This game really hooked me! I played it all the way through and enjoyed it so much that I’d happily take on more “construction missions”, like building the Library of Alexandria, the Great Wall of China, and so on. It really left me wanting more!
The art is wonderful!
The music does get a little repetitive, unfortunately.
**I especially loved how smoothly the game flows**. The difficulty increases just enough to keep things interesting and hold your attention without becoming frustrating.
The game is simple in its execution, but it really hooked me! If you have the energy to keep developing it into a full release, I’d happily buy it on Steam. I think it has a lot of potential!
The main thing **I felt was missing was a clearer sense of elevation**, so I could better plan how and where the water would flow. A dynamically updating elevation map during gameplay would make it even more fun, improve readability, and add a cool visual touch!
As a simple first step, I’d recommend looking at how elevation is shown on topographic maps.
Cool game! There’s something really meditative about cleaning everything up, and it makes you want to keep going until it’s all done (which fits the story really well, by the way!). Filling up each shelf is soooo satisfying!
Love the art and the whole vibe!
A couple of things would have made it even more enjoyable for me:
- **Sound effects** for picking up, placing, and throwing items. - **Better visual contrast** for some items, either through color or more distinctive textures, to help them stand out from the surroundings. Sometimes looking for things like steel was a real strain on my eyes.
I’m enjoying the game! **The atmosphere is its strongest point**, supported by fantastic art and sound. I really enjoyed going through the tapes and using the terminals.
Unfortunately, I haven’t encountered any hostile entities yet, possibly because **the game crashes and closes on the third level** for me.
**I had a great time!** It’s a shame the game is so short: by the end of the last level, I was only just getting into it.
I’d love to see how its potential develops with more levels and increasingly challenging level design.
One issue REALLY got in the way: if you keep holding the movement keys after finishing a level, you start the next one already moving, which costs you valuable seconds.
And unfortunately, I didn’t feel the jam’s Old Tech theme came through at all.
The art and music charmed me from the very first second. The sound design is fantastic, and the artwork makes you want to take screenshots (oh, right, the game even has a feature for that!!).
Gameplay-wise, I would have liked slightly clearer objectives in the second half.
And story-wise, I was really hoping for a powerful final payoff. You’re so close, just give it that last little push!
Thank you, I had a wonderful time playing your game <3
Wow! I mean... **WOW!** I got chills down my spine several times while playing.
The graphics, sound, story, gameplay... **EVERYTHING** in this game works together in perfect harmony, turning a pleasant, routine job into the nightmare of being an executioner.
I’m so grateful to the dev team for giving me this experience!
**The art is lovely!** I liked the idea of getting a feel for what it’s like to use an Enigma machine.
That said, I would have appreciated **more straightforward hints that I could refer to at any point during the game**. It was really hard to figure things out at first.
It looks like you may have created your own font based on handwriting. **It’s really cute!** If that’s indeed the case, that’s very cool!
Unfortunately, without a tutorial, I had to spend quite a while figuring out what everything was for. But once I got the hang of it, I found myself getting absorbed in trying to build and grow things.
**I love the art!** It has such a cute, charming style!
I think that with some time spent **improving the UX of each mechanic and object**, so players can find their way around from the very first minute, this game will definitely find its audience!
Unfortunately, **I lost to this game’s main boss: the controls**. I tried about 20 or 30 times and still couldn’t get past the first level...
Which is a real shame, because the visual style and sound design absolutely charmed me.
For this kind of game, I think **responsive controls are sooo important**, so that would be my main issue.
The second issue is **how hard it is to judge the obstacles’ hitboxes**. Most of my failed attempts happened when it looked like I should have dodged something successfully, but apparently the game registered a collision anyway.
Honestly, it’s disappointing. I genuinely hope players more skilled than me give your game a try and get to appreciate its other aspects without that bitter taste of defeat.
The game really drew me in, although it turned out to be too difficult for me. I loved the idea of looking after my mechanical friend. The routine is satisfying, and the gameplay is intuitive and easy to understand.
Honestly, it even got my imagination going: how would I keep taking care of my friend once I got him somewhere safe? Maybe I’d start oiling his joints? Or upgrade his plating? Or give him a fresh coat of paint! So... haha, as you can probably tell, **the idea really captured my imagination**. I hope I get to see a full release of this game someday.
