West Coast '96: CIBUS DAEMONUM by rbbhn 2025-04-25T23:44:01Z ♥ 0
Ah, what won't a man do for some good pasta. :D What a fantastic journey! The other commenters are 100% right, this definitely wins for the art direction. Not to mention the humour! When the gameplay segment stared I was already smiling, and then you've managed to earn a few laugh out louds through totally unexpected by me (though well fitting) references. On the audio side, I did like the TTS, but I've made the mistake of playing with my headphones while having system volume set to quite high. I think the game might have used some volume controls to prevent being a bit too hard on the ears at few points. :P Overall, really nicely done! Great jam entry!
LD59 — Signal (21)
Awaiting Response by DzejPi 2026-05-05T15:41:19Z ♥ 1
Really atmospheric game! And pretty tough to figure out, but I've managed after several attempts. ;)
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I'd agree with previous comments that it is quite unclear what you are actually supposed to do, but I don't think simply giving hints would work here - I feel like that would only make it too easy and ruin the experience. I think that it could maybe be solved by getting better feedback on player actions, so they could figure it out by observing what happens. Right now, if you interact with objects, almost nothing changes, so you don't know if you have influenced anything and if so then in what way. When you finally cross the interaction threshold, your camera turns around and the monster is there.
Maybe making it more gradual could help. Like after 1-2 interactions there's additional background noise which sounds like the monster is in the area, then with a few more you can occasionally catch a glimpse of a dark shape moving somewhere far away from you, few more and sometimes you can hear something running just behind you, and eventually when you interact too much monster comes to get you. If you wanted to add additional hints to that, then instead of a straight hint at the end screen, you could add a short text describing how "agitated" the monster was, which should hopefully direct players to the right idea.
Despite those, game is pretty cool! The visuals build a very creepy atmosphere, whether it's cramped corridors or a spacious office. All the assets work nicely to give you a sense of unease. The blinking lights in the office got me a bit, though, as I've spent some time trying to figure out if they might be blinking in any pattern or if they're related to the computer triangulation thingy. One of those several misdirections in the game that managed to make me smile. :)
Sounds are pretty good too. I'm still not sure about the buzzing in the background, though. I've played the first couple of times with it on, and after a while I thought it might be a bit much. But after playing it again with buzzing off I wasn't sold on it being better. It feels both like it needs something in the background, whether it is the buzzing or some music, but it is also quite "busy" with the constant beeping, ringing and the "help me please". And I'm not sure how to change it for the better. Maybe making the phone ringing quieter and more rare, and using the buzzing as feedback for interaction limit could work? Dunno. Still, what is there felt appropriate for a horror game, helping to build a tense atmosphere.
Really well done compo entry!
Call Me by MrWarranty 2026-05-05T09:42:47Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool idea! It starts being pretty easy, but additional mechanics added over time make it more complicated as you progress.
People have mentioned maybe marking locations of the strong signal, but I think it might be better the way it is right now. What I would have added is some sort of *ping* sound on when you actually find the strongest signal location, and maybe a small icon on character that found it, so that it is more difficult to miss. An "undo" button would be really cool - restarting the whole level is fine at the beginning, but once you get to the dogs (poor puppers, by the way), having to restart everything and clear the level again feels a bit too punishing.
The game looks and feels alright. Art style is the finest programmer art, which is always great to see instead of something automatically generated. Nice music in the background and funny sound effects (which mitigated a bit feeling bad about the doggos) also fit pretty well.
Overall, it's a solid compo entry, well done!
Network Bridge by Coda Highland 2026-05-04T16:49:37Z ♥ 1
Pretty neat jam entry! Getting some cool retro vibes from this one in the best of ways. There's a decent variety of enemies, making you find different ways of handling them. I really liked dealing with the mines, especially in the final level, where I just flew around to collect all of them before turning around and destroying them all at once. ;) Getting some nice upgrades for your ship as you progress is always good to see, definitely a good choice on making them rewards for rescuing everyone instead of just going for the relays.
