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| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Alien Disco | compo | 298 | 3.42 | 3.36 | 3.44 | 2.91 | 3.30 | 3.45 | 3.20 | 3.29 |
Interesting concept and fun to play! The moving circle kind of gave me battle royale vibes. Definitely inspiring for my designer brain, thank you very much! :D
That was a nice twist with the "marble" mechanics! Great job!
Really fun and unique, but sometimes you just feel like crushing those infuriating little simulated climber dudes! Seriously though, great entry! :)
Really fun one that gave me Joust vibes (which way too few games do these days). Also love how juicy dying feels - BLAM! :dizzy_face:
Never before have I hoped to hit my head on solid objects this much! Really nice-looking game, takes some planning around jump reach and object positions, great fit for the theme. Well done! :)
Had me glued to the screen like an old Inkle game. Well done! :)
Fun stacking game with well-done physics that make sense! Great job!
One of my jam favorites so far! Definitely a take on a "stock market game" I haven't seen before! :D
Really unique concept and a great fit for the theme! Clicking those cute little elements isn't all that easy though! :D
I wish I either had some way to react to platforms breaking or the game was much faster, so replaying a stage (now knowing one more breaking platform) went quicker. Well-made platformer though, great fit for the theme, neat visuals! :)
Amazing, love the "build your own level while playing it simultaneously" concept. Great art and music too! It could be a little faster (not in terms of movement, but in terms of how quickly you get points to build more stuff), but overall easily one of my jam favorites! :)
Took a minute to figure out what's going on, but once you get the hang of it it's a really fun tactile (and frantic! :D) experience!
The polish is insane with this one! So juicy!
Very interesting! Could easily see this expanding into a full Plague-Inc.-like experience. :)
Fun physics-y building sandbox! Well done for fitting something of this scope into a compo project. Could easily be expanded upon in a whole bunch of directions! :)
Okay, this one is super fun! One special thing about it is that it's basically equally fun when you do badly, because it's pretty hilarious. I could easily see this being expanded into a full release with varied (maybe randomly generated) levels and a bunch of special abilities. Seems very streamable too. Great job! :)
Really cool puzzle-ish strategy game. Felt a tad too random at times, but also I'm probably bad at making contingency plans at this stage, cause this is quite the unique concept you have there. Also like the stylized aesthetics a lot. Great job! :)
Honestly one of my jam favorites so far! It's basically Escape from Tarkov, but only the scavenging and loot management. I love how focused it is and how it makes the inventory juggling meaningful. The different item effects were really fun. More varied items with emergent interactions and maybe a few more obstacles along your way (the city map really doesn't do anything currently) and I can easily see this being a very good full game. Great job! :)
A really fun and creative puzzler! I kind of think you should get a preview of all the upcoming days, otherwise you don't really know how to position on day 1. Super fun though, well done and lol at that losing animation. :D
Just when I thought not moving your mouse ever was the winning strategy, the windows threw me off, haha! Very nice entry, super polished and fits the theme perfectly! :)
Super creative and really fun! I think you could either keep pushing this into the frantic management direction or even turn it into a more casual idle-like game with the cool reactor visualizations. Obviously a perfect fit for the theme too! :D
Very nice concept and a perfect fit for the theme! Add some polish and a bunch of different minigames to the stations and you have yourself a fully releasable game! :D
Jumping in the wind is not meditation? That's just your opinion man...
Really cool entry, I could totally see this being a popular mobile game. Great audiovisuals (love the looming metal guitar haha) too. Awesome job!
Fun little puzzle platformer that manages to introduce new ideas with every level and holds quite a bit of metaphorical meaning to make you think. Well done!
The color matching was a nice twist on the formula! Well done! :)
A simple but fun top-down shooter! That wall of tanks was scary though... :D
The atmosphere this manages to create is quite haunting... well done!