**The difficulty was the only thing I found frustrating**, but you did warn us about that.
The humor and art are absolutely charming. And then there’s the genre... I love puzzle games! I really liked how intuitive the puzzles are, and especially **how smoothly they progress**. I never got stuck in a way that felt frustrating, but the puzzles never felt repetitive either. There was always that feeling of discovering something new.
I also especially loved how you brought the **Old Tech theme** to life!
The description promises some potentially interesting gameplay built around optics. What you have so far is a good prototype that needs a few more elements to feel like a fully developed game. For example:
1. **Story and event progression.** Maybe I simply didn’t get far enough, but beyond the increasing number of incoming ships, I was missing some narrative context and a satisfying finale that gives you a sense of victory.
2. **More depth to the light-beam combat.** For example, you could place additional mirrors around the bay to redirect beams in clever ways, or combine several beams reflected through multiple mirrors at a single point for a stronger attack. This could also introduce progression: perhaps you could install mirrors at night by running around the bay, or through a top-down “strategy mode.”
3. **A way to switch between first-person and top-down views.** For this kind of game, I felt I needed a better overview to see exactly where my beam was pointing. Alternatively, a minimap in the corner showing ship positions and beam directions could help.
4. Unfortunately, **I didn’t hear any sound**, though perhaps I ran into a bug. =( Sound usually adds so much to the experience.
I hope you get to bring everything you have planned for the game to life!
Welcome to LD60! Good work! I really enjoyed the game! It feels good to play, and **sorting and compacting trash is a really cool idea**. Great art, atmospheric music and sound effects. Overall, the visual and audio design fit the theme well.
My main issue is that **the gameplay feels exactly like Tetris**, with the only differences being some of the blocks.
I also got frustrated more than once because **the artwork doesn’t always clearly communicate the actual shape of a piece** in gameplay terms. There’s a grid, but it disappears once the piece is placed in a row.
I enjoyed the game, and the opening cutscene with its “old technology is evil” message made me laugh!
The gameplay loop is satisfying, but it becomes repetitive fairly quickly. I may have run into a bug: after buying tools, I couldn’t find them anywhere, and I couldn’t interact with the TV either. I’m pretty sure something went wrong and I missed out on part of the gameplay because of it. As it was, all I had to do was keep taking phones to repair, quickly replace the parts and solder whatever needed soldering, then hide everything and wait whenever the police showed up.
**The idea definitely has potential**, which is great!
Here’s what I felt was missing for the game to really hook me:
1. **More challenging police inspections**, with a real chance of getting caught and having to face the consequences. Right now, it’s too easy to avoid getting caught every time, so there’s no real sense of risk.
2. **Gameplay differences between the types of jobs.** This might also have been a bug, but I couldn’t see any reason to take the lower-paying jobs. My strategy was always the same: take the highest-paying one, because they didn’t seem to differ in difficulty or gameplay.
3. **A more memorable ending**, with an emotional payoff or a gameplay twist.
Also, unfortunately, I had no sound anywhere in the game except during the opening cutscene, so it looks like I ran into another bug there. =(
This game is really interesting and incredibly addictive! Space is absolutely my kind of setting, too. Even in its current state, it already feels like **a polished game I would happily buy on Steam**.
Overall, I liked pretty much everything: - The gameplay loop. - The art. Yes, I know AI was involved, but I still wanted to mention that I liked it. - The sound effects and music. By the way, does the description mean you composed the music yourself? If so, it's absolutely fantastic! - The overall mood and atmosphere.
However, **my biggest issue is that the game doesn't feel connected to the Ludum Dare 60 theme**. I'm new to LD, so I don't know how common it is for entries to stray from the theme. But as a game designer, I feel that working within the theme is an important part of the challenge. It gives you a constraint and tests your ability to work with it, perhaps finding an unexpected way to stay within those boundaries.
I understand that the description frames what you're doing as something like “space archaeology.” But in practice, the gameplay centres on watching dots travel between planets and collect gold and science. **The connection to archaeology and discovering the technology of ancient civilisations gets lost in that abstraction.** I don't get the feeling that I'm discovering anything unique or ancient. It just feels like collecting gold and science.
