MelbaDream

Friendship Deathmatch by Patomkin 2022-10-04T09:43:00Z

Pro: - The idea with the character swap is really funny - The implementation of the idea is great (it could have been very confusing and frustrating, but it is not at all) - A circle for the next swap is AWESOME (for clarity and strategy, since you have some influence over it - you can kill it to switch) - Prioritising the switch for already played characters is also great

Cons / Feedback: - It took me some time to understand that all the animals have different attacks and what they are (especially the hedgehog) - More clarity on the current life of the characters would be nice (the size difference in size is not very visible/understandable and after some points it seems that you can not grow anymore but still have more life)

Bugs (?): - The mouse has no attack ? - The system that lets you jump over others is not very consistent and you can jump on the head of another animal... And stay there. Sure. This mechanic also contributed to my confusion with character attacks. - You can go outside the visible area (in the left and right corners)

Impending Doom of a Thousand Kitties by RalfZ 2022-10-05T19:58:34Z

Pros: - Cute art & cool idea!

Cons: - It was really hard to understand how to feed the cats at first - It was also hard to see when I was going to lose or not. Maybe with more visual and sound effects?

Bugs: - I lost the game with the food thing selected and my cursor stayed like this even in the menus - Sometimes I couldn't close or open the right menu :/

Sonar by erikiene 2022-10-04T07:58:33Z

Pros : - Cohesive visuals and feel - Great presentation and lore - Really liked the fact that drops became rarer in the starting zone so I had to go explore - Found out very quickly I could destroy stuff for scrap - The sonar idea is really great

Cons : - In most games I play with the mouse, left click is for attack and right click is for movement commands, so... that was very weird. (Maybe it's because I thought movement meant clicking a point and automatically going there) - Holding down the left mouse button for the entire duration of the game to move gets a bit tedious - Drops became so rarescarce in the starting zone (and its surroundings) that I had to travel for a minute left and right to get some scraps (in an empty screen) and with the fact that the ship inventory is limited... A bit frustrating and boring. - The sonar area is a bit small imo, I can see everything that it shows me even without it

Bugs (?) : - There was no upgrade system for my submarine (maybe not implemented?) - On my first playthrough, when i tried to dive a bit, I somehow died instantly (idk what happened, I went from no hp bar to red and death in 1s) - I had to restart the game whether I won or died to play again (game just stops responding when it ends/ is not interactive anymore) - I'm not even sure if I won, because the main ship sank a lot, and when I came to finish the repair, an animation started... But the sound of my ship being destroyed to death kept playing (because I was taking depth damage) and... Nothing.

Plop by Ayced 2022-10-08T08:25:00Z

Cool game, I really like the idea. The simple aesthetic was clean and a good choice :)

Some bugs I found: - One enemy has an attack with no animation (I think it's the wizard) - One of my characters died from this mysterious attack, and my turn ended right there (even though I had still one attack queued with another)

Some UX stuff that would have added to clarity: - Not showing the heal option when it was not possible - Add a visual indication for the self-healing command in the preparation phase (sometimes I wasn't sure I clicked for it) - Choosing between lighting up the enemy feet, showing the red cross or having both in the same place when preparing to attack (it was hard to tell how to play at first, and even when I understood, this double visual indication not lined up got me confused a lot where I had to finish the dragging)

As for stuff that could add to the game if you want to work more on it in the future and deepen the strategic aspect : - a way to see what enemies are going to do next turn - showing the next turn order

It was super cool to play nonetheless (as you can see I had lots of things to say ahah :D)

Miller's Palm by kr4ft3r 2022-10-04T11:17:11Z

Pros: - This game doesn't leave you indifferent. - The mood is very cohesive - I didn't find a bug (this is a first for all the games I've reviewed)

Cons / Feedback: - The solution was hard to find - I could not find it, ended up clicking on everything multiple times out of exasperation (which got me out of the game). In the end, I found the solution thanks to an hint in another comment... And it was the only dialog I hadn't seen even before my clicking frenesy. The text when going there and doing the action really made me think I was done with this "item") - The clock indicated UTC time, not local time. I'm not sure it's possible to do so, but it lessen a bit the impact of that part