Sound effects are pretty well done! I especially loved both the pea-shooter and laser enemy sounds. ;) I wish there was some simple ambient music to acompany the experience, but I know it's tough to fit everything in such a short development window. The artstyle looks really cool, I loved all the character portraits and played several times to make sure I've seen them all. Looked like a lot of nice HotS callbacks in there, along with some Sailor Moon and - of course - Rocky. :)
I also experienced the bugs Arnage mentioned - no victory screen, and pressing escape just stops everything and no pause screen shows up either. I know that they're there since they show up for a few seconds when the game first starts, but they never display properly during gameplay. And finishing the game just leaves you in the void in an "undefined" location. I rescued everyone, but got lost in space myself.
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Overall, it's a really cool jam game! Nicely done!
Routine Mission by Flightless 2026-05-04T16:20:41Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool story! I've played through it 3 times to check all (?) the endings. The AI voices were alright during the beginning, but obviously lacking in emotional nuance when it started to get more interesting. Still, pretty serviceable for a short experience like that. Music was appropriately tense and mysterious, good job on making something that's not too attention grabbing - the way it is, it provides perfect ambiance for the story.
I also liked the "signal", as it sounded appropriately menacing without being too grating on ears. There were a couple of occasions when I got locked into conversation as the signal was active and audible, so maybe it could have used some special check to remove it after a second or two once a message starts, but it wasn't a big issue.
I also enjoyed looking for some other signals across the spectrum to see if there were some hidden things in there, like maybe foreshadowing some stuff, and that made me think that perhaps that would be a nice way to expand on this project in the future - placing more smaller messages here and there that aren't necessary to find, but can provide some additional flavour.
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All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience, well done!
Midnight Transmission by Liam 2026-05-03T12:09:49Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool little game! Triangulation feels like a pretty good mechanic, and it's executed well too. Those damned Men in Black managed to catch me a couple of times (I risked too much and I paid for it :P), but I eventually managed to go around them.
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Artstyle is great, and the creepy background music reinforces the mysteriousness of it all. Mechanically it's also pretty good. One thing I think I might have changed is adding some more granularity to your speed control, but since the game isn't too difficult as it is, it's not such a big issue.
Overall, it's a pretty solid compo game, nicely done!
Celestial Bodies by rynti 2026-05-03T11:54:56Z ♥ 1
Haha, what a concept! :D
On one hand, game feels like classic old launcher games, letting you make incremental progress with each launch. The idea of having to build a signal connection is a really nice addition on top of that, but what really elevates it for me is the delayed control mechanic. I've been thinking about a game idea implementing something vaguely similar, so to see it executed in such a fun way feels really cool! And it really does work well, thanks to controls being smooth and responsive with zero delay.
The game looks and sounds pretty good! Artstyle is pretty solid pixelart, enforcing the ridiculousness of the premise, and the soundtrack feels really fitting for a space launch game, showing you how serious these dudes are.
I've played through it twice and managed to reconnect the solar system for all the bros. Well done on the game! :D
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Flirting 101 by OadT 2026-05-03T11:29:16Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool puzzle game! Mechanics are simple, but together they combine into a compelling experience. And a difficult one! Might be because I'm a bit tired, but I had to skip a couple of levels at first and return to them later. One of them was the "multiple signals" one, which felt pretty tough until I realised it was all about timing. Figuring it out felt really good, which is a great thing to have in a puzzle game. Nicely done!
Graphics are really cool, I like the clean style. On one hand it looks like a classic Atari-era game, on another nice fluid animations make it all feel really smooth. Sound-wise it is pretty nice too! Interaction clicks make it feel responsive, and the "target" reactions just made me laugh out loud. :D Shame you couldn't add some light music in the background, but yeah, limited time and all that.
So far I haven't finished the final level yet, but I feel like I'm close. I'm gonna try it again tomorrow, maybe with a fresh look at it I'll see what I'm missing today. ;)
Junction Keeper by Richard Baltrusch 2026-05-03T10:39:23Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool little game! Though the management of all the trains gets hectic quite fast. In fact too hectic for me to complete level 3. Several times I restarted for it to just spawn two trains on stations right next to each other, going towards each other and crashing within seconds. When I managed to live a bit longer, I seem to not judge correctly how far away I need to place the signal for trains to be able to slow down and stop, so quite often they just run the red light.