So, from my perspective, the game doesn't fit the theme at all. The description gives it a thematic connection, but I don't feel that connection through the actual gameplay.
Congratulations on making your first-ever game! It's great that you joined the LD community.
At the moment, this first experiment feels more like a prototype than a fully fledged game, but that's completely normal. We all started somewhere!
Here are a few things I'd suggest thinking about:
1. **Give the player a reason to connect the gears.** What is the goal behind arranging them in a particular way? Maybe each level could be a new, increasingly complex mechanism that you need to get running. You could communicate that with background artwork alone. Once there's some context, each puzzle can become more emotionally engaging too.
2. **Introduce the mechanics gradually.** Use the first level, or the first couple of levels, to teach the player the different aspects of the game one at a time.
3. **Reduce the room for unintentional mistakes.** Right now, it feels as though roughly 90% of the available actions lead to something that doesn't work, with very few that do. I don't mean incorrect puzzle solutions; I mean how placing and connecting the gears works. For example, you can put a gear anywhere on the screen, even somewhere it won't connect to anything or do anything.
One possible solution would be to create fixed axle slots that the gears snap onto. You could arrange those slots so that gears placed on them can mesh with neighbouring gears, depending on whether their teeth actually reach each other. That way, the player can focus on figuring out the mechanism rather than struggling to find a valid placement.
4. **Give the ending an emotional payoff.** It would be great to finish with something that gives the player a sense of closure. There are many ways to do this.
For Example: - You could establish who the player is, develop their story through the levels, and bring it to a conclusion at the end. - Alternatively, building on the idea of mechanisms, each level could involve repairing a separate mechanical device. After completing the final one, you could reveal that all these devices are physically connected and show them working together. The player would realise that, step by step, they've repaired something much bigger: perhaps a production line or one large machine made up of all those smaller mechanisms. These devices don't have to exist in the real world, either. You can invent something completely imaginary, as long as the way it works makes sense. These are just examples of how you could create that final payoff. There are countless other possibilities to brainstorm!
Good luck with this jam, and especially with your future projects and jams. Come back and join us again, and **welcome to the gamedev!**
The game intrigued me before I even launched it, simply because of its theme. I love mechanisms and "time" as a concept. In the first few minutes, I really enjoyed **interacting with the objects**, moving them around, turning valves, and pressing the button.
Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t **get past the first puzzle**. I clicked on everything, tried to figure out what time I was supposed to set on the first object, turned things, moved them around... and still couldn’t understand what exactly the game wanted me to achieve. =(
I think **clearer UX for the first puzzle, or a little guidance to introduce the mechanics**, could make a big difference. There seems to be a really enjoyable game here, judging by the interactivity and the art. Of course, that’s only my impression, since I wasn’t able to reach the later parts.
Right away, I really liked how the game creates an **eerie, mysterious atmosphere through fairly simple means**. For me, that is its strongest aspect. I also appreciated how easy it is to try again after failing.
I love the idea of **bringing the house back to life by adding things that genuinely make it feel more welcoming**. You gradually change that unsettling atmosphere by bringing warmth and life into the house. That's a really nice concept!
The hint system is particularly elegant. The ghost tells you what the house is missing through memories, so **the narrative and gameplay fit together really naturally**. At first, you might mistake those lines for flavour text, only to realise that they actually guide what you need to do. I really enjoyed that connection.
Unfortunately, **finding the items was the one genuinely frustrating part for me**. Although their colors and visual style distinguish them from the rest of the artwork, that still wasn't enough: I felt like I was pixel hunting. Improving the UX of the search would make a big difference. There might also be room to make searching itself more interesting, for example by giving players enough clues to work out where an object might be, rather than checking random corners.
With a better item-search experience, I think this could be a really good short game. As it stands, I worry that the frustration of looking for objects could prevent many players from enjoying the atmosphere, premise and narrative design that already work so well.