Whatever Floats Your Boat by Rage Paint Games 2022-10-04T09:04:05Z

Pros : - Really feel polished - Presence of a tutorial (that can be skipped!) - Easy to understand - Music changes with the fourth hole and the defeat animation/music/screen - The defeat screen is beautiful (yes, that needed a point)

Cons / Feedback : - The throwing mecanic is a bit cluncky (played on PC - I had some starships never going down xD), but this is made up for by the forgiving hitboxes - The game is too easy (a higher difficulty is not always good, but with the ten second timing, if the hole is patched immediately, it's just a ten second wait untill the next interactive phase, and with nothing to do, it can get a bit boring). Maybe having less starships spawn or more holes per rock hit with (especially with a gradual augmentation) could make the game more engaging

Bug : - The game kept playing after reaching the end (the scrolling kept going on, with the boat taking damage, the starships spawning, the ability to fix the ship...)

Whatever Floats Your Boat by Rage Paint Games 2022-10-05T17:35:45Z

@rage-paint-games You saw through me ahaha :D and those are nice ideas!

I wanted to add a bit on the bug, since it seems I found a rare occurrence (bugs love me...) : I think my end bug had something to do with having a starfish grabbed during the end, or throwing it before it ends and having it repair the boat after the supposed end. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I remember trying to fix the last hole right as the game ended, so it probably has something to do with it

Automatos by Mikushi 2022-10-06T16:46:22Z

As promised, I'm here!

Pros: - Very cool concept :) - It feels pretty polished - Sound design and visuel are cohesive and pretty great

Cons/Bugs(?): - I think the directional arrows would have been better than wasd for movement. I had to switch my keyboard to qwerty mode to play the game. - I noticed that diagonal movement was faster than lateral movement, which I'm not sure is intended - The window was a bit small, which made the UI really hard to read

Overall it's a very solid game, good job!

Angel Slayer by Sozey 2022-10-07T16:46:56Z

Good game, that was fun :)

I've got some feedback, thought: - I got the double laser upgrade, because I thought it would be awesome. However, the double diagonal missile made the game so much harder :( - I had nothing to do in the first few rooms except waiting for the timer. - After going up in a single direction to explore, a never ending flow of angels would come from one way, and I was litterally stuck in one room, because there would always be ennemies blocking the door. - The transition when the card choice pops up freeze your inputs first THEN slow the time a bit later, which means there is around half a second where the time is not frozen and you're unable to move each time the card choice opens. I took a lot of damage this way :(

10 Second Mixtape by Scott Steffes 2022-10-08T09:53:08Z

Honestly, this is awesome!

Also honestly, I absolutely suck at everything music related, especially the creation part. Well, mostly the creation part (I played the piano when I was little and was decent at it, and I can tell pretty easily what sounds good and what doesn't - but create something... The nightmare). So, everything I try to play sounds atrocious. EVERY SINGLE THING.

I loved the concept though, it's so cool and it works so well! I'm just way too bad at it T_T

Some feedback: - It was really hard to make notes with the same duration (maybe multiple fixed duration instead of full analog would have made it easier - but maybe it would have taken something from the creation process, I don't know. - Clicking on notes to remove them was hard (when I finally understood I could do that). A more generous hitbox, maybe? An option to remove only one line or even one measure would have been great too! - That's mostly personal and I'm not really sure it could be done, but a "beginner at music" or "I suck at creating music" option would have been awesome too with less liberty in the creation, like very fixed notes duration, or locked timings, but more chances to do something that does not sound atrocious xD)

This is the best game I played honestly - most polished, really fun concept, really nice execution. I just suck at it ahah

Defend-o-card'o by bloodycoin 2022-10-04T10:05:47Z

Pros: - Great concept - Coherent visuals (the illustration on the back of the card is awesome ). - Strategic potential, with several resources to manage