Graphically, it looks pretty good! Watching those little trains move around feels pretty satisfying, and the chill music in the background makes it even better.
This is probably my best score from the final level. Looks like I am slowly getting better at it! ;)
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GAME OVER: Earth by The1 2026-05-03T09:40:54Z ♥ 1
Pretty damn old-school-cool game! Mechanics are simple and intuitive, but very smooth. Art style is great and evokes the feeling of nostalgia nicely. The musical transition between days is great and atmospheric, though I think it might have been a bit better to have some very light music during the days themselves to reinforce the eerie silence.
First time I played I got surprised by those hypersonic missiles, but after that I got a pretty good hang on it. And I think in a way the game gets a bit easier in later levels, since missiles get clustered much more often - in early days I sometimes had to think very carefully whether to fire an ABM or wait, and I completed them without any remaining, while later on I was basically just spamming them and still had some left at the end. Though I do believe they either get faster or spawn closer in the radar shadow the further in you go, since they did finally manage to get me. But 29 days doesn't sound like a bad score. ;)
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Signal Interference by Phoenix Fireflower 2026-04-30T08:56:58Z ♥ 1
Holy crap, that is an amazing game! I fully agree with previous comment, this definitely feels like it's an early version of a complete game rather than *just* a compo project. The visuals are really good, but I feel like it's the sound design that does wonders for me here. I especially love how the music transitions between the battle scene, it feels really smooth. ;)
Mechanically, it is pretty interesting too! Though I'd agree with some of the previous comments that at this point rearranging the card isn't as important, I can see that changing very easily if you are planning to continue working on this project.
One small bug I found - if after the battle you choose to upgrade your card, if you hover over the card list and use scroll wheel, it will detect that as a click and upgrade the hovered card without actually clicking on it.
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Overall, that is one impressive compo entry, with an amazing level of polish. Well done!
Signal Strength by NikiProT 2026-04-30T07:52:31Z ♥ 0
Pretty cool idea! Running around with the tablet and turning on devices reminded me of Stationeers a bit, which is a good thing. ;)
One thing that I might have changed is the tablet animation start point or speed. At first, when I pressed tab nothing happened for quite a while, and only after a few seconds the tablet emerged from the ground as I was looking down. I think it would have worked better if it was more responsive.
Radio Free Earth by ditam 2026-04-28T16:08:30Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool idea! It was a bit unclear what to do first, but reading the Controls in description here helped with that. From there it was pretty smooth sailing right until the end, when I had relays installed everywhere and still haven't reached 100%. Turned out there was another planet far to the left which I've missed, since no ships were going that way. Oops! :D But hey, I got there eventually. Maybe having some sort of directional marker towards nearest object not connected to the signal network would make it better? Or some sort of active pulse-scan to find objects that still need to be connected?
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Robo Island by JoeShanahan 2026-04-27T16:42:51Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool and relaxing game! Gameplay is very intuitive, and with those nice animations it feels like there's is a lot of feedback on player actions to reinforce it. I liked the 3/5 merge resource increase, and how the resources only merged while moving that specific resource (and not when they were moved due to switching with something else), that gave me some options to move stuff around without wasting stuff on 3-merges.
The robot control UI was a little confusing at first, but it only took a few clicks to figure out. The game looks pretty, I do love the cute little robot! And while music wasn't done for the game, it was a pretty good choice - it fits the feel of the game nicely.
One thing that I was wondering about was if the resources wouldn't be better if they were made infinite. Right now, they are functionally infinite as far as getting to the victory screen goes, so the resource fields depleting doesn't really feel like it's that important. And it's especially well visible with the research / data - after finishing the game I spent some time to deplete all the fields and I ended up with a ton of SD cards with nothing to spend them on. Which reminded me that a couple of times during the game I wished for some sort of trash can to get rid of resources I didn't want to free some space. :D
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And, despite the warning that there's nothing else after that, I couldn't help myself. 😁
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Overall, that's a pretty good jam entry! I had a lot of fun playing it!