Incremental games can be incredibly addictive, but getting that loop right isn’t easy. **You definitely nailed it here!**
The opening does have a rough patch, though. **Before unlocking the Hands-Free ability**, dragging things around while holding the mouse button down and watching the timer tick away feels awkward. Doing it in a hurry is pretty uncomfortable for my hand. But once you get past that, **the madness and fun really kick in!**
**The setting is such a great idea!** It really hits that nostalgia sweet spot. **The art is fantastic, too.** Visually, this already looks ready for a full release, if the rest of the game can be brought up to the same level :)
The sounds are great, possibly in large part because of the nostalgia. But... **the repetition is right on the edge for me.** With a slightly longer playtime, more frequent sound effects, or a longer progression, I think hearing those same sounds over and over could start getting irritating. Luckily, it never quite reaches that point in this build.
One **thing that did bother me** was **the flash after each computer infection, along with all the files disappearing**, including the ones I was already dragging over to feed the virus. It’s frustrating because it feels like losing progress. The flash itself is pretty intense and quickly starts getting in the way, too.
And finally... **I’m in love with the humor :)** Humor is always difficult to get right, but I think it really lands here. Especially with how relevant the subject feels these days 🥲
LD60 — Old Tech (23)
Ancient Brick by wakanake 2026-10-25T23:58:51Z ♥ 0
nice game!
Stone by Stone by poigratzashel 2026-10-25T15:54:16Z ♥ 1
This game really hooked me! I played it all the way through and enjoyed it so much that I’d happily take on more “construction missions”, like building the Library of Alexandria, the Great Wall of China, and so on. It really left me wanting more!
The art is wonderful!
The music does get a little repetitive, unfortunately.
**I especially loved how smoothly the game flows**. The difficulty increases just enough to keep things interesting and hold your attention without becoming frustrating.
Thanks for the game!
Polder by Tesseract 2026-10-25T14:02:07Z ♥ 0
The game is simple in its execution, but it really hooked me! If you have the energy to keep developing it into a full release, I’d happily buy it on Steam. I think it has a lot of potential!
The main thing **I felt was missing was a clearer sense of elevation**, so I could better plan how and where the water would flow. A dynamically updating elevation map during gameplay would make it even more fun, improve readability, and add a cool visual touch!
As a simple first step, I’d recommend looking at how elevation is shown on topographic maps.
Typo the escape room by Jvdwijk 2026-10-25T13:51:07Z ♥ 0
Nice game! I really love the printing press mechanic!
The Last Overtime by mr.kvinter 2026-10-25T12:37:25Z ♥ 0
Cool game! There’s something really meditative about cleaning everything up, and it makes you want to keep going until it’s all done (which fits the story really well, by the way!). Filling up each shelf is soooo satisfying!
Love the art and the whole vibe!
A couple of things would have made it even more enjoyable for me:
- **Sound effects** for picking up, placing, and throwing items. - **Better visual contrast** for some items, either through color or more distinctive textures, to help them stand out from the surroundings. Sometimes looking for things like steel was a real strain on my eyes.
Wishing you good luck and high ratings!
Descent by LogovoStudio 2026-10-25T11:50:26Z ♥ 0
I’m enjoying the game! **The atmosphere is its strongest point**, supported by fantastic art and sound. I really enjoyed going through the tapes and using the terminals.
Unfortunately, I haven’t encountered any hostile entities yet, possibly because **the game crashes and closes on the third level** for me.
Echo by RegentSole 2026-10-24T01:35:20Z ♥ 0
**I had a great time!** It’s a shame the game is so short: by the end of the last level, I was only just getting into it.
I’d love to see how its potential develops with more levels and increasingly challenging level design.
One issue REALLY got in the way: if you keep holding the movement keys after finishing a level, you start the next one already moving, which costs you valuable seconds.
And unfortunately, I didn’t feel the jam’s Old Tech theme came through at all.
Leechside Manor by John Shen 2026-10-24T01:27:08Z ♥ 1
This game is wonderful in every way! **It’s the best game I’ve played in this jam so far.** I hope you get the high ratings you deserve!
I enjoyed it so much that I got my wife to try it too, and **she loved it!**
NewHouse™ by Frogravity 2026-10-24T00:47:54Z ♥ 1
Such a cool game!
The art and music charmed me from the very first second. The sound design is fantastic, and the artwork makes you want to take screenshots (oh, right, the game even has a feature for that!!).
Gameplay-wise, I would have liked slightly clearer objectives in the second half.
And story-wise, I was really hoping for a powerful final payoff. You’re so close, just give it that last little push!