Cons / Feedback / Bugs : - The music loop is way too short (and gets a bit annoying quickly) - Some cards seem to reset the timer (sometimes even skipping the dragon's turn) - I got very confused and did not manage to beat the game :/ - Time decreases only with cards played and drawn (so it's not a timer, but a mana pool?). - You can click continue if you lose and stay in the game with negative HP

Winding Woods by tetrapteryx 2022-10-08T07:27:58Z

Pros: - The game is beautiful, art is super cohesive - The music and sounds fit well

Feedback: - It was a bit too hard imo, not because it required a lot of skill, but because of sheer randomness. As you have no indication of the critter's next direction, no way of redrawing or changing cards, and waaaay too many ghosts everywhere, sometimes you just die without being able to do anything - especially with the fact that you get so many tornado cards later on (justified by the number of ghosts), which means if the critter decides to go straight to the dark part, you get to just watch him die :( - It took me some time to understand what the different cards would do. I got confused by the cards you could play on visible tiles or not, and the movement ones (at first I thought it would change the critter direction when played ahah)

I really liked the mood, thought :)

Gottschalk by krakadushka 2022-10-04T10:50:18Z

There is no link to play the game :(

Gravity by Asue 2022-10-05T17:28:56Z

Pros: - The atmosphere and art are amazing (it's honestly beautiful) - I really like the concept

Cons : - The atmosphere (especially with the music) is very peaceful, which contrasts greatly with the urgency that should be felt with a ten-second timer. (I really like the atmosphere, thought)

Bugs : - Sometimes the background texture disappear :( - If you miss your shot, you can just fly away infinitely (which is nice to look around, but no so much to play xD)

Witchy Sketchy Alchemy by Bruyère Alice 2022-10-06T18:28:07Z

Pros: - The visuals are really beautiful - I really like the idea :)

Some feedback: - Sometimes it was simply impossible to do any of the recipes during the ten seconds, because one color was necessary for everything, and even when spamming reroll, I couldn't get one :( - When clinking on retry after a loss, sometimes the game wouldn't load and stay stuck at 0% - I would have loved a bit more clarity on the stuff I already put in the cauldron, like having them on one row like in the recipe

That said, it was fun!

Baltic by picttarge 2022-10-04T08:44:11Z

Pros : - Feels good to play - Input/jumps are really great - Level design - especially the last 2-3 (with the punishment if you try to jump straight to the end without thinking) - Variations of wind noise (with/without cover) - Intuitive controls - Getting cold really feels heavy, which is awesome - Restarting at the current level when you lose is great

Cons / Feedback : - An display of the current level would be great (maybe on the stations instead of "70" ?) - More clarity about the current freeze level would be great (especially when the fires do not bring you back to the minimum, so sometimes I just stayed on them with high hopes) - The left and right arrows are used for the gameplay, but the up/down arrows scroll the web page, which can be confusing - I did not notice the theme during my playthrough (in hindsight I realised it was the timing of enemy spawns), and the timer sound was really loud (I honestly thought it was just a weird and annoying drum ambiance noise). Maybe some variations (with a crescendo) would have made it easier to understand.

Bugs (?) : - There is definitely a bug with the freeze mecanic. I had to restart the game to finish the last level because my starting jump height was too short and would not reset to the default/starting one no matter how many times I failed the level (it was like the starting freeze level was no longer zero anymore). Restarting the game fixed it (but I had to play all the other levels first again). I have no idea when this happened, thought :/ - Sometimes I had a line of white pixels (looking like some kind of blizzard effect) runing throught my screen, sometimes not - but it was very random

Burn The Witch by Zran 2022-10-04T08:01:25Z

Itch.io link does not work :(

Decrypt by Gabriel Chan 2022-10-05T18:23:16Z

Pros: - Really cool concept - Very cohesive design - Feels polished

Cons : - The dragging really feels odd, and it's very distracting. It feels like the letters don't go where I want, and with the ten second timing, it's a bit frustrating :(

Life Passes You By by Cosmonautical 2022-10-06T17:00:22Z

That was beautiful, and what a way to bring your point across. It's a really, really good idea!

