancing suggestions!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:12:40Z

@collopi Thank you! I'm actually really glad to hear that you appreciated the green arrow, because when I decided to make it, I thought it would be quick and easy, but ended up taking over an hour and I seriously questioned if it was worth it! :hearts: great feedback!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:14:33Z

@zanar Thank you for the kind words! The core idea was brewing for a bit, but more or less emerged as I was making it. It was quite a relief when I stumbled upon the 'fun' and then the rest of dev was pretty straightforward. Cheers!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:16:17Z

@tater-tater I'm glad you were into the casual vibe, making games you can 'play at work' has been my philosophy lately!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:17:28Z

@baubau Glad you managed to wipe out so much of the countryside! Things start to get a bit more hectic in the second half right? :two_hearts: to hear your feedback!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:20:03Z

@coffeemakingtoaster Thank you for the compliments :] Having a unique premise is really important to me, glad it came through.

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T22:37:13Z

@Valcka I'm glad you enjoyed the graphics and gameplay. I agree that the 'summoning' theme is pretty thin. Sure we're summoning swarms of insects, but visually it doesn't really portray that very well. I would have liked to add some more juice and maybe UI elements to fit the theme, but time keeps marching on... Thank you for the feedback!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T23:54:21Z

@jake-g Sounds like it hit exactly as planned! Love to hear that people are enjoying. Anything specific you'd like to see changed/added?

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-16T23:55:04Z

@online-play That's a solid way to generate some actual tension for sure, great idea.

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-17T19:04:51Z

@civ92 Happy to hear that the mechanics landed without a tutorial. I've been hearing many folks stumble on stage 6, which is usually because not all the mechanics have been picked up when I intended. I'm not too surprised you gave it a shot as a classic Civ lover ;] I appreciate the feedback :hearts:

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-18T08:16:02Z

@iwant-pizza it's the kind of game you'd buy on Steam? Awesome!!! What would you pay / what would you expect from a Steam release?

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-18T08:20:17Z

@koosalagoopagoop Hearing so many people enjoy the music really is quite the surprise! I had assumed a few chill drum loops over some synth samples wouldn't make much of an impact (in fact the goal was just to provide an ambient vibe) but it seems like the casual, mellow pace is actually quite the treat for more players than I expected!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-18T08:24:54Z

@sibi Thank you for the lovely feedback! Teaching without explicitly explaining is 100% my goal but is often a double edged sword, leaving players in the dark wondering what to do. I tried really hard to build the first 5 levels with the sole intention of teaching mechanics, and hearing that it worked (maybe not for everyone) is one of the most delightful things you could have said. Your comments are appreciated!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-18T08:29:00Z

@the-bm Thanks for playing! I agree that the mechanics are a bit difficult to understand without any tutorial. A lot of folks have gotten stuck on level 6, and in hindsight it does properly test you compared to the first 5, so my apologies for the steep difficulty. Can I ask what your understanding of the mechanics were at that point? Your response might be helpful for building a tutorial.

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-18T08:32:09Z

@ungarblapp First, huge thanks for playing and giving feedback, it's incredibly helpful to my process. You did get it right; the green aphids indeed prefer flowers. Your suggestion to incorporate this project into a larger game is spot on, I'm in fact already thinking about a way to implement it as a mini-game in an incremental farmer I've been developing for some time. Awesome to hear your perspective, thank you!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-19T01:07:16Z

@shaneshanekavanagh Thanks, I quite enjoyed yours as well!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-19T01:09:46Z

@jean-francois I'm happy you find it original, I prefer to push things in new directions as much as possible. I understand that it might not be as challenging as some people would like but I wanted it to be widely approachable. The final levels were meant to be a bit harder, what did you think of them?

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-19T01:13:47Z

@tomssuli Puzzle simulation.... What a great genre! I hadn't really articulated it before but that's definitely a good way describe this one. I've made mistakes throwing players in too deep too soon before and since then I've really tried to teach mechanics in a more deliberate way through level design. Wonderful to hear that is coming through for many players. Also chuffed to hear that it's hitting that cute & creepy vibe :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-22T19:16:01Z

@Baluj Thank you for playing! Great to hear that you enjoyed the art and music. Can I ask if you have any ideas for changes that should be made?

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-24T20:01:31Z

@Baluj Spot on ideas, thank you! An optional tutorial with some text tips would be quite helpful I think. On that note, you are partially right about the insect color but let me clarify. Once a bug eats it's preferred food, it changes to a darker color to signal that it will drop eggs/grubs. So they do sort of get darker over time, but that's more coincidental than the actual reason they change color, which is eating the right food. A level select would definitely be built in to a full game. For now you can hit Page Up/Down to cycle through the levels though. Now you know the cheat codez!

@k-toll Thanks for playing and enjoying my little creation! Sounds like it hit the exact balance I was interested in, great to hear!

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-26T16:39:16Z

@kallico Thank you for playing and giving your feedback. My goal was to teach which plants matched with each bug through level design instead of text. I'm sorry that didn't come through, I'm hoping you at least got that the locusts liked the wheat?

Consume the Countryside by labcatgames 2024-04-26T18:20:36Z

@kallico I like your suggestions. It's funny I had originally started with just wheat on stage 1 but I determined that players might then assume eating any crop would give you offspring. So I thought that seeing nothing spawn after eating carrots, and then on the next stage seeing grubs after eating wheat would solve that conundrum. Of course nothing is bulletproof, and opaque mechanics are often misunderstood. But I still want players to have the fun of theorizing and discovering them somewhat unguided. Your instincts are spot on though, very good level ideas, cheers!