Edit Hmm, looks like images don't work for some reason. I'll see if reuploading them later is going to fix it, as right now it doesn't seem to do anything.
Kuiper Space Rescue by Saering 2026-04-23T14:25:58Z ♥ 2
Really cool idea for a jam game, and what a fantastic implementation! :) Gameplay feels smooth, and everything is very intuitive. Nice idea to have you start very close to one of the satellites, so you can immediately find out what you need to do in the game.
Clearly marked mission progress and a helpful direction marker for the nearest satellite made it feel pretty easy, but that's good - it feels way better to have the challenge be navigating the obstacle course rather than just getting lost in it trying to locate the target.
Audio side is pretty good as well, but I'd agree on the note about the engine noise - it is a bit too grating, especially since it is quite crackly. The rest of the sounds felt pretty good and fitting for the general atmosphere. Visually, I don't have much more to add, other than the game looks simply fantastic and I love the aesthetic. ;)
The upgrades were a pretty cool idea. I did enjoy getting the increased scanning speed, it felt really appropriate (and painfully short) for the gameplay. The speed upgrade a little bit less so. There is a timer in the game, so maybe making it track the time you took from start till the final satellite is repaired and displaying it on the end screen would make the speed upgrade feel like something more fitting for those who want to complete it as quickly as possible?
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Overall, it's a really great jam game. Well done!
Twilight Beacon by graebor 2026-04-23T13:44:15Z ♥ 1
Really great entry! My only with is that I was actually any good in playing it, but I'm afraid it's a bit too much for me. 😅
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The moment I discovered the bonus point mechanic I got totally distracted by it, even if I wasn't bad enough already. But I feel like I am slowly getting better with every playthrough, so I guess it just might be an issue with not having enough practice yet.
I'm glad you decided to make it a Jam game and add the music, it definitely makes the experience much more immersive. And the music slow-down you get on losing feels really appropriate. The sounds of antennae moving felt pretty good as well! Together with a really cool art style it makes for one impressive jam game.
Phantom Hunt by Jesús González 2026-04-23T12:46:42Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool idea! I'd agree with previous comments that it could perhaps use some more info on what to do in the game, but I did manage to figure it out after a couple of levels. Though I haven't figured out you could pick the signal antennae until the final level - I thought the puzzle was to use what was in the level and didn't even try it. :P
One thing that I would change / add is the ability to turn in place. You can only pick up items if you approach them directly, and while that wasn't really an issue for me here, I can see it becoming a potential problem when levels get more complicated. And I remember that sort of "mechanic" always felt to me like it was just an annoyance. If you could spend one turn to just rotate your character without moving, I think it would be great.
The undo system works pretty well, nice job on the implementation! Having it instantly return you to the previous state instead of reversing the animations and forcing you to wait makes it really smooth to use.
Also, I really like the background music track. Gives you this nice feeling of something dark and mysterious.
And well done on making your own custom engine in Rust! Everything seems to be working pretty neatly, I didn't notice any bugs or unexpected behaviour. I've been looking into learning Rust a bit more and maybe figuring out how to use it for gamedev, so I might look at your source repository for reference when I get the time. ;)
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Signal surfer by poddub 2026-04-21T17:14:25Z ♥ 0
Tried to play your game on Itch, but there seems to be a problem...
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The LD one did work, though, so I tried it... And it took me multiple attempts before I figured out the feel of the game. At first I thought I was losing due to how the map is built (like getting multiple increasing hills one after another, so I kept launching and slamming into an uphill slope), but eventually I've managed to mitigate it.
The feeling you get once you launch and get the zoomed out view is pretty good. But I'd agree with people before me, having some air control, especially during those moments, would have been amazing.