However, I think it was a bit too hard to read the text. I know it's part of the charm of the game, but as English is not my native language, by the time the do nothing animation finished, I had only read the title of the note or one of the choices. I ended up reading the answers rather than the prompts because I didn't have time to click on anything otherwise. The fact that the prompts show up fast and sometimes even on others is fantastic (really!), but it was still a bit too fast for me. (I expected missing a lot of stuff, but definitely not almost everything because I was too slow to read T_T).

Amazing game nonetheless!

Jupiter & Arcana Travel Through the Nevermore by fae.pdf 2022-10-08T07:59:46Z

Great game and great idea!

I wish there could have been a bit more backgrounds, as some didn’t make sense with some parts of the story

Also, this is VERY personal, so not necessarily a thing that would add to the game (in your case, I think it rather could take away from it), in this kind of game (visual novels), when replaying, you usually have an option to skip the part you already did. I know that I do not have a lot of patience, and I especially hate re-reading something I just read a few minutes ago and waiting for the new part, but I couldn’t go through multiple endings because of that. But as I said, this is very personal :)

Anyways, that was different from a lot of entries, and really cool, good job!

Slide n Burn by justabread 2022-10-08T07:47:58Z

Pros: - Really cool game, the art fit wells and is nice! - I really liked the fact you could see where the lava would end up before it did!

Feedback: - Imo directional arrows should be an option for the controls (instead or in addition to wasd). As a non-qwerty keyboard user, I had to change it to qwerty mode to play :/ - Between the keyboard issue and the fact that the movement is sliding and not walking, I got a bit confused about what I had to do at the start. Some visual indication of the type of movement to expect would have added a lot of clarity (eg the floor made of ice or slime or any slippery stuff instead of grass or the characters being on a sliding object instead of appearing to walk, like some magical skateboard or skis, or on a rolling rock) - The end of the levels was at bit confusing. Sometimes the rocks appeared on the end path while I was collecting them, sometimes not, and somehow I didn't need to reach to rock path to end the level, collecting the third rock would suffice - but sometimes immediately, sometimes I could slide a bit even after collecting the third

Make Haste, Detective! by frogwizardhat 2022-10-04T10:41:39Z

Pros: - It's so much fun! - Amazing graphics and voice acting - Amazing dialogs and characters (the idea with the cat made me laugh)

Cons / Feedback: - AAAhJKQDHSJKFHJDKHK oh, the frustration. Changing every ten seconds is of course very thematic and also brings a time pressure to finish the game BUT the sentences are way too long for 10s (sometimes I could not even click on a dialog option for a character before the timer ended because I was still hearing the previous character's. The voice acting really adds to the game, but with this timing, an option to have the entire dialog written without waiting for the voice would alleviate some of the frustration. Also, you get randomly pulled out of a dialog without warning to end the game, and often selecting a random suspect because you did not really have the time to solve the mystery. This is a shame, because the system of gradually unlocking dialog options is great, and the scenario, characters, and dialog are really awesome! I wanted to see more, explore all the dialog options, but I gave up in the end :( - An indication of already heard line would be really cool (with 5 characters, it was pretty much impossible to keep track of it, even if selection the options in order - which defeat the purpose of the game)

Bugs: - In the main menu, the name of the second and third mysteries is hidden by the blackened icons when not hovered - Text was not always synced with voice acting - The first dialog of the third character in the scepter story does not show in text

PORTAL TO THE RIGHT WORLD by Volodymyr Karchevskyy 2022-10-04T11:27:38Z

Pro: - Really nice art - Quick, fast and fun

Cons : - Restarting to the first level is a bit too punishing, especially with this level of difficulty - The ennemy hitbox is very punishing and the sword hitbox doesn't match the sword at all, which made it confusing - It took me some time to understand the "shop" (I thought I had to interact with it at first)