Nescre

Portrait of a robot climbing a dystopian megastructure by voxel 2023-10-19T04:43:10Z

Pros: * This game scratched a very unique itch for me with the grappling; being able to swing around to get where you needed was a lot of fun that I've longed for, even outside of this jam. * Visuals and sound design were very solid; I especially liked the look given by the pixel filter. Animations felt very well thought out. * Controls felt snappy, and behaved how you would expect. * Next to no learning curve; I was able to boot up the game and immediately figure out what to do. Reticle made it clear that I was supposed to grapple, though a right click symbol (similar to metroid prime's grapple) wouldn't hurt. * Checkpoints were very forgiving, and fairly placed.

Cons: * I would've really liked it if grapples were immediately introduced! On repeat playthroughs, I often found myself wishing I had it at the beginning. * I feel the respawn time could've been reduced; felt that I had to fall for an unreasonably long time in some cases. * I think the camera could use some improvement; jumping into a ceiling almost always placed the camera inside of it, which got distracting after a while. * Beginning of the game had some severe lagspikes; these went away after a while, but would often freeze the game for up to two seconds. CPU is AMD 5900X, GPU is 3080ti.

Bugs: * Permanent freeze when grappling the middlemost turret in the ending area; the rest, including those along the pathway to the end, had no issues. * Releasing at a certain point in the grapple process will launch you extremely far.

This was overall a very entertaining entry; I'd love to see an expansion of this concept as a proper Steam release. I'd rank this as my current favorite game on here.

The Final Years of Atlantis by kleinzach 2023-10-19T04:06:20Z

I personally was not able to get this game to load; the progress bar locked up at about 90%, and as I'm playing from my Mac I can't use the exe.

From what I've seen in terms of pictures, however, you seem to have a solid concept with unique visuals and a faithful tie-in to the jam theme. If I'm able to get to my PC in time, I'll make sure to give the exe a shot and update my comment.

Blade Jumper by DeadByDeath 2023-10-19T03:57:02Z

Pros: * Gameplay was super engaging. Going for runes was quite a lot of fun, and put me into some tight situations. Having a dedicated inventory system pushed this over the top in terms of polish and mechanical proficiency. * Pixel visuals felt very well thought out, and helped give the game a professional feel. * Music was a nice accompaniment to the rest of the game, and didn't feel out of place.

Cons: * Control bindings, even after beating the game, felt very unintuitive. I feel it would've been much more fluid to bind jump to Space, and attack to LClick. * I didn't feel that there was much of an incentive to engage with the enemies, nor the rune system; after multiple attempts, I wound up just hopping over most of the enemies due to the unnecessary risk it put me in. I also didn't realize that the rune system existed until after I first beat the game; to remedy this, I think properly signalling its binding in the HUD (maybe around where health is) would go a long way. * I would've liked a way to modify already-placed runes; especially towards the end of the game, I found I would stumble across something that I simply couldn't use.

Bugs: * 2nd jump speed is additive to whatever your current speed is; this means that pulling off one jump right after the other will send you way higher than is likely intended. Conversely, if you're falling, the 2nd jump will give you next to no height. Because I often found it hard to tell what was beneath me when falling, this would sometimes lead to me unpredictably landing in lava pits with no recourse. * Initially starting the game immediately snaps your camera up to the player from a far-down, indeterminate point.

Overall a fun game that really pushed the limits of what can be done in 3 days; the amount of care you guys put in shows.

Voidonaut by Jonathan Lorenz 2023-10-19T19:03:12Z

Pros: * Customization system seemed pretty well fleshed out. * Game was quite a lot of fun! I've always had a soft spot for high score-type games, and this one is yet another good timewaster. * Controls were very straightforward and easy to pick up; it's among the few games on here that I've been able to immediately get the hang of on launch. * UI and visuals were simple and very well handled.

Cons: * The gun sound effects were very drowned out and hard to hear; I think the music should be reduced in volume to accommodate them. * After each round, my ship always seemed to randomize its layout; it led to me thinking on various occasions that my customization wasn't saving.

Bugs: * After driving into a black hole, the blue jet flame is still controllable long after the rest of the ship loses its ability to move. * Shooting mechanic is vulnerable to autoclickers.

Overall a fun little high score game! I wouldn't be too hard on yourself about the overscoping; happens to the best of us.

Roblox - Top Down LD54 by KennyKlizzle 2023-10-03T00:53:49Z

Overall liked the game loop! I'll detail some feedback below.