Love the overall risk-vs-reward structure and that it's not just endless! The aesthetics also have a lot of style to them. Great job! :)
Took me a while to realize it's not just the horse you can control, but then oh boy... Starcraft deathballs are nowhere near as scary! Very fun! :D
Cool game! As @thepelranthean mentioned, it gets a little too frantic quite quickly and loses some of its own structure in the process. Solid concept in general with the zoning though, could see this being expanded upon! :)
For some reason those enemy graphics combined with the sound and lighting make the thing super creepy haha. Well done! :D
Can't have enough card games in a jam! I liked how this one opens up a spatial dimension (which is an opportunity many card games miss). Maybe could use a few more ways to influence things, you can get a bit of a bad streak with one-directional cards. But all in all a really great entry! :)
Compo time is always very short for strategy games, but as a fan of all card gamey things I can see this becoming something great with a proper AI (or some kind of opponent system) and more strategies to plan around. Definitely has lots of potential! (Also, bonus points for making a "real-time turn-based" game, I think there's a huge unexplored design space there.)
Love the idea of not being able to control your targets directly, but having to work around them. Unique concept and also really well-made! :)
Very cute, great audiovisuals, solid puzzler mechanics! Not sure about the "books can kill you if you have a mental disorder" message, but it's good fun! :D
You had me at "falling projectiles such as Elon Musk". Also a building dual-wielding miniguns, say what? Very fun entry, kudos! :D
Very cute, felt a bit like a non-combat re-imagining of Super Crate Box! Just the movement controls were a bit too slidey for my taste, but good job nonetheless! :)
Really liked the idea of indirectly controlling your moody friend! Great graphics and sound effects too, very well done! :)
Very fun and unique parkour-like concept with tables flying everywhere! Awesome job! :)
It kind of fits that Flappy Bird model of being hypercasual but also insanely difficult at the same time. Was definitely motivating to see how far I could push it, and the "creator highscore" is a very nice element I might steal in the future haha! :D
Flappy Bird has nothing on this! It's super difficult, but very well made. Great job on the graphics too!
Also yay, I finally found another PICO-8 compo game besides mine! Cheers! ;D
Loved the concept of having to set the horses up for a good path and then praying for them to make the best of it. Well done! :D
Cool take on the theme with nice graphics! :)
Super fun (and funny) game! Sort of like frantic chess with a crazy horse. I'm a big fan of integrating turn timers into the actual gameplay, there's so much enexplored design space there and this one strikes at the heart of it. Kudos!
Nice little frantic "spatial presence management" game. Kind of reminded me of good old Diner Dash or something. :D
The one obvious thing to add would be spinning animations for better feedback, but overall a really solid entry!
Gameplay didn't feel very unstable, but good job on creating a fun game nonetheless! :)
An incremental game with a touch of mystery and a "Papers, Please" vibe to it. Very well executed! :)
Love it, super fun to play around with! The animal shapes reminded me of "Animal Upon Animal" (the physical game), which is awesome. :D
You don't get many jam games with voice acting! Good job, great atmosphere! However, as @owlycode mentioned, the shaking definitely could use some tuning down.
Funniest game I've seen in the jam so far. Holding down that eject button was just glorious. Thank you for sparking joy! :D
Nice job! This had a lot more to it than I thought from the first two levels. Those chain reactions have lots of potential. If this was a demo, I'd wishlist the full game. :)
You have the beginnings of a satisfying toy here! With some more things to do and less harsh sound effects this will feel really nice I think. :)
The audio and graphics create a really tight atmosphere. It got hard to hear the sound cues clearly, which I assume was intentional. Very nicely done!
Really polished and clever (big wow that this is your first ever game, please continue haha)! :)
Super difficult and frantic, but looks and sounds awesome! I also noticed how you learn the map over time and intuitively know where to go for "building K" (sort of like a real delivery person would). Great job! :)
I have a soft spot for "single-player cooperative games". This one is very difficult (it is indeed very unstable, heh), but shows the potential of such a simple core idea!
Really nice, great visuals, replayable, good fit for the theme, well done! And thank you for the donut! ;D
Well done! I really liked that you can deflect enemy shots, could even see the game centering more around that. But maybe your own shooting would need more restrictions then (such as a lower rate of fire). Anyways, good job! :)
Especially liked the atmosphere of this one! Didn't feel too "unstable", could use a bit more chaos maybe. :D
Neat idea with the heist mechanics! Feels like the game maybe didn't even need shooting and could be centered around dodging or taking cover instead.