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The first several tries ended too quickly, and I didn't realise how exactly the game over mechanic worked. I feel like the game could be a little bit less punishing in those initial moments, as it feels if you'd get a bit more time during those early attempts, you'd get a hang of proper controls more quickly. Because the restarts happen so fast in the beginning, it doesn't feel like you're able to learn much about it. But eventually it clicked and I did start getting some better scores. Eventually I even got up to 6 digits, so I think that's a pretty decent score already. ;)
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Overall, it's a really good idea, pretty well executed, and looking amazingly good! Especially for a compo entry. Well done!
Signal Operator by TasakaSama 2026-04-21T16:41:03Z ♥ 1
Pretty cool game! And pretty damn difficult. I feel like it is a little bit too unforgiving with the hit boxes. And it got me in a couple of additional ways, like trains stopping mid-intersection even though I'd expected them to not react to the signal once they've already passed it. And then there was the reversed arrow in the final level. ;)
But overall it's pretty satisfying. I'm glad I don't need to worry about the amount of derailed trains, though, I'm sure that would be a problem. Especially since in some levels I used one line of trains as battering rams to make sure lower ones could pass through safely. 😁
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INTERSIGNAL by zimny11 2026-04-21T16:12:13Z ♥ 2
Pretty cool concept! It took me a moment to wrap my head around it, but since it is pretty intuitive, it didn't take long. At first I played in the default zoomed-out view, which made the font on stellar objects unreadable, but thanks to some nice colour-coding it wasn't difficult to figure out what they meant.
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After several games, best score I got was 19. It would have been 20, but I had a red signal left over from noise conversion that I had to use, and it destroyed one of my blue nodes. Shame I couldn't just discard it, but oh well, such are the rules of the game. ;)
Art-wise, it's a really pretty game! I love the three scannable objects, seeing them made me wish for some larger exploration or strategy game where you'd be able to see more of them around. ;) The interface is pretty good looking too. Even though it's just moving a couple of signal nodes around, it gives you the feeling of operating a larger electro-mechanical machine, full of dials and switches.
The only thing that felt off a bit was the two animations on the data analyser - connection between the two top-left nodes and connection between the two bottom-right ones. It kinda made me think there might be some sort of mechanic to gain bonus points from having both nodes be of the same colour, or specifically two blue ones in case of the top one and two yellows (or maybe red-yellow?) in bottom ones. It felt appropriate, given the colour-coding of the signals, so there was a bit of confusion with that.
Sound design is pretty nice too. I like the discreet space ambient tune in the background.
Oh, and there we go. As I was writing this post, I've managed to beat my record. :D
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I better stop now, I'd like to rate some other games as well. But yeah, definitely well done!
Signal Circuits by Alex Mulkerrin 2026-04-20T19:37:07Z ♥ 1
Ah, logic gates. Always cool, always fun to play with. :D
I've managed to get through the first 10 levels pretty easily (with the XOR gate taking a moment, but still...), but I can't seem to figure out the Adder. 10+10=100, so I feel like I'm missing the third output here, and just handling the two doesn't seem to be enough.
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It feels like it might be a bit too big of a jump in difficulty. I'll definitely come back to it after a good night's sleep. Even if I don't figure the adder out, there's 3 more puzzles to solve there. :D
Great job on the presentation side! I love clear visuals like that, especially in a game that asks you to figure out complicated stuff. It could definitely use some quiet simple ambient music in the background, but it's not a huge issue - getting focused on the game makes you forget about stuff like that pretty quickly. :)
Intercept by paracorn 2026-04-20T18:13:21Z ♥ 2
Pretty cool! Feels like a nice classic incremental game! Everything you need is there - start by manually getting resources, quickly figure out how to get some passive income and level up everything. And then additional resources start showing up. Nice! I really liked the way satellites were implemented - instead of just giving you a flat bonus, they sped up your income considerably for a while. That felt more satisfying. Also a nice idea was having job licenses being something working for all jobs and having separate cost in each resource! And pretty damn good work on the visual side as well, and while it is just a tiny thing, I really enjoyed the sight of all the workers running around at the base of my radio tower.
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