Pros: * Visuals were pretty; I especially found exploding on death to be a funny choice * Gameplay loop felt pretty engaging; a lot of the situations that I got into involved some clever thinking to get around the obstacles.

Cons: * I feel as though the game could've used a progression system of some kind; maybe every point you get without dying speeds your character up, and dying resets your score? * I think removing the ability to move up / down and causing the player to move at a fixed speed would pose more of a challenge. * Holding down W and A when respawning seems to pretty consistently separate me from the ship, allowing the player to walk around without it.

Less is Moore by Aurailus 2023-10-08T19:48:28Z

Pros: * Game was very solidly built; in 3 days, the level of polish found in the UI, general art style, and gameplay is astonishing. * I enjoyed a lot of the humour you worked into the dialogue; at no point did it detract from the experience. * Requirements were clearly signalled, and I didn't feel overwhelmed at any point by what was asked of me. Tutorial sections felt like the appropriate amount of handholding.

Cons: * Game could've benefitted from sound design; even just little blips for scrolling dialogue. * This would've been outside the scope of the 48 hours you had, but some sort of "endless mode" might've been nice to allow for the player to take on random puzzles after the campaign. * Personal preference, but I feel that remapping rotate to "R" would've been more intuitive.

Bugs: N/A

Overall a very solid package; the amount of stuff you were able to cram into this game is amazing, without any noticeable bugs at that.

S.P.A.C.E. by Pentaworks 2023-10-19T03:21:55Z

Pros: * The fact that you accounted for other input modes besides PC was a nice touch; the way you've got the controls set up currently should allow for porting this to mobile pretty seamlessly. * Physics seemed pretty solid, and it became pretty fun once I was able to get the hang of the controls. * Visuals felt consistent, and helped lend to the theme of the game.

Cons: * How to control the player was initially unclear; some better signaling (colour coding directions, placing similarly-coloured arrows around the character, for example) might help alleviate this. I also think K&M bindings would've benefitted the player, so that the game doesn't necessarily need a mouse. * Player is able to drive off-screen quite easily, which winds up being very tough to fix.

Bugs: * Player often spawns offscreen when beginning a round after dying. * Clicking "again" to restart will sometimes turn your thruster on for a split second.

Overall quite fun - I'm not exactly the best at it, but trying to shoot stuff down without getting sucked into the sun was good fun.

Space Knight by darzu 2023-10-19T03:37:31Z

Pros: * Gameplay was some of the most engaging that I've experienced in this jam. Constantly needing to manage resources, all while trying not to suffocate, made for a lot of tight and entertaining situations. Especially near the end, needing to manage fuel / oxygen for the long stretch where you aren't given any added an element of planning. * Visuals were some of the most consistent. I especially liked how you included graphics options; very innovative considering the 3 day time stretch.

Cons: * Including the sword initially made the game's purpose unclear; it conflicted with me being told that LClick was the grab control. I appreciate its charm, though, so it might work better as an "idle animation" of sorts; either that, or having enemies you need to kill. * The inertia felt a little unmanageable at times. I found, once I was headed in a specific direction, that it was very hard to suddenly flick the camera to change direction; I often continued moving along my original path, regardless of what I had to say about it.

Bugs: * Boat teleports back to its starting position after you win a round.

This game is overall among my favorites that I've played on this site; I felt constantly pressured for time, and its visuals gave it quite a lot of charm. I could see this taking off post-jam if the concept was expanded on; maybe having the boat land at certain destinations, which in & of themselves have sub-tasks? Either way, very solid presentation, and a lot of future promise.

OUToFSPACE by Ebrawl 2023-10-03T17:42:10Z

Pros: * The gameplay loop is fun and engaging. Challenges consistently ramped up in a way that felt challenging, but not unfair. * Visuals are incredibly solid! Nothing looked out of place, and I especially liked the player character.

Cons:

* The signaling for a puzzle being "done" could be more clear. When I solved the first one, I hadn't realized that the door had opened which led to me wandering around for a bit trying to do stuff with the second block. I think an arrow that points at the door when a puzzle is completed would solve this. * I feel the pause menu should be remapped to "Esc", though this is more a personal thing. * Pulling could use some touchups - I frequently found myself accidentally pulling on blocks that I wanted left alone.