Thank you, I had a wonderful time playing your game <3
Decom Protocol by parkuhrmd 2026-10-24T00:32:49Z ♥ 4
Wow! I mean... **WOW!** I got chills down my spine several times while playing.
The graphics, sound, story, gameplay... **EVERYTHING** in this game works together in perfect harmony, turning a pleasant, routine job into the nightmare of being an executioner.
I’m so grateful to the dev team for giving me this experience!
Enigmatic Fanatic (Spicy hot chocolate 6) by Kartoffel Licht 2026-10-24T00:11:06Z ♥ 0
**The art is lovely!** I liked the idea of getting a feel for what it’s like to use an Enigma machine.
That said, I would have appreciated **more straightforward hints that I could refer to at any point during the game**. It was really hard to figure things out at first.
It looks like you may have created your own font based on handwriting. **It’s really cute!** If that’s indeed the case, that’s very cool!
Garden Tinker by danvil 2026-10-24T00:00:08Z ♥ 0
Unfortunately, without a tutorial, I had to spend quite a while figuring out what everything was for. But once I got the hang of it, I found myself getting absorbed in trying to build and grow things.
**I love the art!** It has such a cute, charming style!
I think that with some time spent **improving the UX of each mechanic and object**, so players can find their way around from the very first minute, this game will definitely find its audience!
TapeSides by Roma4ka 2026-10-23T23:48:57Z ♥ 1
Unfortunately, **I lost to this game’s main boss: the controls**. I tried about 20 or 30 times and still couldn’t get past the first level...
Which is a real shame, because the visual style and sound design absolutely charmed me.
For this kind of game, I think **responsive controls are sooo important**, so that would be my main issue.
The second issue is **how hard it is to judge the obstacles’ hitboxes**. Most of my failed attempts happened when it looked like I should have dodged something successfully, but apparently the game registered a collision anyway.
Honestly, it’s disappointing. I genuinely hope players more skilled than me give your game a try and get to appreciate its other aspects without that bitter taste of defeat.
My Rusty Giant by bereg 2026-10-23T23:40:44Z ♥ 0
The game really drew me in, although it turned out to be too difficult for me. I loved the idea of looking after my mechanical friend. The routine is satisfying, and the gameplay is intuitive and easy to understand.
Honestly, it even got my imagination going: how would I keep taking care of my friend once I got him somewhere safe? Maybe I’d start oiling his joints? Or upgrade his plating? Or give him a fresh coat of paint! So... haha, as you can probably tell, **the idea really captured my imagination**. I hope I get to see a full release of this game someday.
**The difficulty was the only thing I found frustrating**, but you did warn us about that.
An Old Joke by DazyLude 2026-10-23T23:27:35Z ♥ 1
**This game is awesome!**
The humor and art are absolutely charming. And then there’s the genre... I love puzzle games! I really liked how intuitive the puzzles are, and especially **how smoothly they progress**. I never got stuck in a way that felt frustrating, but the puzzles never felt repetitive either. There was always that feeling of discovering something new.
I also especially loved how you brought the **Old Tech theme** to life!
I’m rooting for this game to win!
Archimedes Shenanigans by Andrian 2026-10-23T16:13:19Z ♥ 0
I enjoyed the game! Welcome to LD60!
The description promises some potentially interesting gameplay built around optics. What you have so far is a good prototype that needs a few more elements to feel like a fully developed game. For example:
1. **Story and event progression.** Maybe I simply didn’t get far enough, but beyond the increasing number of incoming ships, I was missing some narrative context and a satisfying finale that gives you a sense of victory.
2. **More depth to the light-beam combat.** For example, you could place additional mirrors around the bay to redirect beams in clever ways, or combine several beams reflected through multiple mirrors at a single point for a stronger attack. This could also introduce progression: perhaps you could install mirrors at night by running around the bay, or through a top-down “strategy mode.”
3. **A way to switch between first-person and top-down views.** For this kind of game, I felt I needed a better overview to see exactly where my beam was pointing. Alternatively, a minimap in the corner showing ship positions and beam directions could help.
4. Unfortunately, **I didn’t hear any sound**, though perhaps I ran into a bug. =( Sound usually adds so much to the experience.
I hope you get to bring everything you have planned for the game to life!