Switching between two opposing sides constantly is definitely something I haven't seen before! I feel the hunter bullets should take some time to travel so you can react to them. They feel very laser-like currently. Kudos for the inspiring core idea though!
@u4ia @arachnid56 @joerenglish @the-jahn @xinera @m11 @dzejpi Thank you all so much for the kind words, really makes all the difference! :)
@ratogodoy Just curious, how did you define "winning" since it's basically a highscore game ("go as long as you can")? Or did your game just never end (it should become super difficult after 2-3 minutes)?
@pvp @kewdev Thank you and great job! I think anything above 100 seconds is good, best ones I've seen seem to be ~150.
@iluvatar Thank you very much! I agree it could use more of a scoring system, maybe even a progressively harder score goal ladder you can climb up. Something for a potential post-compo version. Oh, and you have a world of amazing PICO-8 games to explore, let me tell you! :D
By the way did you know PICO-8 games are saved in "cart" image files like the one below (yes, the image itself actually encodes all the lua scripts, sprites, maps etc.)? Such a lovely system!
aliendisco_ld49.p8.png
@iluvatar Actually these days it's rather easy to not use the built-in code editor. PICO-8 added an #INCLUDE function a while ago that allows you to just include a regular lua file in your p8 file (and you can edit that lua file in any code editor of your choice). I've also seen VSCode plugins and the likes that feature auto-completion for PICO-8 specific functions etc. So if you're into the aesthetics of the games themselves, there are definitely ways to not use the 128x128 code editor.
@chameth Thank you very much, that's exactly what I was going for! And more than 2 minutes is a very good score! :D
@shellofagirl Haha it's a pleasure, thank you!
@m-a-t Wow, definitely among the best performances I've head of yet! Thank you for playing and for the feedback! :)
@madjackmcmad @gus-the-shark @jonah-srg @hotaloca @ommadawn @kalevrk @cabjhegas @glaikunt @dnabro @maggardjosh @chikentear @khaoz-fang Thank you all so much for playing and for the kind words! :blush:
@quite-good Thank you! And yes, PICO-8 is an amazing "do everything by yourself quickly with minimal setup" game-making tool. :D
@octahedronsoftware Thank you! I mentioned a couple things about using external editors in a comment above. If you're into the kinds of games, I'd suggest giving it a shot. It refreshing to use something so light-weight yet self-contained for game dev. :)
@casa-ocho Thanks a lot! Yes, more items and would be one of the next things on the list for sure.
@solah Haha, the music was meant to get more "unstable" (and well... alien) towards the end. Thank you for playing!
@ghoulean Thank you for playing! For now I was just going for "increasingly alien over time" in terms of the music, but a wider variety of tracks would definitely be one of the things to add next. Maybe I should host a PICO-8 music jam for the game! :P
@gamebuilder @stoickekis @lcstark @slimmerburger Thank you very much for the kind words! :D
@hiko-game @glenugie @gorypixels Thank you so much for playing and the kind words! :)
@michael-feldman Good idea considering I only use one button. Would need an additional UI prompt though. I wanted to keep the controls super casual and easy to get into (at least for the compo version).
@fakefirefly Thank you! It's true that this strategy is optimal (although it only goes so far in theory, because later on you'll often have to dance suboptimally just to keep the meter up). More (and more varied) power-ups as also suggested by @pkzinpo are definitely on top of the list though. :)
@binaryprinciple Ha, nice to meet you, other Fabian! Keep dancing (and making games)! :D
Cool idea and perfect fit for the theme! As others mentioned, the balance is a little off, you're earning way to little (especially early on). Next time maybe try to balance on the (too) high side instead, so players can just do lots of stuff even if that makes things a little too easy in the first iteration. Good job though! :)
Very intriguing and a perfect fit for the theme! :)
Nice twist on the breakout formula! At first I thought blocks should attach to my paddle and create an unwieldy monstrosity paddle over time, but it works quite well as it is! :D
Fun little multi-tasking game. Funnily enough I mostly lost due to pushing the reactor rods too far up while frantically watching the other bars in on the right, haha. :D
Fun exploration puzzle game. The simple visuals make it quite hard to keep track of where you're at (not a bad thing for a maze game). Also the audio is probably among the best I've heard in the jam, creates a really tight atmosphere. Well done!