Bugs: * Some issues with pushing and pulling. I would sometimes push blocks out of bounds, as well as pull blocks into myself (both of which resulted in softlocks). I could see value in allowing blocks to move when a player simply walks into one to counteract the latter. * On one occasion, restarting a puzzle inverted my controls. Restarting it a second time fixed this. If I get a consistent repro, I will be sure to update this comment!

Overall a fun puzzle game! You guys were able to cram quite a lot into it within the 3 days you had.

Drive Ice by ShinanXu 2023-10-19T05:06:51Z

Pros: * Appropriate level of difficulty, yet a simple premise; made repeat tries very addicting. * Your game easily has the nicest art style that I've seen so far; everything looked super clean!

Cons: * I was initially lost on what I was supposed to do, and died quite a few times at the start; this was because I had missed the initial instruction to use the arrow keys for the iceberg. I feel having a dual-arrow key system is unintuitive, though; maybe WASD could control the iceberg, while clicking on a mini-iceberg jumps the penguin to it? At the very least, I think the game would benefit from either a control banner or some integrated instructions during the first playthrough.

Bugs: * Penguin very slowly slides off the iceberg in the opposite direction it's moving from; this often led to many random and unanticipated deaths; because of how slowly the player moved, it wasn't something I was looking out for. * Sharks aren't restricted from spawning right on top of the iceberg, which can lead to instant deaths. Ideally, there should be a small spawn-blocking radius around the player.

This was overall a lot of fun! High score games have always been great timewasters, with this one being no different.

BrainCell-Limited by Sabrina_Ross 2023-10-03T20:42:34Z

Pros: * Gameplay was super fast-paced, and felt consistently challenging. I'd call this the most engaging game that I've played so far on the site. * Visuals were very tidy, which benefitted the arcade-style aesthetic.

Cons: * I think the game could've used some sound; whether a blip to indicate you've been hit, or similar. * Red orb positions don't reset on death, which means that you can get spawnkilled.

Bugs: * Box collision is sometimes janky and can fly across the screen if approached from the wrong angle. * Round 10 doesn't seem to be beatable; door will open, but then it can't be walked through. * Walking up against walls will often lock the player's movement. * Memory puzzles were already ordered most of the time, and required you to move a tile back and forth to solve them.

Overall really fun and fast-paced; gave me serious "World's Hardest Game" vibes.

Magical Trial: Kiki's Service by Hongxin Li 2023-10-03T01:22:03Z

Pros: * The art style is by far the best that I've seen so far in this jam. Everything is very consistent, from the UI to the world itself. * Though some bugs were present in the physics, carrying things was a lot of fun and felt like a legitimate challenge. * Music choices were all solid.

Cons: * Quite a number of bugs; items you're actively carrying can fall off of cliffs, which can also completely disable your movement at times and require a restart. Some visual issues exist with rotating items as well; they can stretch and contort in weird ways if not moved by the player. * It is far too easy to fall off the map on accident when first starting a playthrough; because platforms move when the manual is open, your player can often fall before you've gotten the chance to close out of it. Once you've fallen off of the map, there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done at the bottom.

Overall a very atmospheric game; the care put into nailing the Hogwarts-style aesthetic shows.

Lucas and the House of Lost Souls by BinayaS 2023-10-03T00:33:04Z

Pros: * You nailed the atmosphere - consistently gave off the feeling that I was being watched * Checking for changes every loop was a neat system; felt very unpredictable as to what would come next * Sound design felt very solid and unintrusive * Puzzles felt appropriate to the game's atmosphere; I personally don't think they need to be made harder

Cons: * Felt there was a bit too much walking; in particular, getting a puzzle wrong then requiring a second loop around slowed things down considerably * I was able to softlock the game by spamming the J button shortly after leaving a room that an orb was placed in (in this case it was the purple orb). This led to me picking up the purple orb and duplicating it, which then led to me being able to duplicate endless purple orbs by picking up & placing it. * I feel that J should be rebound to Enter; that button would feel far more natural.

Overall a game with a solid atmosphere! You did well with the 3-day time limit.

Walking Simulator by Tero Pulkkinen 2025-04-19T06:22:38Z

The outlines over the player model reminded me a lot of Hades. Cool proof of concept man - having done the whole engine yourself is an impressive feat. Looking forward to seeing where else you take it.

Only slight bug I noticed was that, on my 144hz monitor, the game would speed up significantly for short periods of time when changing focus to another window. This amount of time would vary based on how long the window was out of focus.