Smash Compactor by TechWiz 2026-10-23T16:00:43Z ♥ 0
Welcome to LD60! Good work! I really enjoyed the game! It feels good to play, and **sorting and compacting trash is a really cool idea**. Great art, atmospheric music and sound effects. Overall, the visual and audio design fit the theme well.
My main issue is that **the gameplay feels exactly like Tetris**, with the only differences being some of the blocks.
I also got frustrated more than once because **the artwork doesn’t always clearly communicate the actual shape of a piece** in gameplay terms. There’s a grid, but it disappears once the piece is placed in a row.
PAST SHOULD NOT EXIST by Empeurman 2026-10-23T12:14:42Z ♥ 0
I enjoyed the game, and the opening cutscene with its “old technology is evil” message made me laugh!
The gameplay loop is satisfying, but it becomes repetitive fairly quickly. I may have run into a bug: after buying tools, I couldn’t find them anywhere, and I couldn’t interact with the TV either. I’m pretty sure something went wrong and I missed out on part of the gameplay because of it. As it was, all I had to do was keep taking phones to repair, quickly replace the parts and solder whatever needed soldering, then hide everything and wait whenever the police showed up.
**The idea definitely has potential**, which is great!
Here’s what I felt was missing for the game to really hook me:
1. **More challenging police inspections**, with a real chance of getting caught and having to face the consequences. Right now, it’s too easy to avoid getting caught every time, so there’s no real sense of risk.
2. **Gameplay differences between the types of jobs.** This might also have been a bug, but I couldn’t see any reason to take the lower-paying jobs. My strategy was always the same: take the highest-paying one, because they didn’t seem to differ in difficulty or gameplay.
3. **A more memorable ending**, with an emotional payoff or a gameplay twist.
Also, unfortunately, I had no sound anywhere in the game except during the opening cutscene, so it looks like I ran into another bug there. =(
Echoes of Fermi by Yiraa 2026-10-23T11:46:58Z ♥ 1
This game is really interesting and incredibly addictive! Space is absolutely my kind of setting, too. Even in its current state, it already feels like **a polished game I would happily buy on Steam**.
Overall, I liked pretty much everything: - The gameplay loop. - The art. Yes, I know AI was involved, but I still wanted to mention that I liked it. - The sound effects and music. By the way, does the description mean you composed the music yourself? If so, it's absolutely fantastic! - The overall mood and atmosphere.
However, **my biggest issue is that the game doesn't feel connected to the Ludum Dare 60 theme**. I'm new to LD, so I don't know how common it is for entries to stray from the theme. But as a game designer, I feel that working within the theme is an important part of the challenge. It gives you a constraint and tests your ability to work with it, perhaps finding an unexpected way to stay within those boundaries.
I understand that the description frames what you're doing as something like “space archaeology.” But in practice, the gameplay centres on watching dots travel between planets and collect gold and science. **The connection to archaeology and discovering the technology of ancient civilisations gets lost in that abstraction.** I don't get the feeling that I'm discovering anything unique or ancient. It just feels like collecting gold and science.
So, from my perspective, the game doesn't fit the theme at all. The description gives it a thematic connection, but I don't feel that connection through the actual gameplay.
That aspect aside, **the game is excellent!**
My First Game Ever by sameh 2026-10-23T10:50:58Z ♥ 1
Congratulations on making your first-ever game! It's great that you joined the LD community.
At the moment, this first experiment feels more like a prototype than a fully fledged game, but that's completely normal. We all started somewhere!
Here are a few things I'd suggest thinking about:
1. **Give the player a reason to connect the gears.** What is the goal behind arranging them in a particular way? Maybe each level could be a new, increasingly complex mechanism that you need to get running. You could communicate that with background artwork alone. Once there's some context, each puzzle can become more emotionally engaging too.
2. **Introduce the mechanics gradually.** Use the first level, or the first couple of levels, to teach the player the different aspects of the game one at a time.
3. **Reduce the room for unintentional mistakes.** Right now, it feels as though roughly 90% of the available actions lead to something that doesn't work, with very few that do. I don't mean incorrect puzzle solutions; I mean how placing and connecting the gears works. For example, you can put a gear anywhere on the screen, even somewhere it won't connect to anything or do anything.