Heads Up by quadtree 2025-04-19T06:15:48Z

Fun game overall that matched the theme nicely. You had a lot of really interesting feature-rich gameplay that was well built out / explored.

I personally struggled quite a lot with the controls - was initially unsure of why I kept rising, until I realized it was my buoyancy I was controlling rather than my height (perhaps on me for not initially reading the description). Additionally, I found I would often ram into various corners and get oneshot (I think it's because I was getting juggled between collisions).

Cool stuff though, man. Looking forward to seeing what you make next time.

Planet Diver by milano23 2025-04-08T20:50:33Z

Interesting concept and it fits the theme well, though I found the controls got in the way of my experience a lot. Specifically, there's about a second delay between me inputting an action vs my character actually changing directions. Given how low down the player is relative to the camera space, too, it makes many of the cracks in the earth hard to react to - you have to know they're there in advance.

Out Of My Depth by okuar 2025-04-08T07:45:56Z

Good stuff man - absolutely nailed the atmosphere. My interpretation of it was a man desperately struggling over barbed wire fences. Splash screen at the end was a good bit of UI design too!

Escape The Depths by Jag 2025-04-08T07:26:53Z

This was a lot of fun! I liked the difficulty progression - doesn't really start to overwhelm you until you get far enough along to be comfortable.

The Y-Axis inversion option was a much-appreciated touch. As someone used to Star Fox, holding down to rise is burned into my memory.

I'd say the only bit I struggled with a bit were turns - I found the camera rotation would consistently throw me off & disorient me. I also noticed that smashing into a ceiling above you can sometimes get your camera stuck - though this was inconsistent.

Awesome job overall dude. Glad I got the chance to play!

Burger into the Depths by zjuWindKing 2025-04-08T07:33:10Z

Fun play! Nailed the depths theme.

Based on where the fish spawned I found you could pretty consistently predict where to position yourself, since they all moved the same speed - generally you would either move to the leftmost / rightmost corner and be safe. As such, I was able to get to 3000 without losing any hearts. Experimenting with fish move speeds could've added an additional twist - maybe slowing some down / speeding some up to make it more chaotic.

Overall the game was well executed. I liked the little spongebob reference at the end, haha

The Little USB That Could by Nescre 2025-04-08T05:47:37Z

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I uploaded a small patch addressing some of your points. Notably: * You now have a 60% higher starting fuel * You are now knocked back less when hitting walls (I meant to do this before publishing but forgot) * Certain health pickups give more now * Checkpoints are now labelled with text

The Little USB That Could by Nescre 2025-04-08T20:57:09Z

@benski hey man, sorry to hear the download is causing you issues - oddly it seems to be working fine on my end. I've thrown up an itch version in case it works from there instead.

The Little USB That Could by Nescre 2025-04-12T19:14:54Z

@jag yeah I'm realizing in hindsight that I made many portions of it way too brutal on the player - level 3 in particular. Removing the transistors would be a pretty easy fix.

Admittedly, as devs, I think it's easy for us to put blinders on and forget the advantage that knowing everything's layout gives you. Were we to take this further, we'd definitely be more careful of that.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

BURIED by meylish 2025-04-08T07:34:30Z

Unfortunately got stuck on the Unity loading screen for me. I'll check back later - the splash art looks super cool!

EDIT: tried from your itch page and had more success. That ending left a pit in my stomach! It took me a bit to get a handle on the controls, but after a while dodging rocks became a lot of fun. I didn't fully understand what spamming F was accomplishing though - felt like maybe there was an asset missing?

Good job!

It's That Deep by jazzydingo 2025-04-08T07:24:45Z

I wasn't too sure what to feed him and wound up just brute forcing. Mood was overall well executed - in particular the ambience / sound effects! Idea of a bucket holding you hostage was super random, yet in my opinion it wound up working incredibly well - random ideas are always the best ones.

DeepJamGameCan'tThinkOfAName by kali 2025-04-08T18:50:36Z

Fun little platformer! I wound up sticking to the red spell orb for most of my run. The aesthetics were super well done - from the music to the SNES-style pixel art.

I found the controls a bit unintuitive at first - I would've expected WASD / space to control my movement, but I wound up needing to check the controls page to figure that out. Once I got that it wasn't too bad though! Only other thing is I found my weapon fire fell down too fast.

Overall awesome job for your first shot at a game jam. I'd love to see what you make the next time around!