One possible solution would be to create fixed axle slots that the gears snap onto. You could arrange those slots so that gears placed on them can mesh with neighbouring gears, depending on whether their teeth actually reach each other. That way, the player can focus on figuring out the mechanism rather than struggling to find a valid placement.
4. **Give the ending an emotional payoff.** It would be great to finish with something that gives the player a sense of closure. There are many ways to do this.
For Example: - You could establish who the player is, develop their story through the levels, and bring it to a conclusion at the end. - Alternatively, building on the idea of mechanisms, each level could involve repairing a separate mechanical device. After completing the final one, you could reveal that all these devices are physically connected and show them working together. The player would realise that, step by step, they've repaired something much bigger: perhaps a production line or one large machine made up of all those smaller mechanisms. These devices don't have to exist in the real world, either. You can invent something completely imaginary, as long as the way it works makes sense. These are just examples of how you could create that final payoff. There are countless other possibilities to brainstorm!
Good luck with this jam, and especially with your future projects and jams. Come back and join us again, and **welcome to the gamedev!**
Clockwork Blue by squirrelsoft 2026-10-23T10:30:20Z ♥ 0
The game intrigued me before I even launched it, simply because of its theme. I love mechanisms and "time" as a concept. In the first few minutes, I really enjoyed **interacting with the objects**, moving them around, turning valves, and pressing the button.
Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t **get past the first puzzle**. I clicked on everything, tried to figure out what time I was supposed to set on the first object, turned things, moved them around... and still couldn’t understand what exactly the game wanted me to achieve. =(
I think **clearer UX for the first puzzle, or a little guidance to introduce the mechanics**, could make a big difference. There seems to be a really enjoyable game here, judging by the interactivity and the art. Of course, that’s only my impression, since I wasn’t able to reach the later parts.
House of Deprecation by kr4ft3r 2026-10-23T10:21:41Z ♥ 1
Right away, I really liked how the game creates an **eerie, mysterious atmosphere through fairly simple means**. For me, that is its strongest aspect. I also appreciated how easy it is to try again after failing.
I love the idea of **bringing the house back to life by adding things that genuinely make it feel more welcoming**. You gradually change that unsettling atmosphere by bringing warmth and life into the house. That's a really nice concept!
The hint system is particularly elegant. The ghost tells you what the house is missing through memories, so **the narrative and gameplay fit together really naturally**. At first, you might mistake those lines for flavour text, only to realise that they actually guide what you need to do. I really enjoyed that connection.
Unfortunately, **finding the items was the one genuinely frustrating part for me**. Although their colors and visual style distinguish them from the rest of the artwork, that still wasn't enough: I felt like I was pixel hunting. Improving the UX of the search would make a big difference. There might also be room to make searching itself more interesting, for example by giving players enough clues to work out where an object might be, rather than checking random corners.
With a better item-search experience, I think this could be a really good short game. As it stands, I worry that the frustration of looking for objects could prevent many players from enjoying the atmosphere, premise and narrative design that already work so well.
Virus XP by ivandiskin 2026-10-20T15:30:47Z ♥ 1
Incremental games can be incredibly addictive, but getting that loop right isn’t easy. **You definitely nailed it here!**
The opening does have a rough patch, though. **Before unlocking the Hands-Free ability**, dragging things around while holding the mouse button down and watching the timer tick away feels awkward. Doing it in a hurry is pretty uncomfortable for my hand. But once you get past that, **the madness and fun really kick in!**
**The setting is such a great idea!** It really hits that nostalgia sweet spot. **The art is fantastic, too.** Visually, this already looks ready for a full release, if the rest of the game can be brought up to the same level :)
The sounds are great, possibly in large part because of the nostalgia. But... **the repetition is right on the edge for me.** With a slightly longer playtime, more frequent sound effects, or a longer progression, I think hearing those same sounds over and over could start getting irritating. Luckily, it never quite reaches that point in this build.
One **thing that did bother me** was **the flash after each computer infection, along with all the files disappearing**, including the ones I was already dragging over to feed the virus. It’s frustrating because it feels like losing progress. The flash itself is pretty intense and quickly starts getting in the way, too.
And finally... **I’m in love with the humor :)** Humor is always difficult to get right, but I think it really lands here. Especially with how relevant the subject feels these days 🥲